sundaymorningstaple wrote:the local penchant of trying to divert criticism away by pointing to other countries for comparison. It's almost second nature when one spends 43 years of being trained on how to do it effortlessly by the ruling party.
I've been thinking about this, since you've repeated this point more than once (sign of age, my friend?

)
It's a valid point that we don't look ourselves squarely in the face to ask who we (as a nation) are, what we want to be etc. We do tend to compare. But that's not merely to deflect criticism. Our entire raison d'etre as a country has been a comparison. Our economy has to grow faster than those around us. Our people have to be smarter to attract businesses here. Our crime rate has to be lower etc.
Unlike the US which at some point in your history decided who you are and put this down in your constitution, we are very much defined by who we are not. Singapore started because we could not be Malaya anymore. So in a sense we have always known who we are by telling you who we are not.
So while your point is valid and we have a lot to learn from it, I think it is not quite fair to say that we use it as a tactic to defend ourselves against criticism. It's probably both better and worse than that - comparison is in our very psyche.
My thoughts for the moment anyway.