He was right.
If the people in a society are destructive or morally deficient and tend to hurt themselves and others, it is imperative that laws, regulations, processes, procedures and guidelines are enacted and enforced.
In any case, such enforcement must be accompanied with a large dose of common sense.
However common sense is not so common, so said Voltaire.
Yet it is important that it must prevail.
Last week, Singapore’s Ministry of Education – yes, Education, of all ministries – sent a decree dictating that school children watching the Youth Olympic Game events must not carry water bottles carrying the logos of Nike or Adidas.
The stupid act presumably sprang from the fear that students will engage in “ambush marketing” – when one brand pays to sponsor an event and other (competing) brands try to steal the limelight.
(Adidas is however, one of the 12 sponsors of YOG, which adds to the puzzle.)
Audience members at TV shows have always been told not turn up with attire that carry logos of brands. Product placement is a big thing with TV stations. But for a government ministry to issue an edict to all schools forbidding school kids not to carry water bottles with logos – that’s a bit much. School kids carry water bottles because they drink from them, they need hydration, they’re not into marketing of any kind – ambush or otherwise.
I wonder where those smart-alecky officials from the Ministry of Education – one of the most screwed-up ministries, in my opinion – got their education from. They must have attended some schools for the brain-damaged to come up with such crapola.
In any case, they eventually withdrew their edict, but not after being slammed online and suffering much ridicule.
Tsk, tsk, only in Singapore, only in Singapore.