8 years of promises

re: "Prayut hits hustings as Pheu Thai rules out post-poll deal with PPRP" (BP, January 29, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Before jumping too quickly to swallow whole Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's latest round of amazing promises, it would be prudent to look back on the historical record of the past eight years. When he made himself leader of yet another military coup against the Thai people's popular form of democratic government, among the lame excuses then offered up, there were also a host of promises about reforming traditionally corrupt Thai institution, returning happiness, and even ushering in a golden era of "true democracy" in the proper Thai style, presumably as defined by the man who had collaterally just made himself PM. 

Recent headlines confirm what really was clear back in May 2014. The evidence of eight years consistently demonstrates that the reform of the duly respected Royal Thai Police, the Royal Thai Army, or any other Thai institution believed by many to be steeped in the traditional, systemic corruption of decades was never on the road map of Prayut and those working with him. What is, on the contrary, all too apparent is that then Thai constitution defining Thailand's form of democratic government was overthrown precisely to prevent those reforms for which the Thai people have continued to call in vain. 

This is also why Thai patriots peacefully calling for reform along the lines of openness, transparency and accountability are persistently harassed, arrested and imprisoned in strict accord with law made up solely to hobble such just calls for overdue change that might in fact seriously reduce the venerable forms of too often legally blessed corruption long afflicting Thailand.

Thailand has perhaps already choked enough on the promises rudely forced down everyone's throats in 2014. Is another dose of the same really a healthy choice? 

  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 31, 2023, under the title "8 years of promises" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2495159/8-years-of-promises

re: "Tyre Nichols’s Death Is America’s Shame"

re: "Tyre Nichols’s Death Is America’s Shame" (The New York Times, January 27, 2023)

Again reflecting more accurately than any pious sermon or call to prayer the true face of what many Americans call and practice as Christian. 

Instead of pushing for justice here on Earth, voters and their representatives too conveniently cite primitive superstitions and incredible ideals that actively pervert justice here now in return for promissory notes in a fantasy so idealized it cannot be coherently stated. 

What are the bishops and pastors preaching to their flocks? Christian love, compassion and non-violence, or brutish law and order over basic respect for and acceptance of fellow humans? 

(Hint: Whether of the populist Trumpish version or some other that denies autonomy and respect here on Earth, too many support authoritarianism and submission —witness the voting that led to the gutting of Roe v. Wade — rather than advocating actively for anything remotely like justice or liberty for all, which is to be deferred to their supernatural afterlife beyond all compass, but where their preferred god will presumably protect them from any need to confront anyone who might not be a member of their own parochial little group.) 

Perhaps America's pervasive mutations of nationalist Christianity continue to be at least partially culpable for these recurring evils.  

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/opinion/tyre-nichols-video.html#commentsContainer&permid=122843864:122843864

Telling it like it is

re: "Thailand's political charade exposed" (BP, Opinion, January 27, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It is encouraging to see the Bangkok Post publish Thitinan Pongsudhirak bluntly stating the open secrets of the collusion that culminated in Prime Minister army Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha's ascent to power by the latest overthrow of Thailand's popular form of democratic government back in May 2014. It is incredible that anyone even then could have swallowed the absurd fiction of Prayut, the leader of a traditionally authoritarian institution of dubious commitment to democratic principle, being "some high and mighty soldier taking power and sacrificing for the country." He sacrificed nothing but the Thai people's aspiration that their nation move forward not backwards. Perhaps the wave of "attitude adjustment" vacations following that meticulously hatched coup was enough to intimidate some into the required credulity.

Another aspect of Thai culture may usefully illuminate the plainly manifest consequences for the Thai nation of such acts as those of the Prayut contingent and their predecessors over the course of many decades. 

For those who believe in it, karma justly doles out only what is deserved. This suggests a natural explanation for the nation's traditionally high levels of corruption and general malaise reflected in Thailand's conspicuously poor performance politically, socially and economically when compared to countries such as Taiwan and South Korea since the 1980s. Karma is impartially doing its job. 

It further appears that no amount of gaudy merit making by ordered prayer and meditation, let alone soldiers commanded to voluntarily ordain en masse as monks, is sufficient to counter the demerit piled up by all those involved in actively enforcing unjust law that violates basic human rights and democratic principle. Karma is not so easily bribed. 

Nor, it would appear, is karma fooled by the dictates of bad law, no matter how religiously the same is falsely proclaimed just and followed to the letter. 

Like the Christian God who bluntly warns: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7), so too must karma hold even Thai political players and institutions to a higher standard than mere law made up to further a political agenda of dubious 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 January 28, 2023, under the title "Telling it like it is" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2493329/telling-it-like-it-is

Of sports and war

re: "Why box over a name?" (BP, Editorial, January 26, 2023)

Dear editor,

Reading the Bangkok Post's idealistic call to save sport from nationalism, even a sport so solidly founded on violence as Muay Thai, or Kun Khmer if you prefer, was an entertaining diversion.

Is anything short of war or a spot of that perennially popular, good old-fashioned cleansing genocide more ultra-nationalistic than the recently reincarnated Olympic games? 

Today's modern Greek nation might also dispute the Post's cheery insistence that they cannot own such cultural relics as the Elgin marbles, on the grounds that "No one, nor country, can really own culture." Really? But being neither a human person nor a country, perhaps the British Museum can, therefore, continue to act as the (non-owning?) custodian of those masterpieces of ancient Greek culture. And ancient Egyptian culture, Mesopotamian culture, and all the rest that the arguably nationalistic Brits pillaged during their global conquests. 

And then there are all those even less tangible cultural myths of special classes of people. It is a refreshing suggestion that they not be taken nearly so seriously as nationalistic Thais are alleged to take them. 

 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 January 27, 2023, under the title "Of sports and war" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2492524/of-sports-and-war

90-day nonsense

re: "A lesson in migration policy" (BP, PostBag, January 22, 2023) 

Dear editor,

In his diatribe against immigrants, Ben Levin displays true zealousness. He writes of "millions of illegal aliens, phoney 'asylum seekers' and foreign criminal gangs ... destroying the Western world." He sounds very much a Trumpish acolyte preaching the need to cleanse the nation of social vermin from "sh*thole countries", as Donald Trump himself put it with his usual eloquence in his rousing speeches to the deplorables who love him. It is a base appeal to ignorant bigotry. 

The facts regarding rates of criminal behaviour: in "Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-born US Citizens in Texas" published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dec. 2020 (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014704117), the authors analyzed data from the Texas Computerized Criminal History (CCH) database provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The major finding was  "that undocumented immigrants had substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses", including violent crime, where native born Americans are twice as criminal, drug-related crime (2.5 times) and property crime, where native borns are recorded as being 4 times as criminal as illegal immigrants. 

In the US, it is the native born Americans who threaten to "destroy[] the Western world" as Mr Levin puts it. The the far less criminal illegal immigrants working hard and honestly for a better life for themselves and families are, by comparison, law-abiding and productive members of society, supporting what Mr. Levin's native borns are harming.

Mr Levin also overlooks a rather obvious fact: any nation that has a problem with illegal immigrants can quickly and easily solve it. All that is required is for a strong leader to do the right thing and legalize the honest immigrants eager to contribute to the nation that they have freely chosen to make their home, rather than having been born into it by accident and seeing it as something batten on. For a Christian or Buddhist nation, it is particularly hard to see how a nation that is richer and better than those wracked by political chaos and the poverty it causes can deny honest people fleeing those evils the opportunity to benefit the nation they would eagerly make their families' homes.

As to Mr Levin's even sillier, albeit less ignorantly bigotted, claims about 90-day reports, I am confident that your average foreign criminal operating in Thailand, for example those famous Chinese criminals so much in the news recently, has their 90-day reports properly crossed and dotted for inspection. There is no evidence and no reason to think that 90-reporting has any effect whatsoever on criminal activity by foreigners. How could it? Would Mr. Levin suddenly become criminal did he no longer have to report every 90 days?  

_______________________________

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, severely truncated, on January 24, 2023, under the title "90-day nonsense" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2489922/road-death-lottery

A penchant for sugar

re: "Society's poisons" (BP, PostBag, January 18, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Joynandan Haldar, thank you for clarifying areas where I appear to have failed to write clearly. Allow me to correct my previous failure. Like the issue of sugary foods I also brought up and which you ignore in your response to my argument, alcohol was also relevant. It and unhealthy, sugary foods help illustrate the distracting irrelevance of your asking readers whether they would want their own children to be visiting casinos or smoking cannabis. That sort of populist question is no sound argument either for or against anything.  

I do not cheer for alcohol, cigarettes, or any other popular drugs as you falsely claim. Nor do I cheer for or have any desire to visit casinos. I do, however, cheer for just law.  Whilst I am glad to hear that neither you nor any one else in your family use alcohol, cannabis or cigarettes, you did not mention whether you also also abstain from unhealthy sugary foods. Your right to choose to enjoy such things or not according to your personal likes and dislikes should be respected by the law. Lest this be misunderstood, I think just law also requires due regulation of their availability to children.

However, just law is not made by merely following the personal likes and resulting choices of either you or me, or even of a large majority's personal prejudices. This is why a strong constitution prevents majorities making popular law that violates basic principles of individual liberty and autonomy. This also makes my, your and our families' choices regarding drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or cannabis, visiting casinos or otherwise gambling, and consuming vast amounts of high-sugar foods irrelevant to just law. All normal adults should have their right to decide for themselves how they enjoy their own life equally and impartially respected by the law, and that includes a legal right to indulge in things that other adults might think, often with very good reason, to be foolish, unproductive and even unhealthy. Just law does not treat people merely as productive units of the economy or a means to some other end of society. 

However poisonous they might directly be to me, and thus indirectly to society, I continue to cheer for and to hold that the wonderfully sugary pastries and cakes in which I occasionally indulge should not be criminalized merely because they can be unhealthy. Please also leave butter alone. 

 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 21, 2023, under the title "A penchant for sugar" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2487644/labour-laws-outdated

Define 'decent person'

re: "Upper House under fire" (BP, Editorial, January 17, 2023) 

Dear editor,

What exactly does Senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha think constitutes a "decent person"? If he means only someone "allowed to serve as long as voters wish", the most obvious example of such a "decent person" is Thaksin Shinawatra. Others might feel that Thaksin holds democratic principle in not much higher regard than does Prayut Chan-o-cha, who proved the extent of his respect for democratic principle by committing a coup to trample it into the dirt beneath his boots in accord with the thoroughly plotted road map he and allies have since continued to impose on the Thai people. 

Sen. Kittisak and like-minded colleagues in Thailand's current senate should be thanked for encouraging public debate about what constitutes a "decent person" and who qualify as models of such. For those aspiring to a democratic form of government, patriots who personally suffer as a consequence of peacefully standing up for democratic principle, especially when to do so brands them criminals according to undemocratic law, might best meet the definition of a "decent person". Thailand's internationally honoured recipients of South Korea's Gwangju Prize for Human Rights come to mind as such models to the Thai nation of genuinely decent 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 January 19, 2023, under the title "Define 'decent person'" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2486079/still-in-army-uniform

Matter of decency

e: "PM term limit proposal blasted" (BP, January 14, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Senator Seree Suwanpanont, one of those 250 senators appointed at his behest to help Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha impose his sincerely believed in road map on the Thai people's nation, demonstrates a dubious understanding of the issues involved in the senate committee's proposal to swiftly amend section 158 of the current latest permanent constitution foist on the Thai people by those professing themselves to be "good" (= "decent"?) people with the most virtuous of intentions.

Perhaps the sole actual improvement written into the 2017 one still in force over previously trashed Thai constitutions is that it does impose a two-term limit on serving as prime minister. This is a very good thing.

One supporting reason proffered by Senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha is consistent with that of his esteemed colleague. The claim that "if we get a bad prime minister, the people will decide what action should be taken," rings hollow. Just because Thaksin Shinawatra was, and remains, the most popular prime minister that Thailand has ever had is not in fact a compelling argument for someone much like him to remain at the head of the government indefinitely so that he can entrench his power and sincerely believed in road map.  

Senator Kittisak's other argument, that "a decent person should be allowed to serve as prime minister for more than eight years," is more seriously misguided. The obvious obstacle is that what counts as "decent" is open to irreconcilable debate. There are even those being so radical as to argue that committing a coup that overthrows the Thai people's popular form of democratic government might be the act of a "decent" person, while others think that "decent" people might accept the use of undemocratic law to suppress peaceful free speech merely because it offends some allegedly popular narrative about the Thai people. Could actually decent people really do such things? 

Setting aside that problem of vagueness unto murky opacity, even if someone were agreed by all to be the epitome of decent, being as benevolent and righteous as could possibly be imagined, they should still not serve as prime minister for more than two terms. It is not necessary to go to the ancient Athenian practice of annual ostracism with ten years exile to protect their democracy from the high and mighty, and their loyal fans, from blinding hubris, but a two term limit does protect both themselves and politics from the errors and entrenched mindset of even the most genuinely best-intentioned of "decent" or "good" women and men. 

 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 January 16, 2023, under the title "Matter of decency" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2483400/matter-of-decency

The justice of karma

re: "Cops in crosshairs over 'delayed' sobriety test" (BP, January 12, 2023) 

Dear editor,

There is a manifest lack of cultural sensitivity in the fuss about the esteemed Bentley driver who prima facie appears to have received unequal treatment at the hands of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) investigating the possibility of his injudicious use of the drug alcohol, a major contributor to Thailand's historically horrific road kill statistics for generations. 

The non-disputed facts, not merely that he was in fact driving a Bentley but also his respected status in the business community, establish solid financial worth. It must, accordingly, follow that he is a man of seriously excellent karma, for which such wealth and status is the expected reward. Since the karmic forces cannot be wrong, it follows that his net worth and position in society is fully deserved. This entails that in this life or a past life he shrewdly procured a rich sufficiency of merit either by honest labour, or more expeditiously by generous donations and persuading so sufficient a number of others to make merit for him as to persuade the karmic bureaucracy to see that he is a truly benevolent and righteous person, to whom it accordingly allocated with unimpeachable impartiality the full richness of duly deserved assets and respect.

Any suspected impropriety in fleeing the scene can be wiped clean by further merit making, perhaps even going so far as to pray and meditate in addition to a generous donations as usual. Should more extreme merit making be needed, he could even retreat for a spell into a proper silence at a suitable monastic retreat. Indeed, generous donations have already been put on the table to fully mitigate any possible loss of merit points. 

The RTP are not to be blamed for properly respecting the venerated social norms of many decades in modelling their own treatment of this or any other Bentley driver on that of the ineluctably incorruptible justice of karma. 

 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 January 15, 2023, under the title "The justice of karma" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2482864/such-noblesse-oblige

Alcohol way worse!

re: "Pot comparisons" (BP, PostBag, January 13, 2023) 

Dear editor,

When he asks Boonlue Prasertsopha and his party: "will you and Khun Anutin and the rest of your party allow your kids to play in casinos and enjoy cannabis and whatnot?" Joynandan Haldar sounds every bit the concerned parent.

But that smelly old red herring is as deceitful today as it has always been. This dishonesty can be seen if we slightly change the question: Joynandan Haldar, will you and those who follow your reasoning allow your kids to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and feast to their hearts' content on sugary foods of zero to negative nutritional value? I sincerely hope you do not allow your children to drink alcohol, smoke, or eat whatever sugar-enriched foods they want. It's called being a responsible parent. Being such a parent does not, however, entail that you must support criminalizing alcohol for recreational use by adults, nor does it follow that you must support banning sugary drinks and chocolate Easter eggs. 

Most parents, I hope most adults, realize that what might be appropriate for adults is not necessarily so for children. That parents enjoy a glass or two of wine at a family dinner is not incompatible with them denying their children at the very same table that particular adult pleasure. 

It is reasonable to have legal controls against selling alcohol to children. It is equally reasonable to have similar regulations on the sale of cannabis products to children. And that is as far as the law may justly go. Neither Mr. Haldar nor anyone else has presented a single good reason why adults should not be allowed to enjoy cannabis recreationally, or to have a bit of fun at a local or international casino, which reason does not apply with at least equal force to enjoying a beer after work or a glass of champagne with a celebratory meal. 

The Bhumjaithai Party was right to legalize cannabis. They should go further and respect the right of adults to decide for themselves whether to also use it recreationally or not. Their error was to not promptly have similar laws in place to regulate the drug's use similarly to the laws that regulate recreational use of the more harmful drug alcohol.  

 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 January 14, 2023, under the title "Alcohol way worse!" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2482347/not-ready-for-dystopia

Stuck in the past

re: "Insults are not inspiring" (BP, Editorial, January 11, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The Bangkok Post writes of Interior Ministry Permanent Secretary Suthipong Juljarern that his insulting words to those deemed of lower status show "his way with words belongs to a long-gone, feudal era." The Post should not forget that locking people up for peacefully speaking honest words that upset a big wig or his fans also "belongs to a long-gone, feudal era." It would appear the ugly reality is that Thailand is in fact still very much in a feudal era which is nowhere near as long-gone as it should have been since about 1932.

But cheerful clouds loom: setting the good example to their benighted elders of the way to a less feudal, more just Thai nation for all Thais, those brave BlackPink fans have joined theirs to the peaceful voices of the young Thai patriots being harassed for peacefully calling for reform to move their nation forward from the bad old ways of the feudal past. 

 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 January 12, 2023, under the title "Stuck in the past" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2480782/stuck-in-the-past

Voting for cash

re: "Expect vote buying to be 'rampant', warns Chuan" (BP, January 2, 2022)

Dear editor,

Their own acts proving such a self-perception false, do all of those Thai people who engage in vote buying, whether buying or selling, actually think themselves honest? Honest people neither buy nor sell votes.

Since the evidence from behavioural economist Dan Ariely and his colleagues (Mazar et al., "The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance", 2008, DOI: 10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633 ) is that being reminded of our own moral principles just before an act is done has a salutary effect on what is then done, it might be helpful to have every voter read aloud and sign a solemn vow just before entering the booth to cast their vote that they will not vote for any candidate from whom they have received cash within the last six months because to do so would be a dishonest act.

Or would they just act dishonestly both before and in the voting booth anyway, and then go to a temple to bribe the karmic bureaucracy to overlook their bad deed by buying some merit with a donation?  

Note: the 2008 paper cited is not the 2012 paper "Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end" (Shu et al., DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209746109) where Ariely and his team used flawed data, in fact data faked by others, to reach conclusions that are not warranted, as other researchers subsequently picked up on to thereby confirm that science works to openly correct its errors. No human institution can be free of error, which is why free, open debate and critical questioning of every received claim is a necessary condition for holding any opinion of worth on any and every topic.  

 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 January 7, 2023, under the title "Voting for cash" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2477209/local-sports-stars-

It's the status quo

re: "Renew graft fight pledge" (BP, Editorial, January 2, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Like the annual rite of calling for reforms and crackdowns to reduce Thailand's horrific road toll, the Bangkok Post's editorial "Renew graft fight pledge" is another that has been faithfully repeated for decades. If a different outcome is to be expected, it is necessary to allow reform that might work.  

The Post's call to "encourage more ethical behaviour," sounds wonderful. It has sounded exactly as wonderful for all of those same decades of failure to reduce corruption, some recent examples of which the editorial lists as evidence of the persistent failure. Calling for "more ethical behaviour" has merely papered over corruption as usual. The current and several previous Thai constitutions have also piously spouted "good morals" and "good public  morals." As the use of Thai law by those intent on propping up unchanged and unreformed the traditional pillars of Thainess attests, such vague phrases are the enemy not only of democratic principle inimical to corruption, but are collaterally powerful tools for maintaining the status quo of many decades. 

With this latest call to reform, is the Post now joining the Thai youth peacefully calling for such specific democratic principles as openness, transparency and accountability, which are indeed essential antidotes to corruption, and for which calls those Thai patriots are often imprisoned in strict accord with Thai law made up to keep exactly the same status quo in place that has for decades faithfully bred corruption, perhaps as intended? Does the Post not see how this latest call flatly contradicts its failure to report on the use of anti-democratic law to persecute those who would reform the traditional fonts of corruption protected from just reform by such bad law?

More positively, the editor's call "to engage with civil society" is both more consistent with democratic principle and at least a very little less uselessly vague. This call also raises a useful question: Who exactly is supposed to do this engaging? The government of the Thai people is itself surely already a part of civil society, so it cannot be the government of the Thai people that the Post has in mind. Who then? What are those other institutions promoting and profiting from pervasive, systemic corruption who are not to be considered a part of it but in need of engaging with Thai civil society?

The call to engage civil society is echoed by widely respected former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, who in addition to pointing out that "military takeovers have been shown to be useless in ending conflicts" ("Ex-PM Anand says coups have retarded Thai democracy", Bangkok Post, Mar 22, 2022), also identified coups as both retarding Thailand's democratic development and "leaving a legacy of failed administrations and corruption" (ibid.). With so many decades of evidence backing it, could anyone dispute Anand's bluntly stated insight?

Until the 1980s, Thailand was on a similar path to development politically and economically as South Korea and Taiwan, albeit not as a republic but a constitutional monarchy, a perfectly decent form of democratic governance as proved by the examples of Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Both Taiwan and South Korea went on to develop flourishing economies and vibrant democracies with plenty of healthy, heated debate. What prevented Thailand following their example as the Thai people deserve? Who or what has deprived the Thai people of the same political, social, moral and economic development that the citizens of Taiwan and South Korea have come to enjoy by allowing democracy to solve political and social disagreements and problems, including corruption, through free, open debate in and out of parliament? 

Let us hope with the Post's editor that next year a fresh new Thai parliament with true vision to move the nation forward will have the courage to make the reforms that Thailand has so desperately needed for so long, something that the old parties and the new parties of old men clinging to power have manifestly failed to deliver the Thai people. 

Let us hope that the Post will not need to republish the same editorial yet again with an updated list of corruption scandals. 

 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 January 4, 2023, under the title "It's the status quo" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2474789/hardly-democratic

re: "When does life begin?"

re: "When does life begin?" (The New York Times, December 29, 2022)

Asking when life begins is the wrong question. Anyone who thought that life was what mattered would have to defend the right to life of bats, broccoli and bacteria. 

Asking when human life begins is also wrong. It begins at conception when the sperm and ovum become a single living cell with human DNA that promptly does what living things do: grow and reproduce. It is not a human being until at least a few weeks later, but that too is not what matters. 

What matters is when the living entity being becomes a human person. This is what is controversial. This is what bad-faith actors want to muddy with talk about sacredness or by writing into law that the fertilized egg is already a human person. That is legal. It is also dishonest and wrong. 

The model of a person has always been a set of characteristic abilities had by every normal adult living human being. Such persons are independent entities that include some minimal set of minimal levels of: self-awareness, desires, preferences, plans, social bonds, consciousness, and awareness of fairness in their acts. 

Whatever set of minimal conditions for personhood are decided on, if they include a living human fetus at any point in a pregnancy, they will also include every other living mammal, and a lot of other animals. 

If they were both honest and consistent, anti-abortionists would also be radical animal liberation advocates, opposing all killing of animals for food and the slaughter of rats and living beings deemed pests 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/31/us/human-life-begin.html#commentsContainer&permid=122327116:122327116

re: "The First Afterlife of Pope Benedict XVI"

re: "The First Afterlife of Pope Benedict XVI" (The New York Times, January 1, 2023)

It sounds lovely, but the reality is that "a synthesis of reason and supernatural religion" cannot exist unless reason closes its eyes, ears and mouth to the unreason that is faith-based supernatural religion. 

The pews are also emptying in better educated nations precisely because since Plato at least, some 400 years before Jesus Christ, educated people have known that religions and gods cannot found good morals, and that many official church doctrines are morally wrong, just as its metaphysics is wrong. 

The sacrament of the eucharist perhaps sums it up best: who would accept, as Benedict and his cohort do, that regularly eating real human flesh and drinking actual human blood is a good thing to be doing?  

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/opinion/pope-benedict-xvi-catholic-church.html#commentsContainer&permid=122327250:122327250

Views on past PMs

re: "Prem probe must be fair" (BP, Editorial, December 29, 2022) 

Dear editor,

The Bangkok Post's editorial on the hyped reactions to a teacher's comments about former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda appears to lack in a couple of aspects that very nuance that it calls for.  

Contrary to what the Post's editor appears to presume, there is nothing wrong with being gay, nor is there anything wrong with having multiple consenting sex partners. There can, therefore, be nothing wrong with pointing out such facts about a public figure if they are indeed facts. It is, on the contrary, healthy for young people who might be LGBTQ, or even those of mixed-sex tendencies, to have strong role models who share that characteristic and whose personal lives reflect the reality of being a good human being and member of society. Whilst there is everything wrong with forcing people or minors into sexual relationships, there should be no reason to hide a range unusual but perfectly decent behaviours that the prejudiced in society, even though they be a large majority, find shocking or offensive. Such bigots should be offended by being confronted with the errors of their thinking. This is why sports stars and similar figures who come out as gay, lesbian or gender-different deserve praise for doing so. 

More important, if Gen. Prem or any other figure is held up to the public as a model to be followed, then their personal life is something that should be open to public discussion. This is why people are rightly interested in the personal lives of sports stars, religious leaders, TV stars, and similar, and rightly outraged when the reality falls markedly below the myth projected. In this regard, a constructive amendment to the current Thai constitution would be to delete from Section 34 the intentionally vague and undemocratic words: "maintaining public order or good morals," and replace them with the very precise and democratic: "parliament shall pass no law to specifically protect from public exposure or ridicule any person or institution defined under this constitution of the Thai people." It might be tasteless, ugly, vile and offensive to make allegedly salacious, stupid or mocking comments about public figures, but that is no reason to restrict free speech any more than is required by the usual libel and defamation laws that already provide everyone equal protection under the law. 

The Post also assumes a rather simple definition of what it is to be a dictator, something else in need of free, open public debate. In this regard, the Post's cited example of Anand Panyarachun is instructive. Whilst not elected to the position of prime minister, I have never heard of nor can imagine anyone calling Anand a dictator. Indeed, he is justly famous for having gifted the Thai people a constitution genuinely of the Thai people, which constitution two coups were subsequently committed to negate. Anand rightly stands proud as having served the nation well, not only as a public figure, but also as a model in his personal life, and with no need to threaten weaponized law to silence fair public discussion. 

 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 1, 2023, under the title "Views on past PMs" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2472899/a-flawed-tax-policy