Lee Kuan Yew - Once Professed Democracy

Before Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister and Leader of the ruling party he professed to believe in Democracy as can be seen in the quotes below. This shows that he is an unprincipled man, that once he had power all of his esteemed ideals and beliefs were thrown out the window or perhaps he never believed it in the first place and was just playing politics, telling lies. Once he had a taste of power there was no turning back from denying democratic and legal rights.

The amazing thing about Lee is that he obviously does have a very high IQ, he can wax eloquently on just about any topic, to hear the man in a close up friendly interview he comes across as rational, sensitive and intelligent. If a viewer was unaware of Singapore's political, legal and prison system, Lee Kuan Yew would have you sold on his brand of paradise.

Knowing that his main political opponents have been treated so harshly for decades - that they have been kept imprisoned without trial, bankrupted, tortured (according to Amnesty International)- knowing these things while listening to the wise old Mr. Lee leaves a disconnect; how can a man who seems so rational and wise also be capable of being the master of the Singapore gulags that have ruined many a good man, including Lim Chin Siong for example, for whom, as British declassified documents show, there was no evidence of Lim being a Communist as he was accused of being for years while being held in a Singapore prison, to the point of attempting suicide as the torture began to get to him.

How can a man be so smart on the one hand and such a monster on the other hand? Lee has accused opposition leader Dr. Chee of being near psychotic for wanting to challenge Lee's near absolute power, but is it not a form of schizophrenic sociopathic behaviour to be a brute behind the scenes and the wise kindly old man in front of the video cameras? He seems to have a high intelligence quotient but is lacking in the emotional quotient department. Studies of sociopaths have shown that the part of the brain where empathy and compassion are, seems to be dead or mostly dead in sociopaths, the light is not working. Unfortunately for the world these kinds of people quite often get to the top of politics and have no problem inflicting suffering on others, sometimes to the point of murder or mass murder using their police and armed forces.

"If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law - if that is not what we have always cried out against in Fascist states - then what is it?… If we are to survive as a free democracy, then we must be prepared, in principle, to concede to our enemies - even those who do not subscribe to our views - as much constitutional rights as you concede yourself."

- Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, Sept 21, 1955

If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then, no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at nought.

- Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, April 27, 1955

"Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict."

- Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October, 1956