Disqus - Latest Comments for wankongyew

Re: POLICE INVESTIGATION: Moving Back To Wordpress

wankongyew — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:39:37 -0000

Why aren't you simply using a web hosting company that isn't in Malaysia? You could backup your database now and just point your domain name to another server if they shut the local hosting down.

Re: Anwar Ibrahim: Najib…’unleashes his brutality and violence on the people’

wankongyew — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:50:18 -0000

But you're generally an admirer of Mahathir, right? How do you reconcile that admiration with the fact that this probably Mahathir Part 2?

Re: Elizabeth Wong NUDE PHOTO Scandal. RESIGN.

wankongyew — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:20:29 -0000

Sure, if I had a daughter and she consented to it.

Re: Western Values….

wankongyew — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:54:13 -0000

A pretty good summary of the areas that we disagree with. Not sure if you're up to reading this at the moment, with your police troubles and all (sympathies again), but I'll probably post a longer version on my own blog, so here's a first draft:

"The West have always criticised Asian values, whether lifetime employment in Japan or our emphasis on family life."

Ambiguous. Leftists in the West have always praised lifetime employment in Japan. In any case, it no longer exists in Japan, so that aspect at least is irrelevant now. And both the Democratic and Republican parties claim to be the party of the family.

This is why criticizing that the West de-emphasizes familial ties is a cheap shot. Be specific. I can be specific: Asians think that blood ties trump everything, so if a family member breaks the law, one should help that family member regardless of whether or not he or she was actually guilty. Is that what you were thinking of when?

"Disconnected from their family and traditions and not particularly attached to their other family, the organisations that they work for."

Again, not a fair comment. I know Westerners who treat Christmas as a big family reunion affair and I know Chinese who ignore Chinese New Year. As for traditions, well, in the West, there tend not to be tribal / racial traditions, but there are religious ones. I'm not sure what the argument here even is. Traditions are good? In what way? Are they supposed to make society more peaceful? More productive? More stable?

"It’s as if the West wants us to be drifters with less family and social support that multinational corporations can just squeeze in their blind pursuit of the bottom line."

Social support? The West has far better social safety nets than Asian countries tend to have. True, in the west the safety nets is managed formally and run by the state than families. But how is that a bad thing? An individual should have the same basic level of social security, regardless of whether or he or she has a big family or not, and whether his or her family is rich or not, no?

"When we worship our Gods, our beliefs are derided as medieval or superstitious."

Gods in the plural? Are you still a Christian? This isn't a Western or Eastern thing. Liberals in the U.S. call the Bible-thumpers in the red states medieval and superstitious all the time too.

"It’s as if, without democracy and America, the rest of the world will just shrivel up and die."

I don't know what the "without America" part comes from, but the democracy part I agree with. Democracy is the only way because all humans all over the world are fundamentally the same. I'd really more time to go into this but I strongly disagree with the notion that whether or not democracy is right for a people depends on the tradition of that people.

"But it’s the West who sucked the financial systems dry."

Assuming that you mean the ongoing financial crisis, I would say that this is too facile and simplistic. In any case, you've admitted previously that you have no head for economics and can't really concentrate enough to understand the issues that led up to the crisis, so isn't it a little silly to have such strong emotions over something that you admit you don't understand fully.

Eh, enough for today. I have too much to do on Monday. I'll need to work on this a bit more.

Re: PRESS STATEMENT: Police Investigation For Sedition

wankongyew — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:19:41 -0000

I've noticed that a few bloggers including Tony Pua has picked up on your story, but so far haven't seen anything about you in the mainstream news outlets. As always, hope you come out of this okay. (And I suppose this is crass of me to say at this time, but this is really why human rights and democracy are important. Democracy cannot guarantee a fair and just society, but no society can ever be free or just without being democratic.)

Also, er, whatever happened to all the people who like to comment on your blog?

Re: Police Investigation

wankongyew — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:48:20 -0000

You write plenty of things that I disagree with but there is absolutely no condoning of governments censoring free speech in my book. Best of luck on this one.

Re: Elizabeth Wong NUDE PHOTO Scandal. RESIGN.

wankongyew — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:48:57 -0000

So you're saying that it is adultery even though she's not married. How do you figure that?

From the Wikipedia page on Adultery:

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and another person who is not his or her spouse, though in many places it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someone who is not her husband and in others it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someone without the permission of her husband. In most cases, in Western countries, only the married party is said to have committed adultery, and if both parties are married (but not to each other) then they both commit separate acts of adultery. In other countries, both parties to the adultery are considered guilty, while in others again only the woman is able to commit adultery and to be considered guilty.

Re: Elizabeth Wong NUDE PHOTO Scandal. RESIGN.

wankongyew — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:25:36 -0000

Like many others, I'm not sure on what basis you're condemning Ms. Wong. What does Malaysia's official religion being Islam and her being a government official have anything to do with it? Ms. Wong is not a Muslim after all. If you want to insist that all Malaysian government officials need to behave in accordance to Islamic rules even if they aren't Muslim, you'd also need to insist that all of the Chinese officials in government refrain from eating pork etc.

I had sex before marriage. I do not regret it and do not think that it was morally wrong. Maybe you do think that I'm immoral. In that case, I'm glad you're not in charge of the government.

Re: Wordpress Plugin: Collapsing ARCHIVES

wankongyew — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:57:31 -0000

Hey, this one's actually pretty cool. I was wondering how to emulate the Blogger archives on Wordpress a while back but could only find some pretty clumsy alternatives.