[poet]

The People's Action Party has a long history of suing political opponents for defamation and bankrupting them with judgements handed down by the courts. This contradicts your claims that (1) Singapore has a good judicial system and (2) Singapore's government has less corruption. To be frank I don't think you have the correct picture of Singapore's government at all and you've been taken in like so many others. Order and peace in Singapore is bought by corruption and intimidation behind the scenes.

The following essay on the subject is worth your time: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v006/6.3br....

[kablamo]

I accept Singapore is not a democracy and has less political free speech than the West. That doesn't make it corrupt. Singapore is ranked the 5th least corrupt country in the world. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corrupt....

The PAP sues its opponents for defamation. Has your government ever done anything worse?

You mention one small piece of the pie of justice: political free speech. What about property rights, banking law, business law, immigration law, tax law, criminal law, etc? I think you need to show a much broader pattern of abuse to say the judicial system isn't fair.

I'm actually a libertarian. Its taken some time for me to reconcile that with my support of Singapore. Basically, I believe Singapore is more free than most Western countries although sometimes in different ways.

You can quibble about minor issues, but in my experience the government delivers good service, safe streets, a growing economy, and opportunity to the vast majority of Singaporeans.

[poet]

I'm not sure how you think anyone could take you seriously when you call the systemic suppression of political opponents a "minor issue".

[kablamo]

I assume you feel the suppression of political opponents is a major issue because it causes a government to become corrupt, abusive, and make bad decisions without the accountability that comes from criticism and competition. I agree.

But Singapore has made good decisions and hasn't been abusive or corrupt. (No government is without sin or without mistakes, so I mean Singapore isn't abusive or corrupt compared to the US and Europe.) Their economy has boomed, their standard of living has risen dramatically in a short period of time. Aren't you curious about how they did it?

Political systems have evolved and improved throughout history and will continue to do so. Western democracy is not the best government that will ever exist on Earth.