When being loud is right

 Back in college, one of my law lecturers said something like this;

"When you go to court as a lawyer, you should argue intelligently. If you can't argue intelligently, then you should argue convincingly. But if you can't even argue convincingly, then the best that you can do would be to argue loudly."

I remember the whole class laughed when he said that.

We thought he was just joking.

Turned out that he was not.

Nowadays, loud people have a better chance to be the winners.

People don't care about facts as much as they care about perceptions.

If you can outshout your rivals, you may still win, even when you are in the wrong.

Just look at our social media conversations, and you all would know that it's true.

Those who shouted the loudest and most frequent are the winners.

Now this being loudest thing has reached a new level.

Look at this,

Motion of confidence on PM Anwar passed via voice vote

Yup, there was no voting for the motion.

The Dewan speaker just made the decision to pass it based on who made the most noise on the floor.

So, the louder ones were the winner.

Nice.

Honestly, I don't really care.

Democracy has after all became a joke in this country since the outcome of the GE15 that day.

I believe more such jokes are coming our way over the next five years.

No point in complaining, okay. 

We voted for this government, remember?

But still, you better be careful with what you shouted out after this.

I actually begin to suspect that this current government will be less tolerant than the previous administrations.

The signs are already there at this early stage that we will have less democratic freedom in the coming years.

You shouted the wrong things, and you may find yourself in the lock up or getting your ass sued off.

I also think that going to rallies such as the Bersih demonstrations of yesteryears is now not a very good idea.

Najib was the PM who stopped the police from beating up street demonstrators and even abolished the ISA.

But then again, the guy was seen by us as being too soft and tried too hard to be nice.

Some even called him Mat Kepit.

Now we have Anwar as PM, a jail-hardened guy.

You try la call him names like that and see what happen.

So, don't fool around. 

The days of baton wielding FRU and water cannon may be back, okay.

"Oh, those violent protesters are just Islamist extremists. They deserve to be beaten and locked up. We are just ensuring peace and stability in the country as according to the laws," they would say.

And in a way they would be right. 

This country needs the peace and stability to move forward, especially during the coming global recession.

Democracy? 

Who cares? We already turned it into a joke the other day, what.