cookie-cutter comments

For those of you who’d want to follow the parliamentary session today to catch Rafidah Aziz in the docks, there’s always Bernama; I doubt hansard will have the transcripts of the parliamentary session so soon, but you can look here. I definitely want to, and I’ll be checking in later today.

UPDATE: Maxis/SMS alert 11.07am — Rafidah strongly defended her integrity when asked in Parliament about the AP issue saying she did not have any ties with any AP holders.
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A quick reply to LKS’s recent post on the efficacy of online polls, here. My comment is reproduced here and I will be checking back for other comments on LKS’s post to update this post should it be required, just to keep the conversation going.

A short note on online-polls. I had said something about this earlier, here. I really do think that polling is a small concern, but an important one nonetheless depending on the uses to which the said poll may be put to. Garnering opinions is a tricky business, and there are so many ways to cast information in a negative or favourable light, depending on your party political affiliation, or even depending on your beliefs: it’s always a matter of interpretation, and the “opinion on the ground” such as it is, can become a political tool.
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Sourcing for info on the internet’s one thing, and knowing the limits of what you have is quite the other. The mistake, I think, is to take opinions that arise out of a particular sub-culture and then collate that information for use, no matter how fundamentally flawed it is. I think it’ll be interesting to dissect a reply from Politics101 which comments on Mack Zulkifli’s post here. The above are useful for background.

From Politics101:

“It would be gullible for anyone to believe Kit was planning to use the results of the poll in its raw form and present it to parliament ala MPs” APs-style. Unless one knows for certain, one can only speculate on the form it would be used.”

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I think he gets it right again: just why are the MPs so worked up over the exposure of their AP ownerships? Is it a reaction against arm-twisting or is it something more? Mr Pereira notes:

So why was there such a sledgehammer reaction by the MPs to the release of the list? Perhaps because Rafidah is vulnerable.

Perhaps because there is little downside in going after someone who appears to be nearing the end of her political shelf-life, more so a minister who once moved around with such swagger.

Perhaps, because there is so much negative vibes about APs that no one wants to be linked to this policy, even if they have legitimate reasons for being recipients.

Whatever their reasons, Rafidah does not owe anyone an apology for letting the public know which MPs got APs.

If transparency over the automotive policy is what everyone in this country craves, then Malaysians must get the unvarnished version.

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Oh, man, the conclusions drawn are priceless: if you should not say X, the right to say X, Y and Z should be denied to you. Did you get that part? I’m referring to the NST article “Up to no good” over here. Basically if you “peddle racial and religious prejudice”, said peddler should be denied the right to free speech. I’m not even paraphrasing, it’s all there:

Indeed, there is a strong case not to extend the right of free speech to those who peddle racial and religious hatred.

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If you’ve watched this clip on the DAP website here, you will see a far different Nazri confronting LKS on the former’s insinuation of Chin Peng being the ‘bapa kemerdekaan’ for DAP. We should all take lessons from the short clip: having an insinuation well-delivered with the right strategy will do far more damage to your opponent than your own insinuation. And this is simply from the heated response that obtains from your opponent.
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The word “tolerance” has various meanings. My favourite is its characterization as lying between that of soft-headedness and narrow-mindedness, per Aristotle. I’m wondering how this is evaluatively different from the very romanticized ideal of the word “tolerance”, and one at the core of democracy, that one should tolerate the other, in the other’s interests and goals, while respecting one’s own. As discussed previously, multi-culturalism is basically the bracketing of one’s own interests and goals to appreciate the other’s. Multi-culturalism: it has become a precept, dogma of democracy.

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The message: let’s not try to create hostility in our country, says Deputy Internal Security Minister Chia Kwang Chye.

The incredulity: there’s no hostility already meh?!

The abstract:

“We will not tolerate messages that can cause disharmony in the country.

“Stern action will be taken against those who try to create hostility in the country,” said Deputy Internal Security Minister Chia Kwang Chye.

He said existing laws such as the Sedition Act and Multimedia and Communication Act would be used against those who post such remarks on the Internet.

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When you’ve got to stay above the shit, you’ve got to stay above the shit. It’s a matter of having the right stools for the job, failing which, grab an inflatable and make like a floater. The consequences of not staying above the shit is having your aspirations flushed away like yesterday’s curdled remains.

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An excellent writeup from Brendan Pereira today, over here, which I read just after reading Totoro’s entry on cost of living. Mr Pereira makes an interesting point about the political costs of reducing fuel subsidies to PM Badawi; it’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s something we need desperately. As the price of raw crude escalates on a global level, our inability to remain competitive despite such increases except with government subsidies is troubling.

Mr Pereira remarks:
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Firstly, a link to Mahathir’s controversial keynote address here.

I found the speech interesting, full of rhetorical fervor and worded in just the right ways that seem to defend wrongs in one’s country by pointing out the ‘log in your eye’. All that’s well and good, but in effect does nothing to mitigate the singular fact: that there were human rights abuses — ignored in his speech — and that these occurred during Mahathir’s reign.

Those are plain, “simple” facts for which expediency was the main reason, expediency and it seems, political survival. While the overriding hypocrisy of a global, ‘concerned’ humanist majority shouldn’t be missed, it shouldn’t overwhelm the “simple” fact that there were instances of repression in our country which do amount to wrongs.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

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Tun Mahathir’s been saying quite a bit of things about the revamped Proton, which still a headless chicken as far as I’m concerned. A September 7th article in the EdgeDaily carries a short interview with the Man concerning Proton’s future and the current state of events in his pet project. Much of what he’s said is in his own characteristic style: protestations of ignorance couched in words meant to infuse the listening public with the impression that he’s not exactly being truthful. Politician’s sophistry? Maybe:

“Well, I don’t know. I have not been told about these things but you are going to find a lot of things wrong with Proton now,” said the former prime minister, in response to a question on a news report that Proton may shelve plans for a production plant in China.

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Discussions over at Politics101 on Ronnie Liu’s ‘alternative’ history have brought into question the action of communists during the Emergency. Far from being revisionist, Mr Liu’s statement makes certain claims about ‘true national heroes’ which, though they resonate true, are put across seemingly in contradistinction to the former Prime Ministers of the country.

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I was inspired after visiting M. Bakri Musa’s blog where he discusses the work of Kassim Ahmad, a man I do not know, but whose ideas I am now begining to read about. Mr Ahmad’s seminal work, it appears, is an honours thesis on the characterization of two Malay heroes, that of Hang Jebat and Hang Tuah. He basically turns the common interpretation of that legend on its head, in an analysis of principles and loyalty in these two giants of Malay myth and legend.

Check out M. Bakri Musa’s blog here.
En Kassim Ahmad’s blog is here.

Do visit them, you will find yourself pleasantly surprised by the insights therein.

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Mills on the tyranny of the majority, from On Liberty, is quoted below. I think they present a pertinent, existing problem with majorities and such, in reference to discussions in my previous post. Tangentially related, perhaps? Maybe not.

“But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect themselves.
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