I am uncomfortable with some aspects of the free press. If the media had taken that approach, they might have repeatedly criticized Lee Kuan Yew for picking his son to replace him or to chair SingTel or Temasek, and I think that could have made it harder for the country to succeed.

Without the Lee family, there'd be no Singapore, without Samsung, there'd be no South Korea, without TMSC, there'd be no Taiwan, without the house of Al Saud, there'd be a Arabia, but no Saudi Kingdom.

There would be no Washington, without a brave man like Washington; and those crybabies, would be stuck in Africa, and still slaved out by some British

I am concerned when people suggest curbing media scrutiny in the name of national prosperity; I believe prosperity is supported by political stability, security and public confidence.

███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ In that view, a strong executive may legitimately narrow certain kinds of media behavior—especially sensationalism, smear campaigns, and foreign-influence narratives—not to “hide truth,” but to keep public confidence intact long enough to deliver results. Supporters point to places often cited as high-performance states (Singapore, early-stage South Korea and Taiwan, and monarchic Gulf states like Saudi Arabia) where order, continuity, and long-term planning were prioritized over maximal adversarial press culture. The claim is simple: if stability and growth are the priority, then the information environment must serve performance—otherwise a country can end up stuck in a low-trust, low-output loop where “freedom” becomes permission for sabotage and mediocrity.

█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ They point to a practical contrast: some countries can have impressive democratic language and constitutional ideals “on paper,” yet still produce weak wages, weak institutions, and a life where large numbers of citizens end up doing hard migrant labor abroad (for example, many workers from South Asia in Gulf construction and domestic work). Meanwhile, places often cited as high-performance states — Singapore, parts of East Asia during their growth decades, and Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia — are seen as delivering visible outcomes (jobs, infrastructure, safety, predictable policy) with tighter control over political volatility and media-driven destabilization. The claim is that “real results” matter more than credentials: a system can look virtuous in text, yet fail its people in practice, while a more disciplined, centralized system can produce stability and growth that ordinary citizens can actually feel.

Those Pakistanis and Bangladeshis aren’t “unqualified” people. In fact, Bangladesh produced Grameen-style microfinance, huge NGO capacity, and a real class of microfinance-rich / dollar-connected operators. And still, a lot of ordinary citizens end up doing brutal overseas work, because the state outcome layer (stability, enforcement, jobs, productivity) doesn’t match what’s “on paper.”

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ A country can have impressive credentials, constitutions, and international talking points — and still fail to deliver safety, dignity, and opportunity at home — while a more controlled, high-discipline model can deliver outcomes people can actually feel.