Is there any reason left to remain as a Singaporean?

I remember way back when i was in primary school, my chinese teacher was discussing the benefits of being a Singaporean. Back then i was just a kid and my life was just school and play and it was the first time i had any exposure to such a topic. My chinese teacher, an elderly gentleman in his late 50s told my class this: The most important thing about being a Singaporean is that you will be treated as a 1st class citizen in your home country. Sure there will be some sacrifice involved, like serving NS for example, but such sacrifices should be considered a small price to pay when you can have a prosperous country in which you could call home. A home shared by you fellow countrymen where we can "achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation" as depicted in our national pledge.

That discussion certainly left a deep impression on me and my teacher's pride on Singapore easily rubbed off on me. A country where we are 1st class citizens indeed.

Let's fast forward to present day. Are we still first class citizens?(I'm assuming that we were.) Should we still be proud of Singapore?

Here's what i think of Singapore now.

1) A country which citizens have their rights stripped in the name of economic prosperity.

2) A country which low income earners such as cleaners are unable to make ends meet despite having a job. In Australia, cleaners, construction workers, garbage collector,miners etc. earn as good a wage as anyone else. No one looks down on people holding such jobs. Totally unlike Singapore.

3) A country which leaders haggle over a misery increase for welfare benefits for the poor while catapulting their own sky-high pay to out-of-this-world levels. (Where high pay = moral authority)

4) A country which males are so severely disadvantaged by national service and the subsequent reservist trainings that companies prefer to hire foreign workers with no NS commitments. And if you died or became disabled in the midst of "protecting you country", the compensation dished out by the state is peanuts. Not Mrs Goh's kind of peanut though. Fat hope.

5) A country which funds most of it's foreign students' tuition fees. Amazing isn't it? In other countries, foreign students pay tuition fees of up to SGD$50,000 a year to subsidise the local students over there. To add insult to injury, it seems that Singaporean taxpayers are funding foreign students at the expense of local students who cannot get places in a local university.

6) A country lacking in social grace. Think about all the Singaporean-who-refused-to-give-up-seat-to-elderly-or-pregnant cases

7) A country in which suicide by jumping on MRT is gaining popularity

8) A country in which most charitable organisations are turning out to be scams.

9) A country full of "stealth taxes" in the form of cars, ERPs, GST, excessively priced HDB flats.

10) A country which education system is dumbing down its students by stifling creativity, placing excessive emphasis on memory work, discouraging critical thinking and fostering too much respect to authority. (Remember how your teacher told you he/she was right because he/she was the teacher and not because his/her facts were right?)

11) A country in which you have to work long hours till an old age, leaving you with little time to spare for your family.

Not a very nice place to live in right?