“If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”
– Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President
TO measure society’s gains, strains and pains, one must study the melting pot’s willingness to house both jackpots and crackpots. The resilient patience to own the patent for narcissism is the monopoly of the crackpots.
Global geopolitical territorial wars offer a bewildering case study of both sides of the conflict being aided and assisted by the same jackpots and crackpots.
Jackpots and crackpots coexist to draw contrasts and compare notes. Sadomasochistic politicians’ lust for cracking the melting pot of racial cohesiveness is another case study for mental illness.
P.J. O’Rorke warned that giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to underaged youngsters. Most crackpots in government are nursery politicians waiting to graduate for kindergarten.
Malaysian crackpots are anointed and appointed to throw the monkey-wrench into multi-cultural cohesiveness making a mockery of both “national unity” and Article 48(1) (a) Federal Constitution (disqualification for Parliament membership due to unsound mind).
Crackpots are the glass ceilings of every political culture. This mental illness is oblivious and immune to the rule of law, conscience or consciousness.
Multi-cultural Malaysia was historically a socioeconomic powerhouse. The “special position” constitutional inducement was necessary to encourage immigrant labour for the mining, public works and plantation sectors.
But this scenario is misinterpreted by the crackpots who ignore the jackpot provision of Article 153 Federal Constitution that posits the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the authority responsible “for the legitimate interests of all other communities”.
This jackpot provision is socially, culturally, politically, economically and deliberately ignored or forgotten by the crackpots who make policies arrogantly produced by their private advisers and consultants.
If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal; to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative; to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist. Here jackpots and crackpots lock horns.
Another melting pot containing jackpots and crackpots was well articulated by John Kenneth Glabraith: “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it is just the opposite.”
Crackpot politics was best described by Nikita Khrushchev who crushed and crucified politicians “as the same everywhere, in that they promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers”.
Malaysian Government actors and agents still seem to be dependent on alien laws and procedures since Merdeka vaulted Malaya into self-government and “independence”.
Lessons to be learnt from history and past mistakes mean nothing. Illusions and mirages have substituted jackpots’ innovations for crackpots’ ethnocentric policies and philosophies.
Damnation and abomination for the nation depends on gerrymandering and malapportionment of electoral districts evident in the repealed Article 116(3)(4) and (5) (Federal constituencies) Federal Constitution. Tactical revenge for Bersih 2007?
But all is not doom and gloom given the inexorable fact that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong became the ultimate arbiter especially when the “Unity Government” of four coalitions had to become a jackpot for stability.
But this jackpot is being kicked around like in a football game with no referee by crackpots who create chaos to justify another federal ministry dedicated to problem-solving. Seditious and treasonous conspiracy are not in our statute books – as yet.
Malaya had a jackpot education system with sekolah pondok, madarasah and funduq prior to colonisation. This system of education included the study and practice of moral values while studying agriculture, metalwork and woodwork befitting the demands of that society.
Today, the jackpot is aimed solely at the prospects of future employment and the building of business aimed at wealth creation. Nothing wrong per se, but where are the enforceable moral values that bind all Malaysians as one cohesive unit of peace, partnership and prosperity?
Crackpots market education totally ignoring rationalism and empiricism as basic elements for imparting valuable knowledge for future leaders. The use and reason and logic is replaced by the art of memorizing stuff.
Artificial intelligence is regularly making its rounds. Whether it is a jackpot or a veritable crackpot will depend on how it is articulated or manipulated for selfish reasons, shady purposes, evil motives and hidden agendas.
Crackpots have become totally immune to laws, rules, regulations and other preventive or proactive disciplines. Jackpot concepts and innovations necessary and needful for nation-building are deemed too sensitive, seditious and surreptitious.
The jackpot of the 1998 Reformasi mindset and movement has morphed after 26 years of experimentation into an illusory philosophy. The electors spoke and the Unity Government happened, thanks to Royal intercession.
PMX must become adept and proficient in making all stakeholders beholden to peace, partnership and prosperity instead of race and religion. That is the jackpot that eludes him.
Crackpot politics is something PMX seems incapable of bending and mending. Nobody and nothing is upsetting the “special position” status, and yet there is fear and suspicion by the very beneficiaries.
Is there a practical recipe for outwitting and outlawing crackpot politics? Mark Twain believed that every inventor is a crackpot until his idea succeeds. Crackpots can become jackpots!
Technocrats are shoved aside in favour of bureaucrats like crackpots are preferred over jackpots. There might be hope for the nation if PMX knows how to fix this self-inflicted misery.
PMX is apparently appeasing political parties as if GE-16 is the top priority. Meanwhile, the crackpots got the upper hand. They are not educated from within or without for doing right. The parade continues.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at ChiefJudge@secamtektektribe.org.
