Politics versus Policy Making

hi blog

The Singapore General Elections will be held on 7 May 2011. I am 1 year short to be entitled to a polling slip. Even though I am not able to vote in this coming election, I have been following up on political news.

I read this "note" on Facebook by someone named Daryl Yong (http://www.facebook.com/notes/daryl-yong/my-thoughts-on-ge2011/10150276681229152). He explained things clearly and provided a very good analysis on certain policies which the Opposition parties support/plan to propose. Very pragmatic views. He definitely wrote it clearheaded-ly instead of having irrational feelings involved.

Worth a read to REALLY KNOW MORE about the real situation.
Heres a quote:
(Quote)
"To the opposition and those who support the opposition, I have a short message for you here, before I move on to discussing why I might vote for you. Please do not try to cheat reality. You cannot lower the cost of living by making it more expensive to do business. (Foreign workers) If a worker is worth $4 an hour, you cannot make him worth $5: he will not be hired if he can only be hired at $5. (Minimum wage) You cannot want public transport to improve, and at the same time make it less profitable for people to improve public transport. You cannot claim to respect private property but at the same time take property away from successful Singaporeans for the sole reason of making other people happy. No matter how sincere you are, how well intentioned you are, please do not try to cheat reality because you cannot."
(Unquote)

I feel voters should think and rationalise before voting. However, most people do not know the difference between Politics and Policy Making. I am more interested in Policies than Politics really. I dont care who is in power as long as he does a good job.

Politics is about POWER. It is about how to enter the parliment, how to be a king, how to consolidate POWER over people. Usually it includes being super nice to people, introduce policies which APPEARS to help the voters (eg. Minimum wage laws, welfare packages)so that the candidate can be popular and receive the most amount of votes thus fufilling their main objective. Basically it is equivalent to 2 children crying and whining to gain the favour of the parent. Drama-mama.

Policy Making is about (duuhhh) making policies! A good policy maker will NOT care about what the people feel about the policy as long as it do GOOD to the country's progress. Simplicity is important in a good policy as maintaining it will be costly if it is too complicated (eg. 101 exceptions to certain taxation laws). I feel that the best type of governance is the less governance the better. Less red tape = less government spending = less reasons for taxation = less stress on people and ya da ya da, which eventually will lead to eternal happiness (lul). I want a government that doesn't intrude into my life all the time with stressful taxes, discriminating laws and policies.

I'm really torn between WP & PAP in Aljunied. But I think WP might win Aljunied over and if that happens, George Yeo would be out of a job! Why can't PAP consolidate all the bad MPs in one GRC and let the opposition and the voters send them off in one grand farewell?!!! This GRC system is very bad... Ok, we shall see what happens on May 7th. Its gonna be an epic day in Singapore's political history...

ps. I'm too lazy to continue so I shall stop soon.

bye blog