Mafia drug scum

re: "Double-faced drugs policy" (BP, Editorial, November 20)

Dear editor,

The obstacles to reforming Thailand's impressively failing drug policy of decades, which failure, as the editor rightly notes, is continually proved by the tediously regular seizures of massive amounts of harmful drugs, is that the current policy greatly enriches three highly influential groups in Thai society: mafia scum, corrupt officials paid by mafia scum, and drug policy enforcement officers. These three groups demand respect that trumps all evidence of the harm that their favoured policy inflicts on every other group in Thai society. These groups are thriving thanks to the monopoly that Thai rule of law has for decades bestowed upon the mafia scum and their allies in the lucrative illegal drug industries. The high financial and social costs are  apparent in the persistently high rates of drug use and addiction, in increased crime rates, in  life-destroying criminal records for personal acts that harm no one, and of course in the massive boost to corruption allied with enormous financial costs draining the public budget, which public funds might  more usefully be diverted to health, to education, to rehabilitation and other uses that actually reduce drug-related harms.

Isn't it time the law stopped actively supporting mafia scum and instead worked to reduce drug harms to Thai society by following where the evidence leads? Such evidence as the before and after statistics not only for alcohol legalization following the US's costly prohibition experiment, that boon to the American mafia, but more recently for marijuana legalization and the impressive social benefits of Portugal's decriminalization of all personal drug use way back in 2001 consistently show how to reduce drug-related harms to society. 

Not only is there no shortage of evidence as to what the practical approach to reducing drug harms to society is, but there is a compelling moral argument that the state may not justly interfere in the personal decisions of adults that do not directly harm others: unlike murder, rape, theft and fraud, for example, getting paralytically drunk on the drug alcohol, or high on yaa baa, or stoned on marijuana, or even dead on heroin, or more slowly dead by cigarettes, does not actually harm anyone but the users of those drugs, and if adults, they are entitled to harm themselves, however stupid that might truly be. It is not the law's business to criminalize personal stupidity by forcing all to abstain because a few recklessly harm themselves: if it were, the sale and use of chocolate cake must also be made an imprisonable offence, thereby inviting the mafia and corrupt to also takeover that rich market.

 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 November 21, 2018, under the title "Mafia drug scum" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1579478/mafia-drug-scum
  

Biblical lessons

re: "Christmas circus" (BP, PostBag, November 16)

Dear editor,

Like many who oppose the joyous celebration of the birth of that still troublesome Jew named Jesus, who at least had the good grace to be conveniently born on the traditional winter solstice, Huubie Lowlands seems, whilst doubtless sincerely offended by all the good cheer of the hams, the tinsel, the turkey, the lights, the duck, the carols, the rich puddings, cakes and other joyful deliciousness of the season, a trifle curmudgeonly.

And there are more important lessons for Thais to learn from the life and death, especially the death, of that political radical and arch-criminal who was lawfully crucified for his subversive speech crimes against the Judeo-Roman status quo of ancient Judea. He is a fitting reminder of what happens to those who willfully speak opinions that offend the selfless leaders of society. Jesus, like other radical truth seekers and speakers through the ages, from Socrates onwards, was put to death in strict accord with the rule of law that he had knowingly broken. As such, he obviously deserved what he got. Similarly, we are regularly reminded that today's trouble makers get exactly what they deserve according to the rule of law made up by Thailand's selfless oligarchy, who are every bit on a par with the Jewish leaders working so selflessly with the glory of Rome to keep their society peaceful, unified and free of corruption. These are important lessons that Thais need  to learn annually — the rule of law protecting them must be obeyed, or else.

Such annual lessons in respectful prostration before the legal authority of their betters cannot be begun too early. Nor can it be unfitting, as the cheerful shopping malls, our modern temples to the joyful life, remind us, to show proper seasonal respect by giving the odd luxury watch or other modest symbol of respect to those nobly bearing the burden of enforcing the law against upstart criminals, whether of the youthful Jesus type or of the more aged likes of Socrates.

 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 November 17, 2018, under the title "Biblical lessons" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1577442/no-safe-boxing
  

Suthep's chicanery

re: "Suthep's fall from grace gathers pace" (BP, Opinion, November 13)

Dear editor,

Whilst Atiya Achakulwisut's informative opinion piece on former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban was an enjoyable morning read, she might also have reminded readers that Suthep was so famously corrupt as a Democrat Party politician, a staunch man of that "hilariously misnamed" political party as Time magazine so aptly described it in November 2013, that his own party colleagues complained about him to the US ambassador. The Wikileaks  cable from the US embassy dated December 22, 2008 speaks of the "kamnan" as Abhisit's "close political partner Suthep." This despite the same cable going on to relate that "In recent years, Suthep has controlled the finances of the Democrat Party, and several Democrats have privately complained to us that he engages in corrupt and unethical behavior." But this was back in 2008, when Abhisit was forming his first government courtesy of an earlier coup against democracy. Worse was to come.

According to his own boasting shortly after it, Suthep was working from 2010 to destroy Thailand's civil constitution, which aim he and his allies achieved with the coup in May 2014. After blabbing a few  truths about the antecedents to their  overthrow of Thailand's supreme legal pillar and the foundation of Thailand's political system, he suddenly disappeared into a convenient but most unSuthepian monastic silence for some reason. It is hard to credit that this was from any commitment to such Buddhist ideals as right understanding, which ideal called for more elucidation of the background to the events from late 2013 that led to its overthrow shortly after of the Thai democracy which had proven itself to be evolving to serve as an effective solution to political problems:  Pheu Thai's sleazy amnesty bill had, after all, been halted in response to the outraged voice of the Thai nation. What followed demonstrated that the amnesty bill was merely a pretext for a deeper plot against Thai democracy.

Also interesting in the ugly story of the PDRC's well-plotted shutting down of a burgeoning democracy in Thailand is the mob psychology that so easily whipped to a zealous frenzy so many supporters, who appeared in all sincerity to believe that the bad they were aiding and abetting was actually good. Of course, this moral blindness that leads basically good people down the path to evil is not uncommon. The history of Christianity shows the same moral errors with its blasphemy trials, witch hunts, inquisitions, pogroms and other evils committed by those deluded by blind faith, by wrong understanding, to commit the most appalling atrocities, such as the Christian mob stripping the flesh from Hypatia before destroying the great library of Alexandria, the treasure house of Western culture, in 415 AD. Your typical jihadi terrorist today is equally convinced under blind, uncritical faith supporting evil that they are doing what is right. There was not only a moral failure on the part of Suthep's adulating street mobs as they actively worked to undermine the rule of law by smashing Thailand's form of democratic constitutional monarchy to replace it with a dictatorship, but a failure to understand, to reason critically. With a a view to preventing such outbreaks in future, it is worth pondering what went wrong in the heads of those so boastfully determined to "Shut down" civil society.

 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 November 14, 2018, under the title "Suthep's chicanery" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1575430/sutheps-chicanery
  

References

• Campbell, C. (2013, November 8). Thailand’s Democrat Party Is Hilariously Misnamed. Time. Retrieved from http://world.time.com/2013/11/28/thailands-democrat-party-is-hilariously-misnamed/
   
• NEW THAI CABINET APPOINTED, FACES CRITICISM [08BANGKOK3712_a]. (2008, December 22). Wikileaks. Retrieved from https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08BANGKOK3712_a.html 
   

A poll, not a conclave

re: "Foreign poll observers 'not needed'" (BP, November 7)

Dear editor,

Whilst it is encouraging to see Thailand's judicially cleared Foreign Minister contradict those who persist in the false belief that Pheu Thai and other elected governments of the Thai nation were not fairly and properly elected by the Thai people to represent the Thai people, surely it would, nonetheless, add credibility to invite foreign observers to Thailand's upcoming election due for some as yet unconfirmed time in the future. Nor would doing so be an admission of incompetence as the Foreign Minister implies: competent people do sensibly ask for help.

And after all, if those now busily politicking for the multiply-long promised election have nothing to hide, why wouldn't they want the elections to be certified as sound by the international community? This would also reassure those Thai citizens, the voters, who might reasonably suspect the dictator politicians of running a corrupt 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 November 10, 2018, under the title "A poll, not a conclave" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1573454/a-poll-not-a-conclave
  

Democratic slurs

re: "Different visions" (PostBag, November 1)

Dear editor,

In his reply to my letter pointing out that the politicians ruling over the Thai people since seizing power in May 2014 by overthrowing Thailand's constitution and its form of democratic constitutional monarchy, Dusit Thammaraks repeats a number of pious myths.

First, there is the dramatically dubious claim that Thailand was facing "possibly devastating civil war." The discussion necessary to establish any such claim has never taken place. The known facts suggest otherwise: That the streets were so very easily cleared supports that at most a very brief period of martial law would have been more than adequate to stop the protests aiming to "Shut down Bangkok," thereby allowing an election to form a new Thai government to  proceed smoothly in accord with the constitution of the Thai nation.

When he then proceeds to suggest that Thai people cannot be trusted in the matter of "casting unbiased and honest votes," he repeats a falsehood popular with anti-democratic forces everywhere. This presumption of being superior to the great majority is not only false, but ignores the categorical moral imperative that people have a right to a voice in the form of their government, which means exactly what it says: you do not need any particular skin colour, educational background, political leaning, or career to be entitled to a voice in the form of your society. This is a moral truth that dictators reject.  Finally, no one is such a straw man as to think democracy a panacea that can magically cure all ills, merely that it is morally and practically better than dictatorship, save perhaps for the dictators making up their laws that collaterally just happen to be so very beneficial to themselves and those colluding with them. 

To the insultingly low opinion of the Thai people as unfit to have a fair say in determining Thai affairs, no supporting evidence is given. But myths are by definition blindly credited. Happily, the Thai people are no longer so piously blind, even regarding Thai affairs, as the dictatorially inclined who deem themselves superior would have them be.

 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 November 4, 2018, under the title "Democratic slurs" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1569834/when-politics-override-logic