The USA Debt Ceiling and Democracy's failure

There is a lesson in the wrangling between the Democrats and the Republicans, Obama and John Boehner, over how to tackle the USA’s astonishing debt crisis. The lesson is a simple one: democracy doesn’t always work. Now, that might seem a disturbing statement, but the juvenile antics emerging from America, on the debt crisis, do not provide any evidence as to democracy’s effectiveness – and much evidence to the contrary.

Watching the deadlock between the two ideologically opposed foes, of Democrats and Republicans; watching Obama reveal his essential lack of power, as his overtures are rebuffed by House Speaker John Boehner, I am struck by the ineffectiveness of the American system. So much energy, time, and productive effort are being wasted, in the USA, in argument between two sides who will never agree. Is that what democracy was meant to be about?

Democracy works when there is a clear mandate and one side can outvote the other. Only in such circumstances can there be effective leadership. However, in the USA, at present, there does not appear to be this dominance of one power over the other – as the result, we have a deadlock.

Given the stalemate in the USA on such an important issue as the debt ceiling and whether or not the USA defaults on its repayments, I am not convinced that the greatest powers, in the future, will necessarily be democratic ones. Democracy has certain strengths – but, at times like this, it is clear that unity of purpose is not one of them. The USA is showing us, that democracy can be a very weak form of leadership for a country, sad as it is, to say this – or at least, the form of democracy presently in place in the USA.

It does seem, watching the USA’s ongoing financial problems, social problems and political problems that we are in a modern equivalent, of the fall of Rome. It is altogether possible, indeed, seems altogether probable, that the USA will falter, irretrievably, in my own lifetime. If nothing else, it looks like the national debt will soon have the power to bring it down. It is a pity to note it, but the USA’s lauded version of democracy doesn’t seem to be helping much here. I say this, knowing that there are worse alternatives out there, too – however, quite a few of them would be more effective in the present situation.

I hope Obama and Boehner come to a deal soon. The world does not need another financial crisis. However, what it does seem to need, is a rethinking of how a government should work and what form constitutes the most effective and fair form of leadership. Looking at America, I am not convinced that their model is the best possible – there must, surely, be something, even theoretically possible, which can improve on the American mess? I will have to reflect on it.

A note to my readers: I will return to my customary themes of giftedness and the like, shortly but I felt that these recent events should be addressed. Thank you.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Listen to the sound of the flames.

Actions speak louder than words. On Sunday, a man's actions, Ong Kah Chua, spoke very loudly indeed: he set fire to a Member of Parliament, Seng Han Thong.

70 year old Ong Kah Chua poured thinner over the back of the MP at a session at which the MP was handing out Hongbao (small packets of money) to the people. He then used a kitchen lighter to set fire to him. Seng Han Thong suffered burns to his right face, back and scalp. The burns amounted to up to 15% of his body.

Now, I realize that my international readers will be shocked to hear of such a thing in Singapore. Surely Singapore is the "safest place in the world", where crime exists only in pulp fiction and on TV? Surely, such a thing is an American phenomenon? Well, no. You see I think that the setting of an Member of Parliament on fire is much more likely to occur in Singapore, than in the USA. In the USA, there is freedom of speech and a strong democracy, the people have a voice and the voice is heard. In Singapore, there is a strange "democracy" in which only one party is allowed to exist (well, I always found it strange, myself). When I say "exist", I mean, live in peace. The non-People's Action Party (PAP) politicians spend their lives hounded by the powers-that-be. They don't truly have the necessary freedom to conduct political activities that is usual in democracies.

The people of Singapore, too, are used to the idea that what they want and believe and think is not heard by those at the top. They are used to the idea that power comes down from above and feel that they do not have the power to influence events. In such a climate, people can feel suffocated, they can feel that their voice will never be heard. Well, when someone thinks they are being ignored, they will tend to be driven to do something extreme to win attention. I think that is what has happened here: Ong Kah Chua must have felt that he was not being heard, that he had no power and no voice -so he did something that all the nation would hear: he set fire to an MP.

The MP in question Seng Han Thong, has got a talent for attracting trouble. In 2006, he was punched by a taxi driver who had a grievance. This indicates to me that this "random" attack is not so random. Seng Han Thong is good at causing people to be upset. It would seem, from this analysis that he might be especially good at not giving the people what they want (he was responsible for proposing taxi surcharges, for instance). Other MPs seem to manage to go about their work in peace, but Seng Han Thong has a gift for being attacked. There is always a reason for such a gift.

It is clear, from reading Singaporean blogs, that Ong Kah Chua has much sympathy for his attack. There is the sense, the rather surprising sense, given Singapore's law abiding reputation that Ong Kah Chua was doing what many Singaporeans fantasize about doing: setting a member of the PAP on fire. I found this a quietly shocking revelation. It made me realize that, perhaps, just perhaps, the Singaporean people have become a little tired of a style of government that external observers would not accuse of being overly accessible. Singapore's government is one that makes decisions irrespective of the will of the people then passes them down, as fait accompli. A lot of people are unhappy with this and have been unhappy for many years, even decades. Ong Kah Chua's little bonfire recalls, for me, Guy Fawkes - the annual burning of an effigy of a man who tried to blow up British Parliament hundreds of years ago.

Ong Kah Chua is Singapore's Guy Fawkes. The difference is that Ong Kah Chua was more successful than Guy Fawkes: Fawkes was caught before his plan could be enacted. Ong Kah Chua was only caught after Seng Han Thong was busily burning away.

Perhaps the government of Singapore would do well to listen to Ong Kah Chua's message. His message is not the action of one man, but the deed of a frustrated nation. For every one Ong Kah Chua who has the courage, or insanity, to act on such a wish, as to burn an MP, there may be a thousand, or a hundred thousand who would do so, if they could get away with it. Ong Kah Chua is not an isolated madman, I think, but a symptom of a system that has been too disregarding of the will of its people. Singaporeans want a more open style of government, a more sympathetic style of government, one that listens more, and cares more. They want a government they feel is there to do a public service and not one that seems, at times, to do a service to itself (one need only look at the multi-million dollar salaries of ministers to see where they got that impression).

Seng Han Thong is fortunate that Singapore is not an armed society, as America is. Were Singapore to have guns available it is fairly certain that Seng Han Thong would have been shot, not burnt.

I think it likely that the government will learn something from this, but perhaps not the right thing. They will learn to pay more attention to the security of their MPs...but they will probably not do anything to reduce the palpable anger and resentment that many Singaporeans evidently feel at the way their nation is ruled. (One need only look to the internet to find abundant evidence of such dissatisfaction).

So, yes, Singapore is a safe country - but perhaps not, anymore, if you are a member of government. There is a price to pay for a closed style of government - and Seng Han Thong is, today, paying that price.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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How old is democracy?

How old is democracy? I asked this question, once, of a group of foreign students in Singapore. The answer was telling: silence fell across the room. Then, hesitantly, an Uzbek girl raised her voice: "It is an American invention."

I shook my head and repeated the question: "How old is democracy?"

The Uzbek woman, in her twenties, said: "Fifteen years."

Again, I shook my head.

"Twenty years."

I pursed my lips.

"Twenty five years." she said, stretching it a bit.

My unacknowledging gaze said it all.

Finally, in one huge last effort at pushing the origin of democracy back to the deep past, she guessed: "Forty years!"

"No." I said, quietly, to a listening room.

I found myself amazed. In a room of perhaps twelve Asian students, from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Indonesia, not one had any idea of the origin of democracy, or just how old it was. That these were not children, but students in their twenties (some as old as 28) gave me further pause to consider the state of modern education.

"Two and a half thousand years." I said, to surprise and disbelief all around. "No!" some of them actually said.

"Yes. Democracy was invented by the Ancient Greeks."

"Where?" said the Uzbek girl with the encylopaedic knowledge.

"Greece."

The name didn't seem to register with her at all. It seems that she had not even heard of the country, itself.

"In Athens."

For, as you probably know, a direct democracy (direct voting by the people, not through representatives) took root in Athens in around 510 B.C, owing to changes implemented by Cleisthenes.

Democracy succeeded in Ancient Athens, though it was only adult male citizens who could vote. The model spread throughout the Mediterranean, though none was so successful as Athens (the others tended to restrict voting too much, to those, for instance, who owned their own homes, ie. the rich).

Had Rome not come along the whole world would, no doubt, soon have been democratic...but Rome squashed the flowering democracies and stamped them out in about 100 B.C. That was the end of democracy, for a thousand years, when it was adopted, once more, by some Italian city states (ironic, that, given the history of Rome regarding its suppression), in Pisa, Venice, Florence, Genoa and Siena.

The ignorance of my Asian students regarding democracy left me to wonder about the state of the modern world. How is it possible that some can reach their late twenties (as some of them were) and still not know the first thing about how many modern societies are run? It points to a system of global education (for they came from many different countries) that is simply not preparing the modern, young person, for fully aware participation in modern life. I am left to wonder whether this is a reflection of the dullness of the individuals, or the deficiencies of the system. If it is the former, then it is unfortunate, but largely unavoidable; if it is the latter, then I wonder whether the deficiencies are due to systemic incompetence, or deliberate policy. Perhaps, in some societies, it is deliberate policy to ensure the ignorance of their people, for ignorant people are always easier to deceive and manipulate than an informed populace. Whatever the cause, deliberate or incompetent, the effects remain the same: young, modern people, from around the world, simply know nothing about the world, these days. They have no grasp of what is going on now, around them - and no historical perspective to set it against. They do not have the basic equipment to allow them to begin to reason about what is happening in the world. It is quite shocking to see.

Those who teach, or who have taught, are in a privileged position that allows them to gauge the understanding of their students, on many issues. From that vantage, at the front of the classroom, it is possible to learn much about what is happening in the world, in other countries, particularly in the minds of their people. What I have so often discovered is ignorance, a very profound ignorance on so many basic matters. It leaves me to wonder what they spent their childhoods learning in classrooms, back in their home countries - for little seems to have left a mark.

These classroom observations are supportive of a trend that has been noted, by researchers into intelligence. There is a generation on generation decline in genetic intelligence, throughout Mankind. For the last 150 years or so, each generation of Man has been dimmer than the last. (see Richard Lynn). What I see in the classroom does nothing to disconfirm this finding. I am coming to think that the future of Man may be less bright than the past - in every sense of the word "bright". In such a situation of global decline, every gifted child should be supported to be the best they can be: for such bright people will be needed more than ever, to support the structure of their societies, as engineers, scientists, artists, lawyers, architects and business people etc, as the quality of people in general declines.

I only hope that gifted children are given what they need to flower. They seem all the more exceptional against the backdrop of what I have seen in the classroom over the years.

A final thought: if young people don't know anything about democracy, how difficult would it be to take it away from them? Perhaps that is just why they don't know anything about it...

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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Aristotle on Democracy and its Value

It often surprises me how modern the thinking of the Ancients seems. They were thinking and writing, two and a half thousand years ago, but yet they wrestled with many of the same issues that people wrestle with today. Their thoughts, in some way, could be our thoughts, if only we sat down to think them. (Most, however, sit down, now, to watch TV, not to think).

Aristotle might have had advice for Pakistan, at this time. His words are to be found in his book, "Politics".

He wrote:

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."

It seems to me that his words are not without relevance to many modern governments. Aristotle was observing that government works best to achieve liberty - that is freedom - and equality, when all members of that society have an equal voice. That seems wise enough. The odd thing is - and it would disappoint Aristotle to learn this - that two and a half thousand years after he had this thought, many societies around the world still do not afford an equal voice to their citizens. Even many "democracies" do not truly listen to their citizens with equal weight. In many societies there persists inequality and a lack of basic freedoms.

That last thought is a marvel to me. How can mankind be so SLOW to learn? Aristotle was stating what was best, in democratic terms, two and a half millenia ago - yet still many nations have not learnt the lesson he was trying to teach.

Perhaps, at this time, we would all benefit from reflecting on Aristotle's words, on their relevance to many of today's nations - and on the uncanny fact that he observed this two and a half thousand years ago.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Benazir Bhutto's Assassination and Democracy in Pakistan

As all the world knows, Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, has been assassinated. I am not about to write an obituary, for others have done that, but I am going to comment on the wider meaning of this event.

Pakistan is a troubled country, that much is clear. It teeters on the brink of chaos. President Musharraf, who has been much criticized, has great difficulties ahead, in holding his nation together. That much is clear. However, tragic though it is for Benazir Bhutto's family and her party, the PPP (Pakistan People's Party), it has much wider implications for the prospects of democracy in Pakistan.

Already Nawaz Sharif, her political rival, and fellow opposition leader, has said his party will not run in the elections on January 8th. This is the first sign of the effects of this assassination. Politicians are human. They have hopes, fears and ambitions - and all of them, I am sure, have a deep-seated wish to live. Seeing a fellow politician murdered like this, simply for holding views not liked by the murderer will have a truly chilling effect on democracy in Pakistan. Would you, as a politician, like to say what you truly think and feel and campaign for what you truly believe in, if the consequence would be your own death - and the death of many others near you? Many people would falter at such a decision. They would do as Sharif has done: announce publicly that he will not run. I don't know the fullness of his decision making - but surely the fact that running could mean his own assassination no doubt has a great influence.

People of talent and gift, people who could contribute to the building of the Pakistani nation will remember what happened to Benazir Bhutto - and when they come to decide on what they would like to do with their lives, many who might otherwise have chosen to enter politics, may decide otherwise and choose to lead quieter, less influential lives. For what benefit is there in leading a life of influence if the penalty is death?

Ultimately, the long term future of Pakistan will suffer from this assassination rather more than people might anticipate. Relatively few people will be brave enough (or foolhardy enough) to challenge the status quo. Relatively few people will wish to upset the people, as yet undeclared, who prove to be behind this attack. Relatively few people will be truly free to engage in politics. In consequence, every Pakistani will be the poorer for it. A nation of 165 million people has lost a lot more than one charismatic political leader - they may have lost democracy itself.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)