What the Singaporean government wants, it gets.

Three days ago, the Singaporean government passed the 2013 white paper on population. It's a bit of a doozy, but essentially the Singaporean government is aiming for a 6.9 million population by 2030. How? Mass immigration, of course.

"Although the Amended Motion captures some of the Workers' Party concerns about the White Paper, fundamentally the White Paper still forms the basis of the roadmap forward to 2030, which the House was asked to endorse," said WP chairman Sylvia Lim in a statement.

Explaining the party's reason for voting against the amended motion, she said the party "believes that the path proposed by the White Paper will further dilute the Singaporean core and weaken our national identity" and lead the Republic to "require unsustainable population injections in the future".

The opposition aside, the incumbent government (which has been incumbent for almost all of the country's history) rammed it through anyways with their majority:

After five days of intense debate, Parliament on Friday passed the amended motion to endorse the White Paper on Population with 77 ayes and 13 nays.

Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Eugene Tan abstained from the vote.

Workers' Party MP Low Thia Khiang called for division on the amended motion to endorse the White Paper. In a division, the vote of each Member is collected and tabulated through an electronic voting system.

Other than opposition MPs, who all voted against the motion, NMPs Faizah Jamal, Janice Koh and Laurence Lian also voted 'no'.

And of course, the political elites still don't get it. Or if they do get it, they won't say it for fear of being blasted by the global media:

Ms Lim added that the party believes that the greater well-being of Singaporeans "lies in sustainable economic growth driven by increases in our productivity and in our resident workforce, rather than further increases in our dependency on imported foreign labour". Demographic challenges must be "addressed fundamentally and urgently" but focusing on increasing the total fertility rate and growing the resident labour force participation rate, she said.

Emphasis mine.

So, they're still pushing the good worker drone merit badge. As Ms. Judgybitch points out, you cannot have both. Either you have one parent staying at home (it doesn't matter which, mom or dad) to care for the kids, or frankly, don't have them and just get a damned dog instead, because what's the point when you're going to foist them off onto other people anyway? Another childcare centre's just sprung up within walking distance of my home (I define this as thirty minutes on foot), and that brings the total to nine. Nine whole centres full of children being raised by the state.

I think I know why eight-year-old Singaporean kids have iPhones: to babysit them like TeeVee did for their parents.

But hey, since I can't appeal to Singaporean parents by any sense of morality, let's appeal to the cult of meritocracy, education and credentialism, shall we? Here's a fun fact: neglect your kids, and they will grow up to be dumber.

So your beautiful neglected children whom you let the maid raise will grow up to have lower PSLE, 'O' level and 'A' level scores. Then who are you going to boast to about your children's grades at the kopitiam? There, have I scared you into submission yet? It seems to work well enough for the government. Want your kids to be smart, save your $500-700 a month on that Montessori preschool and actually be a parent.

Pfft, enough ranting. Back to the point. We all know that despite whatever folks may say, executive privilege always trumps whatever's on paper. For example, Switzerland decided in a referendum some years back to deport foreigners who commit crimes - it's already in their constitution, and yet the government has been dragging its feet on implementation in service of the diversity imperative. The Singaporean government is dead set on immigration, and immigration it will have, by golly. So let's say the populace gets disaffected enough to vote out the incumbents - so what? When you think about it, the civil service will still belong to them, major utilities and public works like public transport will still be under people who answer to them (there is a reason why the term government-linked comapny exists, after all), and the president (who is elected separately from parliament) has the final say-so on access to the reserves. For all intents and purposes, the government will be run by the incumbents even if enough seats go to the opposition coalition.

So let's assume that the population of locally-born citizens doesn't change at 3.29 million (as opposed to contracting, with that dismal fertility rate), and we have 6.9 million people. Consider that carefully. When you walk on the streets on Singapore on 2030 (assuming all our predictions have somehow mysteriously gone wrong and the world hasn't collapsed by then), there will be only a 47.6% chance they will be a native-born citizen.

Friends in the west, I'd like you to step back and consider what it might be like if you were walking down the street and had only a 47.6% chance of meeting a fellow native citizen. What do you think that will do for society?

Hmm...you might want to watch Singapore over the next decade or so, assuming the lights stay on. It'll be interesting to see how much a benevolent dictatorship can keep the lid on an undercurrent of dissent.