Conscript clarification

re: "Liberty of speech" (BP, PostBag, December 27, 2022)  

Dear editor,

I must thank Samuel Wright for the considered response to my last letter, "Different systems" (PostBag, Dec. 19) responding to his own. Unfortunately, the Post's editing removed my expression of full agreement with his salient point made as clearly and forcefully as it deserves: we fully agree that Thailand's young protestors peacefully calling for reform to further democratic principle deserve praise as the true Thai patriots they are, nor, it should be relevantly added, can Thailand's internationally honoured recipients of South Korea's Gwangju Prize for human rights, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa in 2017 and Arnon Nampa in 2021, both of whom Thai authorities  have arrested and imprisoned according to reigning law for their peaceful efforts, be excluded from that appreciation of their efforts on behalf of their nation. For its greater similarities to Thailand, the South Korean experience of military reform to strengthen democratic principle and practice is more relevant than the Swiss and others. 

I am also pleased to note that Mr Wright concurs that reforming Thailand's traditional conscription system in the direction of a universal system such as exists in South Korea, Switzerland and other flourishing democracies would be a very good thing.

But having reread both of Mr Wright's previous letters on this issue, I confess that I'm unclear as to what other reform he has proposed which he thinks I oppose. I may have misunderstood, but got the impression that Mr Wright favoured keeping the existing military conscription system, which he argues would thereby allow increasingly democracy-minded conscripts to be forced into the military as usual, where they would share their democratic ideas with other conscripts and ask pertinent questions that deserve answers. That is not reform. It is leaving things as they are and hoping that change will somehow occur spontaneously. As noted by myself and others, Thailand's historical record contradicts such optimism. 

If Mr Wright could specify a little more clearly exactly what reforms he in fact has in mind other than the South Korean and like models of universal military conscription on which we already agree, I might be better able to do those proposals for reform of Thailand's existing military conscription system the justice he believes I have denied them. 

 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, 2022, under the title "Conscript clarification" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2472382/more-than-a-handful

re: "The Signal App and the Danger of Privacy at All Costs"

re: "The Signal App and the Danger of Privacy at All Costs" (The New York Times, December 28, 2022)

100 years ago, before the wonders of modern technology made the world a vastly better place for almost all in liberal democracies, the only way for the state's lawful authorities to get information about what someone had said to another was for that other, perhaps a spy or perhaps just a conscientious citizen, to report the speech or hand over the correspondence. 

This has not changed with the arrival of Signal. 

The content of conversations on Signal can, unless burnt like a handwritten letter, be recorded and shared by the parties involved in that conversation. If someone has a Signal record discussing, say, child sexual abuse, they are as free as a priest, bishop, reverend, imam, monk, pope or police officer to share that information with law enforcement when lawfully ordered to or when their conscience dictates they do so. And the fact that Signal cannot be easily hacked greatly strengthens the worth of such documentary evidence handed over.  

Tools such as Signal merely restore the option of having a conversation as private as could be had 100 years ago by walking down the road 100 yards from potentially eavesdropping others. 

Meanwhile, for those not blessed with living in liberal democracies, it is essential to support such powerful tools for privacy against abusive surveillance states, which states  are all to real and numerous. 

Mr Blackman's arguments in this opinion piece are lame at best, and his proposals likely a dangerous threat to many.  

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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/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twitter-signal-privacy.html#commentsContainer&permid=122264118:122264118

Wrong assumptions

re: "The opposite effect" (BP, PostBag, December 24, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Jason A Jellison is correct that "there is nobody alive today who had anything to do with decisions made centuries ago" concerning the Netherland's solidly attested historical involvement in slavery. It is equally certain that no one alive today was involved in any way with America's War of Independence from England. It would therefore follow, according to Mr Jellisons's argument, that no living American should be celebrating the Fourth of July as though it mattered today. And as for that event that some allege to have happened in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago, that is so far beyond living memory that it can't be deemed, on Mr Jellison's reasoning, to have any particular connection to anyone now living.

Mr Jellison's mistake is twofold. First, he fails to understand that nations are entities, typically recognized as juristic persons by the law, whose life times are not limited to the life spans of any particular generation. What Americans celebrate with due pride on July 4 is of central importance to their nation, which is in essence the same nation that has existed since July 4, 1776. The Netherlands also has a historical continuity that means it can and should admit the mistakes that it made as a nation, as well as celebrating what it did right. Christmas is a similarly enduring celebration that inarguably remains central to the lives of many, even though neither they nor a single traceable ancestor was ever involved in the events that some sources uncritically report as having occurred around the time of the birth of a carpenter's son 2,000 years ago who went on to become the most famous street activist and political radical of them all.  

The second, and more substantive mistake Mr Jellison's popularly specious argument overlooks is that historical events have consequences today. African Americans are worse off than white Americans for historical reasons that at least in part trace back to two hundred years of slavery in what was to become the United States. The ancestors of white Americans accrued wealth, education, and other advantages unjustly, and they passed those advantages on to their descendants, whilst bequeathing to the descendants of slaves and Native American Indians lower education and material means. Those facts from 300 or 200 years ago, and also the more recent Jim Crow and later eras, have real world consequences today. Distributive justice requires that those suffering the depredations of past wrongs and those enjoying the fruits of a comfortable life based on historical wrongs, which were not recognized as at all wrong at the time, do require corrections today.

The Netherlands, in the person of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, is right to begin by admitting it (not any individual, but the nation) committed grievous wrongs for which it should apologize. And after apologizing, it should look to ways to make substantive amends for the wrong it previously committed against some groups.

You cannot reasonably celebrate your nation's good unless you are also willing to honestly face its bad, however many venerated generations ago that good and evil was perpetrated or by which condemned or revered figures. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post. In an earlier draft, I had followed Mr. Jellison in mistakenly writing "Denmark" rather than the correct "the Netherlands". 

The text as edited was published in PostBag on MonthDate, 2022, under the title "Wrong assumptions" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2468900/wrong-assumptions

re: "Donald Trump Is Now Forever Disgraced"

re: "Donald Trump Is Now Forever Disgraced" (The New York Times, December 23, 2022)

Trump may well "be disgraced in perpetuity," but that ugly reality is unlikely to weaken the adulation of the solidly faith-based, whose absolute devotion to their idol is, being purely faith-based, immune to objective reality, which they dismiss with the same pretension to infallibility as their master as nothing but fake news. Thus does religious conviction undermine not only every decent moral value, but reason itself. 

Will those who care for the well-being of the Republican Party, let alone of the United States of America, allow their deplorably faith-based element to force another Trump presidential candidacy to the (secret) joy of the Democrats? 

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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/2022/12/23/opinion/donald-trump-criminal-referral-insurrection.html#commentsContainer&permid=122174031:122174031 

Different systems

re: "Try Walk the talk" (BP, PostBag, December 18, 2022)  

Dear editor,

Samuel Wright, thank you for that warm response to my recent letter responding to your own. Let me begin by clarifying that I fully agree with you regarding the members of Thailand's patriotic and "inspiring younger generation who take to the streets to demand a return to democracy." It is unfortunate that their peacefully expressed calls for such democratic practices as openness, transparency and accountability are met with suppression in strict accord with Thai law that contradicts democratic principle.

I also concur with your belief in the excellence of the Swiss conscription system. Did Thailand also have such a military conscription system where all able-bodied citizens of a certain age did the same form of military service irrespective of family status or wealth, I would also think that perfectly acceptable to Thailand. However, that system of universal conscription, where citizens from varied backgrounds get to meet in close quarters for an extended period their fellow citizens from very different backgrounds to share experience that included learning of their compatriots very varied life experiences, is radically different to the status quo conscription system you appeared to support. Had you instead argued for a radically reformed conscription system based on the Swiss, Finnish, or similar systems, I could happily have joined you in supporting that. But the historical facts are perfectly clear: the current Thai conscription system has proved itself not a force for democratization but one for enabling coups against democracy.

I would also suggest that under such a radically reformed system of universal military conscription to an armed forces under proper parliamentary civil command as the Swiss, the conscripts have history classes which analyze how the long series of military coups committed by those who proved themselves disloyal to the nation's constitutions have seriously retarded Thailand's growth not only politically and socially, but also morally and economically, as noted by former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun ("Ex-PM Anand says coups have retarded Thai democracy", Bangkok Post, March 6, 2022), who was himself installed as prime minister as a result of a coup that had yet again overthrown the Thai people's democratic constitution. Also worth remembering is that it was Prime Minister Anand who gifted the Thai nation what was arguably its best permanent constitution to date. Naturally, two further coups were then committed by the conscript-fed military to dismantle that most popular people's constitution.  

 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 19, 2022, under the title "Different systems" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2463510/insult-to-democracy

Understand sources

re: "Masked efficacy" (BP, PostBag, December 10, 2022) 

Dear editor,

I've been loath to join the lusty debate about the merits and demerits of various Covid-related policies, but Michael Setter's latest requires a response. Intrigued by his claims regarding it, I added Mr. Setter's cited source from The Annals of Internal Medicine to my morning coffee reading routine. Having read it, I was perplexed. The paper "Medical Masks Versus N95 Respirators for Preventing Covid-19 Among Health Care Workers" (2022, DOI: 10.7326/M22-1966) does not say what Mr Setter reports it saying, namely, that Loeb et al.'s paper "shows unequivocally that not even well-fitted N95 masks demonstrate any effectiveness in preventing Covid-19 transmission or infection." Quite the contrary. What it in fact says, to quote the authors' words, is that "In conclusion, among health care workers who provided routine care to patients with COVID-19, the overall estimates rule out a doubling in hazard of RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 for medical masks when compared with HRs of RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 for N95 respirators." This conclusion is consistent with what the authors say they set out to investigate. 

I am left wondering, therefore, how Mr Setter came to claim for it something so very far from what his cited source in fact says. Did he read the paper and not understand its plain content? Did he not actually bother to read it, instead reporting someone else's misunderstanding or false claim for the research? Or is there some other explanation for the obvious mismatch between Mr Setter's account of that the paper says about the value of masking and what the paper itself says on that topic? 

I like to see writers citing reputable sources in support of their ideas, but it's important to correctly understand and accurately report the ideas and information in those sources. 

 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 17, 2022, under the title "Understand sources" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2462565/the-real-threat-

Loyal citizen soldiers

re: "Retain citizen army" (BP, PostBag, December 13, 2022)  

Dear editor,

Overlooked his seemingly overlooked fact that dictators historically tend to use forced conscription to further their aims, in his extolling of a citizen army as a bulwark of democracy, Samuel Wright left a couple of points unclear. Foremost, how is an army made of citizens who willingly sign up to serve their nation any less a citizen army than one where unwilling citizens are conscripted for forced service? Second, it is most puzzling how being forcibly conscripted into the service of an army that has a long track record of overthrowing the Thai people's popular form of democratic government might in any way serve to support democracy; the well-known historical record would appear to suggest the opposite. 

But perhaps if the young conscripts, men and women, were required to swear an oath to uphold and protect the constitution of the Thai people, that would help. In fact, it would surely be a very good thing for the stable, democratic flourishing of the Thai nation were all holders of senior state offices, whether appointed or elected, required on taking office to swear an oath to uphold and protect the constitution of the Thai nation above all other things. The nation's constitution is, after all, the supreme legal document that is the ultimate foundation of every institution, office, and practice that is defined to lawfully exist under it. Were such a requirement written into a duly amended latest current permanent constitution of the Thai nation, Mr Wright's theory might then have some merit. 

 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 14, 2022, under the title "Loyal citizen soldiers" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2459900/questioning-masks

False interpretation

re: "Myanmar monk militia: Buddhist clergy backing junta" (BP, December 8, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Overlooking the fact that Buddhist monks high in the state hierarchy preaching killing and lying as a means to a decidedly not right understanding in the service of a military dictator waging war against his own nation's people seems to seriously pervert the Buddha's wise insights and teachings, I was impressed by senior Buddhist monk Sitagu's insightful explanation that coup committer and nationalist killer, army chief Min Aung Hlaing, is in truth the model of a "benevolent king." This has greatly helped to clarify what the term "benevolent king" truly means, for which enlightenment the revered senior monk  is to be most gratefully thanked. 

 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 11, 2022, under the title "False interpretation" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2457742/india-can-lead

An old precedent

re: "Germany foils bizarre coup plot by far-right group" (BP, December 8, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Who would have thought that a right royal prince, Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss himself no less and wrapped in all his famous benevolence and righteousness, would be involved in a violent plot to commit a coup against his own nation's popular form of democratic government. Could such antique evils yet happen in the 21st century? 

That such an effort to overthrew the rule of law is right wing, regressive and violent need hardly be said, those being the defining characteristics of such conspiracies against justice. Had those enemies of the German people succeeded, they would presumably have also followed the hallowed precedent of promptly criminalizing saying anything rudely honest, however peacefully, about themselves or their newly installed and incontestably universally beloved father-in-law of the 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 December 10, 2022, under the title "An old precedent" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2457290/lets-try-composting

A practical solution

re: "Mafia pull alive and well" (BP, Editorial, December 5, 2022) 

Dear editor,

The Bangkok Post is right to be concerned about the scale of criminal gang operations in Thailand by foreigners attracted by the profits to be made. It is perhaps sobering to reflect that such foreign business successes are likely dwarfed by the more smoothly running local Thai mafia gangs and loyal officials also eagerly raking in the billions to be had. It might, therefore, be more constructive to ask what it is that contributes to making Thailand a hub of such gang-led criminal activity. I would suggest that the major answer is Thai law. 

In 1920, the US criminalized alcohol. The result was not that millions of law abiding citizens, or at least citizens who saw themselves as being generally law-abiding, upstanding members of their community suddenly stopped drinking. Well, they did, but not for very long. After an initial, dramatic drop in 1921, alcohol consumption by generally law-abiding, upstanding members of their community, now all officially criminals, rapidly returned to their pre-Prohibition drug drinking habits. In 1919, per capita alcohol consumption in the US was just under 0.8 gallons/person. In 1921, this plunged to a little over 0.2 gallons/person. In 1922, it soared to actually exceed the pre-Prohibition level of 1919 (Clark Warburton, The Economic Results of Prohibition. Columbia University Press, 1932, pp. 23–26, 72).

Of course, what America's experiment with criminalizing the sale and use of alcohol proved was that decent people often strongly demand what those misled by good intentions righteously deem bad for everyone. When denied the opportunity to legally purchase regulated, safe products from legal, responsible business people, the good citizens of the US turned in their masses to the mafia gangs, enabling those criminal institutions to get a solid footing in American law enforcement, judiciary and government — not exactly all that righteous. 

The recent Thai saga of Tuhao, or Chaiyanat Kornchayanant as he is known, illustrates exactly the same phenomena. Millions of Thai and Chinese customers, who not only think of themselves as being decent, law-abiding people who want a bit of fun, and whose bit of fun in almost all cases does not harm anyone save themselves, are eager customers for the likes of foreigners such as Tuhao, and even more so for the Joe Ferraris and others in the Royal Thai Police and other Royal Thai law enforcement bodies serving the local criminal gangs who are getting rich beyond their official salaries' dreams. As reported, Tuhao naturally appears to have all the requisite law enforcement and political connections to ensure high profits.

No business person, Thai or foreign, legal or criminal, ever got rich by selling a product for which there was no demand. The most practical partial solution to the corruption as usual in the Royal Thai Police and elsewhere, which no one who supports the regressive status quo over progressive reform will ever tackle, irrespective of incredible promises, is to at least decriminalize all those activities so beloved of the Thai people that they are staunch customers irrespective of legality. If those inherently unjust laws were reformed, that would immediately put a major dent in the income streams of foreign and local criminal gangs and corrupt Thai officials, which is perhaps the reason those groups so oppose sane law. Such reform of obviously failing law would also greatly reduce the harms to society caused by having the sex industry, the drug industry, the gambling industry and so on run not by regulated, tax-paying business people who could be held to account, but by criminal gangs and corrupt officials getting rich at great cost to Thai society. 

 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 8, 2022, under the title "A practical solution" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2455577/just-fine-in-theory

re: "When Gay Rights Clash With Religious Freedom"

re: "When Gay Rights Clash With Religious Freedom" (The New York Times, December 4, 2022)

It is honest of the author to admit that homophobia is written into her religion's sacred text, as are endorsements of the institution of slavery (even more in the New than the Old Testament: Ephs. 6:5, Titus 2:9, etc), which was also common when old men steeped in the patriarchy of desert tribes were busily composing those sacred scriptures to freeze desiccate their societies and every bad moral value held. 

The question then is, perhaps, how much value must the rest of us give to beliefs that, whilst sincerely held by millions for many generations, lack any sound moral foundation save the accident of having been written into someone's sacred text? Must every belief that has a scriptural foundation, say in Mein Kampf, and that today has sincere believers require that we respect their right to conform to their doubtless sincerely held belief? 

Can the law compel a racist, say one who holds that view for what they, notwithstanding Ms. Warren's rejection of it as bad theology, hold to be a theological command from their god written into the text of the Bible? Are only majority religious interpretations of a set of approved scripture to be allowed force in determining which religious exemptions are to be granted from complying with the secular law of the land? 

That said, I also see the attempted wisdom of Ms. Warren's suggested solution to the difficulty. We do not, surely, want to be in the habit of using the law as a weapon to compel compliance to our own values. 

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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/2022/12/04/opinion/303-creative-supreme-court.html#commentsContainer&permid=121836678:121836678

re: "A New Clash Between Faith and Gay Rights Arrives at a Changed Supreme Court"

re: "A New Clash Between Faith and Gay Rights Arrives at a Changed Supreme Court" (The New York Times, December 4, 2022) 

The zealous fans of that famous sacred text Mein Kampf have indubitably sincere beliefs that are as well founded on reason, reality and moral decency as are the moral convictions of any other set of sacred texts pushed by any religion. (Every single supernatural claim about reality by every religion is exactly exactly equally well supported by solid evidence.) Must their sincerely held beliefs that comport with their strongly held faith about what a greater power dictates be so be similarly respected? 

And then there are all those explicit endorsements of slavery in the Christian Bible, especially in the New Testament — passages such as Titus 2:9 and Ephesians 6:5. How exactly is the law of the land to accommodate the beliefs and practices of those who sincerely yearn to follow those commands of their loving god? 

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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/2022/12/04/us/politics/gay-rights-supreme-court-first-amendment.html#commentsContainer&permid=121837705:121837705

re: "What Euthanasia Has Done to Canada"

re: "What Euthanasia Has Done to Canada" (The New York Times, December 4, 2022)

The short, correct answer to Mr. Douthat's question, " What if a society remains liberal but ceases to be civilized?" is that Canada has only become more civilized by allowing 10,000 people to control the end of their own lives. At the moment, that is 3% of deaths, which proves that many sensible adults want this option. 

Mr. Douthat is also wrong to falsely suggest that death is not a cure for suffering. It very plainly does end suffering. There is nothing dystopian about making it easier for informed adults to decide to opt out of meaningless suffering before inevitable death. There is nothing inherently ennobling or wonderful about such suffering, and civilized societies do help their members escape it. 

The root of Mr. Douthat's error-strewn understanding of euthanasia is his rejection of the insight that "The idea that human rights encompass a right to self-destruction" as he emotively loads his portrayal. This objection reeks, as he concedes, of some religious ideology that claims, with no evidence or good reason whatsoever, that humans are the property of a creator god and that as his playthings, they must not seek to live freely according to their best assessment of what makes their own lives, including the ends of their lives, meaningful and valuable to them. 

Similar fake claims are used to justify denying abortion rights.

It might be the conservative way to so deny the right to choose how we live our own lives; it is not the just, liberal, or honest way. 

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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/2022/12/03/opinion/canada-euthanasia.html#commentsContainer&permid=121823436:121823436

Nothing but fairy tales

re: "'Thainess' needs rethink" (BP, Editorial, December 1, 2022) 

Dear editor,

"Inspired by real events" is the forthright disclaimer for NetFlix's highly popular series "The Crown". That is honest. George Orwell's enduringly renowned "Animal Farm" was originally subtitled "A Fairy Story". That is honest. Children's fairy tales, "Beauty and the Beast" and its gorgeously varied bed mates, do not pretend to be factual history in their "happily ever after" conclusions. That, too, is honest.  

And then there is Thai history, something apparently not to be taught in Thai schools under the sway of the Ministry of Education following the commands issued by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, as reported in the Bangkok Post's "'Thainess' needs rethink".

The Education Ministry's suggestion to teach Thai history "as an individual subject ... in school curricula" in fact strikes me as an excellent idea. If only it were true. If only it were possible. To genuinely study history, especially your own nation's, as opposed to choking down saccharine fairy tales, is to be sometimes shocked at what your nation has done; to be sometimes horrified at the baseness and unchecked incompetence often shown by your national heroes; to be disgusted at the means sometimes used to gain and abuse power. If you read only stories of pure courage, niceness, and unfailing moral excellence, that's a fairy tale pretending to be history. Children's fairy tales are more honest than such childish half truths pretending to be history. 

Thais deserve to be able to study and argue about their nation's history in all its splendour and ugliness, its successes and failures, its insights and silliness, and its merits and rottenness. How else is anything of mature worth to be learned for a sound understanding of what made Thailand what it is today, let alone of how to move their nation forward to a better future for all Thais? Is honest history really so dangerous that it must be suppressed by law that actually imprisons those who peacefully call for that openness to dissenting ideas that alone protects any society from perpetuating venerated errors? 

Both history and fairy tales tell us stories that can entertain, elevate and educate, but they are not the same thing. It is childish bullying to dictate the rank dishonesty that fairy tales be accepted as incontestable history. 

 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 3, 2022, under the title "Nothing but fairy tales" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2452159/whats-the-incentive-