I have repeated myself ad nauseam over so many posts that our government is just the top boy in a class of failures. Actually I had conflated government with its leaders but the content of those posts were criticisms of government leadership. In other words, its leaders.
Thanks to our CG in Hong Kong, I had become aware of the Edelman trustbaromenter. I got the above from their Singapore country report.
Even if you lower the passing grade to 40% everyone is a failure by a huge margin. Easily more than half of the people polled (college educated folks) do not trust our government leaders to be guided with integrity making decisions and speak honestly to us.
I didn't check but perhaps the only public or civic organizations that could muster a pass grades are certain NGOs, say Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors without borders, which most of our business minded doctors would stay away from eh?
To be fair, one really have to be truly special to do better than 50%, an Abraham Lincoln perhaps? That's being unrealistic. With growing media exposure which we are inundated with countless bad behavior of politicians all over the world, the baseline attitude toward such leaders borders on the cynical. Ben Bernanke attitude toward politicians during his last commencement speech to Princeton is worth taking to heart as a constructive way to live with political leaders.
At the end of the day, leaders must come from among us. Over the long term, we will simply be getting what we deserve and it is up to each of us and our families to make ourselves better in a journey that never ends. Everywhere there is a grave need to do better. We are far from having the best and last word in governance and leadership. The PAP should be less cocky but stay confident. Do not insult our intelligence especially with talking stupid. Stupid talk will produce stupid policies.
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