What happens when the shoes get too big for big government?

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Hi, you know what happens, when government has a hand in everything – don’t you? Consider this: what’s really missing from the recent fiasco of the two monkeys who broke into the SMRT depot for a spot of Kilroy was here?

Well, going by what eight ball Sham has to say, we may all be barking up the wrong tree i.e the government is not to blame for this screw up. Infact, they have nothing to do with it! -Surprise, surprise! The joke is on you! You all have the wrong end of the stick!

Don’t believe me? Check this out then.  Speaking to reporters recently, Eight ball Sham said it is impossible to expect the taxpayer or the public to pay for the security of thousands of profit-making entitles in Singapore – to decrypt the official parlance, that’s another way of saying: that is not our problem; they screwed up; and not us!

He went on to add in clearer than mud fashion, you look at SMRT. It is an entity that makes profits. It is a listed company which makes profits for its shareholders. Is it fair for the public, through the government, to pay for that security either in manpower terms or in terms of the costs?….When it comes to private sector organisations, like the SMRT depot, it has been gazetted as a protected place, but the actual security of the premises is within the control of the company, as it should be, and SMRT has accepted that its responsibility is to provide for the security. Again the gist of what eight ball Sham is trying to forward here is the same get out of jail card - hey! You guys are pelting rotten tomatoes at the wrong people! Didn’t you hear me the first time around – for the last time, we have nothing to do with this monkey show!

You know what? Sham happens to be spot on! Technically, he’s right on the money - Technically, technically, technically (as in technically OJ Simpson didn’t murder his ex-wife) – to be more precise; you can only buy into eight ball Sham’s account. If you happen to derive all your known knowledge about Singapore from ONLY corporate and constitutional law!

The problem as I see it is no sane person derives his worldview from such a formal manner (not even undergraduates) - and it’s even arguable such a sterile approach of forming an opinion may make very little sense. Granted that may well be the way robots welders and monkeys who are trained to pick coconuts regularly go about making sense of the known world. But it’s certainly not the best or the way most people go about fleshing out their consciousness.

What eight ball Sham does not seem to understand is a very basic and fundamental human truism – that what actually makes up the set pieces of our worldview of what is and isn’t government (or how many people do you need to change a light bulb) is entirely a function of how we connect the dots based on our experiential knowledge; and not some hyferluting abstraction that can be conveniently explained away with technical smoke & mirrors of the companies act cum constitutional law  - I am sorry, I am just calling a spade a spade; so that counts for fuck all man!  - now armed with this new knowledge:  this should prompt us to return to the original question posed: why do the vast majority of people have so much difficulty in drawing out the lines between the legislature, executive, judiciary and private sector? Coming to think of it: why do we seem to regularly mangle up and confuse SMRT (along with other quasi-gov agencies and the our beloved rag) with the government? Or is it vice-versa? And why do most people seem to ascribe everything ranging from the parting of the red sea, spontaneous combustion, bubonic plague, lost cats to thunderstorms to government ineptitude?  

One big reason for our inability to differentiate the persona of what makes up the government of the day from lets say a public listed firm or whatever- may have something to do with the idea of big government itself – there are really too many set pieces to mention, you could just as well take your pick and run with it - everything from the juggernaut idea of Singapore Inc to the nexus that binds GLC’s to the government is good to go - this hardly requires any elaboration.

As when government becomes big, not only does it dominate the field of vision squeezing out everything else - it also overeaches into every facet of life – from crade to grave -and covers virtually every sphere of humanity: ranging from healthcare, education to the question of when can you can sensibly be expected to retire. And that simply means eventually, the footprint of what represents government becomes so expansive and all encompassing that it’s virtually impossible to effectively distinguish, differentiate and separate the persona of government from many of the set pieces that make up enterprises which we associate with the state - cannot be done means cannot be done!

To illustrate the point – consider the following lightning quiz: is the civil service apolitical? Or is it the alternate name and face of the party politico machinery? What about the police and the security services? And what about GIC and Temasek? How do you reconcile the idea of the MSM with the concept of separation of powers? How much credit does the government get when state run enterprise perform beyond expectation? What is the extend of the nexus and so on and so forth? How are management decisions regularly made? Now I hope you get my general drift – in a nub, things ain’t that simple. They are very very complicated. But what did you really expect when you begin to pile up one thing that has nothing to do with the other and just lump together under one fuzzy abstraction called Singapore Inc?

Now you expect the ordinary man in the street to draw a distinction? You’re kidding me right?

My point here to illustrate not only the degree to which the whole idea of government has become so encrusted with other ideas that the idea of a government where the three heads of the executive, legislature and judiciary (and many argue the state run enterprises) are no longer pertinent – but it’s conceivable when we speak about government in the context of Singapore it may actually include everything that makes up the character of the intra-executive function and much more. As I said, you could just as well tease out the linkages and networks to rubbish the whole idea of a limited government – it doesn’t exist.

Wonder no more – why, when eight ball Sham proclaims to the whole wide world – that the SMRT break in by a few artist has nothing to do with the government – most people (including moir) look at him and wonder why is he speaking in a language that most of us cannot seem to decipher.

I write what I want, when I want and in every manner that I want! I know this stings; but look at it this way: if I am not nice to you tomorrow; I will be nice to you next week.

Darkness 2010

“Gentlemen, you can tranverse 1,000 billion light years all the way from the Cardellian system across the Andullasian belt  to the furthest outpost of the known galaxy, we call district 2,672 – and in every major outpost, every garrison will be flying the tri-color neutral flag that represents the brotherhood - in other words, we have successfully managed to franchize our colonies and dominions by bringing to these locales medicine, irrigation, metal forging, education, sanitation, architecture, statecraft etc - but remember this will always be a double edged sword my Brothers – as it means, when things go well, we will be praised…feted..but…these are illusions.. but…yes, I agree, we can probably use this from time to time to levy more taxes…but I do not believe our luck can run for perpetuity. We have been lucky to call the right numbers – but what of tomorrow? Today it takes 48 (earth hours) for a Tiberrium class mineral cruiser to cross the Carphiains system – next year, it will take 4 minutes and in 5 years perhaps less than 5 seconds  - today, even one of our pro-consuls who may rule over a province the size of Judae and Samaria may need to make only 1 or 2 strategic decisions a week – if he gets it wrong – we can catch the ball in Primus Aldentes Prime – but what of tomorrow Gentlemen? You guess is as good as mine – but I say, go and learn how to catch a bullet with your teeth!  So this brings me to why I have asked the speaker of the house for an extraordinary extension – as, we have to ask ourselves one fundamental question: what if things don’t go so well in the future? What if we make a bad call? What if things become more complex in the future? I hear there are already rumblings in the four houses. It is best if we inch back and return to the shadows whence we came from –  and from now onwards allow the guilds to take the lime light…..they are a foolish lot…so they will jump at this!

Meanwhile, we must slowly exit the scene; in 5 years time, if everything goes as planned, no one will ever remember us; all our emblems, flags and motiffs will return back to the infinity of space…we will be here…but at the same time not here!”

Vollariane 2004

42 Address in the Great Hall during question time / at Primus Aldentes Prime – this excerpt has been captured by an auto-bot crawler from the Book of Ages – source: page 9,038 – under the heading – the strangelands – The brotherhood press 2010