Politics isn't entertainment, young man

I look forward to reading the newspapers these days because it's entertaining to watch the PAP and the Opposition grapple with each other. The PAP and the WP in particular have traded blows over Chen Show Mao, the WP's concept of a First World Parliament, and various economic suggestions. I particularly like it when one party goes on the offensive, and the other party responds by going on the counter-offensive. When the PAP pressed the WP to give an example of a First World Parliament, the WP responded by pointing out that our electoral system has no precedent. When the PAP pointed out that 1 of the WP's proposal would be equivalent to "raiding" the government reserves, the WP responded by pointing out that using the same reasoning the Grow and Share package the PAP is handing out can be considered a raid on government reserves too.

We can imagine an armada of space ships launching an attack on a distant galaxy. The attack is repelled, and the aggressors now find themselves in hostile territory with weaker nunmbers. The defenders go on the counter-offensive, pushing them back to their homeland, where this time it is their time now to be outnumbered. And this will go on indefinitely. It will escalate. Both parties will get desperate, as their resources get lower and lower and the prospect of losing greater and greater. This is ideal. This is ideal because it leads to a climatic battle and a satisfying resolution. Unfortunately, because of the nature of politics where there is a large number of issues to grapple with, of which parties will never admit they are wrong in any one of them anyway, and because the PAP seem fond of disregarding the moves made by their opponents, we can't have that. Instead we have a series of fights which don't escalate and don't achieve satisfying closure.

Nonetheless, I haven't been so entertained since the Aware saga in 2009.