This article was originally published on http://jeremy-chen.org/blog/201507/why-you-should-not-vote-sdp-integrity-they-lack-it, we merely republished it
The Singapore Democratic Party is not worthy of the vote of Singaporeans. Why do I say this? People can be dishonest as kids, as teens or even as young adults. But those putting themselves forward as potential “political leaders” should have worked out their past integrity issues.
I will provide two examples of relatively clear deceits that speak to the character of the SDP. One of those was made “under duress” (somewhat) and the other was completely unforced.
The first example is one of them engaging in character assassination based on deceits, which is ironic given how often they claim to be victims of it. Can this be said definitively? After all, most unhappiness where the term “character assassination” is used end up as undecidable instances of “he-said she-said”. Well, for this example, yes. Here, the evidence of bullshit spinning is clear.
I will talk about an instance directed at myself which was extremely clearly deceitful because the SDP messed up so badly. They claimed that “something they decided on a certain date” was supported by a pile of “evidence” which all was dated after. (They said some decision was made in Jul 2014, and provided evidence mostly dated after that. So to accept their claim is to accept that they can see into the future.)
If they prove they can time travel, I guess that charge can be withdrawn. But given their focus on obtaining funds, it would have been unbelievable that they did not make use of their prescience to raise funds using information on future stock price movements. No, it is more likely they were just not vigilant in crafting their fraud.
Specifically, for this fraud, one can point to a certain Assistant (“Assailant”?) Secretary General Christopher Ang who acted on behalf of the SDP CEC. I cannot say for certain, but it is highly likely that the draft received a direct approval from the Secretary General, based on how the SDP leadership operates. (It just goes to show how incompetent they are when such checks just fail.)
Also, the “evidence” was not even damning in any way. Especially since it all happened after I reduced my involvement (a “soft quit” that was announced to all) and would be more blunt about my views.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/59997294qida84p/SDP_ASG_Character_Assasination_Attempt_TRS_Annotated.pdf?dl=0
Open it in Acrobat Reader to see the comments. (The annotations may not show up in a mobile web browser plugin.) Juxtaposed with “evidence”, it should be fairly interesting.
Perhaps one might say that the above was all done under duress. I can appreciate it. They needed to explain the public and angry departure of a party member who was involved in the “core group”, and they probably felt the need to respond soon. Especially since there were allegations of (other) dishonest behavior and claims that CEC members themselves would have been witnesses (who told me of the said dishonest behavior without whom I would not have known about it). I can appreciate the “pressure” excuse. After all, in my life, the lies I told that I am deeply embarrassed about were told under pressure. I’m not proud of it, but I guess I can understand what happened.
But the SDP leadership… Ok, I’ll point to one particular person — Chee Soon Juan — lies and (poorly) weaves deceits without duress. I call those “unforced lies”. Here is an obvious lie. He made the claim that a certain David Goh was an author of the SDP public housing proposals when I had never heard of him prior to that “authour list announcement”. Let me be clear. I crafted a substantial part of the content and put the paper together based on discussion and CEC decision (I have a strong policy disagreement with one decision, but that is a different matter), so I should reasonably know of all the major contributors and their contributions. So that authour list add-on was an unforced lie, one made because Chee Soon Juan probably wanted to pad the author list with an “accountant and property consultant” to add credibility.
It may seem, to those who have not seen the seedy underbelly of the SDP, unfair when someone like me points out that something said by Chee Soon Juan is likely to be a lie. But, in the fashion of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”, I’d say that those comments are made when something doesn’t quite smell right. And I claim (without proof) that I am rather accurate on that count. (Granted, this is a useless skill. How much more useful would it be to be able to identify stocks that will quickly rise using limited information.)
So don’t vote for the SDP. Find a better alternative. If no good alternative is available you can still express opposition views by casting a spoilt vote.
– See more at: http://jeremy-chen.org/blog/201507/why-you-should-not-vote-sdp-integrity-they-lack-it#sthash.A0lyiOPv.dpuf
