Image created using AI. This is really funny because ChatGPT said it couldn’t use people in the image lest it stereotype them. I think what it came up with is even worse!
Posted on 12/06/2025 8:03:26 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Having completed my first full day in Singapore, I continue to be impressed, as I believe all visitors are, by what a shiny, clean, well-organized place it is. One could say that this is because it’s a wealthy country. I would go in the other direction: It’s wealthy because it’s chosen to be a clean, bright, shiny place.
Yesterday, we went to the Marina Bay complex, a major tourist attraction that has two massive indoor gardens and one of the biggest malls I’ve ever seen. To get there and back, we took the underground trains that are part of the Singapore Mass Rail Transit (SMRT) system.
Before this trip, the last two urban underground rail systems I used were in New York and San Francisco. Both had similarities: They were filthy, they stank, and the corridors were lined with homeless people, who were also filthy, and many of whom were actively engaged in extreme abuse, whether injecting themselves or in a completely dazed, disoriented state. The whole experience felt like the gates of Hell. Since my last visit to New York, pushing people onto the tracks or otherwise attacking them has become a “thing.”
In Singapore, it’s different. The subway is immaculate. It even smells nice. There are no homeless drug addicts living underground like the damned. The computer systems for buying tickets and then entering and leaving the underground work seamlessly. The trains themselves are also immaculate, no doubt in large part because it’s illegal to eat or drink anywhere on or in the SMRT system. We were on the train at night, and the passengers were clean, quiet, sane, and sober.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Our ‘public transportation’ failed because ‘good heart-ed liberals decided with limited funding - they would spend the money they had making ‘PUBLIC’ transportation for the poor. Which of course killed it for everyone.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions....
It’s also a city-state that will deny you basic civil rights.
I’ll take America over Singapore any day. At least I can shoot the bad guys.
Singapore is also an authoritarian state which administers corporal punishments which our founders Constitutionally banned as “cruel or unusual”.
My daughter is currently spending 3 weeks in Japan and she’s sending pics and videos to our shared family account. It’s astonishing to see how clean their streets are and how pristine their subway stations are. Comparing Tokyo to NYC is sobering.
Willie Green reincarnated? Mass transit systems (at least in the US) are giant boondoggles designed to suck money out of the taxpayers to support an entire ecosystem of bureaucrats, maintenance employees, drivers, suppliers, etc. If you ever look at the economics of the systems they are financial black holes, and except for large metro areas where the population density is 20,000/sq mile or more extremely inefficient. In Atlanta the primary purpose of MARTA is forcing you to associate with people you’d rather not be around. It’ secondary purpose is to provide mobile housing for bums. The lack of toilet facilities on the trains doesn’t bother them a bit. Urine (usually) goes into an empty bottle, and feces just left on the floor or on a seat. I commuted on the MARTA train for about two years and saw many instances of human waste. Any actual facilitation of moving people around Atlanta is strictly coincidental - good if it happens, but not the main mission.
Sociologists were baffled by this for a long time, but they eventually figured out that the key to social contentment is not freedom, but consistent application of the law. Singapore might be an authoritarian state, but its citizens accept it because it is authoritarian for EVERYONE.
The article I read about this cited an example of a young adult man who was the son of a leading national political figure — maybe Singapore’s equivalent of the Vice President. He was arrested for some kind of petty crime like vandalism or minor theft. In almost any other country the crime would have been swept under the rug or, at worst, the young guy would have gotten a slap on the wrist. But in Singapore, the politician father wanted to make an example of his own son … so he insisted that the kid would be flogged repeatedly with a bamboo cane on national television. THAT surely sent a message to both the son and the nation as a whole.
Ah yes Japan, the country that 84 years ago tomorrow (12/7) Attacked Pearl Harbor killing a couple of thousand Americans in one day comparable to 9/11 and who by the end of WWII had killed over 20,000,000 Chinese along with an unknown number of other nationalities not to mention 160,000 American military personnel.
Ah yes Japan, the country that 84 years ago tomorrow (12/7) Attacked Pearl Harbor killing a couple of thousand Americans in one day comparable to 9/11 and who by the end of WWII had killed over 20,000,000 Chinese along with an unknown number of other nationalities not to mention 160,000 American military personnel.
The article I read about this cited an example of a young adult man who was the son of a leading national political figure — maybe Singapore’s equivalent of the Vice President. He was arrested for some kind of petty crime like vandalism or minor theft. In almost any other country the crime would have been swept under the rug or, at worst, the young guy would have gotten a slap on the wrist. But in Singapore, the politician father wanted to make an example of his own son … so he insisted that the kid would be flogged repeatedly with a bamboo cane on national television. THAT surely sent a message to both the son and the nation as a whole.
The “Broken Windows Theory” in action.
Image AI seems to be working fine.
There really is no right or wrong place to live. Each person prefers his own earthly paradise.
Singapore emphasizes order, efficiency, and economic development over liberal democratic norms. It ranks high on rule of law, anti-corruption, and public service delivery, which some argue offsets its democratic deficits. Singaporeans prefr it that way.
The U.S., while more liberal-democratic, faces its own challenges with polarization, institutional gridlock, and disinformation—but maintains stronger protections for dissent and pluralism. Americans prefer it that way.
I don’t see Singaporeans wanting to migrate to the USA or vice versa.
To each his own.
MARTA
Moving
Africans
Rapidly
Through
Atlanta
I’ll stand by the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s “God bless the U.S.A.”
but maintains stronger protections for dissent and pluralism.
Did.
“ corporal punishments which our founders Constitutionally banned as “cruel or unusual”.
No, they didn’t.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Some people would prefer to have shiny gold plated tyranny with pomp and haute couture.
We did a Japan cruise in April. 3 days in Tokyo on the front end then 2 weeks visiting 7-8 cities on the cruise. Clean, safe, I may have seen one homeless person the entire time. Wife saw none she thought thus. No graffiti.
We enjoyed it very much.
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