Why is the Singapore so strict on the enforcement of what people say? Singapore is a small red dot just below Malaysia and through almost 42 years of establishment, she has achieved renowned recognition globally for and education and medical hub. On top of that, she also gained political stability despite the fact that she has a multi racial community. Any politician would find the way how Singapore establish herself an almost difficult task to accomplish. So would the democratic Singapore be better off with freedom of expression or social responsibility?

Both Singer and Szilagyi view have its own firm standing pros and cons.

Since we live in a democratic country, it should have the characteristics of a democratic country like allowing the freedom of speech being the most basic. We have witness the aftermath of the not so long ago blogger who wrote insensitive articles in his blog. This has cause a rather wooha in Singapore. But if we were allowed to express ourself freely and at the same time not resort to violence, we could then discuss the issues peacefully. This might be better as compared to internalising the unhappiness and allow to grow exponentially which may graduate to hatred in the long run.

Another pro is that with the freedom to express oneself, there will not exist a need for a media watchdog. No doubt there is a tiny weeny trace of freedom of expression in the media, several articles that fails the test from the censorship body is discarded immediately. But not taking into the effects or changes it might bring, we Singaporeans are lacking exposure and it might be this that the media has to "modify" the story to suit us. We are the evolved form of our ancestors; more civilised that is. Thus the government should increase our exposure instead of limiting it.

However few might disagree with Singer's view. The Holocaust by the Nazis is a crude example of what might be of Singapore if there was maximum FOE. One cannot deny the craziness of Hitler and if this were to be true, where is Singapore? Non-existent? With FOE a person might infuriate people whose relatives or friends died during the Holocaust just because he has a right to voice his opinions and deny the Holocaust. He was thus jailed to appease the masses but the problem in the first place was tried to be solved by restricting the FOE. This is rather contradicting. And if Singaporeans were to allow such incident to happen, a particular race could even be angered to even initiate a riot. But if this situation puts the government in a very sticky position whether democracy should be upheld or allowing such incidents to happen.

As for Szilagyi's emphasis on social responsibility is a rather potential approach to keeping racial stability in Singapore. In Singapore, 699.3 square kilometres house, as of June 2006, about 4.5 million Singaporeans of four major racial groups. And if, for example, a pessimistic prediction a racial conflict break out due to some immature ass, Singapore will or might be greatly affected. Be it economically or politically. No one is spared from the aftermath of it. Only with the practice of social responsibility will Singapore be able to avoid the conflict and thus maintaining peace among the four races.

Also in the ever moving world, being economically sound is the way to keep up with the pace. But what happen if there were no social responsibility, there will be much dissatisfaction about another race and thus disrupting the economy's operation. Every company with multiracial employment would be facing hostile relations with different races. Consequently, the performance of the company will be affected and leading to resignation of unhappy workers. Thus this may adversely affect the economy.

However, we cannot have the best of both worlds. Restricting one will reduce the other variable which in this case is FOS. Since FOS is essential to democratic countries, not having it will make Singapore a authoritarian democratic country. And also with social responsibility, people will think from the traditional point of view
for every thing.

In conclusion, be it allowing FOS or emphasizing on SR, we must evaluate Singapore's need for each aspect and then wise decision.