re: "The Atlanta Massacre and the Media’s Morality Plays"

re: "The Atlanta Massacre and the Media’s Morality Plays" (The New York Times, March 23, 2021)

 
But religious mania loves its morality plays. Perhaps the media remain too much under the thrall of unreason that founds all religious mania?

More regular doses of critical thinking, perhaps by reading the great philosophers, might help to both treat the lingering after effects of exposure to the same toxic religious ideology that prompted the killer to commit his murders and also provide a therapeutically broader perspective of how such events reflect on the society that births them.
 

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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/2021/03/22/opinion/atlanta-shootings-media.html#commentsContainer&permid=112118412:112118412

  

Euthanasia a right

re: "In Spain, a victory for euthanasia campaigners" (BP, March 17, 2021)

 

Dear editor,

Spain is to be congratulated for revising its legal system to allow euthanasia under carefully defined conditions.

If we accept that our lives are in fact our lives, there can be no good reason why those of us who wish to should not be helped to end our life when we decide that the time has come to do so. It is not as though we are the playthings of gods at whose whims we must endure until they tire of inflicting suffering.

 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 March 20, 2021, under the title "Euthanasia a right" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2086799/the-dice-are-loaded
  

Making martyrs

re: "Treat activist professionally" (BP, Editorial, March 4, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

While the Bangkok Post's editor is certainly right that "the case against Chai-amorn must be handled with the highest degree of professionalism, and forethought," mere professionalism sets an important but low standard. The most abusive, morally rotten of tin pot dictators can act with professionalism. Indeed, professionalism, sticking to the letter of the law, worsens the harm committed when the law itself has been corrupted to become a tool of repression wielded against those deemed enemies by that same law. That concentration camp guards act with a perfection of professionalism in following the law cannot render just the injustice of locking people up merely for the crime of having a particular skin colour, of being from a particular ethnic group, of holding a particular religious faith, or of professing a particular political opinion. An abundance of professional legalism, essential though it be to a just society, is no substitute for actual justice.

Again, the Post's editor is right to point out its importance, but the sad reality is that it  already seems too late for Thai authorities acting in the name of Thai institutions "to show the public they will adhere to a sensible application of the law." A sensible application of Thailand's morally problematic lese majeste law would have meant that not a single protestor had been charged over the course of the past 12 months. That sensible application of the law was rejected in favour of intimidating those seeking justice and peaceful democratic reform for the Thai people.

Finally, that Chai-amorn Kaewwiboonpan has already confessed to having broken the lese majeste  law in the name of justice for the Thai nation proves him likely guilty of that crime. Yes, he would seem to be guilty as confessed. And yes, it is a crime, meaning precisely and only that the law says it's a crime. His confession also proves him an example of moral excellence the like of which the Thai nation rarely sees. Who else, save perhaps the other young victims being persecuted by its use by state institutions of the same morally problematic law, exhibits such moral excellence? Mr. Chai-amorn Kaewwiboonpan is an example of moral courage for a just cause for the sake of his nation. How many citizens of the Thai nation, save his fellow protestors similarly charged, can compare with him in righteousness or in selfless patriotism?

By sacrificing them on its altar to the sacred, this law is making martyrs of good Thai citizens.

 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 March 6, 2021, under the title "Making martyrs" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2079259/suppression-doomed
  

re: "How to Reach People Who Are Wrong"

re: "How to Reach People Who Are Wrong" (The New York Times, March 3, 2021)

 
As the philosopher Bertrand Russell, another modern great, once said, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

The intelligent should be full of doubt, no matter how right we may be in one or two cases.

We can be absolutely certain that 2+2=4, whatever the Ministry of Truth or proposed Reality Czar might dictate to the contrary, but beyond the truths of mathematics and logic, there exists not a single absolutely certain belief about the material world we inhabit. Not even the great Isaac Newton could get reality that right.

Our moral beliefs, more to the point, are never objectively true, so can never be worth dying for, even less worth killing for. That would be as silly as dying or killing for money, another amazingly non-objective thing that exists only in and between human minds, whether gold, Bitcoin, US $, or Philippine pesos.

Perhaps we need to calm down, take a step or several back, and stop treating our every fleeting brain wobble as an eternal verity direct from the gods we manufactured afresh last week, last year or last century. 
 

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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/2021/03/03/opinion/progressives-conservatives-think-again.html#commentsContainer&permid=111849835:111849835

  

re: "A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies"

re: "A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies" (The New York Times, March 2, 2021)

 
George Orwell has already shown us what a reality czar does. Winston worked for that aspect of the Trinity that was (is?) Big Brother. He is called the Ministry of Truth.
 

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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/2021/03/02/opinion/misinformation-conspiracy-theories.html#commentsContainer&permid=111833337:111833337

  

Of Jesus and Socrates

re: "They're both crimes" (BP, March 1, 2021)

 
Dear editor,

James Debentures is gravely wrong to suggest that Ratsadon's street activism and speaking out of truth is like robbing a bank.

The more accurate comparison of the Ratsadon leaders with the PDRC leaders is that of the street activist Jesus or the street philosopher Socrates with the likes of dictators who plot and commit a coup against their own nation, their own people, their nation's form of government and their nation's institutions.

Whilst it is true that bad people using bad law executed both Socrates and Jesus, those legal punishments for the "crimes" of speaking truth and standing up for justice on the streets, although rightly embarrassing the corrupt status quo of the political elite of ancient Judea and ancient Athens, were in no way deserved. In contrast, those true criminals most rotten who plot and commit coups, too often go free to meet and congratulate each other after perverting the law to amnesty themselves.

 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 March 3, 2021, under the title "Of Jesus and Socrates" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2077243/gunboat-diplomacy-