Category: Liberty

Categories
Liberty Society

[951] Of Islamic law for southern Thailand and Singaporean killing fest

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont suggested the introduction of Islamic law in the troubled south:

BANGKOK, Nov. 7 (Reuters) — Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, in another significant gesture to Muslim insurgents in the far south, said Tuesday that Islamic law should be given a bigger role there.

He also said the only condition his post-coup government would impose for talks with the insurgents was that there should be no discussion of separation.

Mr. Surayud told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand that Shariah, or Islamic law, should be allowed in the area, where 80 percent of the people are ethnic Malay and Muslim.

Does the insurgency in southern Thailand revolve around Malay separatism/nationalism or the demand for Islamic law?

It might well be both but in my opinion, granting autonomy power to the Malay Thai states would be a better solution to a top down introduction of Islamic law by Bangkok.

In Singapore:

[…] they do not respond to government campaigns and directives. So they have to be shot.

“I myself have killed, I would say, about 40,000 of them,” Mr. Lim said, working in spare time from his job as a Web site editor.

Alright. Alright. I quoted it out of context. It really was about crows culling. Still, it isn’t too different to Singaporean politics, is it?

Not to mention the barbaric act of killing itself…

Categories
Economics Liberty

[946] Of is liberty an end or a mean?

In reading libertarian literature, it’s relatively easy to find an idea that states that liberty is not a mean but rather, it’s the end. However inspiring the idea might be, is it true that liberty isn’t a mean but instead, the highest political end?

The reason I’m asking this question is that I’m uncertain if liberty is the highest political end. Rather, I think happiness is the highest political end.

In economics, students will learn the concept of saturation point of a person. This is the theoretical point where all wants and needs of the person are satisfied and another unit of “wants and needs” good won’t increase the well being of the individual. Let me demonstrate this concept.

If a monkey has one million bananas and it’s impossible for this monkey to finish it all while discounting temporal issue — to make it clearer, the monkey is so full that another banana down its throat would cause puking, and this would happen before the monkey get to its 1,000,000th banana, discounting interest rate — would the monkey be happy with the addition of one more banana to its wealth, if the monkey could count at all?

No.

From purely economic point of view, happiness is achieved through the fulfillment of wants and needs. This comes from the concept of utility which is the basis of welfare economics. Through this, I’d postulate that restriction to the satisfaction of wants and needs leads to unhappiness. Extrapolating the idea, the pursuit of happiness will include commodity trading (why must it includes trade? Remember why trade occurs in the first place!), whatever the commodity might be, physical or spiritual, if it’s tradable. In order to trade to pursue happiness, a person must be free to trade.

However, surely if one is free to do anything but yet, the person is unable to improve his welfare by moving closer to his saturation point, such true liberty is useless. Surely, liberty is useless when a person is unable to achieve happiness.

Through this, it seems to me that liberty is only a mean to achieve happiness with happiness being the end, not liberty.

This begs another question, is there any other mean to achieve happiness besides liberty? Is it possible to achieve happiness without liberty? Not just economic liberty but liberty in general.

I need to read more. Through experience however, I’m inclined to say without liberty, achieving happiness is harder than it should be.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[945] Of Saddam Hussein’s verdict

Former President of Iraq is sentenced to death:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to death by hanging for war crimes in the 1982 killings of 148 people in the town of Dujail, as the former leader, trembling, shouted “God is great!”

As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to hang, Saddam yelled out, “Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!”

Though a dictator he was, merciless in his reign, I feel a hint of pity for him. From my point of view, life imprisonment would suffice. A little show of mercy would have been more powerful as an example than a simple act of revenge.

Categories
Books, essays and others Liberty

[941] Of Burgess’ banned in Malaysia

Roughly a year ago, I wanted to read more of Burgess’ work. Specifically, I was aiming for The Long Day Wanes, also known as the Malayan Trilogy. I looked for it but the search was unsuccessful. In place of the trilogy, I bought Burgess’ The Wanting Seed instead. Interesting read but I wish I had bought The Long Day Wanes. I tried my luck at several other stores looking for it for several weeks but the effort proved futile.

Sure, there’s Amazon. However, the shipping cost is more than 100% of the novel’s price. I’m not willing to pay that much for it.

A few days ago, I found out the reason why it’s hard to find the trilogy through a post by Sharon Bakar. According to a list compiled by local authority, as provided by Silverfish Books, the Malayan Trilogy is banned in Malaysia. More specifically, it is “restricted”.

Interestingly enough, Making Globalization Work by Prize in Economics winner, Joseph Stiglitz is also banned.

Anyway, I and few friends plan to gather together and discuss about book censorship in a few weeks time. The list provided by Silverfish is not the impetus for the discussion however. Nevertheless, it provides a nice background for the discussion. So, here I am, opening the invitation to my readers. If you’re interested, just howl at me.

Nothing concrete has been planned yet. So please be patience at the rate which information flows out.

Categories
Liberty

[937] Of disband the moral police and strengthen democratic institutions instead

Remember the disgraceful thugs?

Well, the moral police department spokesperson said that the harassment on the American couple was done according to procedures:

ALOR STAR: Religious enforcement officers followed procedures when conducting a khalwat (close proximity) raid at the condominium in Langkawi rented by an American couple.

This shows that the case is systematic in nature, not isolated. So, all the more reason to get rid of it. We better disband it quickly before it hurts our economy further.

All those resources used to support the moral police department should be diverted to effort to build lasting democratic institutions. Like the reinstatement of local elections for instance. The reinstatement of local elections is one of the best ways to prevent councilors and representatives like Zakaria Md Deros from abusing power granted to them.