Geeeeze...most folks can feel the ice in the room....
Posted on 01/25/2007 6:59:30 PM PST by maui_hawaii
There are reasons Singapore is a clean, prosperous, low-crime country, and executions like this are among them.
No "justice delayed is justice denied" in Singapore!
Good for them!
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Changi prison is where the captured British soldiers were kept during WW2 after the fall of Singapore. Clavell's "King Rat" takes place there. By all accounts it was a pretty brutal place.
watch your luggage in Singapore...
Has Singapore yet abandoned its government policy of suing people whose criticism they don't like?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
You know everyone makes fun of her appearance ... but really the main issue is she always looks so miserable.
Has Singapore yet abandoned its government policy of suing people whose criticism they don't like?
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Not really -- most people do not realize that Singapore is a "government state" -- a "polite dictatorship" if you will. While we Americans do not like such systems, Singapore has a very unique set of circumstance under which order and non-violence must be maintained. They are surrounded by Muslim countries, and have had sectarian uprisings and riots which were very bad. Singapore is also a VERY TINY country. They do not want the negative influences of the outside world affecting their system there. You can walk across it in a day if you try. A government like that of the USA, would fail there in very short order and Singapore would be chaos and/or gone.
In fact, our Constitution forbids it.
I like it. Good for them.
The conversation turned to the local drug laws and it was plain he was quite proud of what Singapore had accomplished in the last generation or so. He told me that in the late 1950's and early 1960's heroin use was so prevalent they figured 10% of the population of Singapore might have been addicted. Their society felt draconian drug laws were the only way out. He proudly proclaimed "Look what it has done for us."
He told me drug addicts who wouldn't take the cure after two or three tries were exiled to one of the small islands off-shore where they had to survive on their own. Every month or so, a boat from the mainland would drop off some basic foodstuffs and take back any applications for those who felt they were cured, but most remained on the islands.
As for the drug traffickers, he told me that Singapore hanged maybe 50 or 60 per year, overwhelmingly foreigners as Singaporeans wouldn't risk it. He asked me how many people died of drug overdoses and drug related violence in a similar-sized American city. I had to admit it was a lot more than the 50 or 60. These hangings, he said, are the price we pay to keep Singapore prosperous and relatively free of crime. I'm sorry some foreigners have to learn the hard way just how serious we are because of what we went through.
Haven't you heard the opponents of the death penalty? The death penalty is not an effective deterrent!! Those fellows may have been hanged, but that will not deter them from doing it again.
We lived in Singapore for some years..and there were some close calls with the American School. They were not willing to crack down on some of the kids who got involved with drugs. The Government warned them that there was a problem..then struck. They gave the kids and their families 24 hours to get out of town..or face trial.
Since then the American School has adopted more progressive standards.
I spent 12 years in law enforcement. There is no JUSTICE in our justice system. After quitting that job I am a firm believer in vigilante justice. The judges in L.A. Co. never ever inform the victims in front of them, or the criminals either that when they assess a fine in the court room its going to line their pockets. The County of L.A. pays the judicial retirements out of the fines imposed by the courts. Did somebody say "conflict of interests".
Good.
Sounds like the movie Return to Paradise. Good movie it showed how the US only wanting to make a story got someone killed.
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