I agree with all the points that Jin Fu, Haozhi and Chester have raised. However, i would like to elaborate more on the last point that Jin Fu has raised. In my opinion, i would not worry about the minority being suppressed to the point that they would start a civil war. Although it has happened before in history, the world is much more globalized these days. If a government is mistreating the minority too much, the other countries would certainly step in to provide mediation. In any case, in my opinion, Sri Lanka is a isolated case, as the races were already having racial tension long before democracy was implemented, although it did cause certain problems.

In singapore's context, the political power is already slowly shifting towards opposition. Although PAP is still holding a monopoly on the votes, many threats are already beginning to appear. Yeah, i agree that there should be a check on the maximum power the majority can hold. If left unchecked, it could potentially be a big problem in facing the minority.

SS Discussion-6

I think we have agreed to a macro view instead of going into micro details. Therefore i feel there is no need to go into further minor case studies all over the world since as mentioned before, different societies has different circumstances.

However before rounding up a discussion, i feel that since we are looking at the strengths of democracy along a general line (citizen's right to freedom of opinion etc.), we should also look at its weakness along the general fields. Since we cannot define society due to its vagueness of conditions, we can weigh the general strengths against the general weakness and therefore come to a conclusion on whether democracy creates stability in societies in general.

So far, to summarize its weaknesses:

1. Popular vote may not be the best vote for the country i.e. Majority is not always right
2. Voters might be biased against the country and more for themselves.
3. Voters may be inadequately informed and ignorant to the full picture, thus making uninformed decisions. ( Could be the dominant force calling the bluffs in act of deceit).
4. Immaturity of voters in democracy, therefore allocating more votes to the better decision makers could prove better, however it goes against equal power of individual vote in democracy. (i.e. the class room setting, whereby the teacher's vote should count more).
5. This is something new i wish to raise. Though democracy allows us to voice out our opinions, it is the majority that wins in the end and the power of the majority could be too overwhelming to an extent the rights of the minority is suppressed, resulting in violent rebellion. (Think Sri Lanka) The decision process is fair since it goes by majority, but there is need for a check-pace, and is opposition really successful in giving that check? (Dominating political party) -Think Singapore, appearing as democratic, but is it really that way?

I think, since we have agreed on the strengths, we should agree on the weakness before coming to a conclusion. Please discuss.

Disclaimer: My use of case studies is not to stabalize the point of view, but to just give a clearer picture of what i am saying.

SS discussion

I guess we can do away with the possibility of citizens voting for a weak leader due to immaturity. This involves making a major assumption and it is impossible to get majority of the country to focus their votes on an incapable ruler. We should include more examples in our discussion and from the looks of it, our discussion is definitely geared towards supporting the statement: Democracy creates stability in a society.

Haozhi's point number one is indeed a strong backing up for our argument. The system and political ideals are greatly influenced by the citizens and as a result, stability ensues as everyone is appeased and satisfied at the treatment they are receiving and no discrimination is shown as the opinions of every ethnic group is taken into consideration.

Opposition parties act as another one of the important benchmarks. They constantly ensure that the policies are for the good of us citizens and continuously suggest improvement and this is largely beneficial as part of a democratic country thus, allowing the existence of these opposition parties. It would better push the development of our country and speed up its progress.

I think next, we should examine different forms of government or other examples of democracy taking place in countries. It would further bolster our argument greatly by providing examples and currently, our stand is quite strong through the various rebuttal of chen wei's points which are against democracy.

Representative democracy present in the parliament is inevitable to ensure tongues do not wag in the country. Ultimately, we still practise democracy and take into account the key factor of democracy's success which is freedom of expression. However, there is a limit as well and negative ideas should not be voiced out as they do not pose any benefits towards our country. We should not conclude the argument yet but examine more case studies and bolster the strength and cogency of our argument.

Chester Yan (5)
3B

Blog Discussion Concluding Ideas

hmm, after reading all the various points of view and stated reason, it is evidently clear that our group members are for the idea of that democracy do bring about stability in societies.

Below are some of the points we have raised.

1) Stability is brought forth as the ruling government has the backing and support of majority of the people

2) In a democratic nation, there would be opposition parties, which serve as a check and balance, and in turn spur for the development of the country

3) In a democratic nation, the freedom to voice out opinions are more emphasized which rules out/minimize the social hierachy or the discrimination of a race

4) as most democratic nation, there would be representatives permanently in the parliment to make sure that their ethnic/religious groups righs are not protected, that would be somewhat touching on the idea of representative democracy

However certain points of contention would be the fact that Democracy is unable to be implemented as 'transparently' and as 'freely' in certain societies, as chen wei has previously brought up.

Although this may be true, but we would be pin pointing specific examples and groups, but we would fail to see the big picture of what the question is asking, which is whether democracy creates stability in societies generally. As such, i would still agree that democracy does bring forth stability.

Another point of contention would be the fact that the audience and people would not have the maturity to vote for the right leader, but instead vote another weak leader as a result of perhaps any factor, his good looks as example. However, once again we would be microdiscussing the question and we should perhaps disregard this point of, or place little importance of this.

I am still quite sure that our group's movement of idealogy supports the fact that democracy creates stability in societies? perhaps someone could also conclude the entire argument?


Quek Hao Zhi (21)
3B

I fear that Jin Fu has misunderstood some of the points i was trying to communicate through my previous post. Well, just for clarification, I was trying to view the issue from your point of view, and give my opinion that some ideas that you have expressed was correct. Actually, i was trying to bring across the point that while some democracies may work for a certain situation, we may need to use a different type of democracy in order to effectively confront another situation. On the issue of LKY, i am not saying that he alone brought the change we see in Singapore today. I was saying that Lee Kuan Yew could play the role of the unbiased patriotic leader who chooses potential successors to Singapore because he truly cares about the well-being of Singapore.

However, based on the many examples of societies in the world today, i do agree that the majority of the societies have benefited from having democracy to ensure stability. In my opinion, the benefits of democracy would include economic and military issues, as i stated in my previous post; as governments would strive to bring benefit to all areas of our society in order to keep their popularity.

Chia Chen Wei (7) 3B

SS Discussion-4

Well, i do not understand the sudden change of mind of chen wei. But i would like to raise a few questions. What is the right democracy and what is the wrong democracy? As mentioned in your post. Did LKY not maintain a democratic system or at least make it look like it to gain support? If you are using the singapore context, please look carefully before thinking that dictatorship or a pure naturally talented leader brought us to success, afterall, the PAP was also voted in for popularity.

Now let's not fall into this specific example and stay ontop of specific circumstances. I feel that what we need to debate over is, considering the strengths and weaknesses of democracy, how often/frequent is it successful in societies in creating stability. My stand so far is that it is definitely high.

But then again, we've been arguing purely on social and political stability. Ever ventured into military and economic areas? Furthermore, the point on political stability is kind of vague, pure democracy allows many political parties, will that shake the political foundations of a country?

Jin Fu (14) 3B

Just to apply my concept in our local context, I feel that Singapore would be able to benefit from what i have proposed. In our context, that unbiased, patriotic leader could be Lee Kuan Yew. He has given up so much for Singapore, and is known to be a great patriotic man who has achieved international acclaim. However, i do agree with the fact that it may be difficult to find such a man in many other societies of the world. If we are arguing in the context of a general society, it would indeed be difficult for such perfect conditions to appear within a society, the conditions that i have previously mentioned.

I feel that if we are to use democracy in a society, we should choose the correct type of democracy to fit that particular situation. If the wrong type of democracy is chosen, it just might end up in instability.

In previous posts, it is mentioned that Democracy grants free will, which in turn appeases the citizens such that there will not be instability in the country. I feel that it should not be a complete democracy and free will, as certain ideas brought up would potentially danger the country.

Meanwhile, i would like to just propose a few points for why Democracy is acceptable. It is one of the more successful types of government in our modern society. I do agree with Jin Fu's idea that having the majority backing of a policy or the government would greatly help the country in its development. Having the majority backing a policy would ensure that the country would be able to successfully move towards having that policy implemented without much fuss.

It would also be able to ensure stability in the country, as in the worst case scenario, having the minority rebel would of course be better than having the majority turn on the country. It would be easier to appease the minority who are rebelling compared to the majority. As such, democracy would be able to help in the aspect of damage control and stability.

Democracy would also give the people a chance for much freedom in politics. If a person is not pleased with the way the government runs things, he can start his own party and challenge the government for the votes of the people. In this aspect, i feel that democracy creates stability by helping to appease the needs of the citizens, so that they will not complain about having no outlets for freedom. This would solve any possible social and political instabilities.

The party in control of the government would also be pressured to do a good job, lest they get replaced by a new government. They would strive to implement more policies, please the people, improve the country etc. so that people would continue to vote for them. This would ensure a good competitive spirit such that the country would be able to remain competitive globally and not fall into any economic instabillity.


Chia Chen Wei (7) 3B