if you don’t like it, then leave lor

why “if you don’t like it, then leave lor” mofos are so fucking lame

disclaimer: no AI has been used to make this, it’s probably biased and maybe even incorrect at some parts but at the very least you know it came directly from my brain

I hate when Singaporeans (or anyone for that matter) says “eh if you don’t like x, then you just leave lor”. It’s a hyper-reductive and quite frankly, braindead, argument to make in response to anything. I see conservatives/right-wing folks make this argument most of the time when they’re desperately clamouring for any sort of last-ditch argument to corner you into a “gotcha” moment. Sometimes, I catch other left-wing people pulling this argument out and I think it’s probably working against our cause 99% of the time.

Allow me to mansplain to you why I believe so.

1. saying that kills all criticism, even the constructive kind

The moment you say anything along those lines, you are essentially leaving no room for discussion on improvements. You are shutting down the conversation entirely, there’s no room for us to go towards a common consensus or how we can fix this issue.

I have the belief that the politically active in Singapore, be it if you left-leaning or right-leaning, are probably the people who are more nationalistic in general. It’s quite hard lah, to be honest, to be very politically active here because I have the view that our system incentivises people to drop out of participation and to work, work, work and then die. You only really focus once every 4 years — mostly to see the absolutely ridiculous shit the opposition does to shoot themselves in the foot or the mudslinging and overpromising a certain party loves to partake in. Ultimately, what’s repressing political progress in Singapore is not that the PAP has a very strong hold on local politics, but perhaps more so that people are apathetic or they are unsure/unwilling to partake in the conversation more actively. But ok I digress.

No society in the world is perfect. Whether you live in a capitalist or communist, socialist, technocratic, democratic, authoritarian country, doesn’t matter, they all have their flaws. As a socialist, I would fight night and day fervently as to why our country could benefit from a more benevolent economic system and why capitalism, in its current late stage, fucking sucks ass. I could point out endlessly about how a socialist economy would focus more on the betterment of the working class (which, hey no shocker, is most of us here). I could do all that, but at the end of the day, the conversation is pretty much shot dead by someone just saying “eh if you like socialism so much, you go to Venezuela or Cuba or Kerala lah”.

Given that we know no society in the world is perfect, it’s not that crazy to say that one can love their country greatly and still want better for all of their countrymen and countrywomen. Like hey man, I’m not anti-Singaporean for saying that I want our country to be nicer to migrant workers who toil in the sun for hours, while some entitled Singaporeans (who desperately need to get off Reddit and take a shower) espouse some extremely fucking crazy rhetoric about them.

Wanting better is not really rejection but I think it’s a form of love. I mean, for God’s sake, Singaporeans love to complain about everything. Hot weather, complain. Cold weather, complain. Lukewarm, also complain sia. I think people only bother complaining about things that they love and have an emotional connection to. I complain a lot because I love Singapore and I think we can do so much better on so many issues, both internally and externally.

2. it’s a false dichotomy

Saying “just leave” provides zero counter-reasoning. It’s more of like a verbal shutdown tactic, which is kinda embarrassing on your part if you make this statement because it hints that you have no actual rebuttal. You have no choice but to deport the argument instead of engaging with it. It also pretends that there’s only two options to make here: accept or exile.

I think the reality is that most people when it comes to politics exist in the boring middle. You can dislike your housing, your boss without having the need to uproot your entire life. And that’s genuinely fine. Moving is damn expensive bro, not all of us can afford to pack up and leave to somewhere that aligns with our morals a little better. It also ignores the fact that people have invested greatly into a place. My family, my potential career, my languages, my culture, my citizenship are all things that I cannot just decide to change one day and go. Essentially, you want someone to abandon their entire identity and being just because they don’t like a couple of things about where you guys reside. Some people can la, good for them. Others, maybe have no choice what, so bopian lor, just complain and hope something improves. I think that’s just a sloppy way of doing things that only authoritarians would resort to. And you’re not a good, little authoritarian wannabe aren’t you?

Also, it’s definitely a flimsy argument if you just turn the argument back on people who say such things. If a #woke-sjw liberal snowflake is making an argument that we shouldn’t be exposing our kids to AI tools at such a young age and you are seething in the comments, then why not you leave? Why not you leave since you can’t stand to be around such people who hate AI? Look at me, I love AI slop and I love watching AI-generated fruits kiss while 1 quadrillion sound effects play. How dare these fucking liberals tell me that AI data centres are bad for the environment!

Bro, then you leave lor. Maybe you’ll be happier sucking on the toes of Silicon Valley tech bros who are fantasizing and salivating about outsourcing human thought and cognition to AI. Look at me guys, I love when an agentic workflow cucks me and replaces my job! I hope ChatGPT 7o-max can fuck my AI wife real good because I paid $20/month for the Pro-Team-Lite subscription!

3. your ruling-class fetish is showing

More often than not, when conservatives make this argument, the people they intentionally/unknowingly defend - are those in power. You rarely see this argument being played otherwise. I’m not sure if it’s because subconsciously, they know that no logical arguments exist in the defence of the evil, heinous shit our elites get up to, but yeah.

I think usually people are so close to realising the full picture, but they always somehow end up blaming other working class people instead.

Like seriously think about it, such an argument is usually directed at working class people who believe the system has failed them and are rightfully so, frustrated with the way life is here. For example, younger folks who are under the crushing weight of skyrocketing cost of living, just trying to buy a damn house or car.

Eh please lah. Usually y’all in the “don’t like it, then leave” crowd are masters at punching sideways and downwards. Y’all will rarely ever punch up. Punching up requires admittance that the system isn’t perfect and that realisation is too uncomfortable because maybe you have benefitted from this system and you don’t want your pretty, little, glass castle to crumble. In the absolute worst case right, you guys actually know the system is not perfect and needs improvement — yet for some odd reason, people complaining and doing something about the system icks you out more than the system itself. How’s that boot tasting bro?

“Not everything in life is sunshine and rainbows” is an absolutely fucking depressing and catastrophic way to cope with a system that is a laughable representation of how we are supposed to spend our limited 80 or so years of life here. We are ALL destined to be more than corporate slaves that serve no purpose except to enrich the ruling class’ capital. The sooner we realise that and stop fighting among ourselves, the more work can be done to further the rights of the proletariat. The sooner we realise that and we fight for labour movements for better workers’ rights, the more work can be done for us to live like human beings. The sooner we realise that opposition and dissenting voices are good for society, the more progress can be made for a truly fairer and more equitable society for all.

“To be human is to be political.”

That’s a quote from Annamalai Kokila Parvathi. You may know her as one of the 3 hyper-woke, liberal SJW snowflakes who organised an illegal (by the gahmen’s definition) assembly/procession without a permit last year on 2 February. She also recently got POFMA-ed, to no one’s surprise. Another W in the bag for Big Brother.

A lot of people I’ve seen tend to label such acts of protest as performative, often citing the fact that these actions will do basically nothing to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza (or any other unlawful wars and genocides around the world). The alternative they present is usually that people in Singapore should suck thumb, shut the fuck up and not kaypoh other country’s issue. This one not our taiji what! (But then suddenly when it affects our gas prices and our stocks then oh yes, the Middle East conflict is so problematic and I have so many thoughts on it! The greedy inhumane materialism of some Singaporeans truly knows no bounds.)

No shit their march won’t stop the genocide. The imperialist war machine is well oiled with the oceans of blood it spills everywhere. The point is they tried something. It’s quite astonishing, the self-policing society we have built, where any out of line thoughts are policed first by netizens online out of discomfort or it being “cringe” because it’s not what we’ve been brainwashed to think. They’re out there facing the risk of arrest and worse, due to a legal system that oppresses dissenting voices and your ass is seriously sitting at home typing “performative lol send them back to where they came from” in your bedroom. What’s even crazier is that they’re fighting for people who were not as geographically fortunate as us to not get bombs dropped on their heads every few hours, something that most in Singapore will not even try to imagine because we’re so stuck in our tiny, privileged bubble.

Some people will seriously think that Singaporeans shouldn’t speak up about anything beyond our borders when we benefit immensely from being geopolitically interconnected and being at the top of the world order. Do you guys seriously think we would get to where we are today without looking beyond what’s happening in Singapore? Why not we just shut down all our trade deals, stop attending all those stupid UN meetings and actually you know what, shut down the whole Ministry of Foreign Affairs also (sorry Vivian, not I say one, they say this one not our taiji). Just stop having foreign policy altogether la, why the gahmen so kaypoh about outside country one sia?

Anyhow sia really, I hate this hypocrisy. Y’all don’t see meh, how it’s performative to pick and choose which foreign affairs we care about?

Ok anyway, I got distracted. Next time y’all wanna tell someone to “just leave” cause they don’t like something, remember that I wrote a whole essay on why you shouldn’t. Ok thanks bye.