Let he who is without sin cast the first stone

I'm surprised at the number of apparently sinless people living amidst us here in Singapore. It must be yet another one of our first in the world records. So Amy Cheong posted a racist rant on her blog and it appears almost everyone and their mother were scrambling over each other to proclaim their righteous disgust and make known their "I'm 'holier' than Amy Cheong" credentials.

If Amy Cheong is to be judged as being guilty of a socially unacceptable act, then everyone else who publicised her post, retweeted it, emailed it to their friends, reported it to the police is equally guilty. In cases of libel, reproducing the libellious content makes you equally liable to libel charges as the originator. If your neighbour's house is on fire and you added fuel and further fanned the flames, are you not guilty of making the situation worse even if you did not start the fire in the first place?

The blame for the increasing level of intolerance and exposition of extremist views and responses to perceived slights can be laid squarely at the door of the authorities. Their mistaken belief that by making examples of earlier bloggers of racist postings (highly publicised arrest and prosecution) would deter others have had the exact opposite effect. It had instead, spawned internet vigilantes ever on the lookout for the next opportunity to blow their own horn of moral superiority.

Racism, bigotry and discrimination like charity, begins at home. No one is immune. None other than our own ex MM LKY once asked the rhetorical question: "If your daughter were to bring home a black man (as a potential spouse), would you (as a parent) be happy?" (or something to that effect). Some may consider it racist, but no one ever to my knowledge, has accused him of it. Perhaps his daughter Dr Lee Wei Ling may want to write an article about it. It should be quite illuminating.

If the authorities REALLY want to solve this problem, they need to arrest those people responsible for spreading the original posting (at least up to the second level of reposting) and ESPECIALLY those who report it to the police. The authorities by reacting as predictably as they do are providing exactly what these internet vigilantes want: Notoriety. I mean, if one finds something offensive, why else would one help to spread it?

Unfortunately, as with other 'problelms' created by the authorities themselves, the answer will likely be to do MORE of the same. Like in the case of Singapore having a 'lack of land', so the solution is to bring in MORE foreigners. Our infrastructure is already bursting at the seams with a population of 5.3million, yet we have a population target of 6.1 million (for now...) Something is seriously out of whack. I wonder what it is....