re: Doctrine for the Biden Administration

re: "Doctrine for the Biden Administration" (The New York Times, January 25, 2021)

 
Well said Mr. Stephens. Free speech being fundamental to democracy, the US could not do better than to actively support dissidents who "galvanize public indignation through acts of exposure, mockery and heroic defiance."

The repressive rulers of states like Russia,  Thailand, and others whom free speech terrifies deserve the same hearty questioning, dissent, mockery, holding to account and to ridicule that is accorded US presidents by the good citizens of the United States.
 

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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/2021/01/25/opinion/navalny-biden-russia.html#commentsContainer&permid=111260418:111260418

  

Such a lame attack

re: "Vaccine buy bears up to scrutiny" (BP, January 25, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Veera Prateepchaikul has a habit of presenting disingenuous deceits as arguments of substance. This is blatant in his attack on Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Veera tries to put the blame for his falling victim to a lèse majesté charge on the popularly respected Thanatorn himself, much as some seek to blame rape victims for causing themselves to be raped.

The lame effort to shift blame won't work. If Thai law were not morally corrupt, it could not be used as intended to silence healthy discussion. That someone is wrong is not a reason to imprison them. That someone expresses an opinion that upsets someone else, that causes offence to another, cannot be a just reason to imprison that person. As usual, Veera totally misses where the true moral wrong lies here. There is no morally sound defence of Thailand's lèse majesté laws, which bestow only harms on Thai politics and society.

Veera also makes some dubious assumptions about the motives of different businesses and their owners. Although he is probably right that Thanatorn is a capitalist, if wealth is to be an indicator of motive as Veera implies, then he should also have named the far wealthier party. Although we expect complex humans to be capable of having multiple motivating factors, surely actual amassed wealth is one of the reliable indicators of motive, is it not? Thanatorn does not pretend that he does not seek to be a successful business owner amassing wealth, nor should he.

It must also be wondered whether Veera thinks that lifestyle might provide clues to motive. So far as I know, and I might be wrong, Thanatorn's lifestyle seems pretty simple and not notably extravagant. He seems content with a modest sufficiency of material comforts as he devotes himself to family and work, including his selfless political work for the betterment of the Thai nation.

 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 January 26, 2021, under the title "Such a lame attack" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2057123/the-right-to-question
  

PM deserves more credit

Re: "PM's words ring hollow over scandals", (Bangkok Post,  January 16, 2020)

 
Chairith fails to give the PM credit for his one consistently demonstrated skill: he excels at making up lame excuses that some people, amazing but true, actually manage to believe, or at least pretend to believe. He made up pathetic excuses when he staged a coup to make himself PM: all lies, of course, but well designed excuses nonetheless. He has made amazing promise after amazing promise since he made himself PM absent the bother of a democratic election, and used committees and other neat excuses to deflect blame from his failure to anything save further the interests of Prayut Chan-o-cha and those he loyally serves in a mutual love fest.
 

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The above is the text that was actually posted as a quick comment on the article by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text of that quick comment as edited was published in PostBag on January 2, 2021, under the title "PM deserves more credit" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2052215/pm-deserves-more-credit

  

Drug war failure

re: "'K-powdered milk' drug cocktail kills six" (BP, January 12, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

My condolences to families of the six people who are the latest victims of Thailand's failing drug policy.

Some relevant facts: when drugs are legal for personal use, drug deaths drop. Portugal decriminalized all personal drug use for adults in 2000. "In 1999, 369 drug overdose deaths were recorded in Portugal. ... by 2015 that number had fallen to 54" (Drug Decriminalization in Portugal Learning from a Health and Human-Centered Approach, 2018). There is a popular belief that legalizing drugs must lead to an increase in drug use, addiction, and harms from drug use: this "common knowledge" is perhaps common, but it is not in fact knowledge; it is false. "Aside from marijuana and new psychoactive substances, drug use for all other drugs has fallen below 2001 levels" (ibid.). The same lesson was learned in the US experiment with alcohol prohibition from 1920 to 1933, that great boon to the mafia and corrupt officials. The same is reflected in before and after statistics for marijuana use in US states over recent years. Drug usage rates are not strongly related to legality. If more evidence were needed that it is factually wrong to equate criminalizing drugs with reduced use, the regular reports of massive seizures in Thailand show that demand remains strong and that the supply is being met by criminals that bad law invites to make high profits.

Criminalizing the personal decisions of adults only increases drug harms to both users and to society. Current failing drug policy incites criminals to supply the demand for drugs. If the drugs were legal, they would be supplied by respectable, registered business people who would worry about their reputations in the open market. The quality would be assured. The product would be traceable back to the producers and suppliers, who could be held accountable, just as the drug barons of the alcohol and tobacco industries are held accountable by Thai law for the harms, including many deaths by overdose to alcohol users, by cancer to cigarette users, and by road deaths to innocent victims of drugged up drivers, that their legal drugs cause.

Other obvious practical benefits to legalizing personal drug use are that taxes are collected. In contrast, at the moment a fortune in tax funds and police resources are wasted on the ever failing drug wars that do not reduce drug harms to Thai society. Those wasted financial and police resources could and should be diverted to preventing and bringing to justice crimes with actual victims, such as murder, rape, theft, fraud, and even corruption.

Consumers do not choose to buy a product of dubious quality from a criminal when a safe, regulated option is available form a legally registered supplier selling a product of known quality. And when their drug use is legal, it is much easier for those whose drug use causes problems to seek help without fear of being punished.

The blame for these latest deaths caused by drugs rests ultimately with Thai authorities who refuse to reform drug policy that has for many decades been known to be a total failure. Except that it's worse than a total failure: the current policy of many decades actively worsens drug harms to society. Thailand's current drug policy is in every way morally indefensible.

 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 January 16, 2021, under the title "Drug war failure" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2051875/all-too-familiar
  

Trump's faithful Sanhedrin

re: "Trump Ignites a War Within the Church" (The New York Times, January 14, 2021)

 
The white evangelical Christians who too faithfully placed their trust in Trump should perhaps ask themselves how well his brand of authoritarianism citing law and order reflects the example set by Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.

They should perhaps recall the facts: that Jesus was a street activist in ancient Judea, that he upset the conservative status quo, that the conservatives citing law and order had him arrested and executed to protect the peace, that Jesus was a progressive who worried more about what was just and right than he did about maintaining deeply flawed traditions.

There is nothing Christ-like in Trump or the acts of Trump. There is little that follows the example of fighting for social justice set by Jesus to be seen in those who supported Trump. Jesus did not use legalism as a weapon to demonize, but showed compassion and helped others, all others, to freely chose better ways of living.

Jesus might, for example, have solved the illegal immigrant problem by welcoming in more immigrants as legal citizens eager to work hard to better themselves, their families and the chosen home they would love to love and benefit as hard-working, honest members of the community. It is hard to conceive of a Jesus who would not join BLM in railing against the states' justice system systematically indulging racist and other prejudices as reflected too clearly in crime statistics.

Jesus as presented in the Bible appears more a victim of Trump-like authoritarianism. 
 

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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/2021/01/14/opinion/trump-evangelicals.html#commentsContainer&permid=111110378:111110378

  

Orwelling Orwell

re: "How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose Insult" (The New York Times, January 13, 2021)

 
It is a superb irony, positively Orwellian, that those whose catch cry was "Stop the steal" should be using "Orwellian" to demonize all three branches of the US government, the legislative, the executive and even the judicial, all of whom agreed that a majority of Americans in a well-run election voted their free choice for president on November 3, 2020. I'd always thought that as governments go, that of the US, especially its judicial branch, was about as unOrwellian, on my understanding from close readings of Orwell over several decades, as any ever has been. But I can't dispute that Orwellianism is thriving in the US of A these days.

Other terms recently seen thrown about with with similar intent are "leftist" and "communist." This despite the fact that it's hard to think of any group more decidedly capitalist than the likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon. I would have thought them eager devotees of unfettered capitalism, busily making money from free markets.

But when the great faker himself castigates, absent any substantiation or even explanation, as "fake news" the entire set of news media that worry about accuracy and balance in reporting the news, the standard is set. If thinking that such beloved standards need to be smashed makes me a radical leftist, I guess I'm guilty, despite having always thought myself a conservative who respects long fought for standards of truth and honesty.

Do such conservative values also make me Orwellian?
 

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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/2021/01/13/books/orwellian-1984.html#commentsContainer&permid=111093123:111093123

  

Republicans reap their sown

re: "Trump Is the Republican Party’s Past and Its Future" (The New York Times, January 13, 2021)

 
Trump's staunchly faithful, blindly and blindingly faithful, base of radicalized Christian zealots will appreciate the aptness of Galatians 6:7:

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

In all fairness to them, Donald Trump could not have happened to a more deserving party than the Republicans, whose conservative robes have been rent asunder to show what lurks beneath in all its seething, antediluvian nakedness.
 

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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/2021/01/13/opinion/gop-trump.html#commentsContainer&permid=111073683:111073683

  

POWs in own nation

re: "'I know nothing!'" (BP, PostBag, January 8, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

Samanea Saman, thanks for the memories of after-school TV that flooded back with your apt noting of Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon's "great impersonation of Sgt Schultz, from the 1960s sitcom, Hogan's Heroes." I have, however, one little quibble: in many cases, Sgt Schultz's professions of perfect ignorance were not entirely incredible.

If I might develop the comparison a little, let us hope that Thailand's heroic Hogans, also hounded by brutish authorities inflicting morally stunted law, are spending their New Year break hatching well-planned stratagems and digging tunnels to help collapse the foundations of the unnatural perversion of rule under which the authoritarian thugs have made the Thai nation POWs in their own country for near seven years in a long tradition of such internment by law and order.

But that raises questions: for one, if Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is the vain, cowardly, bungling Col. Klink, who is his German boss, the ultimate architect of the farce?

 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 January 9, 2021, under the title "POWs in own nation" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2048087/headless-chickens
  

America deserves to pardon Trump

re: "Trump Is Said to Have Discussed Pardoning Himself" (The New York Times, January 7, 2021)

 
Make everyone happy: the remaining Republicans with any sense of decency can initiate Trump's impeachment 2. When he has been unceremoniously turfed out of the White House before January 20, the incoming president can then grant clemency with a wholly undeserved pardon to allow the American people to move on begin healing the gaping wounds Trump has inflicted.

A message is sent. Trump gets his pardon. And hopefully the US can move on to recover some of the lost greatness of the past four years. It could, for example, re-engage with the world instead of giving the likes of China free spaces to fill to win friends and influence people.
 

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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/2021/01/07/us/politics/trump-self-pardon.html#commentsContainer&permid=110974687:110974687

  

Yes. Impeach and Convict. Right Now.

re: "Impeach and Convict. Right Now." (The New York Times, January 6, 2021)

 
Yes, in retrospect, the events of the past 24 hours, unimaginable four years ago, have a ghastly Trumpish inevitability.

If it is to salvage any shred of respect, the Republican Party's own members must themselves immediately initiate impeachment II of Trump to begin exorcising the moral corruption of Trumpism run rampant. The Republican cabinet should equally promptly move to invoke the 25th Amendment of the US's excellent constitution, which has, along with the judiciary, proved itself a bulwark against even the malignancy of Trump and his enablers spreading viciously fake claims as they undermined American greatness and smashed the United States' international standing.

Perhaps saddest of all is that 70 million Americans were taken hostage by the fake claims of the populist authoritarian perverting the rule of law to serve only his own ego, and perhaps his own rotting financial affairs. They deserve understanding and help now that the true nature of their hollow idol has irrevocably exposed its true nature.

Let the recovery begin, hopefully with lessons learned.
 

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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/2021/01/06/opinion/impeach-trump.html#commentsContainer&permid=110950867:110950867

  

To amend what has been First amended

re: "Have Trump’s Lies Wrecked Free Speech?" (The New York Times, January 6, 2021)

 
Perhaps to defeat the likes of the Great Faker, now become the Great Loser, what is needed is some faith in human beings, that however deluded, they can be tempted to the light by reason and evidence. That requires not limitations on what may be said, however vile, but an encouragement to ever greater questioning of all that is deemed sacred, starting with the self-adulating goddesses and gods who have the nasty habit of preaching their own infallibility - a sick joke if ever there was one in dire need of being called out.

In his paper, Wu also makes the important point that protection of free speech requires not only that the state not interfere to repress ideas, however truly vile, but that it actively prevent "harassment of speakers." In other words, greater efforts could be made to prevent the egregious cancel culture habit of the well-intentioned using protests or other means to silence the voices of others. Perhaps what is needed is needed is amendment so that the law is required to, and requires institutions to, take steps to ensure that voices some vocal minority, or massive majority, hate with good reason, at least in their own minds, not be silenced by violent or loud protests at universities or other places: ensure safe spaces for the vile.

And parents might remind their children that it is good manners to respectfully hear out even ideas you find not only false but repugnant: listening and responding firmly to what is said is also more likely to change minds.
 

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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/2021/01/06/opinion/trump-lies-free-speech.html#commentsContainer&permid=110927433:110927433

  

What's in a nickname?

Re: "What's in the nickname?", (Guru, Bangkok Post,  January 1, 2020)

 
I believe the protesters patriotically taking a stand for a better nation for all Thai citizens, save perhaps those profiting unjustly from the coup-driven status quo of traditional corruption, also created some juicily apt nicknames.

Surely they deserve a mention? Or are the best Thailand has to offer for some reason also unspeakable?
 

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The above is the text that was actually posted as a quick comment on the article by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text of that quick comment as edited was published in PostBag on January 2, 2021, under the title "What's in a nickname?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2044683/shackles-of-mediocrity

  

Saccharine sermon

Re "Govt 'gifts' need work," (Bangkok Post, Editorial, January 1, 2020)

 
Either that or solve all problems in the traditional Thai way by dressing up nicely and saying nice words like "virtue" and "reason" and "tradition" and "understanding" and "cooperation" (and "sufficiency", we mustn't forget sufficiency from the super-rich preaching to the poor) and so on until the people are saccharined into submission. Dare anyone doubt the amazing efficacy of such sublime wisdom founded on adamantine Thainess as gifted by decade after decade of it to this most fortunate of all Thai nations?
 

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The above is the text that was actually posted as a quick comment on the article by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text of that quick comment as edited was published in PostBag on January 2, 2021, under the title "Saccharine sermon" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2044399/saccharine-sermon