Category: Society

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Liberty Politics & government Society

[2370] Is longer national service the solution?

The Malaysian Defense Minister said that the national service might be extended.[1] He reportedly said that three months were too short a duration to develop noble character and sense of patriotism. The suggestion to extend the program is not new. The then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak himself suggested in 2007 that “one year is most ideal, but two years would be better.”

Implicitly, the effort by the government to extend the duration suggests that the program in its current form has failed.

When it was first introduced, it was described as if it was a panacea. But a panacea it is not.

After 18 years exposed to the Malaysian reality, it is hard to believe a 3-month make-belief, propagandistic summer camp will undo what some perceived as unwanted behaviors and worldview shaped by the society by much, never mind that the government itself partly contributes to the problem through the mangled education system. Those in the government know this. Else, they would not have wanted to extend the duration.

While there are reasons to believe by stretching the duration longer may make the program more effective for better or for worse — for me, it is the worse — it is easy to parallel this to the sunk cost fallacy. A program fails and somehow by investing more into it, it will work. If indeed a longer program will fail just as it has failed in its current form, that would mean more public money wasted. Already the program is costing more than RM500 million per year according Khairy Jamaluddin.[2]

If the extension would improve the program, I would still oppose it. I oppose the program on principle, not because of its duration or its general farce.

While the current Malaysian national service is a misnomer — especially when compared to proper program that exists in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea that has militaristic aspects — the Malaysian version is still conscription. It is a draft. Extending the duration only makes the draft worse, never mind that for many, it is an interruption to their education plan.

Never mind the deaths associated with the program. Having a program that runs more than 3 months will increase the likelihood and the cases of death in the program. For a summer camp that is not really part of the national defense force, it is deadly farce.

The national service is unneeded. All of its objectives and modules — in its website, the four modules are physical training, nation-building,  character-building and community service[3] — can be done in schools. Or better, voluntarily in or outside of schools.

Did you not do all these things while in elementary and high schools? Oh wait, even if you did, it was within a largely Malay environment, a largely Chinese environment, etc. And the government is supporting that system.

The fact that the national service is considered necessary by the power that says something about the public education system: it is defective. One would expect the solution is to improve the system.

But no. To some, the solution is to introduce another compulsory program that has shown to fail.

A failed program to augment a defective education system.

What a policy.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – The National Service training programme’s three-month period may be extended, said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He added that the ministry was studying the possibility as three months was too short a time to develop noble characters and foster a sense of patriotism.

“The matter will be discussed at a meeting of the National Service Training Council,” he told reporters after the presentation of 2010 National Service Training Department Excellent Service awards at the ministry here yesterday. [NS term may be extended. The Star. May 27 2011]

[2] — Khairy sebelum ini meminta kerajaan mengurangkan pembelanjaan untuk program yang dikatakannya kurang berkesan dan menelan belanja yang besar contohnya Program Latihan Khidmat Negara (PLKN) yang memakan belanja RM560 juta setahun. [Tempoh Latihan PLKN Mungkin Dipanjangkan – Zahid. Bernama. May 26 2011]

[3] — See Training Module at Jabatan Latihan Khidmat Negara. Accessed May 28 2011

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2365] Should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia? A libertarian perspective

Utusan Malaysia recently alleged that Malaysian Christian heads were conspiring to make Christianity the official religion of Malaysia. The conservative Malay daily cited two blogs of questionable credibility to back its front-page report. For a society highly conscious of  ethnicity and religion issues, the report caused uproar and tension between various communities.

Assuming the allegation is false which is likely the case, should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia for reporting it and in effect, spreading falsehood?

Our incentive system is imperfect to say the least. It is not at all surprising to have somebody spreading falsehood, lying or deceiving someone else to get what he or she wants in general. To complicate the matter, those acts might not by wrong all the times. There are times when those acts might be necessary to protect the innocents.

Even when those acts are wrong, unilateral public action through state authority might be out of the question with the principle of free speech in place, along with other typical individual rights.

Individual rights do not include the legitimization of fraud. Any action based on lies and falsehood that adversely affects individual rights cannot be condoned by the state or any authority invested with the powers to protect individual rights. It just cannot be let go off the hook.

One example is this: in a transaction, one party lies about the state of a good for sale to a person. If the person bought the good while supplied with false information, then the lying seller has obtained the money wrongly, with money being a private property of the purchaser. The right to private property is an individual right and the transaction based on deceit violates that right. The lying seller has to be punished by the state — unilaterally — since the prime rationale of the establishment of the state is the protection of individual rights according. The punishment is important not just for the sake of principle, but also for a very pragmatic reason. It is imposes a cost on such act and so discourages such fraud from recurring in the future.

Within the context of Utusan Malaysia and its recent controversial report, was there any violation of rights?

I cannot answer it in the affirmative. Therefore, I cannot to support unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. The best I can come up with is that the falsehood affects reputation. Yet, individual rights do not include reputation.

This of course does not mean individuals involved in the reporting — meaning the one reported involved the conspiracy — cannot seek redress against the Malay daily. Conflicts between private parties have always happened and a trustworthy third party can and has always been appointed to resolve the conflicts. The third party here is usually the state. The third party’s judgment then is enforced to resolve the conflict as civil as possible.

In the case of interest, the group accused by the Malay daily can bring their grouse to the courts. If Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood and that the falsehood adversely affected the reputation of the group, then the daily should be compelled to compensate the group or be fined. The fate of the two bloggers should be the same as the Malay daily.

I like this route the best because it is clean. It makes the issue as a conflict between two private parties and makes the concern of unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia merely academic if indeed Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood (which, again, I do not doubt that is the case).

By making it private, it does not mean that there is no public interest in the case. There is but it is hard if not impossible to account for that interest and its very public effect without resorting to discretion.

If unilateral state action has to be taken — which I will contest its legitimacy — there may be a mechanism for that. Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia may have a mechanism that can be modified to justify unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. Be warned that I am taking the idea in a very restricted sense. Nozick is concerned with a much larger issue than that which I am focusing on now.

Early in the book, Nozick demonstrates how various insurance and compensation arrangements will address threats and actual transgressions of rights. Insurance and compensation arrangements here are simply different terms used for protection provided by an entity, which can be the state, a private security firm, a gangster group or other entities capable of provide that service. Meanwhile, threat is not simply some kind of warning or a menacing declaration that something will be done if something else is not done. Rather, it is the possibility of something bad happening. The chances of a pedestrian being hit accidentally by a car is one of such threats. The chances of a person makes good of his threat to break your leg is another example of such threats.

Nozick describes how a general open threat creates fear among the threatened. Depending on the credibility of threats and the level as well as the spread of fear the threats create, it will disrupt day-to-day activities of the person or even the society. In order words, there are costs imposed on society by the threats, regardless of realization of the threats.

I think this parallels concerns regarding lies and falsehood. It gives the qualification why some lies and falsehood should be punished. When lies and falsehood creates widespread public anxiety, then there is a case for unilateral state punishment. Under this line of thinking, the priority is fear minimization, or in the parlance of Malaysian political discourse, sedition or incitation of hatred. In the end, Utusan Malaysia clearly must be punished, if this method is adopted.

The question is how widespread before punitive unilateral state action should be taken?

This may require some kind of discretionary powers, which like any discretionary powers, are open to abuse.

The need of discretion is one reason why I do not like this method, on top of the fact it does not follow from the first principle aimed at the protection of individual rights.

Discretion tends to create dissatisfactory judgment. It will inevitably be inconsistent and in the end, ruin the reputation of the third party wielding the power to punish. Discretionary powers will lead to abuse.

The wielding and the exercise of the discretionary powers have caused troubles in the past. Some newspapers have been punished for publishing controversial material while others have been let go. Indeed, Utusan Malaysia has been let go off the hook by the government despite its controversial report of unverified truth. If reported by other newspapers less friendly to the government, that newspapers would have been punished.

So, long story short, no to unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia but yes to making the case a private conflict between two parties involved.

Categories
Society

[2358] An individualist response to Ioannis Gatsiounis

I watched a documentary once. It was about Muslims in America. There was a young female Muslim in New York with typical American lifestyle. She was not the conservative type and I am on confident of that. She did wear a scarf though and that probably tells you that she identified herself with Islam.

In one segment, she said she did not feel the need to come out in the open to condemn terrorist acts done by some Muslims in the name of Islam. She said she was not responsible for it and she would not apologize for others. They happened to share the same religion as her.

I am in complete agreement with her. I am not because I am trying to defend the religion and Muslims at large. I have grown to be so much a skeptic in the past few years that I am more likely to criticize religion, any religion for that matter, than to defend it.

I am in complete agreement with her because there is a mark of individualism in that statement.

More importantly, the individualism is very much libertarian. We are responsible for our own actions and no one else. Each one of us is responsible for our own actions.

It is for this reason that I do not buy the narrative that moderate Muslims must come out to condemn terrorism or any wrongful act done by fellow Muslims. I disagree with what Ioannis Gatsiounis wrote at The Malaysian Insider today, where he wrote that the Muslim community needs to express “collective expressions of joy and relief of bin Laden’s death” to help combat the suspicion that Muslims are quietly sympathizing Osama Bin Laden and his merry men in Al-Qaeda.[1]

And then, guilt by association is a fallacy, after all.

No doubt, there are Muslims who sympathize with Bin Laden. That however does not negate the individualist argument. Those Muslims are responsible for their own positions. Other Muslims theirs, as with other individuals regardless of beliefs out there in this world.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — Your initial reaction to news of Osama bin Laden’s death is telling. If you were disappointed, you no doubt harbour terrorist sympathies.

Of course, many non-Muslims have come to suspect many Muslims have been doing just that at least since 9/11. That impression may be inaccurate. But with repeated silence among moderate Muslims in the face of countless acts of terror committed in the name of Islam since 9/11, it’s easy to see why the suspicion arises [Hope for Islam’s image with bin Laden’s death. Ioannis Gatsiounis. The Malaysian Insider. May 3 2011]

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2346] Officer Dredd, the Blue Ocean Man

It is comforting that the Najib administration is showing some concerns about the size of government expenditure. They are doing something about it in some parts of government, even as the big picture offers a more complex and contradictory narrative. Yet, not all cuts in spending are right.

A reduction or saving cannot be done simply for the sake of reduction. That is mindless. There have to be principles behind all cuts.

For many skeptics of the state, that principle is small government. The concept demands the power of the state be kept in check. It advocates limiting the size of government while instituting a mechanism to counter the influence of the state.

As far as a system of check and balance is concerned, the idea of a small government is not an ideological extreme. A wall separating various offices — offices that if left together would corrupt the whole structure — prevails in any society subscribing to the supremacy of rule of law out of fear for potential abuse of power

That includes, believe it or not, Malaysian society. Even companies put in place some check and balance mechanism, even if in some cases it is only for show, and even if only to find scapegoats when something goes wrong like what is happening in certain government-linked companies in Malaysia.

A system of check and balance is expensive but one does not simply throw it out of the window for the sake of cutting cost. There is more at stake than failing to balance the budget.

For instance, one simply does not merge the functions of the police and the judges together to reduce government expenditure. The world of Judge Dredd — someone who is the police, judge, jury and executioner all at the same time — makes for a good comic but it is not ideal for the creation of a power abuse-free society.

Some believe in the separation wall. The Najib administration believes in the Blue Ocean Strategy. If the government is left to its own device, the blue ocean may inundate us all.

The Najib administration is encouraging closer co-operation between the police and the military. He said this was part of the Blue Ocean Strategy thinking. I call it the Officer Dredd thinking.

Some co-operation — having the military patrolling the border instead of the police and rehabilitating petty criminals in army camps instead of in prisons — seems innocent and even laudable at first glance. Not only it does cut cost, more importantly its rationale makes sense.

Others — having the police and the armed forces patrol the streets jointly and using of military facilities for police recruiting and training — are insidious in nature.

There is a reason behind the separation between the police and the military. The police force is concerned with mostly internal affairs. They are armed and trained accordingly. The traditional function of the military is to address external threats. The military does have additional roles in times of emergency but the qualifier is clear: only in times of emergency.

The awesome firepower of the military is the reason why it is not granted the wide-ranging power of the police force in a society under normal, peaceful times. Once merged, the forces will have extraordinarily wide powers that no single entity should have. It is a step closer towards military rule. Whoever wields this power will be the dictator. The gun will always be too hot for a free democracy.

For this reason, any co-operation between the police and the military deserves critical assessment and hostile suspicion.

Suspicions aside, is the finance of the government in such dire straits that the police and the military have to participate in someone else’s fascination with Blue Ocean Strategy and, in the process, tear down the separation wall?

If the situation is so bad, the government can take other more traditional avenues without adversely affecting any public check and balance mechanism.

There are 24 ministries in the Najib administration, not including the offices of the prime minister and the deputy prime minister. Do we need so many ministries, even more ministers and their deputies?

Some government ventures in the commercial world ended up needing bailouts. Does the government need to be in the business world?

More than 20 per cent of the RM67 billion worth of stimulus spending has yet to be spent as of March 2011, two years later. Does the Malaysian economy need that stimulus spending, if it was needed in the first place at all?

And there are multiple failed economic corridors courtesy of the Abdullah administration. Why is the Najib administration still propping them up?

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on April 6 2011.

Categories
Liberty Society

[2330] The police force and the military must remain separated

The roles of the police and the armed forces are different. One enforces the law while the other stands on guard against the enemy of the state. The difference in functions and in challenges both faces necessitate the two to be separated. When two security forces are combined, the power of the military expands. With that, there is a fear that the military might see everything that it faces as enemy of the state. The military becomes paranoid and then acts upon the policing power that it has. That is a step towards military rule.

I am raising this issue because I have read in the news recently that the police is cooperating with the military in fighting crime. In the Parliament yesterday, the Minister of Home Affairs confirms the news report.[1] He said that the Ministry was having strategic cooperation with several entities including the military. The cooperation includes the use of military camps for training and recruitment of police officers and joint patrol.

Whether this militarizes the police force is arguable, but what is certain is that it will expand the influence of the military in our society.

The goal of reducing crime rate in the country is laudable. The goal however does not justify all means. The rule of laws must still be adhered to. Rights must be respected, including those belonging to criminals. The goal also does not justify the erosion of separation between the police and the armed force.

The two must remain separated.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — Kementerian Dalam Negeri sedang dan akan mengadakan kerjasama strategik dengan pihak lain antaranya seperti Angkatan Tentera Malaysia yang telah dilaksanakan bagi menangani jenayah seperti penggunaan kem-kem tentera untuk melatih dan merekrut anggota polis, mengadakan rondaan-rondaan secara bersama dan menyerap bekas personel tentera dalam perkhidmatan polis. [Page 3. Hansard. March 9 2011.]