Basket.

"Did you watch the dialogue session with MM Lee?"

Everyone is asking, and for the last time, I DID NOT, AND THE REASON IS, IT'S THE SAME OLD SHIT.

Except for the fact that this time, someone actually asked when he was going to retire.

And for that, the youth of today got branded once more as disrespectful, ungrateful, "boh tua boh suay" (Hokkien slang for rudeness and not knowing one's place).

Honestly, what is so wrong with asking an eighty-three-year-old man when he is going to retire and enjoy the rest of his days? Of course, this isn't just any eighty-three-year-old man, but still... he's human, right? He has to settle down and smell the flowers one day. I don't see at all how such a question is rude - although it can be intepreted as a jibe at his ironfisted grip on power. Anyway, it's not like the Barisan Socialis were all nice and polite back in the 1960s.

What people have to understand is that democracy is a messy process. It is full of scandals, name-calling, dirty tactics and unsavoury characters. What we have here is an extremely sanitised version - and one such so-called "no-holds-barred" (anything but, of course) dialogue is enough to provide such a flurry of letters? Paternalism is the scourge of contemporary democracy, and our older generation seems to hold an extremely paternalistic attitude. If we want a more open society, we need to change this. There is nothing rude about criticism, so long as one stays on the side of "criticising" and does not intrude upon the territory of "insulting".

However, as I have observed many a time, Reason is wasted upon the human race.