Comments on Summary Task
Here are some of the points that are cause for concern:
- The author has made a whole series of assumptions which
can be shown to be false. For instance, there is no proof that people with a low
educational background cannot vote or choose candidates sensibly. In fact, voting patterns
at district board level and for the Urban Council elections clearly show a careful choice
of candidates by voters. A comparison with major Western countries would also challenge
this assumption.
- The use of emotional terms or leading
adjectives such as "silly", "bad thing", "well known"
without any attempt to justify the use of the terms themselves.
- The use of a concept without any attempt to
establish what it actually means. For instance what does
"democracy" mean in this context? What is "stability" and what is
"prosperity"? All these terms need to be defined before they are applied.
- There is no evidence presented to establish the
argument that governments know best what to do, or that they must be right just because
they are "experts".
- How does the speaker know that if people are given the vote that they will
make demands on public expenditure that will ruin the economy? Reasonable
evidence is needed before you could even begin to agree with that statement.
- Why is democracy (whatever that might mean) only applicable to developed
states and therefore not applicable to Hong Kong? What is the definition
of a developed state?
- What is the model proposed for Hong Kong and why is it better? None of these
arguments have been put to the reader.
