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
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