Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it)

It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good.

Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "homes for us but not for thee" however he did cry when the greater Malaysian dream fell apart.

The arguments over his house and garden post death sum up the legacy well: he did not seek ulogising or mythologised shrine status, the apparatchiks can't resist the temptation.

I see parallels to Britain's Enoch Powell. Super smart, highly educated, disinterested in what others think, Not afraid to be contrarian and not particularly interested in performative democracy but also a bit one eyed on his hobby horse. If Powell hadn't been a racist shit, he could have been as effective as Lee Kwan Yew was.

Trivialising Singapore-for-foreigners as "no long hair, gays, gum or spitting" misses the point. Singapore welcomes all kinds of people if they have money, contribute to society and are useful or rich. Modern Singapore has gays and lesbians and tattoos and long hair a-plenty. They're just in a "don't ask don't tell" demi-monde netherworld.

Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.

> If Powell hadn't been a racist shit, he could have been as effective as Lee Kwan Yew was

How do you compare Powell's "racism" and LKY's views on race and intelligence? By nearly all definitions of racism, Yew was a racist as well

I think the last part really is why LKYs legacy is eulogized so heavily especially with more left leaning counterparts. In the USA there is no legacy matter for politicians, and they often scupper with one foot in the door and the other halfway out.

None of the things that LKY did that made Singapore great are unique to a dictatorship but him being the spiritual head and huge focus on education is critical. Interesting the USA has a good appetite for spending lots of money on students, but the education outcomes are really bad compared to places with half the spending

Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world.

Governance is more important than one’s history when it come to success of a country.

> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.

Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as a serious worry or complaint.