Practice what you preach

re: "Battered young novice dies" (BP, August 24)

Dear editor,

Perhaps some investigative reporting into abuses of young male novices in Thailand's Buddhist temples is long overdue. They parallel far too closely for comfort the traditional set ups and undeserved respect too long accorded Catholic institutions in the West.

And like those Christian orders, Thai Buddhist institutions show as much interest in cleaning up their act as they do in living by the actual teachings of their claimed founder.

 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 August 26, 2018, under the title "Practice what you preach" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1528618/high-quality-low-competition
  

A willfully vague law

re: "Student Union calls on Prayut to scrap new 'code of conduct'" (BP, August 18)

Dear editor,
The Ministry of Education again shows its expected competence fully consistent with Thailand's PISA ratings year after year. If you want "to prevent the problems of brawling, motorcycle racing, and drug use," the intelligent response is to ban "brawling, motorcycle racing, and drug use." You do not make a much broader, willfully vague law based solidly on bad morals to infringe unjustly on a range of personal matters. It is not the ministry's business what sort of pictures students post online; it is certainly bad morals for any ministry to be dictating what people do in private: if they want to have consensual sex, even orgies, the Minister of Education should not be interfering in any such acts. If the orgies are non-consensual, that is a police matter properly covered by the criminal law code.

But it's all expected: it is the rule under Thainess that whenever officials or greedy politicians talk of "good morals," they are doing something that is bad morals. The ongoing dictatorship, which loves to lip-synch the phrase "good morals," is the obvious example, but this latest regressive move that treats young adults as enslaved military conscripts is exactly the same: it is moral corruption deceitfully pretending to be its opposite. As such, it is a perfect example of traditional Thainess imposed by the oligarchy that likes to lord it over the peasants, who have, these past 20 years, taken to voting in informed ways that are healthily contrary to the corrupt bad old ways.

And as is also the norm in Thailand, the young students protesting demonstrate a better grasp of moral right and wrong than do the aging pooyai dictating to them. If there were any justice, the old relics would be down on their knees respectfully waiing the students who are correcting their morally corrupt prejudices.

 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 August 20, 2018, under the title "A willfully vague law" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1524830/a-willfully-vague-law
  

Monk's fall from grace

re: "Ex-monk too ill to show in court" (BP, August 17)

Dear editor,

I fail to understand the plight of a revered monk (ret.) who was a darling of juntaphiles until something suddenly snapped. The two questions I hope his court case might answer are: 1) How did he so suddenly fall from grace? Did he, like Chamlong with Thaksin, decide that his chosen PM was not quite what he had expected? 2) When will it be Suthep's turn, or is the famously corrupt former member of the "hilariously misnamed" party still in good standing with the dictators, just as Chalerm remained in amazing grace with Thaksin?

 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 August 19, 2018, under the title "Monk's fall from grace" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1524338/electric-nightmares
  

Shades of Thaksin

re: "PM Prayut wants Bangkok traffic relief in 3 months" (BP, August 15)

Dear editor,

Shades of Thaksin past! Is there anything that PM general (ret.?) does not copy from Thaksin and Pheu Thai, except, of course, at least a pretence of respect for the unfree Thai people denied a voice in the government of their own nation?

Which is coming soonest: an "honest mistake" or an election?

 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 August 17, 2018, under the title "Shades of Thaksin" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1523310/easy-come-easy-go
  

A nation uninformed

re: "The strong arm of the law" (Opinion, August 5)

Dear editor,

Mr. Dawson is spot on as he delineates the systematic legalization of corrupt morals by the junta, a legal reform with the primary intent of keeping the Thai nation uninformed about Thai affairs, which forced ignorance of the topic is always, without exception, the primary aim of all censorship. There is clearly much that those who seized power over the Thai nation in order to make up laws better suited to their agenda do not want Thais to know or to understand about Thai affairs. The major reform of these politicians unelected has been to criminalize critical public discussion, effectively outlawing the good morals essential to a healthy civil society that keeps government under due scrutiny, leaving the unspeakable unexamined.

Critics should note the extremely strong claim: all that is needed to prove it false is a single example of censorship whose primary purpose is not to enforce ignorance of the censored topic. Your failure to do so proves the stated truth about censorship. But do try to square its circles in support of the corrupt reform of Thai law.

 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 August 7, 2018, under the title "A nation uninformed" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1517154/a-nation-uninformed
  

Dictators love Thainess

re: "Philosophical Vacuum" (PostBag, August 4)

Dear editor,
Sadly, Michael Setter is spot on in "Philosophical Vacuum" (PostBag, August 4). It would greatly benefit Thai society were philosophy to be taught in Thai schools from primary on; that would, however, require not only that teachers start to practice the critical thinking entailed, but that Thai law be reformed to allow so untraditionally unThai a practice. Most sadly for Thais, such enlightenment is not about to happen this year or in the coming twenty: Thainess is the preferred ideology of the dictators, as has been the norm through history and across cultures for such practitioners of moral corruption.

 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 August 6, 2018, under the title "Dictators love Thainess" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1516490/narratives-of-denial