Of Our Generation...
This entry was inspired by a little incident while I was out on a gig. I can’t really remember how the conversation started, but I and my colleague ended up arguing over the government’s move to cut subsidies to the people.
The argument began over the government’s decision to cut RM700 million worth of fuel subsidies to decrease the country’s deficit. However, soon after that move, they spend an estimated RM900 million to give civil servants RM500 each, something he views to be a knee-jerk reaction to an opposition-lead initiative to reward its civil servants to increase the federal’s support.
After a rather lengthy cross of words, I felt the need to ask him whether he was angry that the government removed the subsidy, or that they used the money “saved” to give it to the civil servants.
... He told me it was because the government removed the subsidy.
I was enraged. I screamed at him, telling him it was a selfish decision...
... and he agreed. But he didn’t feel there was a fault; that the government was essentially taking away a “right” of the citizens for their own political gain, choosing to make references to Singapore and the States and asking “why can’t we be like them” as a petroleum-producing country.
And here I believed people like him no longer existed within our generation.
I felt like smacking him in the head as I told him off, asking him to consider the relative ease to implement a central public transport system in a country the size of Singapore, and consider the history behind the states. I asked him whether he knew the difference between a “privilege” and a “right”...
He simply summed it to a difference of opinion.
I am thoroughly disappointed. =\