Head in the clouds

re: "Hijab not oppressive" (BP, PostBag, December 27, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Kuldeep Nagi, there is a very simple test of whether some piece of head wear is oppressive or not. Is its use required and subject to forced shows of respect? Women wearing expensive haute couture hats or comfy caps from a local street stall can ditch them if they wish in the manner of their choosing.

Can women wearing it who tire of the hijab toss it onto a convenient bonfire if they so wish and suffer no unpleasant consequences, legal or social, as a result? Can Muslim women in, for example, France, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, decide that they don't want to wear a hijab today and go shopping without it? If and only if the answers are all "Yes" is the hijab not oppressive. Otherwise, it is one more bit of faith-based oppression that morally decent people will throw onto a convenient bonfire of superstitions past their use by date.

 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 31, 2021, under the title "Head in the clouds" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2240171/dreaming-of-2022
  

re: "Do We Have the Supreme Court We Deserve?"

re: "Do We Have the Supreme Court We Deserve?" (The New York Times, December 30, 2021)

 
Should the current US Supreme Court, contrived for exactly that purpose, slaughter Roe v. Wade, the outcome might well prove positive. It will force those who recognize that women are human persons with rights in need of protection to seek more solid legal protections for those rights.

An end to Roe v. Wade at the brutal hands of the religiously inspired unreason that founds Texas's S.B.8 and that is apparent in the equally faith-based unreason of Mississippi's restrictive abortion law might prompt a healthy debate about what it means to be a human being, which every foetus is, and what it means to be a human person, which no foetus ever is.

Better still, it might push those who respect the rights of women, who are actual human persons, to work to elect politicians who will pass laws to protect those rights from attack by thinly disguised religious bigotry.
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/opinion/supreme-court-republican.html#commentsContainer&permid=116126133:116126133

  

'One-child' policy

re: "Top of the class" (BP, December 22, 2021)

 
Dear editor,
Save her excessive gentleness extended to morally antiquated reasoning that would defend slavery on the grounds that it was a traditional part of society for many generations, Melalin Mahavongtrakul's comments in "Top of the class" are all well said.

And from that officially stated reasoning for denying same-sex couples an equal right to marriage, it would seem to follow with logical rigour that in order to prove both ability and a serious commitment to the stipulated procreation requirement, mixed-sex couples wishing to do so should first be required to have had at least one child before being allowed to legally register their marriage. No?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 25, 2021, under the title "'One-child' policy" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2237535/covid-fatigue
  

Equal rights

re: "'High heels mob' wants wage relief from state" (BP, December 23, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

It is encouraging to see another group of informed Thai citizens peacefully protesting for justice. Thailand's famous sex workers are yet another group who suffer the real harm that comes from bad policy leading to unjust law at the behest of hypocritical social values.

The men with power and money want to buy sex cheap by exploiting the poor, but at the same time want to pretend to be against such behaviour. That dishonest pretence of bowing before a morally rotten social tyranny (as the great John Stuart Mill put it) leads to the very real evil of actual harm being inflicted on many - all those who work honestly in Thailand's traditional sex industry serving the hypocrites in suits, uniforms, and other gaudy get up.

Their work should be legal and respected as any other labour freely chosen, from lawyering and cooking to engineering and teaching. They should be paying taxes. And in hard times, they deserve the same assistance from the state as any other group of Thai citizens.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 24, 2021, under the title "Equal rights" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2237091/equal-rights
  

No bad words here

re: "Vulgarity won't win" (BP, PostBag, December 17, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Overlooking his deep historical ignorance of 2,500 years of the rich speech that has often characterized the democratic process in the agora and beyond, and his gross misunderstanding of it when he falsely claims that "vulgarities are not acceptable when you are calling for democracy and equality in society," can Vint Chavala be serious when he writes that "Vulgarities and obscenities are foreign-induced traits that will only bring about negative responses from the Thai public"?

Can Mr Chavala really believe that the Thai people were so traditionally immaculate that prior to learning natural human characteristics such as a delight in rich language, they did not use the vulgarities and obscenities that every other human culture has revelled in as part of its daily linguistic heritage? Can it be that the curse words I've learned in Thai are all foreign imports or were created after Thais learned to have a full-bodied language from foreigners? I'm no scholar of Thai, but that claim seems literally incredible.

Are Thais truly angels incarnate, as pure as the driven gods and stainless beyond natural humanity? Or might it just be that Thais are not really the inhuman prudes that Mr Chavala would paint them as?

As to what the feelings of the unknown silent majority might be, perhaps they should each be allowed an equal right to a voice to let their ideas be heard, however earthily contrary to immaculate myth?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 19, 2021, under the title "No bad words here" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2234231/ev-challenges
  

Sticks and stones

re: "Nobel winner Ressa decries 'toxic sludge' of social media" (BP, December 10, 2021) 

 
Dear editor,

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa of the Philippines is correct that much, but certainly not all, of Facebook and like social media are "toxic sludge" that spreads lies, hate, and the like. But it also connects people, and can spread truth, concern and community. But that one-sidedness is Ms Ressa's small mistake in the exuberance of her rhetoric.

Far more serious is her attack on democratic principle under the guise of opposing violence. It sounds cool to boldly assert that "Online violence is real world violence.” But calling someone whatever vile name online, or in a newspaper, or on the phone, or over the back fence with your neighbour, or on the schoolyard playground, is not in fact "real world violence." It might be disgusting, base and a lie, but it's not remotely in the same league as breaking someone's arms, chopping an outspoken critic into pieces in a convenient embassy, or locking a young protestor up in prison for years on end. The latter are real world acts of violence. Name calling is not violence. Even deliberate, outright lying is not actual violence.

Worse, the hyperbole that falsely equates anything fake or vile said on social media with actual real world violence plays immediately into the schemes of dictators and  authoritarian populists, who delightedly take it up. Claiming the same enlightenment that Ms Ressa is propagating, the real bullies in power argue that free speech must, therefore, be restricted because it is an act of violence. That way lies laws that ban any and all speech deemed offensive to dictators, military thugs, and authoritarian populists of all stripes, from China's Xi Jinping to Thailand's Prayut Chan-o-cha, from Russia's Vladimir Putin to Hungary's Viktor Orban. Such enemies of democracy argue, like Ms Ressa, that speech in favour of, for example same-sex rights or women's rights or land rights, or institutional reform for accountability and so on, are acts of "violence" against their nation's people, whose traditions such speech would smash. And being "violence," the law must naturally criminalize it to protect the nation and its people from the threat of violent overthrow by such speech on social media, traditional media, or any public speech deemed a threat.

The Nobel Peace Prize recipient has proved her courage in the face of real world violence and certainly means well, but is nonetheless wrong. Speech that incites real world violence is about the limit of what may justly be banned by law. In equating a much wider range of merely vile, offensive, hateful, false or otherwise repugnant speech acts with actual real world violence, it is a dangerous weapon Ms Ressa would hand such enemies of human rights and democracy as the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, one they will be only too happy to take up from her hands and use to justify very real violence against their people.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 18, 2021, under the title "Sticks and stones" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2233943/who-blinks-first-
  

Critical questioning

re: "Anchilee did more than break old stereotypes" (BP, December 14, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Thank you Atiya Achakulwisut for the reminder that merely being a traditional belief or standard can never make any habit, custom, attitude, or law reasonable, fit for society, or just. What older generations might have accepted without question for no better reason than that they did not in fact question its propriety should not reign absent reason and good morals over the living generation who can critically question the received wisdom of past ages, as the Buddha in his Kalama Sutta so wisely counsels.

Compare with the once venerated tradition of slavery. In antebellum America, the strongest defence for retaining the traditional custom of slavery and the associated attitudes and laws of society was to protect society as it then was. As the zealous pro-slavery loyalist John C. Calhoun very clearly stated it in his 1837 speech “Slavery as a Positive Good,” whose title says it all: slavery was a long established tradition "grown up with our society and institutions and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people.” And ultra-loyalist to the old ways that he was, Calhoun insisted with equal fervour that slavery was so far from being any evil to them as to be an absolute benevolence to the enslaved, who thereby received all the sufficiency of benefits forced upon them by their masters.

And in Thailand in 2021, the slavery-loyalist Calhoun's is exactly the same argument used to justify continuing the rule of inequality, prejudice and injustice over the LGBTQ portion of the Thai people. It is also exactly the same argument, an appeal to unspeakable tradition, unquestioned habits, and morally dubious values that are merely traditional that is used to justify similar injustice being protected by law from reform.

John C. Calhoun would be proud to see his arguments in defence of the traditional institution of slavery, so essential to the stability of the realm, being brought out to support the equally bigotted attacks on the LGBTQ and other portions of the Thai people who would free themselves and their nation from ancient shackles. Fortunately, Thailand has bright, informed, critically capable, and morally aware young citizens like Anchilee Scott-Kemmis to counter the ultra-conservative Calhouns of Thailand with their critically defective arguments in support of the morally indefensible.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 15, 2021, under the title "Critical questioning" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2232095/critical-questioning
  

re: "How Do You Tell the World That Doomsday Has Arrived?"

re: "How Do You Tell the World That Doomsday Has Arrived?" (The New York Times, December 9, 2021)

 
Who needs puny human science?

Prayer will save us. Have the gods ever done the dirty on their human play things? Have they ever let plagues ravage humanity? Tsunamis wash us potently away?

And if faith-based prayer doesn't do the trick, sacrifice more women on the alter of unreason that the anti-abortionists have raised to honour their chief deity. The gods love that - their sacred works promise it is so.
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/science/dont-look-up-movie.html#commentsContainer&permid=115853344:115853344

re: "The Ghosts of Mississippi"

re: "The Ghosts of Mississippi" (The New York Times, December 7, 2021)

 You have to wonder what went wrong with the upbringing of some people that they can seriously think Black women and men are inferior to the white folk, or that they reject the obvious reality that being a person is what matters morally not only in the abortion debate but also in the controversies over sexism and racism.

Pointing out that "It's a human being," whilst true, is as relevant to the debate about abortion as arguing against women's rights that "They're women!" - no argument at all. It is as morally sound as arguing for segregation by repeating the mantra that "They're Black!" - perfectly true and absolutely irrelevant to a person's rights and treatment under just law.

Every argument against abortion is on a par with  the arguments against women's and Black rights that they are women or Black.

Yes. Every foetus is a human being. And that is irrelevant to being a person that can have rights.
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/opinion/abortion-mississippi-constitutional-rights.html#commentsContainer&permid=115783916:115783916

  

See the real problem

re: "Protesters call for lower cost of living" (BP, December 1, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Whilst their specific suggestions by the network of labour groups and activists protesting in front of Government House to reduce the cost of living are not unreasonable, the protestors should perhaps address the deeper problem, which is not that the cost of living is rising according to free market laws. The underlying problem is the grossly unjust distribution of the wealth of the Thai nation, which is considerable.

When 1% own 67% of the nation's wealth (Credit Suisse, 2018), something is seriously amiss. But of course, gross inequality that cannot plausibly be a result of just process is precisely the sort of thing that Thai law against free speech exists to prevent discussion of, lest the cumulative injustices of many, many decades come to public understanding. It would not suit the 1% to allow transparency, openness or accountability to mess up the revered injustice of benevolent and righteous tradition manifested in a proper inequality of wealth distribution that respectfully reflects the Thai reality that the better class of people are vastly more equal than the struggling masses whose work has created Thailand's national wealth.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 3, 2021, under the title "See the real problem" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2225967/see-the-real-problem
  

Amnesty damage

re: "Prayut: Amnesty International to be investigated" (BP, November 26, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Prime Minister Chan-o-cha's appeasement of some unknown  percentage of the Thai people (a majority? a minority? a super minority? Who could know or say?) is perhaps more telling than the PM and his fans would like it to be. The given reason for the official investigation of Amnesty International is that its acts are alleged to have "undermined [Thai] national security." But this must raise profound, and profoundly worrying, questions about the Thai nation as it exists.

What kind of nation is it that can perdure only on the suppression of human rights? What kind of nation is it whose national security depends on violating basic democratic principle? If those calling on the prime minister to oust Amnesty International are correct in their allegation that free speech and respect for the human rights of Thais must be suppressed as matters of national security, what does that say about the Thailand that Prayut and his like have wrought over past decades? Is that really the sort of nation of which any substantial number of Thais can be proud?

And then there is the damage such a course of action must inflict on the international reputation of Thailand and its institutions.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 30, 2021, under the title "Amnesty damage" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2223899/thai-pass-worries
  

Unacceptable law

re: "Cambodia jails critics deported by Thailand" (BP, November 22, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Can Cambodia's official apologist Chhay Kim Khoeun really believe that anyone will believe that he or what he represents is sincere when he asks of Thailand's deportation of political refugees to imprisonment in Cambodia: "How can this be a human rights violation when living in Thailand illegally? I don't understand. Thailand enforced its law and we enforce our law"? Such blind reverence for law irrespective of justice is as touching as the unfettered faith that fires the burning of witches and heretics.

Do Cambodia's masters therefore also hold that everything Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did was right and proper because in accord with the law made up by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge? It sounds most like a coup committer lamely repeating the mantra: "It's the law," as if merely being the law could ever make anything just or right or morally acceptable.

Other than fascist or communist totalitarians and their brutish ideological ilk, are there any who believe with the perfection of blind faith that a law, however grossly it perverts justice, is to be revered merely because it is the law?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 25, 2021, under the title "Unacceptable law" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2221103/not-neighbourly
  

Reckless suggestion

re: "Unbridled 'freedom' not on" (BP, PostBag, November 21, 2021)

 
Vint Chavala in his letter "Unbridled 'freedom' not on" (PostBag, Nov 21) helpfully highlights  weaknesses in Veera Prateepchaikul's opinion piece "Dialogue needed on monarchy reform," (Opinion, Nov 15).

But first, Mr. Chavala's exaggeration must be corrected. No one, not a single person, has ever called for "unbridled freedom" of speech. To suggest that they have is as reckless as insisting that if someone wants to discuss how a democracy should be reformed, they are radical anarchists or communists calling for it's overthrow.

Mr Chavala is on safer grounds when he points out that "In any democracy, freedom of expression is always a good thing and necessary." Democracy is that system of government where everyone is accorded an equal voice in determining the form of their society, its government, and the laws that are made by the people's government come from their society. That is why free speech is fundamental and non-negotiable. If some people in a society cannot express some set of ideas in their society, then democracy is denied them.

There are, nonetheless, some limits on what people may say that do not conflict with democratic principle. Every such limit must, however, be very narrowly defined and soundly justified. That someone or some group, even a large majority, is offended can never justify law that restricts the people's right to free speech. That people who lived one hundred years ago would have been offended is even less a relevant justification of any restriction of the basic democratic right to free speech for people living today. Wonderful though they may have been, we can surely do better than our ancestors did.

One justification for restrictions on speech is where ignorance is needed to protect the common welfare. Censorship that restricts free speech is always, without exception, done to enforce ignorance of the topic censored. This ignorance is sometimes a very good thing. The need for such ignorance of a topic is why, for example, nations have laws that criminalize the publication of information on how to make nuclear weapons: such knowledge is best suppressed save for very small numbers of duly monitored people.

In the case of Thai law, it must be asked why legally enforced ignorance of the censored topics is so vital that the usual democratic principle  of free speech must be restricted for a set of persons or institutions. This is the truly important question to which Vint Chavala, like Veera Prateepchaikul and those who actually support the forced ignorance that follows from censorship must provide answers. What is it that makes such legally enforced ignorance of the topics so vital? It is not at all clear how this could in fact be in the public interest of the Thai people or of their nation.

A lesser consideration worth noting is that critical thinking mandates respect for free speech. As the ongoing debate about the origins of Covid-19 remind us, in science as in every other area of knowledge, with no exception save mathematics and logic, free speech is a necessary antidote to sincerely held but false beliefs and claims of any kind, factual, moral or otherwise.

Absent free speech, there can be no critical thinking of worth on a topic. Neither can there be informed opinion of worth on a censored topic. Nor can any law be held justly democratic that has not been made by referendum or a government of the people elected from a society in which all have had an equal right to voice their ideas.
 

_______________________________

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 23, 2021, under the title "Reckless suggestion" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2219947/appalling-absence
  

Thai language or ethics?

re: "Boost for Thai language teaching in far South" (BP, October 28, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

On reading that "Border patrol police will take over teaching the Thai language to children in the far South from 2023," who could not be yet further impressed by the extraordinary competence in yet more areas of those guardians of the nation's portals.

But why not teach English as well as or instead of Thai, thereby laying more solid grounds for a better future for the subjects of instruction?

And if the underlying concern is of weaknesses in the far South's children's ethics and understanding, for which Thai is seen as a means to inculcate the right thinking, why not have the border patrol lads directly teach ethics and epistemology? Or are there after all some limits to their areas of competence?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 31, 2021, under the title "Thai language or ethics?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2206895/money-isnt-everything
  

Arresting questions

re: "The power of a child's questioning mind" (BP, October 27, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI)'s Phusima Pinyosinwat's article "The power of a child's questioning mind" was encouraging to read. The fatal sting for the frogs trapped beneath the coconut shell is in the concluding sentences: "Change is possible. All it takes is to allow students to ask questions."

Change threatens progress that could bring reason, honesty, transparency, even justice and other non-traditional values. That is why Thai law allied to alleged social norms harshly punishes, and in many cases criminalizes, students asking questions. How many intelligent, inquisitive, educated students have been arrested in the past week alone merely for expressing opinions that pose thoughtful questions in a perfectly peaceful manner?

You cannot without self-contradiction agree with Phusima's ideas and support law that enforces ignorance of social issues. Anyone who cares for a decent education for Thai children will, therefore, oppose Thailand's undemocratically repressive LM and other laws that set the opposite example that is called for if Thai youth is to be encouraged to understand local, regional, national, or international issues.

Does the current Minister of Education fail to see the contradiction between claiming to value informed opinion of worth, something that can come only from critical thinking, and Thai law backed by blinding tradition that enforces mindless ignorance?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 30, 2021, under the title "Arresting questions" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2206547/fuel-for-change
  

Politely impertinent?

re: "Reopening glitz and glam needs a backup plan" (BP, October 26, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Is it quite polite for the consistently incisive Atiya Achakulwisut to be asking relevantly critical questions about the government led by the man who overthrew the Thai people's popular form of democratic government solely in order to save true democracy? No. It is most impertinent to be rude about the amazingly expensive extravaganza that combines the best of two internationally renowned non-Thais, one of whom was has gone so far as to have been born in Thailand before escaping to thrive creatively.

The festive New Year gala is another fine example of the sacred principle of sufficiency economics beloved of all super-rich political players, and therefore unimpeachable. No? Qualifying Thais of sufficiently simple, frugal lifestyles will flock to it, praising to high heaven the extraordinary virtue of their selfless sacrifice in living such terribly, terribly modest, understated lives in unadulterated, selfless service to their nation, for which they are even willing to be seen and photographed and videoed and commented on in attendance at a hyped-up gala performance by some genuinely famous people.

How very impertinent to raise very pertinent questions about such a display of conspicuous sufficiency.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 28, 2021, under the title "Politely impertinent?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2205427/no-justice-for-fallen
  

Sentiency is key

re: "Life is precious" (BP, PostBag, October 21, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

In his letter, Paul asks the right questions. They are also the difficult questions. If a human being is not in fact a person, either because it has never reached that point in development, or because something has happened to remove the personhood that had once obtained, then it cannot be murder to kill that person. If those responsible for the human being who is not a person decide it is in everyone's (every person's) best interests to painlessly end the life of the human who is not a person, how could that be wrong? It might be emotionally difficult. We might not wish to do it. We might very much wish that the human being were still a person who could make such decisions for themselves, thereby relieving us of the burden of deciding. But those wishes are not the case. Such feelings show that we are human persons with emotional attachments to other members of our species; they do not show that there is any weakness in the reasoning as to what is the best course of action.

Paul points out that "more medical evidence is coming out showing that the unborn child can feel." This is true, but Paul is dishonest. The evidence shows that the foetus can feel pain or has senses such as touch and hearing from an early point in development, as do the foetuses of rabbits, sheep and goats. Paul's willful vagueness is because the evidence for any characteristic of a person remains zero.

The Texas law that Paul cites is also dishonest. When signing it into law, Texas Governor Greg Abbott exposed the faith-based motive for the ban when be proclaimed that, “Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion”: a blatant falsehood.

If merely having a heartbeat, more accurately, a detectable murmur in the gestational sac, is evidence of being a person, then there can be no doubt whatsoever that every pig, cow, chicken or fish with a strongly beating heart that we kill to turn into a tasty meal is every bit equally a person and fully deserving of the same legal protection as the six-week old human foetuses of Texas. If that sounds absurd, it is because it is. The absurdity derives from the dishonest falsehood that equates a human foetus with a person; that dishonesty proclaims a foetus to already be a child.

There is no slippery slope that so worries Paul. Such talk of  slippery slopes is a scare tactic by those who have no sound reasons to back up their unreasoning assault on the rights of actual human persons. Society is, on the contrary, coming to care more about both actual human persons and also about the suffering of sentient living beings that are not persons.  That is why capital punishment is on the way out, albeit it not in Texas, which has few qualms about killing actual human persons. That is why animal lives are being increasing protected by legislation to prevent abuse and suffering on factory farms. That is why we are encouraged to put our suffering pets and livestock out of their misery with a quick, painless death. That is why the world has taken such strenuous steps to eradicate polio, to help those suffering natural disasters, and to rapidly develop vaccines against Covid in record breaking time.

The lives of all sentient animals matter. The lives of actual persons matter the most. Respecting the right to legal abortion on request gives greater respect to the lives of human persons.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 23, 2021, under the title "Sentiency is key" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2202827/monks-be-good
  

Asylum deserved

re: "Malaysian trans woman arrested in Thailand says 'safe' in Australia" (BP, October 20, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Australia often gets human rights wrong, as seen in its treatment of refugees on Manus Island and its centuries-long mistreatment of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, but in the case of Nur Sajat, my country has got it right. She should be granted asylum to escape religiously inspired persecution by morally wrong Malaysian law mindlessly bowing down before blind faith in a famously intolerant and punitive god.

Whilst some might take this sad case as yet another opportunity to bash religions for being primitive superstitions preaching fake claims about reality and dubious moral values, perhaps even going so far as to suggest that religions be banned, that temptation must be resisted. We must remain tolerant, even of what consistently proves itself intrinsically intolerant, as demonstrated in this case by Islam.

Freedom of religion is a human right as much as the right to choose freedom from persecution by religion. The right for religions to exist and even proselytize by advertising their wares and supernatural promises must also be respected. But religion should never be supported by the state, nor should religious arguments ever be accepted as a reason for forming any public policy. Religions may well have everything to say on supernatural matters not of this world, but they have nothing of solid, rational worth to say on matters of natural reality or of sound human morals.

If faith-driven adherents wish to faithfully hold the dogmas and practice the rites of some religion, that is strictly a personal matter, one best engaged in in private with other consenting adults, preferably behind closed doors with the blinds down, the sheets up, and the lights out.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 22, 2021, under the title "Asylum deserved" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2202159/report-responsibly
  

'Squid Game' lessons

re: "'Squid Game' rings true in our new reality" (BP, October 12, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

As Atiya Achakulwisut notes, the plot of the extravagantly popular Squid Game might once upon a time have been "described as 'bizarre' and 'unrealistic'." Once upon a time. But as our understanding of reality improves with time, helped by prompts such as the latest K-drama hit, we often learn that the bizarre is reality, or that reality is often bizarre.

It was, accordingly, very thoughtful of the Royal Thai Police to take the opportunity to remind us of their level of competence. The facts, however, are that none, not even children, are going to rush out and start murdering at random because they have watched a violent TV series, not even the highly diverting Squid Game, another bit of great entertainment from Korea, where critical exploration of the human experience is not rigorously suppressed. Nor was it the case that the ultra-violent Tom and Jerry cartoons so popular in my own childhood led to any detectable uptick in violence levels among children. The remarkably violent A Clockwork Orange (1971), very popular among my generation of university students, also failed to bring down civilization, or initiate even a modest blood bath: I don't think my cohort who came of age in the 1970s was noticeably more violent than any other, quite the contrary, as mounting opposition to the Vietnam war and violence in general attests.

Only an ignorant fool from the days when myth ruled over reason and evidence would make such a silly claim premised on the notion that children and others are unable to tell fact from honestly labelled fiction. The officers of the Royal Thai Police might be challenged, but even children, including Thai children, know that Spiderman is not real, and that you don't shoot people in the head because they failed to separate their chosen shape in the sugar candy game, even a shape so complex as an deliciously curvy umbrella.

What does make a society violent are acts of real life violence, especially when committed with impunity, for example: a culture of police violence up to torturing people to death with plastic bags; an endemic culture of committing and colluding in coups against popular, democratic governments; or a legal culture that allows sending in uniforms to arrest and throw into prison young people who have done nothing but peacefully express honestly critical opinions on the Thai human experience: those are the all too real acts of violence that teach violence to society. Squid Game is not a threat to Thai morals; the same cannot be so confidently said of the Royal Thai Police and the acts of assorted other allegedly sacred Thai institutions that have too often set the example of using violence to achieve their morally dubious ends.

But having now enjoyed the entire series, it can be understood why the authorities behind the bizarre and unrealistic claims enunciated by the Royal Thai Police posing as moral guardians are concerned. It would not do to have Thai citizens drawing, for example, parallels between, say, the VIPs who make such a richly accoutred appearance oozing wealth and unrestrained entitlement in "Squid Game" and similarly masquerading groups of Thais already conveniently labelled VIPs. No, that would not do at all.

Squid Game is unlikely to lead to blood on the streets or on the local football field or around around the hopscotch squares, but it might well have some useful lessons to teach Thai youth; and that is the perhaps the real fear.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 16, 2021, under the title "'Squid Game' lessons" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2198763/squid-game-lessons
  

Foetal position

re: "Life is precious" (BP, PostBag, October 10, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

In his honest letter "Life is precious" (PostBag, Oct. 10), Ye Olde Theologian rightly refrains from claiming that human life is sacred in some way that other life is not. Since every living animal we kill to turn into tasty morsels of flesh was, until we killed it, at least as sentient as any human foetus at any point in a pregnancy, we must assume that Ye Olde Theologian is as radically opposed to the eating of meat from slaughtered animals as he is to abortion.

As for the argument from potential combined with the golden rule that we "do unto others as we would them do unto us," I can assure Ye Olde Theologian with absolute confidence that had any of us been aborted, we would not now or at any other time be troubled in the least by that previous event that precluded any such concern before it ever became a possibility. That a pile of iron ore fresh dug from the ground has the potential to become the body of a Rolls Royce is not a good reason to value it as we would an actual Rolls Royce body.

It is certainly true that "none of us have complete control over our own bodies." In fact, if the laws of science, known or unknown, are as true as the mounting evidence ever more totally confirms, none of have any more control of our bodies, including our brains and the minds that the physics and chemistry of our brains generate, than does an autonomous car have control of itself. But that limited level of control is enough for us to make decisions, to have preferences, plans and relationships, and thus to be persons with the right to determine for ourselves how we live our own lives save that we may not violate the equal rights of other persons.

And this is the flaw in Ye Olde Theologian's primary argument. A human foetus is not a person. It is not the unqualified case that life is sacred. It is not even the case that human life that is sacred: being human means merely having the 46 chromosomes that chemically define a living being as member of our species. If the adjective "sacred" is to have any meaning beyond mere fantasy of the murkiest mystery, it is that there is something very special about being a person. If anything is, it is the lives of actual, living persons that are sacred.

No foetus ever has any characteristic that define a living being as a person: it cannot reason; it does not have social bonds; it does not decide things; it does not have preferences; nor does it reason or make plans. There can, therefore, be no moral grounds against abortion. The dictates of despotic gods, whose primary commandment is absolute intolerance of dissent, as the Bible's Exodus 20:3 bluntly puts it: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," are never moral reasons at all, merely unreasoning orders given to human playthings.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 12, 2021, under the title "Foetal position" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2196411/a-simple-test
  

Abuse is no surprise

re: "French Catholic Church inquiry finds 216,000 sex abuse victims from 1950" (BP, October 5, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Yes, the numbers are horrifying, but that there were "some 216,000 victims of paedophilia from 1950 to 2020" at the blessed hands of French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy does not surprise.

The Catholic Church is not special. It is just one more ideology of zealous true believers doing exactly what is and always has been done by despotic institutions, whether sacred, secular or both. Has there ever been any exception? Has any allegedly revered and sacred institution protected from transparency and accountability ever acted differently? It is certain, by the very laws and social taboos against free speech with which they veil their acts from fair comment, that there can be no credible denial of what appears a most likely truth.  

The Catholic Church has merely done and does what all such unspeakable institutions have always done in their dark places veiled from public scrutiny and just exposure. Unless called to account by the superior morals of liberal democracy founded on Enlightenment ideals of reason and humanism, it will continue to act as it has for at least the past 1,600 years. That is what all such despotisms naturally do. Why else would they need such symptoms as secrecy, gorgeous dress, huge statuary, monumental architecture, and taboos to hide behind?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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, 2021, under the title "Abuse is no surprise" at URL
  

Sexually misguided

re: "OnlyFans star's arrest renews debate on sex work" (BP, September 28, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Sex is natural. Performing sex is fun, or at least it should be. And as both high and low art have for millennia attested, watching sex or sex-drenched performance is highly entertaining, even fun. There is no good reason whatsoever to think that there is anything less morally decent about paying for consenting sex than paying for consenting cooking, consenting teaching, consenting preaching, consenting surgery, or any other act where two parties freely agree to a mutually rewarding exchange. To claim that the act of freely performed sex or watching such an act is in any way morally wrong shows, on the contrary, that there is something seriously stunted or worse in the moral development of those making such misguided claims.

Of course, it must be conceded in defence of such laws as those used by officers of those famous paragons of moral excellence the Royal Thai Police to shamefully harass and embarrass the honest, hard-working creators of joy on OnlyFans that much traditional corruption would not be possible without those legal tools. And what kind of zealous moralist, ignorant alike of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, Mill and all the other great moral philosophers through to today, would tolerate any threat to such venerable traditions rooted solidly in uncritical unreason supporting received prejudice?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 2, 2021, under the title "Sexually misguided" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2191223/too-dam-costly
  

Human fictions

re: "China's Xi warns of 'grim' Taiwan situation in letter to opposition" (BP, September 26, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

More humans need realize that countries and nations, along with cultures, customs, and traditions, are all at heart only human fictions, as historian Yuval Harari correctly explains them in his justly famous book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" (2015). Mindless faith in blind nationalism or spurious ethnic myths notwithstanding, what might once upon a time have been some region's past political or cultural history is and should be irrelevant to its right to self-determination today.

If the people on the piece of land called Taiwan, or Tibet, or Texas, or Catalonia, or Australia, or whatever do not want to be Chinese, or American, or Spanish, or British, or whatever, that is for them to decide today constrained only by just contractual agreements entered into. Should they wish the people currently occupying some piece of real estate to remain within the same fiction that is a nation, it is for China, or the United States, or Britain to persuade those citizens to freely remain in that organizational structure. Force or threats of force already betray any pretence to respecting the rights of the people on the piece of dirt in question.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 28, 2021, under the title "Human fictions" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2188751/investigate-thai
  

Curse of religion

re: "Care needed in Sajat case" (BP, Editorial, September 24, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

In the sad case of the wholesome Nur Sajat, we yet again see zealous ideologues preaching love and peace and morality hounding those cursed to live under their despotism, intolerance, and rejection of moral decency. Religion, one of the most common causes of hell on Earth these last few millennia, is merely one subset of ideology. Like its more honestly political sister ideologies such as communism, fascism and rabid nationalism, religion, as this case plainly demonstrates, demands mindless subservience to and blind faith in its extravagant claims of omnipotence allied to moral perfection. There exists no evidence or reason for those fantastic claims, hence the ruthless suppression of liberty and freedom of peaceful expression that hints at dissent from the dictated orthodoxy.

Islam is, it must nonetheless be admitted, every bit as enlightened and morally decent and founded on truth as are its sister religions that also hold the Bible to be a sacred text direct from the gods. And each member of that subset of sister religions is in turn every bit as reliable as a guide to reality and good morals as every other religion on Earth ever has been, from village shamans, to the Egyptian pantheon, to the Olympian gods, to the high religious traditions of the devout Aztecs, and to sacred Phoenician Ba'al and to every other religion still living or long dead. But that ideology-based insistence on being believed contrary to reason and evidence alike is also a textbook definition of a fake claim.

Whilst respecting the right to religious freedom in private. Whenever religions seek power in the real world, especially political and legal power over the bodies of real, living people, perhaps it is right to be reasonable and to hold the factual and moral claims of such publicly intrusive religions to exactly the same standards applied to claims about Covid, police use of torture, and the sums of the squares of the sides of right-angled triangles. Is there any sound reason not to be so reasonable?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 25, 2021, under the title "Curse of religion" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2187435/vaccinations-for-all
  

It's just an opinion

re: "We must end torture in all its forms" (BP, September 21, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

In his opinion piece rightly emphasizing the need for reform of traditional systems and mindsets in the Royal Thai Police and like institutions, Kavi Chongkittavorn missed an opportunity to make a constructive suggestion to improve Thailand's ugly culture of impunity for those who commit violence against Thai citizens.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha could, as a good person would, promptly end the culture of violence that imprisons people merely for the articulate, peaceful expression of views that some find offensive. The prime minister could and should also move to have those undemocratic laws amended in line not only with democratic principle but with good morals. There is no justification whatsoever for the legalized injustice according to which people are thrown into prison merely for statements or expressions of opinion that are deemed to mock or criticize or otherwise offend some public figure or allegedly sacred institution. Imprisoning people for decades for the peaceful expression of opinion is morally indefensible violence against those persons. It also flatly contradicts basic democratic principle. It is morally wrong.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 23, 2021, under the title "It's just an opinion" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2186343/phuket-plan-disaster
  

Let protesters speak

re: "Protests follow a predictable path" (BP, September 20, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

In his latest opinion piece, Veera Prateepchaikul makes several odd statements. First he demeans the Thalugas protestors by saying that "since they are not good speakers, their only way they could express themselves was to fight with the police and resort to violence." But have Veera and the Bangkok Post ever thought to invite them or other protestors to articulate their case? Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha continues to use the violence of unjust law to imprison many merely for peacefully and very articulately expressing opinions that he does not want well spoken. And that, whatever else it might be, is neither democratic nor right.

Veera then goes on to proclaim that "hopefully the mutual distrust or hatred should not make them blind as to what is right or wrong," apparently oblivious to the fact that a coup committed against the popular, democratic government of the people is certainly and indefensibly wrong. There has never been any excuse that could make such a slap in the face of the electorate, the Thai nation, anything but wrong.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 22, 2021, under the title "Let protesters speak" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2185787/precious-forests
  

Strange coup fruits

re: "2006 coup a success, claims mastermind Sonthi" (BP, September 19, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

General Sonthi's comments on the anniversary of his coup against the Thai nation's very popular elected government of the Thai people are most illuminating. To think that "The Sept 19, 2006 coup against the Thaksin Shinawatra government was a success" suggest some serious failures of critical reasoning. It merely retarded Thailand's political, social, moral and economic growth. And worsened social divides. And entrenched the traditionally corrupt status quo. Such strange fruits of success.

Lest there be any doubt, the general then proceeds to confirm that the critical failure embraces the moral with the absurd claim that his coup was successful because of "gestures of support for his military intervention reflected by the bouquets of flowers presented to the coup-makers and troops." That a tiny minority of undemocratic zealots enslaved by blind faith in an ideology of demeaning subservience gave flowers shows only that the general's moral and critical failures were shared by that minority who applauded the overthrow of the rule of law, who applauded the overthrow of democratic principle and process, and who applauded the overthrow of the popular, elected government of the Thai people. Applauding such acts is itself a shameful act, not made less so by being decked out in flowers.

The getting or giving of flowers, however sincerely bestowed, is an absurd criteria for judging moral worth or success. North Korea's little despot also receives regular floral tributes from the faithful who believe him sacred. In China, Xi's official meetings are regularly decked out with flowers. Every tin-pot despot has themselves wreathed in flowers and got up in spiffy uniforms gaudily medalled and beribboned. Does Sonthi really think that a few flowers given by the faithfully benighted are evidence of moral worth? If the drug war lovers now give Joe Ferrari some handsome bouquets, will that prove him to be a successful, morally exemplary officer of the sacred Royal Thai Police because he tortured to death an alleged drug dealer? Bizarre.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 21, 2021, under the title "Strange coup fruits" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2185187/foreigners-beware
  

re: "Is Self-Awareness a Mirage?"

re: "Is Self-Awareness a Mirage?"  (The New York Times, September 16, 2021)

 
and our most enduring story: that we are self-determining agents with free will
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/opinion/psychology-consciousness-behavior.html#commentsContainer&permid=114568372:114568372

  

Culture of violence

re: "Anti-torture bill overdue" (BP, Editorial, September 14, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

It's very nice that "This draft bill was written primarily to prevent rouge officials from torturing suspects or abducting people with critical views."

But consider: had it already been in force a month ago, or a year ago, or ten years ago, would anything have happened differently? Would less Thais who spoke out against abuses have been disappeared? Would activists in Cambodia and elsewhere not have been disappeared? Would officers of high repute of the Royal Thai Police not have tortured someone to death?

The Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act is a healthy start, but it can't solve the problems of an endemic culture of violence that is further entrenched every time some saviour, the fake banner they dress themselves in, uses violence or threats of violence to overthrow a popular, democratic government of the Thai people. Nor should it be forgot that throwing people into prison for the peaceful expression of an opinion is an act of violence, however blessed by unjust law. There seems, therefore, not much chance of any long overdue reform of corrupt Thai institutions while bad law is used to violently suppress free speech, which is a non-negotiable, foundational principle of democracy, one without which democracy is gutted like a tortured victim who dared to speak up as good people do.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 16, 2021, under the title "Culture of violence" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2182643/torture-uncommon-
  

When satire terrifies some

re: "Drama over monks' giggly live-stream chat show settled" (BP, September 9, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Naturally, the totally serious, benevolent and righteous forces that prop up the traditional institutions of Thainess running sacred are terrified of satire. Laughing, even giggling, at the inherited pretensions of ever so serious, ever so benevolent, and ever so righteous preachers of simplicity, frugality and sufficiency, preached from multiple luxury residences where none may know what goes on even after sunrise, threatens to undermine mindlessly blind faith in the antique status quo beloved of those whose acts in defence of their beloved relics will spare no democratic principle, norm, or practice.

It is most fortunate for them that the religion known as Thai Buddhism continues, as in the old days, to be run by and for powerful political figures so that unruly monks who might be too much inclined towards engaging people with right understanding and other principles dear to the Buddha can be properly brought to heel.

It is less fortunate for others that such desires to suppress freedoms are as undemocratic as they are arguably unBuddhist.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 12, 2021, under the title "When satire terrifies some" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2180355/time-for-pm-to-come-clean
  

Institutional cancer

re: "Police power must belong to the people" (BP, September 4, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Wasant Techawongtham is spot on that the latest scandal confirming the long-standing reputation of such institutions as the Royal Thai Police (RTP) is but one case of an "infected sore that happened to burst in public." But are the RTP the root cause of the pandemic corruption that has for many decades characterized that group and others supposed to serve the Thai people? They are not. The malignancy afflicting the RTP is merely one case of a wider cancer in Thai institutions. The RTP do but faithfully follow precedent.

Other Thai institutions set the example that the voice of the people doesn't matter. The morally indefensible example of holding the wishes of the Thai people in contempt has been set for decades every time the people's popular government is overthrown. Every such abuse proclaims not that the law and the state are to be directed by the people, but that the people must slavishly obey authority, however unjust, and bow down before the brutish power of the state and its officers, abusive though they be. Only fools could have expected anything such as the RTP, to become decent under Prayut Chan-o-cha. That is not the reason the popular democratic form of government that the people aspire to have respected is regularly overthrown by Thai institutions deeming themselves above the wishes of the Thai people.

Any spirit of progress or reform, of moving the Thai nation forward to a better future for all Thai people requires transparency and accountability, which in turn require that the voice of all people on all matters be respected by strong legal protection. Sadly, the government of Prayut Chan-o-cha has, like too many such governments before, consistently done the opposite. From sending people for "attitude adjustment", to banning healthy debate about his new constitution, to blocking websites for no good reason, to imprisoning peaceful protestors merely for saying something alleged to have offended someone. Such acts enforce unjust law to subjugate the Thai people, ruling arrogantly over them with impunity to abuse, the outcome seen all too clearly in that infamous video showing the vile abuse committed on their official premises by members then in good standing of the Royal Thai Police.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 6, 2021, under the title "Institutional cancer" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2176935/institutional-cancer
  

Prayers won't help

re: "Govt denies jab purchase graft" (BP, September 1, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Thailand's self-made Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha often asserts what passes all understanding. His apparently serious recommendation that Thais read George Orwell's Animal Farm comes to mind as being more inexplicable than most. But his self defense during the censure debate going on in parliament that "I pray every day, so I would never resort to doing anything immoral" hits a new record for critical thinking.

Many people pray every day. Catholic priests pray every day, too often before, or during, a spot of child sexual abuse. So too do the Taliban. So too did the Holy Roman inquisitors. So too did Osama bin Laden pray every day. Does Thailand's prime minister never listen to how irrational he often is? Or does he truly want us to follow his logic and accept, at his own insistence, that the likes of bin Laden, Christian torturers, the Taliban, and holy men into child sex abuse are the accurate measure of his own moral excellence merely because they all pray every day, so therefore are equally certain to "never resort to doing anything immoral"?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 3, 2021, under the title "Prayers won't help" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2175727/prayers-wont-help
  

re: "You Are Not Who You Think You Are"

re: "You Are Not Who You Think You Are"  (The New York Times, September 2, 2021)

 
And underlying it all, what we now call emotions, thinking, perceiving, deciding and other mental events, are the nerve cells that make up our brains interacting with fingers, stomachs and diseases we might have, underlying all of which is chemistry following the ineluctable laws of physics. And out of that comes the wonder that is us, whatever we are as ever imperfectly known, not least to ourselves, human persons.
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/brain-reality-imagination.html#commentsContainer&permid=114368572:114368572

  

re: "Republicans Are Giving Abortion Opponents Power Over the Rest of Us"

re: "Republicans Are Giving Abortion Opponents Power Over the Rest of Us"  (The New York Times, September 1, 2021)

 
There is no reason to doubt that the faith-based who vehemently oppose the right of their fellow citizens to freely choose to abort an embryo that is as certainly a human being as it is certainly not a human person are sincere in their faith.

But faith has ever been a powerful generator of false claims about the world be live in, in which our planet is not in fact the centre of the universe revolving around it. No more is it the case that we humans are not merely one more twig on the evolutionary tree, related to every other living thing on the planet, from cats to carrots and bacteria.

As usual, the faith-based and their religions hawking baseless claims create hell on Earth, in this case the state of Texas, as they lead the charge against reason and reality in a principled rejection of decent, human morals.
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/opinion/texas-abortion.html#commentsContainer&permid=114350419:114350419

  

Just plain dumb

re: "Autopsy shows drug suspect died of suffocation" (BP, August 30, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

When we read that "According to Pol Col Thitisant, multiple plastic bags were put on Jeerapong’s head because he did not want him to see his face," a couple of questions arise.

First, every school child knows that putting plastic bags over your head and sealing them around the neck leads to death. How comes it that senior officers of the Royal Thai Police, a station commander no less, are so grossly ignorant of basic biology as to not know this? To achieve the goal of knowing less than primary school children, do officers rising in the ranks undergo special training to deepen their ignorance?

Related to having, or not having, useful knowledge is the matter of critical thinking, or plain common sense. Anyone who has played childhood games or watched a kidnap movie knows that in order to prevent the victim seeing the faces of the torturer or kidnapper, it is sufficient to use a blind fold. Those fatal plastic bags could easily have served as a makeshift blindfold. Apparently we are to believe that the level of intelligence, the basic thinking competence, of ranking officers of the Royal Thai Police is in the range that might generously be described as seriously retarded.

Do the alleged torturers and murderers really want to base their defence on a presumption of ignorance and retarded mental ability that so strains credibility? Is the RTP really in the habit of hiring and promoting officers who are capable of the intellectual depths now being claimed by these killers?

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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 September 2, 2021, under the title "Just plain dumb" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2175099/just-plain-dumb
  

Pathetic justification

re: "Time for cops to come clean" (BP, Editorial, August 28, 2021)

 
When the fatally effective Royal Thai Police officer in his officially approved PR stunt "said he regretted the death, but justified his abhorrent treatment of suspects 'as a means to an end' in the war against the illicit drug trade in local communities," there is no reason to think he was not lying. But the reality he lets slip about the ethos of the Royal Thai Police is much worse: even if he were sincere, even if there were grounds for thinking the suspect had knowledge about a ton of heroin, the use of torture as a matter of course, which the proffered excuse implies is an accepted operating procedure in the Royal Thai Police, shows that traditional Thai institution to be morally abhorrent in its very principles.

Yet worse, that excuse that the ends justifies them, however truly vile those means be, sounds exactly like an equally Royal Thai Army general giving the usual excuses for committing a coup against the Thai people to overthrow a popular, democratic government. Worth noting here is that such repression of democracy by intimidation using threats of violence is the foundation on which stands the decades of corruption in the Royal Thai Police and other famously corrupt Thai institutions.

The best, the only credible, antidote to corruption is democracy. To reduce systemic corruption, democracy must be allowed to develop institutions that protect free speech rather than stifling it with brutish prison sentences, that ensure the people can protest perceived wrongs rather than using police violence to suppress them, and that create transparency rather than systemically enforcing ignorance of what is being done by whom by the use of unjust law.

It would have been naive in the extreme to ever have expected those who committed a coup against the evolution of functioning democracy to allow, let alone initiate, police or any other healthy reform. That is not how the world works.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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, 2021, under the title "Pathetic justification" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2173175/pathetic-justification
  

Cultures scorned

re: "Do we need more rockets in the stratosphere?" (BP, August 27, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Or rather than cramming into economy class or reclining in expansive privacy to visit a culture of which they are essentially ignorant, people who care about the planet could just get over the tourism that gawks uncomprehendingly at the artifacts and quaint customs of other cultures and instead divert their time and resources to actually learning about other cultures by attending university or other study options where they they learn the languages, the literature, the history, and other aspects of other cultures, which they might then visit with some appreciation.

Of course, there are sound reasons for visiting a country other than a veneer of interest in its culture.

 Felix Qui
 

_______________________________

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, 2021, under the title "Cultures scorned" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2172555/shake-up-police
  

Tip of the iceberg?

re: "Custody death clip sparks storm" (BP, August 25, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

It comes as no surprise that the Royal Thai Police officer who masterminded the alleged torture and murder at a police station by police officers is in fact "Regarded as one of the best drug suppression officers" as reported in the Bangkok Post ("Custody death clip sparks storm", August 25, 2021).

It must be wondered for how long such extortion of suspects has been going on in that police area. It must also be wondered, given the prevalence of such accounts of brutality and extortion, how widespread throughout the Thai nation such practices are. It must further be wondered what other evils lie secreted in closets protected by repressive censorship from healthy public knowledge and open debate. Had the video of this latest alleged torture and murder by those famously upstanding men of law and order waging war against druggies not gone public, would there have been even a pretense of seeking justice?

Perhaps if Thailand's drug laws, which have conspicuously failed decade after decade to reduce drug use or drug-related harms to society, were reformed to respect individual rights, we would see not only no significant increase in drug use, but a great saving of currently wasted  tax money and police resources, a substantial reduction in drug-related harm to society, and certainly the elimination of such corruption as seen in the extortion leading to murder by Royal Thai Police officers who are officially "Regarded as ... the best drug suppression officers".

 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 27, 2021, under the title "Tip of the iceberg?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2171995/stop-squabbling
  

Toxic Apple 'candy'

re: "Apple defends child protection features over privacy concerns" (BP, August 14, 2021) 

 
Dear editor,

It is so comforting that "Apple was adamant it would not accede to any government's request to scan for anything other than images showing child sexual abuse." And of course, in a future with the scanning ability firmly in place, Apple will not get new leaders who might extend it just a little; or if China bought in, they would not comply; or if the US government tended more to the totalitarian end of authoritarian law and order, Apple would not extend the scanning just a little to monitor for other criminal activity, like communist tendencies, or conservative tendencies, or perhaps the wrong attitudes towards those of different skin colours or ethnic origins. Of course Apple will never comply. It is touching that they have such absolute faith in their prognostications for the future use to which the tools might be put by persons as yet unknown with causes as yet unknown.

Healthy institutions assume that the humans who compose them are or can become corrupt, that great evil can be committed by authoritarians sincerely believing themselves to be doing god's work or some other noble cause, such as Mao's in China. It is similarly the great strength of democracy to trust not in mythically angelic persons, but in strong, widely supported institutions founded on sensible suspicion of all persons. It is prudent to assume that all with power are human beings subject like all of us to the same temptations to do evil, especially in the name of what we wrongly believe good.  It is idiotic in the extreme to imagine that any group of human beings, whether politicians, priests, professors, poets, publicans or whatever are now and always will be only angels.

Are there some out there childish enough to take the candy Apple is offering?

 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 18, 2021, under the title "Toxic Apple 'candy'" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2167011/toxic-apple-candy