Reflections on the tragic bombing

      Patriots' Day is a day of celebration for the US public, for the people of US to remember their founding fathers, the people who had brought independence and liberty to the land. And this year is no different, with the Boston Marathon held on the same day. But this year's Boston Marathon and Patriots' Day will be different from the others. 3 bombs exploded, with 2 very near to the finishing line of this event. 3 people have been reported dead, with about 144 injured. I shall express my condolences.

      Right now, investigations are ongoing to find out who was responsible for these bombings. Though no official words are said yet, the Internet, as always, sprung up first. I have seen 3 types of sayings; the Muslims, the Government and an unexpected one. It seems that many netizens' first reaction was "Muslims". What can I say? Many of the terrorist acts were caused by Muslim radicals, and I don't fully blame these people who immediately accused Muslims for what they have done. But this is clearly a bias, there can be suspicions, but we must make sure that the investigation will not be clouded by bias. Then there are the conspiracy theorist guys, who believe that everything that happened was caused by the government and secretive men in suits behind the curtains on a round table. I personally do not believe in conspiracy theories (they are just stupid for me), but we can't do anything about it, right? Internet. The last one that I have seen, perhaps the most ridiculous one, is from the Westboro Baptist Church. Well, I will not venture into this much, but to let you know, this church believes that God hates homosexuals, and that many events that happened are caused by God to punish the fags. Wow. Simply wow.

      Another question is, what will America do after this attack? What I am afraid of, is that the government might use this and restrict the freedom of people of America, like what they did after the 911 attacks. The Government might turn this tragedy into something political and push their agendas, like what they did with the 911 and various school shootings. Look at this: after the 911, the US government has passed the Patriot Act, an Act of the US Congress to regulate and conduct surveillance on various activities. It also allows the detention and deporting of terrorist suspects. And this might only apply to immigrants, but since this very act has expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, US citizens will also be under this act. This act allowed wiretapping, controlling transactions etc. Then there is the Indefinite Detention Clause of the NDAA, which allows the indefinite detention of people without trials. Bye 4th Ammendment. Then after various school shootings, the government has also tried to push legislation for gun control, although the usefulness of it remains debatable, but nonetheless it is still protected by the 2nd Ammendment, and thus it is still a right (for the Americans). Goodbye 2nd Ammendment, too. I wonder what the US government will do next? Maybe they should just cross out the whole Bill of Rights, for safety. As Benjamin Franklin once said "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither". I just feel that freedom cannot be breached in all cases. Happy Patriots' Day.

       There would be mainly 2 groups of people: those who think that terrorism will happen to them and those who really can't give a damn about this. The first group are most likely those that are willing to trade freedom for security, betraying the American concept of "Give me liberty or give me death".I personally feel that there is little to no point trying to worry and stop these from happening. Terrorists appear everywhere. They are dangerous, but can we do anything 'bout it? As long as there are different people, different ideologies, conflicts and clashes happen. Terrorism is just a form of it. It is inevitable, firstly, because it seems that human beings love to segregate ourselves to different groups and factions of people, albeit in religion, nationality or in political ideology. Secondly, it is not possible to prevent something from happening. Can we check every bag in a crowded square? No. And thus we cannot prevent anybody from blowing up a couple of other people and possibly himself. But maybe this number can be reduced. Well, there are 'solutions' like the Patriot Act and declaring war on another country and sanctions, but maybe we should move away from these things. Terrorists do not do these just to scare the shit out of a nation, they are actually doing this to push a political or ideological objectives. If the objective is about ideology, we can really do nothing about it, like what I said just now. What about the political objective? Many of us have learned about staying strong even in terrorist acts, to not "negotiate with terrorists". Maybe we should forget all that and try to negotiate with them? Israel had humanitarian efforts to raise the standard of living for Palestinians  and this has decreased the number of Palestinians terrorist attacks, more than the offensive measure like blowing the terrorist suspects up. Maybe to save lives we should just understand what the terrorists want. If they are unhappy about US troops in Afghanistan, then move the f*** out. If they are unhappy about the way we treat Muslims, then we treat them properly. Of course there are lines that cannot be crossed. We can only negotiate with terrorists if their demands are reasonable. And there is no way we can negotiate with terrorists who blow people up for religious objectives, as it is not possible. Maybe it is time to start thinking where have we done wrong that caused terrorists to attack us, and see if we can improve it.

       I would say that this event had left me thinking. We must no let bias to affect our judgement. We cannot investigate just to find somebody to blame, rather we should investigate to find out the truth. And we should also put some blame on ourselves and ask ourselves have we offended them too much? And I hope that this tragedy would not be used as an excuse to make policies that restrict our freedom. But I have seem to make a very big assumption; that it was a terrorist act. This is the sort of mindset we should avoid from having. Assumptions and bias.

Take on Capital Punishment

                Singapore is a state with many death penalties, for homicide, drugs and possession of firearms. Last year, Singapore has reviewed its mandatory death sentence, and check if there was any areas they could lighten sentences. Not surprisingly, our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Teo Chee Hean said that death penalties since this review will be deferred. However, is the system of death penalty flawed and should it be reviewed again by the Parliament?

                The decision was that there are two conditions in which a drug trafficker can escape this death penalty. Firstly, this trafficker must have only acted as a courier, and not involved in the supply and the distribution of the drugs, and secondly, either the trafficker has cooperated with the Central Narcotics Bureau in a substantive way, or he has a mental disability. Teo Chee Hean also stated that “Singaporeans understand that the death penalty has been an effective deterrent and an appropriate punishment for very serious offences”. However, I have some evidence to show that death penalties had no significant effect on the homicide rate. From the New York Times, it is stated that “homicide rates had risen and fallen along roughly symmetrical paths in the states with and without the death penalty, suggesting to many experts that the threat of the death penalty rarely deters criminals.” This is the case, when a murderer is out, he won’t be thinking about consequences when he is killing somebody. It is either the emotions, which affects the neo-cortex to stop, causing somebody not to think logically, or there is a mental illness in the person. If one can think logically in many different situations, then chances are they will not go around killing others and be criminals. People also has many reasons to be involved in drug trafficking. Their family might be poor, or he was forced to. These reasons should be enough for the accused to have an exemption from the mandatory death system.

                Does the death penalty make Singapore a better place to live in? Is it death penalty that makes our country safer? I would beg to differ. As we are getting more and more educated, we are also getting more and more civilized. It is because we are more educated than the past, that we have lower crime rates. In the United States, states with no death penalty have lower homicide rates than states with death penalties. As listed in the 24/7 Wall Street Journal, of the top 10 most peaceful states in America, 7 has abolished death penalty, and the number one, Maine, has abolished death penalty in 1887, one of the earliest to do that. I can very safely say, these states are the most educated ones in the United States, and most are lying in the North, the centre of economics and politics in America. Of the top 10 least peaceful states, all of them have death penalty, and all of the states have some of the lowest literacy rate and graduate students from high school. We can clearly see that death penalty plays very little part in decrease of homicide rates throughout the years, but rather, it is the education and the development of society that has caused this change. And what does the Singapore death penalty look like on the international level? Most humans’ rights activists have been against death penalties for a long time. And Singapore had once reached the 2^nd most people executed per capita, in 1994-1999, before Turkmenistan, which now is an abolitionist country, with no death penalty. So, does the death penalty really helped us or harm us?