Televised political debates between contesting candidates were first introduced in USA in 1960 with the (in)famous Nixon-Kennedy debates. Today, the candidate debates in America are a critical part of the election process – a passage of fire that has been lauded and criticised by various parties. UK recently introduced a televised debate… but with somewhat confusing results – political analysts are still grappling with the impact of the debates on the fate of the various parties in the upcoming UK election.

Should political candidates be required to debate before the election? Is debate the right tool to determine the leadership for a country? Are voters educated correctly after watching a debate, and are they able to make the “right” choice from the debate? Does the country as a whole benefit from the process of having a political debate on TV?

Debaters, this is a difficult topic to grapple with – so I ask that you show us how you can handle a complex topic with logic, analysis, substantiation, and (most importantly) tact. This is not about the political parties involved – this is a question of whether or not the tool of TV debates is harmful or not. So, my fellow debaters, let’s debate.

Tiger Woods, John Terry, Jesse James, Bill Clinton, Meg Ryan and even our local Jack Neo – all of them cheated on their spouses. The selfish actions of these individuals caused emotional harm and suffering to their partners and their families. Most members of society (even the more socially liberal ones) condemn the act of infidelity and adultery as an “immoral act”. Singapore has laws that prevent people from harming each other, and also prevent people from participating in “immoral” activities even if they want to – forms of unlicensed gambling, homosexuality, incest, possession of pornography, and other activities are banned by the state even if the acts are conducted between consenting adults. So Singapore is willing to criminalise immoral acts – yet adultery is not illegal in Singapore today. Hmm.

On the other hand, there are many who believe that the state should not dictate how a married couple should lead their lives – even in the event of infidelity, it should be up to the couple to determine whether they want to forgive and move on, or divorce. If adultery was made a criminal offense, the state could intervene and prosecute the cheating partner, thus disallowing the couple from resolving the situation on their own sometimes. Criminal laws should not be introduced lightly. As one website put it, “Yes, infidelity is awful. But it’s none of the government’s business.” South Korea, New Hampshire, and many other places that currently criminalise adultery are now considering revoking the “archaic” law.

This is clearly a controversial and timely issue for us to debate – experts are divided, and the implications for both sides of the case are quite severe. What should Singapore do? Fellow debaters, let’s hear your thoughts!

[Best comment stands to win an exclusive DA(S) 5 VCD set with accompanying guide booklets]

Google’s Street View application was launched in Singapore in Dec 2009, providing free virtual-tour/photo-mapping for all of Singapore using their special camera-mounted cars. Read the Singapore article here.

Internationally, this free service has caused much dismay and concern. Some privacy advocates are worried that the service is an intrusion that citizens cannot “opt out” of  – even if you do not want your house to be photographed, there is nothing legally preventing Google from doing so. Security officials are even more worried – would this tool allow terrorists and criminals to plan their attacks better? This side of the argument feels that Google needs to be stopped today – because as the photography resolution gets better in a few years, Google Street View will be able to take high-resolution images of people changing in their apartments, or even clear photographs of barcodes on the ID tags of security guards for criminals to copy.

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[Winner announced in the last comment, along with brief adjudication comments]

PM recently announced a change to our election process that will require all involved political parties to stop campaigning 24 hours before the voting day. The intent, he says, is to give voters “time to reflect on their decisions”. The opposition parties are up in arms, claiming that this will benefit the ruling party (who can use the government civil servant officers as their policy “mouthpieces”) and disadvantage the opposition parties. Others claim that in the age of digital interactive media and the internet, such rules are impractical, a point that PM acknowledges somewhat.

What do you think, fellow debaters? Is Singapore moving a step towards better democratic processes with this measure, or is this a policy doomed to failure? Will it benefit the voters as PM claims, or are we better off with all parties fighting till the very last moment? (more…)

[No winner was announced for this debate, but there are brief adjudication comments at the end of the comments]

We’ve had some interesting opinions on our first Debate of the month, so hopefully the second one will be even better. We’ve picked another controversial news item for this debate, and to spice things up, we will be offering a prize for the best comment (a DA(S) pen and t-shirt)- so we’re hoping this spices things up a bit more. Vote for your favourite comment below!

Singapore’s Attorney-General Walter Woon raised this dilemma recently when he spoke at the Singapore Children’s Society. The law is very clear when an adult has sex with a minor – even if the minor consents, the adult should have known better and not done the deed. What happens when two minors have consenting sex? Should they be prosecuted at all? If so, who should be prosecuted, and what punishment should be meted out to them? On this, A-G Walter Woon said, “The problem is, do we send the boy to jail? What good would that do?’ A-G also gave a few other case studies to ponder.

What should the legal system do in this case, my fellow debaters? To prosecute, or not to prosecute, that is the question.