YOURSAY ‘If being an idiot is a crime, half of our politicians are guilty.’
Is being an idiot on the Internet a crime?
Doc: Being an anti-Umno idiot on the Internet is a crime. Being a sane individual providing ample and credible proof of heinous corruption scandals involving Umno politicians is a crime.
But being a downright racist, idiotic, corrupt, lying, thieving Umno politician is certainly no crime here in Bolehland.
Democrat: This is a sane, sensible and most importantly, intelligent article. Well done, Aidila Razak. I really wish more journalists and politicians have your mindset.
Sin Lee Huang: This reminded me about the case involving sex blogger Alvin Tan. His action, i.e. posting stuff on the Internet, as reported by Malaysiakini , to help "strengthen" his asylum case can be classified as hate crime.
Previously I thought his action was just silly, childish and potentially counter-productive.
Haveagreatday: I have no dilemma like you describe with respects to blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK). I know for a fact that RPK is an unscrupulous person.
I will say it in front of him if he were in front of me for I know it for a fact from personal experience with him. So, whenever his name comes up in Internet posts that I come across, I will name him as such.
Flamescanner: Wow Aidila, that's some writing you've got there. Well done. As for being a turd, there's plenty of them in Malaysia, like Facebook user Chow Jack, but going by the same measure, some other 'influential' turds in the country should have been sentenced to life in prison...
GrooTheWanderer: If being an idiot is a crime, half of our politicians are guilty... very guilty.
Haveagreatday: Brave words, Sharon Chin. Unlike you, I lived through Ops Lallang with vivid memories of the climate of fear then.
But with this "Promethean substance", I have hushed the inner voice that counselled that I ought be careful about my opinions - no, not because I believed what I commented on is seditious but more because like former Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan proclaimed:
“...We are no ‘lalang’ (weed). We’re going to stand up today.” If not now, then when? If not me, then who?
Fairplayer: Sharon, I like your spirit. The future of Malaysia is in the hands of your generation. God be with you.
Hplooi: Dear Sharon, back around 480BC Socrates (credited as one of the founders of western philosophy) said, "A multitude of books distracts the mind."
What he meant was, the written words (ideas in written form on papyrus were then starting to be popular) actually dumb you down. It is not without reason that Socrates is best known for his invention of ‘dialectics’ (whittling down to the truth via dialogues in a logical manner).
Socrates left no written words (faithful to his belief) but his ideas were mainly transmitted down the ages by others (notably Plato).
With the Internet, are we again witnessing a dumbing-down of the generations? Ops Lalang, to old timers like us, was traumatic. The Umno right-wing deliberately played up racial issue. But in the dragnet, almost all opposition members of note were hauled in, even when they have nothing to do with the manufactured crisis.
Most disconcerting the principle instigators (including the very vocal chief MCA guy) were not even called in.
Snake-in-the-grass: Don't let them spray Gramoxone (a weedkiller) on you...
Malaysians rally for HK Occupy Central protesters
Antibody: Western democracy simply cannot be blindly followed. Look at the United Kingdom - they were not a democracy before when they rule a major part of the world.
The United States is trying to rule the world through democracy and it is failing miserably, with the rebellious mood against the US all over the world - e.g. Latin America, the Arab world, Africa - as examples of their failures.
We, in Malaysia are also falling into the same trap. Democracy - government by the people, for the people and of the people - has many defects therein. In the US, they are going back to central control; very much like China.
Watch it, see in the next decade what will happen to democracy in the US.
The Analyser: Antibody, thank you for your in-depth but superficial analysis of democracy. Maybe you could complete your rant by outlining the advantages of a few other isms.
Islamism, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Catholicism, Mugabeism, Mahathirism. You might also like to explain why so many people from the non-democratic world are desperate to migrate to the democratic world.
You wouldn't be Malaysian if you weren't constantly sticking your nose into other people's problems, meanwhile ignoring your own. What did I say yesterday about the Chinese dealing with problems by running away?
Not Convinced: Yes, democracy is flawed. That we know already. But it is still the best among many bad alternatives.
We need to acknowledge its imperfections and find solutions to them. That means building an economic system where inequalities are kept in check, decision-making is decentralised and our democratic institutions are strengthened, among others.
Put simply, the answer to the woes of democracy is more democracy. Not less.
Citizen Kane: Hong Kong people did not have democracy under the British but they had rule of law and freedom protected by democracy in the UK. Rule of law and freedom are now threatened by the "people's dictatorship" in Beijing.
Rojak: While one contributor to this Malaysiakini forum mentions that Hong Kong didn’t have much democracy when it was a colony, might I respectfully point out that that, sadly, is the nature of colonialism.
In contrast, Beijing offered the people of Hong Kong ‘One Country, Two Systems’, and later specifically agreed to let them choose their own leaders.
Beijing is now trying to renege on this promise and the people, who are among the most educated and disciplined in the world, are trying to hold the regime to its promise.
You can go on about it being in someone else’s backyard as much as you like, but the fact is in this globalised era we are all involved and to suggest otherwise is just cowardice.
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