When it comes to police matters, investigation, intel, nightlife, SS and the 'phien khai', I think I am far ahead of many bros here.
This point above I agree completely. And not only this, some of your arguments on "side issues" like licensed moneylending and ah longs, gang related killings, cases of injustice, and as I said earlier, some of the actions and inactions of the government, are second to none.
But I would like to give a few examples of the difference in mentality that I referred to:
1. You have on a few occasions mentioned businessman who are also politicians. I find it perfectly logical that many opposition politicians are businessman. It makes sense because you won't expect someone currently in the civil service, GLC, stat board, or even someone in the corporate private sector to be an opposition politician without considering for a really long time. The circumstances in SG are not conducive to this, shall we say.
2. As I said to you in a previous post, you or even your boss will not have been privy to the most complete and perhaps even correct information. Perhaps you find that hard to accept, but I don't. These are not people who will cause harm to just anybody, in fact you can argue that information should not even be collected on them. I'm sure your info relating to potential and actual criminals are spot on and accurate, but perhaps not where it comes to these chaps. Not trying to demean what u knew, I can assure u that managers in the private sector have the same problem. Unless u are the absolute top guy, u only know what u need to know or what they want u to know. And we know who the top guy in SG is, don't we.
3. In his previous post to me, scroobal indicated that CSJ's behavior through the years seems illogical for someone wanting to be in opposition politics. (Perhaps he can confirm my understanding). I found CSJ's behaviour perfectly logical, of course it's not the way a more savvy opposition politician would behave or the way a pap candidate/mp would behave. Felt he was wronged, tried to complain, when the failed, tried to get peoples' sympathy, gradually got more and more angry with his "opponents", started to say all sorts of things about them, some of them possibly true, others probably not. Under slightly different circumstances and with a different mentality, I could have been him.
4. The point about being on whose side, for whom or against whom. I don't really see a big problem, if they help to make peoples' lives better, who cares who they are for or against.
The main reason I continue to debate this is that it is grossly unfair on the man/men if he/they are bona fide.
Please note that this is 100% not a knock on people like you and their experience, knowledge or access to info.
It's not a "civil servant" mentality, more an "establishment" mentality, where it could be that having LESS knowledge gives you a clearer picture of the different possibilities and options. Just a few thoughts and sorry for the long winded post.