Something is wrong with how the government governs the country. Everytime I write a cheque to pay for my income tax, I always have this reluctance to send the cheque but since it is a statutory requirement, I pay all my taxes in full as any good citizens do. But the contract with the government is such that the citizens pay taxes in return for protection mostly (whether from physical harm or a sort of a social security net) and secondly to enjoy the infrastructural improvements that the government should endeavour to improve the standard of living of its citizen.
Every time I write the cheque, I question what am I paying for, I question the unwritten social contract and I get really very angry each time because my personal opinion is that I am at the short end of this so-called social contract.
Just to quote from my own experience, I don’t really feel safe. In my very short time, my car has been stolen before, my house broken into, my mom hurt by snatch thieves, my brother in law’s car almost stolen, my colleague’s daughter hospitalised due to snatch thieve, another colleagues’ house broken into, etc. etc. The incidence of these happening is just too often and just too wide spread. In the news, we read of so many cases of rape, of kidnapping and of murder. What is happening to our society??? What are the authorities doing??? As I type, I get angrier and angrier and I am already been generally considered as a calm and reasonable person. But all these is just so unbearable. This horrible state of a society that we are living in. There is no peace. We are always scared. A country cannot be a good country when its citizens are always scared.
Infrastructure? Look at the roads! Pot holes every where, unfinished and shoddy road jobs, horrible transportation system. What the hell is wrong with those people holding power? The fact that we elected them is so that they can do something good for us good, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens but alas! this is just not the case.
Corruption is one big, big sore in this country. Doubtless, the prime minister is working of weeding out corruption with the arrest of some sharks but the corruption is just too wide spread and just goes too deep. Someone needs to really go beneath it and root it out from the roots. Just arresting a few people here and there will not work. After the heat, corruption will hit us back with a vengeance! A few top immigration guys arrested? Well, will the people that is working in the immigration department stop corruption, if any (ahem), just because some top guys got arrested? Ask me privately and I will let you know. Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t know. Ahem.
Corrupted, lazy SOB they all!!!! (maybe…)
More on some Happenings
Following from my earlier post, consider the following:
From the pages of Malaysiakini.com:
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On Yoga
The National Fatwa Council will be issuing a ruling soon relating to yoga exercise, which is deemed to be deviationist in nature for the Muslims.
Yesterday, UKM lecturer Prof Zakaria Stapa advised Muslims who have taken up yoga – a widely popular exercise which has its roots to India and Hinduism – to stop practising it for fear that it could deviate them from their belief.
“If the Muslims want a healthy body, prayers are the right choice… why must we find alternate ways… a single mistake can deviate our teachings as yoga movements follow the style and tradition of Hinduism,” he was reported as saying.
On Tomboyism
Council chairperson Abdul Shukor had said that many young women admired the way men dress, behave and socialise, violating human nature and denying their feminity.
“It is unacceptable to see women who love the male lifestyle including dressing in the clothes men wear,” Abdul Shukor was quoted as saying.
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There will be a day when probably silat, Tai Chi and many other things may be banned too.
Sometimes I wonder how the brains of certain people are wired. It is really amazing how the whole thought process is done to reach such a conclusion. Isn’t this amazing?
Isolation, isolation, isolation.
Isolation, from many lessons in history, can only lead to the downfall and decline of civilisation. Of course there are other reasons for the decline of civilisation but isolation is one of them.
The human race progress through exploration and embracing new thoughts and ideas and improving on such thoughts and ideas. Never has there been big progresses in human history that results from the isolation of a community/race. Take for example the Ming dynasty in China. China was once the greatest super power on earth but through a series of policies that is skewed towards isolation, the Chinese civiliation was surpassed and then later made slave. Isolation is a bad word.
Actually, there is no need to go and read history. Just contemplate and think from everyday living. From just thinking about it, we see a thousand reasons why isolation is bad. It creates just so much negative energy and perception.
It is human folly to isolate themselves thinking that by isolating, one preserves what is good and let the other people rot in hell. In fact, most of the religion has ideas along this line. But as human beings becomes more enlightened, we should have the wisdom to know that this human “instinct” that probably has roots in our caveman days is bad and should strive, as enlightened human beings with wisdom, to remove this “instinct” from our DNA and instead foster brotherhood, goodwill, open-mindedness, respect for each other’s way of life, all embracing, all good and well. Never should there be any ill feelings, prejudice. Never should one be racist.
It is a responsibility of us human beings as citizens of the world to strive hard for such a world so that our children, our children’s children etc. will live in an enlightened world.
Dogmatism, dogmatism, dogmatism.
A person should have a free mind and learn how to think for himself or herself. As adults or guardians, the responsibility is to teach people how to think correctly with guiding principles and not being dogmatic and force people to think in a certain way, to be thought police. In history, this is also apparent, where all efforts to be thought police failed miserably. Again, to use Chinese history, think of the Cultural Revolution during Mao’s era. It was a huge disaster! Never should people in positions of power force thoughts on other people. People should be free to choose for themselves and be responsible for their own actions. Guidance and teachings can be imprated and encouraged, but never forced.
No matter how good the intention to force a certain thought, eventually the whole exercise will turn bad and will eventually become an abuse of power. It is inevitable. We must teach our children how to think, not what to think. This is very important.
Come to think of it, it is not easy to live as an enlightened, responsible, sensible and reasonable person in this age of turbulence but it is our responsibility to ensure that the future of mankind is such, that we and our institutions are capable of producing human beings of quality, human beings that are not afraid to uphold justice, human beings that are not afraid to hold their heads high, believing in the best that is in us human beings and fighting for that freedom to be sensible and reasonable.
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