When pro-life is anti-person

re: "Er, Can I Ask a Few Questions About Abortion?" (The New York Times, October 28, 2020)

"Pro-life" is really "anti-person." The faith-based pro-life zealots, in the tradition of faith-based opinion, reject reason, facts and moral awareness of an issue, believing on faith that shouting loudly and using secular law to force their faith-based rejection of reason, facts and moral awareness on others can make their opinions true. Such sincerely fanatical devotion to faith did not make the Earth the centre of the universe, no matter how many scientists were killed or executed in the name of the faith. Such sincere zealotry in the name of the faith did not make Darwin wrong or the Earth a 6,000 year old creation over six days.

A foetus is a living being. After only a couple of months development, the foetus has a heart beat. It shares those characteristics with every animal we humans cheerfully kill to eat. Pigs are living beings with heartbeats before we turn them into bacon. Chickens are living beings with heartbeats before we roast them.

What makes humans, and a few other animals, deserving of special moral consideration is that we are persons. But no foetus at any stage in development has any characteristic of a person. None.

In their fanatical lust to protect non-persons, the religious dictators violate the basic liberties of actual persons, which all pregnant women are. Like your unfriendly fanatical neighbourhood imam or Middle Eastern despot calling the faithful not to suffer a blaspheming infidel to live, the pro-lifers' attacks prove them anti-person.

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/opinion/abortion-america-politics.html#commentsContainer&permid=109858011:109858011

  

Educated protesters

re: "Rights education key to resolving conflict" (BP, October 26, 2020)

Dear editor,

Ruangsak Suwaree is mistaken when he claims that "the young protesters ... tend to use emotions and feelings more than reason." On the contrary, it is precisely because they use reason, sound critical thinking, and solid factual awareness of Thai history that they pose such a threat to the traditional forces that oppose democracy and human rights for the Thai nation.

The students from Thailand's best schools and universities are intelligent, informed, and morally aware. They know what respect for reason, knowledge, democracy and human rights entails. They have much to teach some older folk still suffering the faith-based traditional propaganda of the status quo that is responsible for having made Thailand what it is today. Just listen to them to know.

 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 MonthDate, 2020, under the title "Educated protesters" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2008907/just-as-prayut-hoped
  

QAnon: again into the dark

re: "What Do We Do About Q?" (The New York Times, October 26, 2020)

Western civilization has seen this before. Rome fell as the invaders and their false god who was then three in one, or one in three, or whatever his incredibly infallible men on Earth dictated, trampled the classical trinity of reason, facts and moral reflection beneath their insistence on absolutely blind faith.

QAnon dictates the same ideological purity from its faithful. Reason is the surest antidote, hence labelled the great heresy. Science especially is reviled as blasphemy, but all critical thinking, not excepting the moral virtues of tolerance, honesty and truth seeking, is suspect by those committed to ideological purity. 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/opinion/qanon-conspiracy-donald-trump.html#commentsContainer&permid=109800799:109800799

  

Immovable Faith

re: "Pope Francis, in Shift for Church, Voices Support for Same-Sex Civil Unions" (The New York Times, October 21, 2020)

It's only half way there, and very late to the moral progress the world has made this century, but at least Francis is moving the Catholic version of Christianity in the right direction to catch up. When he instructs his priests and bishops to marry same-sex couples in church, they will finally have started to arrive where they should long have been. 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/world/europe/pope-francis-same-sex-civil-unions.html#commentsContainer&permid=109740308:109740308

  

Democracy dictates

re: "The Encroachment of the Unsayable" (The New York Times, October 20, 2020)

Since a foundational principle of democracy, if not its main definition, is that democracy is a system of government in which each person individually is accorded an equal right to a voice in their society, its government and the laws that govern it, it demands a very strong form of free speech protection.

A useful litmus test of your commitment to democracy and its foundational principle of free speech is the length of the list of things  that you find deeply offensive for which you insist on strong legal protection from censorship. If you cannot produce a list of decent length of the ideas, facts, fantasies and other things that spring erratic from the minds of humankind, that you personally find offensive, disgusting, vile, worthless, repugnant and generally pollution of society, then the genuineness of your commitment to democracy that respects individual liberties is seriously suspect.

I'm sorry if this offends. If it does, then it should offend, for democracy promises only respect for each person in the society it governs, not their immunity from being offended by what they hate, fear, fail to understand, or would deny.

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/opinion/france-liberalism.html#commentsContainer&permid=109702175:109702175

  

A sad American obsession

re: "Will We Choose the Right Side of History?" (The New York Times, October 14, 2020)

The sad American obsession with abortion, confounded by adherence to Middle Eastern myths that preach despotism over democracy, is reflected in the "pro-life" slogan, which is more honestly stated as "anti-person".

And too many who deem themselves righteous still obsess compulsively on dictating that all obey their dogma to be pro-life and anti-person.

Such a sad failure to respect not only democratic principle, but the moral progress that humankind has made in the 2,500 years and more since a mythic being dictatorially commanded his blindly faithful servant to slavishly sacrifice his own son, an actual human person, on the bonfire of His supreme vanities.

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/opinion/amy-coney-barrett-health-care.html#commentsContainer&permid=109632134:109632134

  

Demise of democracy

re: "Protest leaders, massacre survivors mark sombre anniversary" (BP, October 6, 2020)

Dear editor,

Perhaps saddest of all in the commemoration of the student massacre of more than four decades ago is that every effort to further democracy for the Thai nation for 40 and more years since that brutal abuse of Thai citizens by morally corrupt Thai authorities and right-wing extremists has been ruthlessly suppressed by the repeated coups against democratic progress for the Thai nation.

The Thai people deserve so much more than they have been allowed by those plotting, committing, colluding in, and accepting coups, which have never solved any Thai social or political problem, certainly not corruption or injustice, as the state of Thailand today too abundantly attests.

 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 October 8, 2020, under the title "Demise of democracy" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1998571/this-is-madness
  

Buddhism can save us

re: "Where to start Thai reform and change?" (BP, Opinion, October 2, 2020)

Dear editor,

Surely Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak has not forgot that its traditional religion, no less than hallowed academic principle, offers solutions to those who truly, honestly seek to move forward? Thailand is a Buddhist nation, is it not? And are not both truth seeking and speaking basic principles taught by Buddhism to those on the journey to right understanding of the self and the world?

One path to the much desired and desirable reform for the Thai nation would therefore seem to be respecting the Buddha's wise emphasis on right understanding, from which surely no Thai or Thai institution or Thai law would dissent. Start telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Thai affairs and institutions, precisely as those good students have now taught. Could any of the good Thai persons of the Thai nation oppose truth seeking and speaking? And do not Thai culture, tradition and institutions respect truth, honesty and truth speaking in all things?

So start with truthfulness in all things. Speak out who is doing what where when why how and with whom. That would be a gracious start, one comporting perfectly with Thailand's well known reverence for the teachings of the Buddha, would it not? And unobjectionable, therefore, to any Thai. Unless I'm wrong and the institutions of Thainess inexplicably despise, fear or abhor truth seeking and speaking. But surely that could not be, could it? Could a Thai official wanting Thai people not to seek, not to know or not to speak truths about Thai affairs or Thai institutions be imagined? Could Thai law be imagined opposing the speaking of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? It is not to be imagined. Let truth, that casts out darkness, be a guide to the light.

 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 October 3, 2020, under the title "Buddhism can save us" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1995879/buddhism-can-save-us