re: "Drop Thepha charges now" (Editorial, November 30) and "Academics join to bail out anti-coal protesters" (PB, November 30)
Dear editor,
The ungrateful peasants and academics can rudely "insist on people's freedom of expression and peaceful gatherings without weapons guaranteed by the constitution" as much as they like. After more than three years of their rule, we know how much the current Thai politicians unelect care what lowly peasants and meddling academics think. And decades of historical fact show exactly how the Thai army and its allies respond if a current Thai constitution is not to their liking. Naturally, all will be done in strict accord with the new rule of law made up for that purpose.
Meanwhile, one of the reasons that make free speech so essential to any just and rational society that values honesty, truth and informed opinion of worth on any topic or issue is that strong legal protection for free speech is necessary to enable those very values. Absent free speech that can correct the false beliefs, flawed morals and unjust customs of the past, those errors will be perpetuated, which perpetration is precisely the reason for anti-democratic censorship. Unless the PM and his rule of law reform to allow free speech, he cannot rationally claim that any belief on any censored topic is well founded, let alone that it might be true: his own morally flawed rule of law undermines rational faith in the myths it presumes to protect.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on December 1, 2017, under the title "Protect free speech" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1370139/protect-free-speech
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