reduced and recycled

I think they must’ve figured out the sheer stupidity of saying something like “you cannot vote your conscience, you can only vote along party lines”. And this is further justified by appeals to party discipline. Isn’t that amazing? We, ostensibly, vote for representatives who will have the interests of their constituents at heart, and trust them to be upstanding. Then our very own Prime Minister just does away with that particular naivette and declares that an MP’s ethical considerations must be no different than the party’s.

Which just means, it shouldn’t matter to the individual members if the party gets it wrong, or does something unconstitutional; all that matters is that such members show their gratitude for the party’s largese by toeing the line, even if Opposition MPs get it right. Well that means several things: MPs must choose to be stupid for the sake of party loyalty; MPs must choose to be wrong - and become laughing stocks in their own constituencies - even if an Opposition MP raises a sensible motion or issue; MPs are forced to trust the party’s leadership, even if they think the leadership gets it wrong.

And boy, some of the excuses for this foul-up are breathtaking. Take Nazri Abdul Aziz’s view of the whole debacle. It smacks of ridiculous tit for tat. Imagine: I won’t support what you do because you won’t agree to what we want; so stupidity is justified by the Opposition’s refusal to bend over, lah. How’s that for great reasoning? It takes the whole basis of judgments over issues in parliament beyond the actual merits of differing positions, and places the fate of various Bills, motions, and issues in the hands of a group of idiots for whom politics is more important.

Damn, why even refer Bills to parliamentary committees? Just pass the damn thing, lah, I mean, no need to waste time having First Readings lah, Second Readings lah, or useless debates for which MPs don’t even want to contribute.. you know? Does Nazri realize how much of a mockery he’s made the parliamentary process?

But the comedy doesn’t stop there. He even goes on to say the following:

I believe the Jasin MP is not wrong in what he did. We are called upon everyday for help by our constituents. I also do that as an MP (to help constituents).

For example, someone gets arrested by the police in my constituency, he comes to my office for help. I go and mitigate on his behalf with the OCPD. Is that obstructing the authorities from doing their job?

If the Jasin MP is guilty, then all MPs are guilty of this …trying to help constituents.

Either way, whatever it may be, it is up to the authorities concerned. They make the decision, we can only mitigate on behalf of our constituents.

I wonder if En Nazri feels the pie on his face, yet. Today’s NST carries a front page spread on this very issue, making correlations between the name of the forwarding agent to which the timber logs seized by the Malacca Customs Department belonged, and MP for Jasin, En Mohd Said Yusof. He must have known the game was up: I received a Maxis/Star sms alert declaring:

Jasin MP Mohd Said Yusof has admitted being the sole owner of Binyu Sof Enterprise (wtf kinda name is that?! -ed.), the forwarding agent for logs seized by the Malacca Customs Department

Well nevermind that En Said Yusof was only trying to help out a bumiputera company in trouble with the law, hor; now this idiot admits being the sole owner of said bumiputera company. So, of course, he was only helping himself, lah. Which just means, he was trying to profit from his vaunted position of power, lah. Which is the classic definition of corruption, by the way.

Our MPs are such a joke, aren’t they?