I happen to agree with many of your points, but I do agree with the points of your critics as well. Perhaps a way to reconcile these views is by means of an analogy, one that involves asymptotic analysis.
So suppose we have a mode of governance that is in opposition to western principles, let's call it f(n). Then through the perspective of your critics, they are focused on the worse case analysis, and going on about how the big-O of f(n) is bad. You can think of this as them making the case that if you take a mode of governance that violates western principles to its logical conclusion, it can only be <insert reason why it's bad>. I do not think they are wrong in that regard.
However, having a mode of governance that is in opposition to western principles doesn't mean that the worse case would (always) materialize. Think of it like quicksort, which in its worse case, is O(n^2). In practice however, we're more likely to get the average case, which is theta(nlogn). In this regard, you (and I) are looking at the average case of f(n), which happens to match the governance of Singapore more accurately.
Ultimately, anyone who has learnt about asymptotic analysis should know that it's a theoretical framework that aims to provide a qualitative assessment of the runtime of an algorithm. While it's useful, there are various factors in real life that could contribute to an end result that contradicts that assessment (processor speed, parallelism, being cache-oblivious etc). The dispute between the critics and their opponents is analogous to that, with critics who have never been to Singapore viewing the country as an authoritarian state (theoretical worse case analysis), while those who live there would struggle to reconcile their views (average case analysis) with that of their critics.
I hope this semi-shitty analogy does put things in perspective for various readers who are trying to make sense of the opposition between these two camps.
The naïve libdem (roughly speaking) types has for decades convinced themselves that the theory of democratic government is the only true way to run government and country. Among their epic failures is predicting 30 of the last non-existent China's economic collapses because we all know authoritarian governments can't sustain GDP growth.
Singapore is another of those cases they can't explain, and so it ends up being an attack on the ideological front -- name calling essentially. And while apparently Singapore is not worse than "Western democracies" in measures that actually matter, they claim that the bad things that happen are worse under authoritarian governments because they're authoritarian.
"Freedom and Democracy is always better" is so hard-wired into people's brains that they seem to feel offended when counter examples stare at them in the face. Instead of adopting a curious mindset and trying to figure out why, most of them simply dig harder to uncover bad things that authoritative governments are doing, then accuse others of whataboutism when they point out that these things are common in democracies too.
When one side talks about ground truth facts, and the other is resorting to dogma and a priori reasoning and appealing to authority, there's definitely one side that's "more wrong" than the other IMHO.
The point of providing a link here is to outsource the explanation to someone who does it better. If you take issue with that, you could always get chatGPT to summarize for you.
So suppose we have a mode of governance that is in opposition to western principles, let's call it f(n). Then through the perspective of your critics, they are focused on the worse case analysis, and going on about how the big-O of f(n) is bad. You can think of this as them making the case that if you take a mode of governance that violates western principles to its logical conclusion, it can only be <insert reason why it's bad>. I do not think they are wrong in that regard.
However, having a mode of governance that is in opposition to western principles doesn't mean that the worse case would (always) materialize. Think of it like quicksort, which in its worse case, is O(n^2). In practice however, we're more likely to get the average case, which is theta(nlogn). In this regard, you (and I) are looking at the average case of f(n), which happens to match the governance of Singapore more accurately.
Ultimately, anyone who has learnt about asymptotic analysis should know that it's a theoretical framework that aims to provide a qualitative assessment of the runtime of an algorithm. While it's useful, there are various factors in real life that could contribute to an end result that contradicts that assessment (processor speed, parallelism, being cache-oblivious etc). The dispute between the critics and their opponents is analogous to that, with critics who have never been to Singapore viewing the country as an authoritarian state (theoretical worse case analysis), while those who live there would struggle to reconcile their views (average case analysis) with that of their critics.
I hope this semi-shitty analogy does put things in perspective for various readers who are trying to make sense of the opposition between these two camps.