Radicals or liars?

re: "Skull find in Ethiopia yields new clues on how humans evolved" (BP, August 29)

Dear editor,

Despite the ever mounting evidence, such as that reported in "Skull find in Ethiopia yields new clues on how humans evolved" (Bangkok Post, August 29), there yet exist those who profess to sincerely believe that the human species was created independently of every other living thing on the planet only a few thousand years ago. Then again, there are also those who profess to sincerely believe that the Earth is flat. Are such radically faithful specimens truly as ignorant and irrational as they insist, or are they merely liars?

Whatever, it is healthy for us to be reminded, as this latest fossil discovery does, not only that we are related to every other living thing on the planet, from chimpanzees to rats, from roses to bella donna, from truffles to the influenza virus, but that our own species very likely killed off our sibling human species that had existed beside us for hundreds of thousands of years. Have we changed that much in the past 70,000 years or so since mindless nature gave us the brain power to make up fantastic tales by which to dominate the planet as no other species ever has?

 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 31, 2019, under the title "Radicals or liars?" at URL
  

Abuse is never okay

re: "Terms set on custody death compensation" (BP, August 29)

Dear editor,

Have I correctly understood the message from Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon on behalf of the government? When the Deputy PM says that "the government will pay compensation to the widow of Abdulloh Esormusor if evidence shows he was innocent," does he truly mean what logically follows? That is, that if someone might, just might, be a criminal, it's OK to violently abuse them even unto death. Whilst this message has all the charm one expects of dictators who have already used violence to overthrow the nation's form of democracy with a constitutional monarchy, it is less obvious that it reassures.

For those who care for justice and other good morals, even proved criminals must still be treated by the law and the state so as to respect the fact that they continue to be human persons. Since anyone might, just might, be a terrorist or other criminal if convenient, every Thai citizen is apparently considered fair game for this government and its enforcers. 

 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 30, 2019, under the title "Abuse is never okay" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1739327/abuse-is-never-okay
  

Legal injustice

re: "Thousands of Muslims attend insurgent suspect's burial" (BP, August 26)

Dear editor,

Sadly, Thai law under various governments has proven itself so corrupt that it consistently aids and abets great evil done with the blessing of the law and law enforcement officers. This evil, the epitome of moral corruption, has occurred under both civil governments, such as Thaksin's drug wars and the Tak Bai killings under his watch, and of course under the brutal repetition of military killing of Thai citizens by coup leaders who overthrew the rule of law to replace it with their moral corruption written into law in Thai constitutions. The current Thai constitution is also carefully worded with apparent intent to deny basic human right to Thai citizens.

I wish those protesting for justice following the suspicious death of Abdulloh Esomusor subsequent to his interrogation by the Thai military the best, but Thai history suggests that injustice will more [likely] be served by Thai authorities acting in the name of the 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 28, 2019, under the title "Legal injustice" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1738031/legal-injustice
  

Bad old men

Responding to: "Hungry 'parasites' drool over weak coalition govt" (Bangkok Post, 2019, August 17)

Like the dictator's new government, whose very legality is doubtful in view of its failure to comply with the constitutional requirement to take a precisely worded oath of allegiance, the PPRP was itself cobbled together from the bad old men of the bad old past. It is no surprise that the PPRP is much riven by the screeching traditionalists of the worst in Thai politics allied to the military as the motley parties that signed up on the pro-dictatorship side to get their noses right up there with the other bad old men of the bad old ways of traditional Thainess designed to "exploit benefits at the expense of the public."

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post. 

This was originally posted by Felix Qui as a comment on an article. The Post repurposed it as a letter to the editor.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 18, 2019, under the title "Bad old men" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1732203/monitor-thais-too 
  

Not-so-fake news

re: "Weaponising fake news" (Editorial, August 16)

Dear editor,

Whilst it is certainly a true fact, as all facts are, that there is a very real danger of fake-news laws being abused to further suppress the ability of domestic Thais to accurately understand Thai affairs, whether Thai history, society or politics, there is a more salient danger. This greater danger is rightly suggested when the editor writes of the army chief that his "claims are not backed by verifiable facts."

As seen in the wholly unsubstantiated Tweets and other deplorably vacuous noise bits by the current US president, there is a deceitful presumption that merely labelling an inconvenient fact as "fake news" in fact rebuts it. It does no such thing, a fact acknowledged by every honest person, and in Thai culture a truth central to the teaching of the Buddha, who consistently emphasized that all opinion must be based on right understanding that is backed by facts and reason. If you want to rebut an inconvenient claim that might well be a fact, merely calling it "fake" counts for nothing. Unless verifiable evidence and sound reasoning is presented, the empty shout of "fake, fake, fake news" is in fact a prima facie admission that the news is very likely true.

As the Chinese example also shows, only a fool would implicitly trust a government to state facts, or to state all the facts needed for an informed opinion of solid worth, something that Thai law has traditionally denied Thai citizens on various issues claimed to be of national importance, where there is indeed much fakery in need of exposure by healthy critical discussion under the protection of the often offensive free speech that is a necessary condition for any democracy.

 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, 2019, under the title "Not-so-fake news" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1731763/not-so-fake-news
  

Ideological failure

re: "Secular solution" (Post Bag, August 13)

Dear editor,

A Bangkok Atheist, whilst I have to agree that theistic religions have serious problems that inevitably follow from their insistence on blind faith in one or other or many of a motley panoply of gods whose existence, when rightly understood, can never be any more confidently demonstrated than that of Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot, Buddhism in the Buddha's version escapes this inherent failure of the set of all ideologies that are theisms.

Bangkok's Buddhist temples often are, and more could be, green places of peace in Bangkok. Nor do the Buddha's wise teachings, which were not a religion, inherently fall foul of the ideological pits that characterize religion. Indeed, his teachings show the Buddha to have been one of the deep thinkers who offer insightful philosophical guidance for a good life, as do Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others in the Western tradition, and Confucius among others in  the Far Eastern traditions.

The problem is that Gotama's wisdom has too often been traditionally subverted by self-serving old men into nationalistic religions that are profoundly unBuddhist in intent and effect. How else to explain the mass slaughter of animals for no better reason than to sate the lusts for tasty flesh of those ordering the daily killings whist kidding themselves that they are good Buddhists? How else to explain the corrupting notion of bribing karmic forces by gifting gold to adorn temples? How else explain draconian censorship laws that directly contradict the Buddha's prime teaching that the good life demands right understanding?

 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 14, 2019, under the title "Ideological failure" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1729807/behave-and-fawn
  

Foolish drug war

re: "Weed use a 'medical minefield'" (BP, August 8)

Dear editor,

If countries like Canada and the US are not intimidated by threats from the wrong-headed International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) that is stuck in the hysteria-driven mistakes of the more ignorant past of the vicious drug war hey days, why should Thailand be terrified of its  threats to punish good citizens who need other medicines? The whole idea of punishing another group for the perceived crimes of others is morally indefensible, however popular it might be in the sanctions imposed by US presidents intent on forcing others to bow to their populist will.

Perhaps it is time Thailand withdrew from the 1971 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. If a treaty entered into in good faith is later learned to be in fact based on false beliefs now known to be contradicted by the facts, by reason and by good morals, only a bad fool would continue to be a part of it to the detriment of his own nation's citizens. It has long been proved beyond reasonable doubt that wars on drugs not only fail, but that they enable mafia gangs, encourage corruption of law enforcement officials, waste vast police resources, worsen national health outcomes and uselessly imprison sons and daughters at horrific financial and social costs to families and to society.

In view of the fact that most illegal drugs are far less harmful to society than alcohol, nations are increasingly moving to respect the rights of their adult citizens to decide for themselves how best to live their lives. To refuse them the right to such self determination, even when we believe it to be personally foolish, is, after all, to treat people as the slave property of the state, and slavery is now know to be a moral abomination.

 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 8, 2019, under the title "Foolish drug war" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1727843/foolish-drug-war
  

Vicious cycle

re: "Army unwilling to yield to democracy" (BP, July 31)

Dear editor,

Erich Parpart's opinion piece was a timely statement of important truths of Thai modern history, as forced on the nation by the self-serving duplicity of coup makers presenting themselves as saviours under a tedious litany of lame excuses that fail to pass even the most cursory critical scrutiny.

What the anti-democratic, anti-reason coup apologists consistently refuse to acknowledge is that Thailand has an "immature democracy" precisely because every time democracy looks like taking hold, a coup is staged by the traditional opponents of the good morals of democracy to pre-empt the threat that democracy poses to their bad old ways. It is, therefore, the coup makers above all who not only set the example to society of violence as a means to achieving their ends, but who are also most responsible for Thailand's persistent failure of many decades to develop a healthy democratic politics based on just rule of law that effectively reins in corruption and other abuses of power.

 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 2, 2019, under the title "Vicious cycle" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1723099/vicious-cycle