Stubbornness. Yes. Hillary is one damn stubborn Clinton.
Ahli Parlimen Tony Pua berjaya menanyakan soalan yang dekat dengan hati seorang libertarian beraliran minarkisme:
Ekonomi Malaysia sekarang amat bergantung kepada penggunaan kerajaan ataupun “public sector spending”, berbanding dengan negara-negara di Asia. Mengikut perangkaan daripada Merrill Lynch, sumbangan penggunaan keraajaan di Malaysia adalah sebanyak 24 peratus, berbanding dengan Taiwan 15%, Singapura 14%, Thailand 12% dan Hong Kong 10%. Pergantungan ekonomi Malaysia kepada sumbangan kerajaan adalah tidak sihat dan apakah langkah-langkah yang akan diambil oleh kerajaan supaya sumbangan penggunaan yang lain dapat ditingkatkan? [My First Supplementary Question! Philosophy Politics Economics. May 13 2008]
Beliau berjanji untuk menerangkan lebih lanjut tentang jawapan yang diterima beliau dari Timbalan Menteri Kewangan esok setelah Hansard dikeluarkan oleh pihak Parlimen.
p/s — Tony Pua berkongsi dengan para pembaca tentang jawapan yang diberi oleh Timbalan Menteri:
Apabila kita melihat dari segi GNP, kita melihat dari 2 sudut. Satu dari sudut output ataupun pengeluaran yang ini sumbangan dari sektor-sektor industri dan sektor-sekto industri sebagaimana kita maklum sektor perkhidmatan telah meningkat tinggi. Ini bermakna faktor key yang utama dalam pembangunan negara kita. Dari segi rancangan Malaysia, sektor perkhidmatan sekarang yang menymbang lebih kurang 53% kepada KDNK telah meningkat 59% pada tahun 2020 itu target negara kita.
Kemudian kita melihat dari sudut GNP dari sudut perbelanjaan. Perbelanjaan seperti mana yang saya nyatakan tadi, perbelanjaan swasta dari segi konsumer begitu tinggi iaitu pembelian dan pelaburan. Buat masa ini kita masih bergantung kepada kerajaan kerana kita sebuah negara ekonomi yang sedang membangun jadi kita perlu input-input kerajaan sebagaimana yang saya nyatakan tadi dalam RMK ke-9, kita belanja lebih kurang dalam RM40 bilion pada tahun 2007 dan seterusnya dalam koridor raya nanti kita akan laksanakan perbelanjaan lagi. Ini kita nampak perbelanjaan oleh pihak swasta lebih banyak dan tinggi berbanding dengan pihak kerajaan.
Di samping itu, kos ke 3 iaitu dari segi ekspot dan impot negara kita. Pada tahun ini, net ekspot negara kita hanya 0.7% dan ini dijangka akan level pada tahun hadapan kerana sepertimana kita tahu terjadinya re-section di dunia dan ia jadi leveling. [My First Supplementary Question! Philosophy Politics Economics. May 13 2008]
Yang pastinya, soalan tentang apa yang kerajaan akan lakukan untuk mengurangkan perbelanjaan awam tidak terjawab.
Saya tertarik dengan ayat berikut: “Buat masa ini kita masih bergantung kepada kerajaan kerana kita sebuah negara ekonomi yang sedang membangun jadi kita perlu input-input kerajaan…”
Saya tidak bersetuju dengan pendapat itu tetapi saya tidak berhasrat untuk membincangkan mengapa saya berpendapat sedemikian kerana saya kesuntukan masa untuk membincangkan perkara yang berat.
Walau bagaimanapun, nampaknya, pemikiran Keynesianisme masih lagi kuat di dalam kerajaan kita. Saya telah menyangkakan bahawa para Keynesian sedang ditendang keluar dari kerajaan tetapi malangnya, kesimpulan itu dibuat secara terburu-buru. Pembatalan perbelanjaan awam itu mungkin hanya satu permainan politik dan bukannya pengeseran dasar yang jujur.
A really odd but well-argued point on Obama’s religion and how it would affect the relationship between the US and the Muslim world at large.
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
[…]
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is ”irtidad” or ”ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as ”apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)
[…]
At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic. [President Apostate? Edward N. Luttwak. New York Times. May 12 2008]
I do not think it would adversely affect the US-Muslim world relationship as long as Obama administration’s foreign policy respects others more willingly.
Whoa, Obama administration… I am jumping the gun!
The hazard of appealing to interventionist monarchy has finally reared its head. With Malay nationalists rallying around a monarch, the idea of absolutism is gaining currency in the public sphere. Whether by accident or design, the monarchy institution in Perak and elsewhere in Malaysia are regaining influence that they had in times when divine rights of kings was held supreme. This jeopardizes liberty, or whatever left that we have now.
The episode began with the removal of the director of Perak religious department from office. The Sultan successfully argued that the monarchy alone has the absolute power over the director office, forcing the PAS administration to back off from its intention to exert control over the state religious department. The story does not end with the executive having a black eye however. It really exploded when Karpal Singh of DAP insisted that the Sultan has no power to overturn the decision of the state executive.[1]
Criticism in Malaysia works in a peculiar way. One has to have the same skin color in order to make inter-communal criticism and not possibly suffer the suffocating communal politics. Karpal Singh did not notice this but those in UMNO are aware of it and they wasted no time to shoot him down. With Malay nationalists under post-election siege mentality and lamenting about a so-called divided Malay community, remark by the chairman of DAP was the spark that they needed to rally the Malays around them.
The monarchy institution is closely associated with Malay politics, being the ultimate defender of Malay privileges in the country. Any attack against the institution, especially by non-Malays, is considered by the nationalists as an attack against the Malay itself.
For UMNO, the anger caused by the DAP chairman is an opportunity to rebuild their base by having Malay nationalists firmly behind their back. With a clear external source that is Karpal Singh, attention could be diverted from the trouble plaguing the leadership of UMNO. More importantly, by siding with the monarchy together with the Malay nationalists, the current leadership of UMNO creates a perception of Malay unity under them, seemingly solving the question of divided UMNO.
Regardless the ulterior motive of UMNO, all that dangerous increases the influence of the monarchy in national politics and all must take heed of that.
While the issue at the moment may forward UMNO’s interest, there will be a time for conflicts of interest between the two entities or between the monarchy and the government. Such conflict had occurred in the past under the Mahathir administration.[2][3]
What Mahathir did to the power of the monarchy is a victory to organic politics. He successfully brought the monarchy under the purview of the legal system, giving meaning to the idea that no one is above the law. The former Prime Minister however not only mowed the blades of unwanted tall grasses. The sunflowers and the poppies and the dandelions which took upon itself to decorate the air above the Malaysian field also fell. But this is not about the Mahathir administration. Rather, it is about the sincerity of UMNO. UMNO does this not because they is supporting the monarchy institution per se. Rather, they, particularly the leadership, are doing what it is doing in effort to reverse its bad political fortune.
Regardless, this particular issue and the reactions to its produce a powerful precedent that may grant the Malay monarchy institution immunity from criticism, much at the expense of liberty. With that, it possibly places the monarchy above the Constitution as mere questioning is met with coercion by the state in the name treason.
With monarchs’ powers and actions unquestioned regardless of the constitutionality of it, the route to absolutism is paved. The liberals need to act, and so too the timid Malaysian republicans.
[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has asked Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor to lodge a police report against DAP chairman Karpal Singh over his statement on the powers of the Perak Sultan.
[…]
“It is seditious and seen by the people as ridiculing the Sultan as though the ruler did not know his duty,” he told reporters when asked about Karpal’s controversial statement. [Abdullah Asks Police Report Be Lodged Against Karpal. Bernama. May 8 2008]
[2] — See the 1993 Malaysian constitutional crisis at Wikipedia.
[3] — At a special session of Parliament beginning on Jan. 18, Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad plans to push through constitutional changes ending the sultans’ immunity from prosecution. But the sultans, who are due to meet Mr. Mahathir this Saturday, are resisting. [Royals in Trouble:Malaysia’s Sultans Have a Role. Philip Bowring. International Herald Tribune. January 7 1993]
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[1644] Of somewhere on Leboh Ampang
Yes, this is a filler.
Sometimes, I am surprised to see how this kind of arrangement is still aplenty in Kuala Lumpur. The vendor conducted his business within the long corridor of a typical tropical colonial shophouse row in this part of the world. Not much separated the vendor from the street: only a pavement possibly a meter wide.
This particular street is called Leboh Ampang. It is the Little India of the city (or is that supposed to be Masjid India?). It is usually busy but on that Saturday, one could lie down in the middle of the street and be certain of his safety, much like Kuala Kangsar in the middle of the night, much like Ann Arbor during the evenings of summer. Okay, that is an exaggeration but it is certainly true for Kuala Kangsar!
I wish I had more time to play around with the settings of my camera but I was in the mood of just snapping around as friends were walking lazily in a Saturday afternoon for an Indian lunch. I had to keep up with them.
Wait a minutes, this is not Metblogs KL! Wrong blog!
Ah, the peril of having more than one blog…