There was a period in time when the topic of Tin Pei Ling dominated every office lunchtime conversation, and every other friends’ posts on my Facebook account. The comments were generally unflattering, to say the least.

Now that the NSP has unveiled Nicole Seah, postings on Facebook are awash with comments on how wonderful Nicole is.

Granted that if I had to vote between Ms Tin and Ms Seah as a Member of Parliament, I would reluctantly pick the latter. But truth be told, I’m in favour of neither. I’m not convinced that these under-30 year olds or younglings as I would call them, be they Ting Pei Ling, Nicole Seah, Vikram Nair, Mohamed Fazli Talip or Syafarin Sarif, are necessary for political renewal and had been selected after a rigorous internal political party selection process. In fact, I think rather poorly of that the internal selection processes had inflicted upon these younglings on the electorate without any more compelling reasons.

It is not that I think young people should be excluded from politics. Young people certainly have a right to vote and to assist with the campaign for political candidates whom they favour. However, I do think that a person  below 30 is very likely to lack the experience necessary to contribute meaningfully as a Member of Parliament.

Having worked after graduation for 5 years or less, such a candidate may not be able to identify with the issues confronting the general workforce.

Having been married for (generally) less than 5 years, with or without kids, such a candidate may not be able to identify with the issues confronting newly married couples, or young parents.

Having been unmarried (after graduation) for (generally) less than 5 years, such a candidate may not be able to identify with the issues confronting singles who have not been able to find a partner despite years of trying.

Being young, such a candidate may not be able to identify with the issues confronting older people.

With relatively younger parents, such a candidate may not be able to identify with the issues confronting people who have to care for aged parents.

In short, as younglings would generally have very little to offer in the way of experience when it comes to making law and policy affecting the general electorate, I would be very disinclined to vote for any of them as my represtative in Parliament, if I had a choice.

One of the flaws of the GRC system, is that we may not have such a choice. If a political party chooses to field its youngling with a GRC team comprising an experienced older parliamentarian(s), I would feel compelled to vote for the GRC team with the experienced parliamentarian notwithstanding the presence of the youngling.

When the new Parliament convenes after the General Elections, one change it may wish to consider to the relevant laws, is to require candidates fielded for a GRC to be of a certain minimum age. It may be 30 or even 35. That way, we would avoid the situation of inexperienced younglings being inflicted on the unwilling electorate again.

This does not exclude a brilliant young political aspirant from office. If a political party is of the view that it has found a highly capable and talented individual which it wishes to field as a political candidate, it can do so in an SMC.  That individual will then have to prove him or herself, one-on-one against his opponent. I think this is only fair. Anyone who has real political talent and capability despite his or her youth should have no difficulty persuding people to vote for him / her, in a one-on-one political contest.  Anyone young and inexperienced who falls short of that high standard, should not given a free ride into Parliament on the coattails of senior statesmen.

With the Singapore General Elections round the corner, it is time to consider once again the role of the state in creating welfare.  In this connection, this statement in the Workers’ Party 2011 Manifesto quite nicely sums up the objective of state welfare policies and programmes -

"Economic growth is meaningful only if the fruits of growth are equitably distributed; otherwise, we risk becoming an ever more divided and polarised society".

As a statement of principle, I fully agree with the above.  Chapter 3 on economic policy in which the above statement was made is, however, short on details as to how equitable distribution is to be achieved.  

I digress.

In "Generous Justice : How God’s Grace Makes Us Just" (entire chapter 1 readable here), Timothy Keller offers several views which I agree with entirely as a Christian.

The first is that "what the Bible says about social justice cannot be tied to one political system or economic system", that

"the Biblical attitute towards wealth and possesions does not fit into any of the normal categories of democratic capitalism, or of traditional monarchial feudalism, or of state socialism.  The rules for use of the land in the Bible challenge all major contemporary economic models …". 

In other words, all human systems of Government and economic policies fall short of perfect.  They can be partly effective in redistributing wealth, but never the solution in itself.

The second, which follows from the first, is that poverty is a complex phenomenon, and

"is seen in the Bible as a complex phenomenon.  Several factors are usually intertwined.  Poverty cannot be simply eliminated simply by personal initiative or by merely changing the tax structure.  Multiple factors are usually interactively present in the life of a poor family. … [ Therefore, any ] large-scale improvement of society’s level of poverty will come through a comprehensive array of public and private, spiritual, personal and corporate measures".

Finally, he reminds Christians why they should seek to eliminate poverty and the equitable distribution of wealth, and deals with a few practical issues which Christians will have to grapple with along the way.  In regard to the former, three passages in the Bible (amongst numerous others) stand out to me -

"And what does the Lord require of you ?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

"The most important [ commandment is ] … Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  the second is this : Love your neighbour as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12 : 29 - 31)

"… I [ God ] was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink.  I was a stranger and you invited Me in.  I needed clothes and you clothed Me.  I was in prison and you visited Me. … whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me." (Matthew 25 : 31 - 46).

* Note : The title of this post is a question because I don’t want to presume that Keller’s views on poverty and the Bible, are the only right or correct views which Christians can adopt on this matter, though I very much if not fully agree with what Keller says : some previous thoughts may be found here and here.

The Class 95 morning radio show yesterday posed the following question, and invited listeners to call in and give their opinions :

"If there is test which shows that your child would be born gay, would you still conceive ?"

Apart from the scientific inaccuracies — such as comparing this theoretical pre-conception test to post-conception amniotic fluid tests for downs syndrome for example, which was later corrected — I found the entire episode rather nonsensical because the DJs tried to position a willingness or unwillingness to conceive as an indication of whether a caller viewed gays as less than "human", which I thought was unfair and missed the more fundamental ethical issue.

If there is a test which would tell you whether the child you conceive would be born gay, that would be conclusive as to the question of whether homosexuality is genetically pre-determined.  (I’m not an expert on this matter, so I can only say that based on the current state of medical / scientific knowledge, this question of whether homosexuality is genetically pre-determined is open to debate, without going further to say which is correct).  And if homosexuality is genetically pre-determined, to say that one would not have children because you know the child would be born a homosexual, would be no better than saying that you would not have children, because you know your child will be born a boy or a girl, or a Chinese, or Malay, or Indian, or caucasian.  The DJs had therefore (unfairly) asked a question which no right-minded person could say "no" to, and which no caller could answer "no" to without being viewed as an unreasonable human being.  In other words, the DJs had rigged the question, to get the "yes" answers which they wanted to hear, and which they wanted their listeners to hear.

I also think that the DJs missed a bigger and more fundamental ethical issue, which is : if it is possible to test whether a child you conceive would be born gay (or to test the gender or IQ of a child you conceive), should society permit such tests ? 

I personally find the idea of such tests quite distasteful, and the "designer baby" implications which follow from such tests, morally questionable.

The morning show DJs had skipped the first and more fundamental question of the ethics of such pre-conception testing.  This suggests to me that they either do not think that such pre-conception testing poses any significant ethical / moral issues, or that they had not carefully thought through the issues which they wanted to debate on air.  Whether it was the former or the latter, this confirms my conclusion that yesterday’s morning show episode was pretty much a load of nonsense.