#and sometimes there are explicitly laws that prevent them from doing anything about property crimes below a certain value

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

lot of morons on this website don't understand the concept of resource allocation.

[uncloseted]

my mom keeps badgering me about the capital event bc i really hated it but i support the blm protests and she says it’s hypocritical of me bc the protests were just as “violent” as the capital and “caused lots of deaths”. i never really have anything to say back to justify what went down, do you have any info i could use to explain myself? i know they were for completely different causes and one actually matters, but i don’t know how to justify the “violence” (i personally don’t think a majority of them were violent, all the ones where i lived were routinely peaceful and i think the extreme ones were sensationalized for the news). anyway sorry if it’s dumb i’m 14 and just trying to get into politics and stuff so i’m not super well informed and just trying to learn.

I’m sorry this has taken me a few days to get to.  What happened at the Capitol is complicated, and I want to make sure I give you as full of an answer as possible.  I also want to just quickly say that it’s awesome you’re getting involved in politics at such a young age and trying to help your parents understand these issues.  I would love to answer any questions you have about politics or social issues (or just kind of anything in general, I’m not picky).  Last thing and then I’ll get into the meat of this post- I’m a huge supporter of the BLM and police abolition movements and was a protestor over the summer, so I’m maybe a little bit biased.  This situation makes me really angry on a personal level, but I’ll try to stick to just the facts as much as possible in this post and let you know when I’m showing my own opinions.

So the first thing I want to talk about is language.  The Black Lives Matter protests were protests- a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards a political idea or action, usually with the intention of influencing government policy.  In the US, protesting is a constitutional right protected by the First Amendment.  The storming of the Capitol was not a protest, and it wasn’t intended to be.  It was planned several weeks in advance with the explicit intention of disrupting the counting of Electoral College ballots.  Their stated goal was to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election, an election that is widely considered to be the freest, fairest, and safest election in US history (ironically, in part due to Trump’s insistence that there was voter fraud in the 2016 election).  Storming a public building is not a form of protest protected by the US Constitution.  Further, an attempt to overturn a democratic election is an attempt to carry out a coup.  The Capitol rioters will likely be charged with sedition (conduct that incites rebellion against the established order) and/or insurrection (a violent uprising against an authority or government).  The Black Lives Matter protestors were not attempting to carry out a coup against the US government, and none have been charged with offenses as big as those.

Next, I want to touch on motivation.  The Black Lives Matter protesters were protesting against police brutality towards minorities, particularly Black people.  There has long been a documented history of police misconduct and fatal use of force by law enforcement officers against Black people in the US.  Many protests in the past have been a response to police violence, including the 1965 Watts riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the 2014 and 2015 Black Lives Matter protests in response to the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray.  By contrast, the Capitol rioters were not motivated by fact.  They were called to action by the President of the United States, Donald Trump.  They were told that the election had been “stolen” from Trump, and were encouraged to march over to the Capitol to “take back our country”.  The idea that the election was stolen from the president is demonstrably false.  They weren’t motivated by a social issue, a concern for their own lives, facts, or even really principle.  “Our president wants us here...we wait to take orders from our president,” was what motivated them. The affiliations of those rioters are varied, but many of them are affiliated with either the far-right, anti-government Boogaloo Boys, the explicitly neofascist Proud Boys, the self-proclaimed militia The Oath Keepers, or the far-right militia group Three Percenters.  Many are also on the record as being QAnon followers (followers of a disproven far-right conspiracy that started off as a 4chan troll, which states that an anonymous government official, “Q”, is providing information about a cabal of Satan-worshiping, cannibalistic pedophiles in the Democratic party who are running a child sex trafficking ring and plotting against Trump.  Yes, really).

The intentions of BLM were largely peaceful.  BLM protest documents encouraged protesters to be peaceful even in the face of police violence, because the BLM protesters knew what the price of being violent would be.  We were encouraged not to bring weapons or anything that could be misconstrued as a weapon.  Even non-violent protests were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and riot gear.  A reported 96.3% of 7,305 BLM protests were entirely peaceful (no injuries, no property damage).  The 292 “violent incidents” in question were mainly the toppling of statues of “colonial figures, slave owners, and Confederate leaders”.  There were also several instances of right wing, paramilitary style militia movements discharging firearms into crowds of protesters, and 136 confirmed incidences of right-wing participation at the protests (including members of the aforementioned Boogaloo Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and Proud Boys).  It was also rumored that off-duty police were inciting violence (although to my knowledge, that is unconfirmed).  There is no evidence that “antifa” (a decentralized, left-wing, anti-racist and anti-fascist group) played a role in instigating the protests or violence, or even that they had a significant role in the protests at all.  People who were involved in crimes were not ideologically organized, and were largely opportunists taking advantage of the chaos for personal gain.  

By contrast, the “Storm the Capitol” documents were largely violent; messages like, “pack a crowbar,” and “does anyone know if the windows on the second floor are reinforced” were common on far-right social media platforms.  One message on 8kun (formerly 8chan, a website linked to white supremacy, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, etc) stated, "you can go to Washington on Jan 6 and help storm the Capitol....As many Patriots as can be. We will storm the government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents, and demand a recount."  The speakers at the Trump rally encouraged attendees to see themselves as foot soldiers fighting to save the country, and to be ready to “bleed for freedom”.  The Capitol rioters were mostly armed; rioters were reportedly seen firing pepper spray at police officers, and pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and guns (including illegal assault rifles) were found on the protesters. One protester was filmed saying, “believe me, we are well armed if we need to be.”  Some protesters arrived in paramilitary regalia, including camo and Kevlar vests.

I quickly want to touch on scale.  The George Floyd BLM protests are thought to be the largest protests in US history, with between 15 and 26 million (largely young, sometimes children, minority) people attending a protest in over 2000 cities in 60 countries.  There were around 14,000 arrests, most being low-level offenses such as violating curfews or blocking roadways. 19 deaths have been reported, largely at the hands of police.  Only one death is known to have been a law enforcement officer.  The number of people who stormed the Capitol is still somewhat unclear, but it seems to be between 2,000 and 8,000 (largely older white, cis, straight, Christian men) people.  80+ people have been arrested for federal crimes, including 25+ who are being charged with domestic terrorism (something nobody associated with BLM is being accused of).  There have been five deaths reported.  One was a police officer, and the other four were rioters.  Of those deaths, one was a police related shooting (a female Air Force veteran).  The other three died of unrelated medical emergencies.  One reportedly had a history of high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack from the excitement.  

Now I want to look at government response.  During the BLM protests, there was a huge response from law enforcement.  200 cities imposed curfews, 30 states and Washington DC activated over 96,000 National Guard, State Guard, 82nd Airborne, and 3rd Infantry Regiment service members.  The deployment was the largest military operation other than war in US history, and it was in response to protests concerning, in part, the militarization of police forces.  The police were outfitted in riot gear.  They used physical force against BLM protesters, including batons, tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, “often without warning or seemingly unprovoked,” per the New York Times.  Anecdotally, everyone I know now knows how to neutralize pepper spray, treat rubber bullet wounds, build shields out of household items, how to prevent cellphones from being tracked, and how to confuse facial recognition technology to prevent being identified (as six men connected to the Ferguson protests mysteriously turned up dead afterwards, and the police were using cellphone tracking technology).  Amnesty International issued a press release calling for police to end excessive militarized response to the protests.  There were 66 incidents of vehicles being driven into crowds of protesters, 7 of which explicitly involved police officers, the rest of which were by far-right groups.  Over 20 people were partially blinded after being struck with police projectiles.  When the BLM protests were happening, Trump said that, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

In contrast, the response to the Capitol protesters was relatively tame, especially given that the US Capitol’s last breach was over 200 years ago (when British troops set fire to the building during the war of 1812) and the rioters weren’t being shy about their aspirations to conduct an armed insurrection incited by the sitting president.  There was (widely available, able to be found through a Google search, everyone saw it) prior intelligence that far-right, extremist groups were planning on (violently) Storming the Capitol on January 6th, with the intention of interrupting the Electoral College ballot counting and holding lawmakers hostage.  However, the US Capitol Police insisted that a National Guard presence would not be necessary for the protests, and Pentagon officials reportedly restricted DC guard troop from being deployed except as a measure of last resort, and restricted them from receiving ammunition or riot gear.  They were instructed to engage with rioters only in self-defense, and were banned from using surveillance equipment.  Despite prior knowledge of the “protests”, Capitol Police staffing levels mirrored that of a normal day, and no riot control equipment was prepared.  The Capitol Police weren’t in paramilitary gear the way they were for the BLM protests.  The mob walked in to the Capitol with little resistance.  Some scaled walls, some broke down barricades, some smashed windows, and one video even seems to show Capitol Police opening a gate for the mob. Rioters traipsed around the Capitol (one of the most important government buildings in the country) with little resistance, looting and vandalizing offices of Congress members.  Some rioters felt safe enough to give their names to media outlets, livestream their exploits, and take selfies with police officers.  One man was (ironically) carrying a Confederate flag, a symbol of a secession attempt on the part of the South (and of racism). It took 50 minutes for FBI tactical teams to arrive at the scene, and the National Guard were initially directed by Trump not to intervene.  Pence later overturned that ruling and approved the National Guard.  Police used finally used riot gear, shields, smoke grenades, and batons to retake control of the Capitol, but notably no tear gas or rubber bullets.  Video showed rioters being escorted away without handcuffs.  Trump’s response to the riot was, "we love you. You're very special ... but you have to go home." 

This is where I’m going to get a little editorial, but I think it’s important to say.  If the people storming the Capitol Building were Black, they would have been met with a large, pre-coordinated military presence, violent restraint, arrests, and quite possibly would have been shot.  They wouldn’t have made it inside the Capitol, much less been given free rein to wander around without immediate consequence. Hundreds of people during the George Floyd protests were arrested for just being present- 127 protesters were arrested for violating curfew on June 2nd in Detroit alone, twice the number of arrests made during the storming of the US Capitol.  It turns out that the police do know how to use restraint, after all.  What an absolute shock.  It’s almost like they’re a corrupt and racist institution we should get rid off...

The last big thing I want to talk about is the outcome.  The BLM protests were meaningful, but the outcome from them has been tame.  Nobody has been accused of domestic terrorism. State and local governments evaluated their police department policies and made some changes, like banning chokeholds, partially defunding some departments, and passing regulations that departments must recruit in part from the communities they patrol.  Only one city, Minneapolis, pledged to dismantle their police force.  The response has largely been localized.  I think the biggest impact it’s had is introducing people to the concept of police abolition and getting more people involved in the movement.  By contrast, the Capitol riots have resulted in over 25 people being accused of domestic terrorism and the second attempt to impeach Donald Trump, something that has never happened before in the history of the US.  

But what really concerns me is the precedent this sets.  Donald Trump is an idiot, and he’s gotten this far.  We can’t count on the guy who takes his place to be an idiot, too.  The next guy could be clever, strategic, well-spoken, well-mannered... not to invoke Godwin’s law here, but people liked Hitler.  He was a persuasive speaker and capitalized on conspiracy theories about World War 1 to gain support.  His 1923 attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government failed, but sympathy for his aims grew.  He painted himself as a good, moral man who loved dogs and children and was trying to do right by his country (by, among other things, arresting communists and leftists, and then eventually all minorities).  Trump isn’t Hitler.  He’s not even a Hitler analogue.  But Trump has already done this much damage to the fabric of our society.  He’s worn down our relationship with the media, with one another, with democracy, with morality, and with truth itself.  We have to be prepared for the idea that the next guy might be a much better politician.  Getting rid of Trump isn’t the end; it’s the beginning of a fight against fascism that’s only going to grow from here.

There are other differences you could point to.  BLM protesters wore masks to prevent the spread of COVID (and indeed, researchers have reported that the protests did not drive an increase in virus transmission), for example, while the rioters were largely unmasked.  But I think the bottom line is that the millions of BLM protesters were doing their best to be responsible citizens fighting peacefully for an evidence-based, human rights cause, even though they knew that as a primarily minority group of people, they would be met with violence.  The thousands of far-right, white, Capitol insurrectionists were doing their best to overturn a free, fair, safe, and democratic election because of a call to action by Trump and a stringent belief in disproven conspiracy theories, which they knew would be met with minimal resistance despite the severity of their actions.  The insurrectionists are fascists, full stop, and we should call them what they are.  The BLM protesters were by and large just people, of all different political views and motivations, who wanted to fight against something they saw as unjust.  

I’m sorry that this is such a long post. This topic has been on my mind all week, and I wanted to give it the nuance it deserves.  All we can do from here is to keep fighting- for justice, for truth, and, hopefully, for peace.

[trekwiz]

UBI anon here (💚). I understand your position on UBI and I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I suppose my verdict on it is still out. But I’m an asshole, and love advocating for the devil... To me, your positioning is quite interesting. Especially considering the reasoning behind the Corona virus stipulations... as I could use the same logic during normal years to justify a UBI as part of the role of governance. (I.e. Lack of livable wages -> crime -> government duty) (crime affects all)

Hi anon. I apologize in advance for the long post.

I would address your comment in three parts: first on the difference between population and personal issues, second in terms of defining "need" in regards to government duty, and third in regards to personal rights.

I would suggest there needs to be a pretty bright line between population issues and individual issues in regards to government action. When that line is blurred, we get really weird agenda-driven communal values. As I mentioned in my previous answer, that is especially apparent to LGBT people who were on the receiving end of that logic.

I'm not sure if you saw the news and public reaction when gay kids finally started demanding the right to participate in dances with same sex partners in the early 00's. But schools and communities argued for a communal value that went something like this, "We need to protect our children from becoming gay, so these gay kids should sacrifice a bit of joy for the good of everyone."

Ultimately, the country was meeting the needs and desires of one group, at the expense and detriment of another. They chose who has to lose something, without their consent.

No one ever sees themselves as the bad guy. Universally, your beliefs are protective, or positive in some way, from your perspective. It's very easy to argue for a personal bias/agenda to be seen under the lens of collective behavior, when there's no reason it should be seen as anything but an individual desire.

Any individual concern can be reframed to appear as a population issue by focusing on numbers. Having eggs for breakfast wasn't a personal experience; millions of people had eggs for breakfast. But having eggs for breakfast really was a personal choice, and it didn't impact my neighbor; having eggs didn't make them eat eggs. The outcome was the same, but the decision was independent. As another example, it's the difference between listening to loud music on a farm, vs listening to loud music in a densely packed apartment complex. One is inherently a personal action, and the other is inherently communal.

A virus is inherently communal. Individual protections, at least with this kind of virus, are impossible. Your behaviors won't protect yourself; there is nothing you can do to avoid getting infected by acting alone--unless you're super rich and can hide in a bunker for a few years.

And, like the loud music in an apartment complex, your behaviors have a distinct impact on other people. It might sound dramatic, but you literally have the power to determine if someone else dies, or ends up with a lifelong disability. There's a distinct, and undeniable communal need, and it's similar to the reason we ban indoor smoking. While it's a soundbite, the old standard, "your right to swing your first ends at my nose" is the driving force here: once your behavior affects others, it's up to you to change, not them. By taking actions that hurt other people, you're infringing on their right not to participate--it's a decision you don't get to make.

On the second point, I would suggest linking government to crime via livable wages muddies the idea of governmental need in a particularly dangerous way. I briefly suggested that police don't need to be militarized, and so that's not a necessary government expense. I'll expand on that as an example, as I think it demonstrates how a muddy standard like that can be abused.

Those who have come to defend police brutality and a police state suggest that military equipment is necessary for police because it protects them. Their job necessarily involves danger that puts their lives at risk. Protecting law enforcement officers is certainly a government interest; they spend money on training, and wages theoretically correlate to experience that would be lost when an officer dies. Military equipment protects the people and the investment.

But is it necessary? Necessity is a combination of factors, with no one being the sole decider--and this list isn't exclusive, just a good start to the conversation. Does it make them more effective? Can the same goal be achieved through alternative means? Will the government cease to function in an important way if it doesn't have this funding?

When we examine militarized police in that lens, it doesn't really meet the standard for necessity. They're less effective when they have this kind of equipment: they increase violence and violent crime in communities as an instigating force, and they decrease communal trust, which necessarily impacts their ability to investigate real crimes in the future. It also encourages vigilante justice when the police are seen as this ineffective and untrustworthy--people are circumventing the law, which has a serious impact on governance.

The intended goal can be achieved through alternative means; there's good science around de-escalation tactics, and they're known to work in other developed countries. Ending the arms race between criminals and police generally reduces overall violence rates, and is protective to communities. And by foregoing the funding for militarized gear, no function of governance has been impacted. Laws will still be enforced; there's no negative impact on governance. The idea that it's a "need" is weak; it serves a personal agenda, not a necessary governmental function.

During a pandemic, there's a strong argument for governmental need for UBI. I won't outline all of the reasons, I'll stick with the most easy to apply one: if every member of government does everything right, someone in their community who didn't have the means to stay home could still infect them. If we think only about those we can reasonably care about, (so, assuming we're all unswayed by the impact of Trump being infected because--well, fuck that fascist) what happens if CDC employees become compromised due to an infection in the community, and that infection spreads throughout the agency?

The impact isn't temporary or localized. We'll be losing a large amount of expertise necessary for running the agency. An agency that works solely to protect populations, rather than individuals. The expertise that could prevent another botched pandemic response would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, with people who may not even be familiar with the relevant government processes. That will necessarily impact the government and the public for an extended period of time. We're already feeling some of that impact just from it being merely mismanaged (maliciously); imagine how much worse it would be if that expertise were simply wiped out and not available again when Trump is out of office?

UBI is an effective way to back up a stay at home order, and other similar precautions. It means bills won't go unpaid, and people can still eat. They won't be forced to choose between eating and preventing spread; if they're in a position where they can't choose to stay home, that risk to government personnel remains. There isn't really a great alternative; suspending regular bills won't reduce the need to pay for food, and deferring payments only increases the risk of someone needing to defy stay at home orders to prevent bankruptcy later. And depending on who is impacted--which is hard to predict--parts of government can cease to function without it, during a pandemic. A pandemic of this nature could theoretically wipe out the whole judicial branch of government, as an example. That would be disastrous.

Under situation normal, there's no real argument to be made for a government need. There are other ways to reduce crime, especially from a regulatory standpoint. Education is a start--and preventing education funding from being tied to property taxes is a good way to ensure poor communities don't get stuck in a cycle of poverty fed by poor education. Putting money into infrastructure explicitly meant to undo the impact of redlining would help.

And if you've tried to apply for a job in the last 15 years, you know there's a lot the government should be doing in regards to regulation and enforcement of labor laws. The issues leading to unlivable wages are relatively well known. It's no secret that many companies are using illegal unpaid internships (unpaid internships are only legal under a narrow set of criteria), or are misclassifying employees as contractors--which is a serious tax evasion scam at the worker's expense.

There are no enforcement mechanisms against companies that advertise these practices until a worker complains about it, even if they state their intentions to ignore the law in a job listing. And sometimes--with Uber as an example of a company breaking long-standing law about employee classification--enforcement doesn't happen unless workers spend a lot of their own money suing.

Stronger minimum wage laws tied to the local cost of living (and by local, I mean reasonable commute--employees should not be expected to live an hour+ away from where they work because the company doesn't want to pay them enough to live locally) is a good start, but the loopholes related to that need to be closed.

For example, companies react to wage increases by cutting hours and hiring more people in retaliation--there's no real need to do it, it's just an excuse to coerce employees into acting against their own interests. The true impact on pricing from reasonable wages is negligible. One possibility is to lock the ratio between part time employees and full time employees, with some exceptions based on necessity. If you have 4 part-time cashiers, you can probably do well with 2 full-time cashiers.

Whereas a workplace that needs extra bodies for a short period of time--for example, maybe a facilities management office that sometimes handles construction will need additional people to transport and handle materials every so often, but not regularly--should be able to operate that way with evidence that there's truly a need.

Arguably, a shorter work week would make a difference as well. 40 hours is a lot to begin with, and some salaried people are regularly working 50-60 without additional pay. Balancing a living wage for a 30 hour week would greatly assist people in getting more education to aim for even better paying jobs. And the additional leisure time should reduce the stresses that lead to crime.

Hiring practices are currently obtuse, and a lot of resumes are never seen by a human. Banning the use of screening by ATSes (and by people unfamiliar with the relevant field--a scientist shouldn't be screened out by an HR employee who failed intro biology) could make hiring a bit more fair for everyone. And blinding interviews as much as reasonable could help--look up information about how gender ratios started to become more even when orchestras switched to blind interviews using carpeted floors, it's really interesting. (The sound of heels on hard surfaces led to decreased hiring of women when blinding alone was in use.)

I'd even suggest that a wage ratio cap would be reasonable. Largely because it doesn't prevent the top members of a company from making unlimited money, so long as they pull up everyone below them.

And it all necessarily needs to include regulation and enforcement against predatory lending practices in regards to student loans, housing, and "payday loans." Crime and poverty are a complex interaction of systems, and you can't choose just one area to focus on.

Back to the point: there are alternative ways to solve the underlying problem. It doesn't necessarily make the government more effective: it's addressing one facet of crime when a coordinated effort against multiple causes could do it better through acts of governance*. And ultimately, parts of the government won't fail because it doesn't have UBI.

*I'm generally very uncomfortable when the government takes action that's outside of "governance." That kind of behavior is too easily abused by personal agendas. Governance is, generally, regulation and enforcement. When you creep out of that scope, you get into my third point: infringement of personal rights (in contexts that are personal and not population).

Ultimately, we're not a hive-mind; we're not a collective. While issues with a population-scale impact should necessitate individual action, the status quo should have the minimal impact on our ability to lead our lives as we see fit.

We've lost our understanding of what the freedom of religion clause of the 1st amendment is about. It was meant to put a barrier between religion and government, so the government couldn't coerce you, even minimally (like, say, the 10 commandments in a courthouse), to follow someone else's religious beliefs. But there's an underlying "why" there.

If I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because my religion demands it, or I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because it's simply my favorite dessert, is there a difference? The clause was created not because forcing religion on others, in specific, is bad. It was created because religion was a common method of forcing your way of life onto someone else, and that is bad.

It's couched in secular terms, but UBI is based on a set of personal beliefs about how we should behave, with an underlying assumption that we should all be collectivist. It compels collective financial support on an issue with a personal scope. I've seen how that plays out, when homophobia was a communal value. And it's the most easily abused model of governance.

You win, so you get to have your personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Great. But then you lose, and your opponent now has the power and means to have their personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Trump should be a caution against this mindset; the things you think you're doing for good, offers someone like him the power to do similar things for bad. You want to give out a basic wage, Trump wants to give out militarized weaponry to police and Nazis.

A system that permits personal belief to be the driving force of tax and government policy is a system that permits these kinds of wild, dangerous swings. Gerrymandering is the result of a system that empowers personal beliefs to rule over others.

As a final thought, consider this: in the US, something like UBI could be weaponized by people like Trump. Take part in protests? Sorry, no more income for you. Formed a union? You're not eligible. The government agent who sends the UBI payment has religious-based bigotry against gay people? Sorry, they have a right not to pay you. You're writing politically "hostile" news? You and all of your coworkers have just lost a significant chunk of your income. Convicted of a felony? Income suspended, sorry, good luck staying out of prison.

If your ability to survive is heavily tied to a government payment, AND the system permits and encourages personal beliefs to be a valid reason to guide government policy, marginalized people will always have the most to lose.

[thelocalrebel]

a compilation of note-worthy ones, deconstructed!

With the amount of times you hear politicians say a certain phrase, you can be 100% sure that Singapore prides itself on being a 'First World Country', and for good reason. We can boast of our 'economic miracle', relative social harmony and political stability that isn't a staple of countries worldwide.

Yes, we have it better than other countries.

Unfortunately, peel away the illusion painted by a pseudo-democratic and capitalistic society prioritising growth above all else, and you see plenty of dirty laundry. And where else to hide them, if not in our set of laws, which are phrased in a confusing miscellany of legal jargon that blindsides even the best of us? (well, it's possible that it's phrased as such to make it inaccessible to the public, hence stopping us from examining it too closely...but we digress.)

So! Presenting to you a easy-to-read-and-refer list on various noteworthy laws and legal situations in Singapore. We hope this gives you something to think about, and perhaps even galvanise you into action - whatever that means.

(List will be continuously updated as and if we find anything noteworthy)

1) Criminalising Gay Sex - Section 377A

The classic example. Essentially, it criminalises "any act of gross indecency [a man commits] with another male person". That means anal penetration between two men, or gay sex in short. Because it explicitly refers to the act, the government argues that no, they're not discriminating against gays. In 2015, PM Lee went on to say that gays are allowed to live their lives in Singapore, where the state does not harrass nor discriminate against them.

Obviously, the rest of society didn't get the memo.

Whatever the government thinks, formal and institutional sanctions (like laws) set a precedent that society follows. That creates an enabling culture, because society perceives that precedent as condoning their prejudice and discrimination towards the queer community. If you don't think that's true, think back towards a certain Mr Lim who threatened to "open fire" on gays in Singapore.

However, the curious thing is this - while the act of gay sex and same-gender marriage is criminalised, being gay in itself isn’t illegal. So yes, they’re “allowed” to continue working and living as best as they can in a conservative society. Funny how this sounds like how the state still wants their labour without being willing to acknowledge their humanity. What does that sound like, indeed?

2) Sedition Act

Singapore and freedom of speech rarely get along with each other. Apparently, the need for stability - be it in the political, social or economical sense - trumped the need for the right to civil expression. But if you consider the purpose of SG's government (or even the sole reason behind SG's creation) is to generate economic growth, it's only natural that freedom of speech is deemed less important. Especially if it obstructs economic activities. That's why public demonstrations, let alone protests or strikes, are banned without a permit - incidents like that can inconvenience companies, and thus erode Singapore's attractiveness as a business hub. Just think back on how the state handled that instance of SMRT bus drivers protesting about their low pay by virtue of their status as migrant workers. This line of thinking echoes a Marxist perspective on deviance, where deviance is seen as activities obstructing the interests of a capitalist state or elite.

This Act is a form of double-bind, just like racial harmony. While it does prevent - or at least, prosecute - 'seditious', hateful speech, it also fosters a culture of fear. What constitutes 'seditious' isn't clearly defined in the Act - it's just anything that is deemed to have disrupted/threatened social stability in SG. And that means certain people can misuse the Act to prosecute certain people for personal reasons, like political opponents. (Incidentally, for a state priding itself for adherence to rule of law, such ambiguity of terms seem to suggest rule by law - where the state governs the law instead of vice-versa, raising questions of “rational”, “just” laws twisted to suit state interests). Plus, starting court cases aren't cheap; just think of the legal fees involved! (So in a sense, this is kinda classist).

While some ideas are indeed too heinous to be shared - like hate speech - the point here is the culture of fear that has habituated people into subservience. The Sedition Act is another aspect of modern-day panopticon or surveillance, where the fear of being watched - and possibly punished for any deviant behaviours - gets internalised by us, so much so that we watch ourselves and others eventually - even if no such state surveillance is happening.

3) Penal Code

Singapore still keeps plenty of 'archaic' punishments; and what we're frequently bashed for is how we still carry out capital punishment. Specifically, death by hanging. Alan's Shadrake's book, Once A Jolly Hangman, revolves around our death penalty and the person responsible for hanging death row inmates - but don't look for it in the library. It's banned in Singapore. (here's a review).

Here are some crimes punishable by death in Singapore:

Drug-related offenses

Treason

Carrying/Possessing firearms

Piracy that endangers life

Perjury that results in the execution of an innocent person

Abetting the suicide of a person under the age of 18 or an "insane" person

Kidnapping or abducting in order to murder

Robbery that results in the death of a person

(Fun fact: Rape used to be punishable by death, but not anymore)

The rationale for keeping the death penalty is because it serves an effective deterrent; mainly for drug-related crimes in Singapore. While it may have merits with regard to internal security, such as terrorism and the unlawful possession of weapons/munitions, it has mainly been used against drug traffickers.

But deterrence is only as effective as the certainty that all humans are rational beings. Meaning, the death penalty is effective only if it stops drug traffickers from bringing drugs into the country. Has it? No. The distinction to make here is that those sent to the gallows are drug mules - people who carry drugs, and not the ones masterminding things - and sometimes, these mules are coerced to do so. So, is the law effectively targeting those in power in the drug trade? Or is it disproportionately affecting those at the bottom of the food chain; those who - more likely than not - have been forced into the business for whatever reason. Plus, to associate involvement with drugs purely as a failure of character, is to ignore the systemic and institutional reasons that drive certain populations (read: minorities, marginalised populations) to such things in the first place.

That's even if you want to go there. Some people would stagger at the mere mention of taking away someone's life. Like, is it even our place to do that?

On a parting note, even academics are quoted to be saying that there is no “reliable data on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent”.

4) Marital Rape - Section 375

Here's a good summary of its history in Singapore.

In short, it’s legal for a husband to coerce their lawfully wedded wives into sex, even if the wife doesn't consent to it. Also, men cannot be raped. That should be enough to show how harmful this law is - in promoting gender stereotypes, the legal support of rape culture/non-consent culture, and the cementing of the functions of marriage (i.e. to produce babies). Resistance to criminalising marital rape often include reasons of “protecting the family unit” and “difficulty in obtaining proof”; reasons that clearly value the needs of everyone but the woman in the marriage. However, the Government is reviewing said law, so progress? Progress.

On a related note, forced marriages are unlawful here, according to the Women's Charter, which is a legislative act designed to safeguard the rights of women and children in Singapore.

5) Internal Security Act

This Act guarantees the Ministry of Home Affairs extrajudicial powers to detain certain people without the need of a trial, suppress subversive activities against the state, and stop organised violence towards property or people in Singapore. Before the arrest can be made, the President has to agree to this detention order - and for that to happen, they must be satisfied by the reasons behind the certain people's arrest.

By 'certain people', we mean 'threats to national security'. That makes the ISA sound benign - which it can be. Especially if used properly, such as detaining would-be terrorists.

But the ISA has a checkered past. In the years after independence, it's been (mis)used to detain 'Communists' and trade union leaders. Words that will be forever associated with the ISA are Operation Spectrum and Operation Cold Store, because those are instances in which the ISA was exercised ... but on dubious grounds. Were the arrested indeed communists, or merely left-leaning political opponents or social workers; where religion offered them a medium to influence socio-political issues and thus undermine the authority of the state? Rajah states that the state polices religion to reinforce control over public discourses and not to uphold public order, because religion offers the public an avenue to influence politics. So, the question to ask here is: who gets to decide what constitutes “threats to national security”? 

History has painted them as villains, but we need to remember how history is often a selective retelling of facts to tell a certain story. Ergo, history is subjective.

That’s not all. If you were to examine local laws pertaining to human rights, you tend to see this pattern of legally-protected freedoms...curtailed by another law. Singapore allows for public assembly and demonstrations ... but only with a police permit. Singapore allows for freedom of speech ... until it is prosecutable by the Sedition Act. Singapore ensures anti-discriminatory laws ... but only on the basis of your race, religion, and nationality. 

Is this a case of restricting certain freedoms to protect other freedoms? We don’t want to be too hasty to conclude things, but it’s something to ponder. 

6) Human Trafficking

We've covered this before in a Twitter thread on forest brothels, but the short of it is that Singapore doesn't have a law specific to this issue. As a result, recourse for victims of this crime is fragmented at best, and nonexistent at worst. According to the 2016 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, Singapore is ranked Tier 2 - meaning, trafficking is a serious concern here, with the 2017 edition going on to say how we “fails [sic] to meet minimum standards in human trafficking”.

Who gets the brunt of this? Cis women. Most victims of human trafficking end up in the sex trade, but conflating sex trafficking with sex work in general only serves to undermine sex work as a profession. Plus, feminist discourse on sex work is still fragmented: divided between the three factions who see it as a moral failing/sin, structural oppression against (cis) women, or as a form of empowerment.

7) Migrant Rights

It’s curious to note how domestic helpers are not covered by the Employment Act because "it is not practical to regulate specific aspects of domestic work, such as hours of work and work on public holidays". Sure, it does make some sense, but on the other hand, you can see this as another instance of how women’s work is devalued, yet again. This is besides how domestic helpers are slapped certain constraints in their contracts that may seem...condescending. Take a look at page 46.

Then, there’s also migrant workers who work in the construction sector. And they aren’t any better off, too. The lack of a union or body to safeguard their rights (except NGOs), the stigma they face from Singaporeans, their financial and physical exploitation by their employers…in a way, you can consider migrant workers a form of modern slavery.

8) Criminalising Suicide - Section 309

Yes. It's criminal for people to attempt suicide. Yes, this rule is rarely enforced, and arguably serves as a deterrent against ending their life.

However, think of the symbolic effects. Can this reinforce the already pervasive stigma against the mentally ill in Singapore? A person, with mental illness and in need of help, is potentially branded as criminal because the law says so. Can this drive people away from seeking help? You should see the asks we get on our ask.fm handle. Do people considering suicide even think of getting arrested once they've decided to end things? (That's the reasoning given by a minister this author asked, once; where the threat of arrest will get people to think twice about their actions). But really?

More critically, why is the criminal justice system involved in a public health matter?

9) Abuse laws in Singapore

Currently, only married couples are afforded such protection. Unmarried ones? not really. So singles and live-in partners are excluded from such laws; and such laws manifest as the three exclusion orders one can slap on family members in instances of family violence. They are the Personal Protection Order (PPO), Expedited Order (EO), and Domestic Exclusion Order (DEO). AWARE explains these three orders quite succinctly.

Here's a paper PAVE wrote about this.

Why only married couples? That’s a good question. But consider this: Why not only married couples? Simple - marital violence doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Marital violence is often a continuation of, or begins from intimate partner violence...that happens before marriage. 

The thing to note about most of the above laws is this: some of them are the by-effect of colonial legislation. Yup, you heard right - they're leftovers from British colonial control! So, not very "Asian Values" of us after all, isn't it?

Hopefully, this leaves you with something to think about.

A/N: Here's a link to Singapore's social policies as crafted by the Ministry for Social and Family Development. It's a huge infodump, but it's really useful and kinda is the authoritative source for this.

[rabbiandrewrosenblatt]

Dear Poland. . .

This week’s installment is a joint message from Rabbi Rosenblatt and Dr. Neiman about an emerging issue that has troubled many in our community.

Many in the Jewish community are utterly shocked by the passage of a Polish law that makes it illegal to associate the government or state of Poland with the Holocaust. For example, those who refer to places like Auschwitz as Polish death camps can go to prison for up three years. The rationale for this law is that the death camps in Poland were created by Nazi Germany, not by the Polish government or Polish people.

The government of Poland is not the first to try to distance itself from an association with the atrocities of the 20th Century. Japan’s government has yet to explicitly accept responsibility for its colonial occupation of much of Asia. Turkey’s government denies that there was an Armenian Genocide. We should be shocked that Poland would take a similar tack by denying the overwhelming evidence of its role in the largest, most murderous act of anti-Semitism in modern times. However, we believe people should be shocked for the right reasons. We should be shocked that the Poles think that this law is going to fool anyone.  

As Edna Friedberg of the U.S. Holocaust Museum argues, the Poles were no more the mere victims of the Nazis, than they were exclusively villains to the Jews. The Polish role in the Holocaust is complicated. Poland was occupied by a brutal Nazi regime that made Poland the geographic centre of Nazi dirty work. On the other hand, as Polish historian Barbara Engelking describes, many Poles were willing accomplices in the murder of Jews. Some did so for sport, and others for profit. They would engage in ‘Jew hunts’ to break the monotony of life. Poles often hid Jews who gave Polish ‘hosts’ their valuables. When there were no more valuables to surrender, the Poles would turn in their so-called ‘guests’ and collect a reward from the Nazis.

Friedberg explains the difficulty in characterizing the Polish response to the Holocaust in a single stroke. “It is not uniformly one of complicity or innocence.” There are more Poles recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations than from any other nationality. The Nazis tried to decapitate the Polish leadership, removing tens of thousands of intellectuals, priests, politicians and other authority figures. 1.5 Million Poles were deported to Germany as slave laborers and 2 million non-Jewish Poles and soldiers died in the course of the war. The Żegota was a Polish committee organized to provide false papers to Jews and secure their rescue. Some estimate that the Żegota had a hand in saving almost half of the Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.

 The Polish government wants to make it illegal “to publicly and untruthfully assign responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish Nation or the Polish State for Nazi crimes [emphasis added].” They may be technically correct about the Polish government, but are they certain about the veracity of a claim of innocence with regard to the Polish Nation? Furthermore, it is facile to refer to these crimes as Nazi crimes, as if anything originated by Nazis is solely the responsibility of Hitler.

No matter what the intention of the law, we believe it fundamentally misses the point of what might be in the best interest of the current Polish government. The law looks like an attempt to whitewash the past, to engage in a form – however benignly motivated ­– of denial of an essential part of the Holocaust. Historically, limiting free speech like this makes a government look regressive and afraid of the truth. Will tour guides to Polish sites be prosecuted for telling the history of the Blue Police – those 20,000 Polish officers who were responsible for the liquidation of the ghettos in Poland? Will Jewish historical tourism to Poland become a crime? If anything, this law will be the dog whistle to white nationalists around the world.

Author and bullying expert Barbara Coloroso argues that evil cannot be enacted on a large scale without the active and passive consent of both ordinary people and those who are in charge. In Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide, she makes essential distinctions between different actors in the Polish chapter of the Holocaust. The Nazis were in her terms, instigators and perpetrators. The Polish government and police played various official roles as perpetrators and active supporters. Ordinary citizens acted in various roles as perpetrators, active supporters, passive supporters, henchmen, and witnesses [who did nothing to stop the violence]. Coloroso traces how the same dynamics existed in the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and Darfur.

Timothy Snyder is a Professor of History at Yale University. In Black Earth: the Holocaust as History and Warning, Snyder argues that stripping groups of their citizenship is a key enabler of governments that perpetrate genocide. During World War 2, he notes, Poles were keen to set up governments that collaborated with their occupiers to persecute Jews. This happened under both Soviet occupation and Nazi occupation. It was possible to kill Jews and take their property, precisely because there was a duly constituted national government, and Jews were not considered to be subject to their laws. An exception that proves the rule of European collaboration with the Nazi genocide was Denmark. There, the government under occupation resisted turning over Jews. The Nazis allowed the Danes to let Jews escape en masse.

We believe our reaction to Poland needs to maintain a strong tether to the truth and complexity of the Polish story. The Torah says, ”לא תתעב מצ��י כי גר היית בארצו – do not be cross with the Egyptian for you were a sojourner in his land.” To this Rashi adds, “the Egyptians gave us refuge in time of need.” The Torah is teaching an important lesson about characterizations: appreciate the complexity of even the oppressive relationships. In particular, while one generation of Egyptians was welcoming, another was cruel. In other words, it’s complex. We must remain cognizant of both Hitler’s willing partners and of the many righteous Polish gentiles. We remember the Nazi subjugation of Poland, and the fertile anti-Semitic soil in which the Germans sowed their hatred.

Furthemore, the Torah in this week’s reading teaches, “לא תהיה אחרי רבים לרעת ולא תענה על רב לנטת אחרי רבים להטת­ ­– do not be a follower of the majority to do evil, and do not answer the majority by bending to their mistake.” Sometimes it is important to reject groupthink, to reject the simple, binary characterization of good versus evil when there is an unvoiced exonerating argument or evidence. Our political and ideological discourse has too often devolved to a false dichotomy of good guys and bad guys, of sanitized and dishonest political correctness, and cruel sensationalized examples that should not be extrapolated to a whole group. We don’t accept Jewish stereotypes, nor will we condone Polish stereotypes.

This is captured in the words of Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster, who was sheltered by sympathetic Polish farmers.

I was grateful for them, but I was afraid of them because they were constantly demeaning me, and threatening me, and telling me what a terrible thing I did to come there to cause them that kind of problem … That’s what she constantly said to us, my sister and I. ‘If the Germans catch you, you’re gonna say who helped you and they’re gonna kill us.’ So it was a dichotomy of things: She wanted to help but she wanted get rid of us, she couldn’t get rid of us, you know.

The historical Polish relationship to our people is painful and complex. It has Polish heroes and villains. It is a story of many governments and average people who behaved in self-serving ways and altruistic ways to do both good and extraordinary evil. Your history is complex, Poland, and your choice is simple. If you maintain this law, you will become in 2018 the very government that you deny you were in 1939. Instead, we call on the Polish government to understand that the only way to keep their good reputation is to be honest about the truth and complexity of the story, to learn from it, and to prevent it from happening again.