Popehat

A Group Complaint about Law, Liberty, and Leisure

The Difference Between Free Speech Heroism and Free Speech Martyrdom Is Common Sense

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Note to blogger Gopalan Nair:

Your dogged criticism of the legal and political elite of Singapore is in the best tradition of journalism. Though your accusation that judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean was "prostituting herself" was insulting, it was fair comment in light of her tolerance of a lawsuit in which Singapore's ruling elite is using defamation law to suppress political dissent.

However….

This is what is known, in American political parlance, as "pulling a Gary Hart:"

I am Gopalan Nair. Today is May 31, 2008 at 10.40am Singapore time. I am at present in Singapore at Broadway Hotel, Room 708, 195 Serangoon Road, Singapore, 218067. The hotel telephone number is is 62924661. My local SingTel telephone number is 83764236.

I'm all in favor of you defying Singapore's ludicrous and oppressive defamation laws. But there's taking the bullet during battle in the interests of freedom, and then there's jumping in front of the bullet in the interests of self-promotion. Daring the officials of Singapore to jail you — a group that is thirsty for blood, not having caned any disaffected teenaged expats for more than a decade — seems to rush past courting danger and reach a level of pulling up to danger on a street corner and offering it $200 for a blow job.

Your arrest was not exactly a shock.

Dude, the point of blogging is that you can say anything you want and they can't do anything about it. What's the deal with telling them where to find you?

Last 5 posts by Ken White