The state of Singapore.

I was thumbing through the weekend edition (Europe, Sat Oct8/Sun Oct9) of the Financial Times yesterday over breakfast and chanced upon 2 interesting reports. The first report that caught my eye was an article on the recent jailing of 2 bloggers in Singapore (pg 3). The next article a few pages down was the article in the picture (pg 7).
This made me wonder, why does Singapore get such a bad reputation for being a police state ruled by an authoritarian government? Being on exchange, I'm always bombarded with questions like "oh you mean you can't chew gum?", "how is it like living in a police state?", "wow you're quite liberal for someone from such a closed country?" etc etc.
Evidently, Singapore is not the only country in the world censoring the press or limiting expression. Of course two wrongs do not make a right. But do you hear the rest of the world condemning Germany for being a Police state?
For Singaporeans out there, do you really feel like you're living in a Police state? After getting pickpocketed in Barcelona, being at the receiving end of racist remarks in Madrid, almost being mugged in London and hearing about break-ins at the dorms near the ghetto in Aarhus, I really think that I wouldn't mind living in the Singaporean police state if it means that I am safe. Before I left for Spain, I was speaking to a friend from Barcelona and he said that Barcelona is a pretty safe place, he's been living there his whole life and has only been mugged once. If the alternative to not having a "police state" is to have to condone petty crime as part of daily life, I think the opportunity cost is simply too high.
How many of you really go on a gum chewing binge overseas? How many of you have stepped on chewing gum on the streets of big cities like Copenhagen (Tim? :P), London, New York and cursed out loud. The break-ins at the ghettos in Aarhus and ghettos everywhere else are an example of crime resulting from racial stereotyping and poor racial management. The west may boast about a free press (maybe not Germany now) but can they boast about a harmonious multi racial state?
I always believed that the key to understanding another culture and another country is through acceptance and not accounting. Social and cultural accounting does not get one very far because there is no universal standard. Who is to say that one culture is superior to the other? Once you make a value judgment, you are by default making a comparitive assesment of the 2 systems, indirectly asserting that one is better than the other. Must that really be the case? Must we be better than the other? Can't we just be different? Can't we just be Singaporean? Of course there is the kill-all argument that some rights are universal and freedom of expression constitutes one of these sacred rights. But so is the right to live without fear of being assulted because my skin colour is different from that of my assailant, so is the right to live without fear of being robbed or mugged.
I know I risk sounding like a PAP apologist in this post. I am not. I am just a Singaporean, wondering out loud.