Hell on Earth

re: "Families devastated by Kenya cult horror" (BP, April 26, 2023)

Dear editor,

The righteous outrage over the latest religiously inspired human sacrifice, this time in Kenya, is a little irrational. The horror of 90 or more faithful souls starving themselves and children to death at the behest of their pastor, a man too truly touched by his god, the Christian God, is indeed monstrous, yet nothing unusual in the history of religions, whether humankind's experience of Christianity or of other the other religions that have been made up from time to time.

Popes have a history of almost two thousand years of eagerly imprisoning, torturing and burning to death those they deem heretics and those who propose new understandings of the natural world around us, such as the basic science of our solar system. Islam's acts inspired by the Koran are also too well known. The apologists of religions naturally prefer we forget such facts about their truly zealous deeds. At least those Kenyans who starved themselves to death for their inspired belief in the Christian God's promise of eternal life did so more or less willingly and did not take vast numbers of others with them, although they have brought to their corner of it the very real hell on Earth that so often comes from sincere religious belief. They did not wage holy war on the tribe next door with different beliefs, but have nonetheless managed to tear families apart as too customary when religion is taken seriously.

One root problem with religions such as Christianity, Islam, and the other monotheisms  proclaiming their own perfect infallibility in all things is rooted in their sacred texts, perhaps also in those of polytheism, as the acts of India's Hindu nationalists teach us in recent years, along with a repugnant caste system blessed by their Gods.  Those collections of the magical thoughts of men written in reliably more primitive, less morally developed times are the source of the false beliefs about reality (heavens, hells, angels, and all the rest, and of course gods), and the font of the even worse perversion of good morals that history has shown to afflict the faith-driven. The still throbbing lust of some in the US, for example, to keep gay sex criminal and to deny women ownership of their own bodies are relatively innocuous evils that are based solidly on the content of the Bible, which really does say what its crusaders find in it. It is a book that should surely be banned from public libraries, from schools, and other  places where it might fall into the hands of innocent children. For decency's sake, save the children! 

But the root of the religious malaise is faith. This rejection of knowledge, along with life, in favour of faith is written into the very beginning of the the Judeo-Christian sacred text. In the Bible's Genesis chapter 2, God, Yahweh, dictates explicitly that "the tree of knowledge" is off limits, is absolutely banned. Faith does not love knowledge. 

Faith, however,  has never, under any circumstances, been a reliable guide to the true nature of the world around us, its physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, culture, history, or any other aspect of reality. Worse, faith has never been a trustworthy guide to moral good, as millennia of history too horrifyingly attest: religious wars, human sacrifice to faith-based ideology, persecution of non-believers, the suppression of women, gays, Jews, and any other out group condemned by sacred texts or their religious interpreters, and most recently 90 people starving themselves and children to death for their sacred one(s).

The outrage unfolding in Kenya is indeed the result of the religiously inspired teachings of a monster. It is also nothing extraordinary in the record of the acts of religions worldwide throughout history. 

Religion only becomes morally decent when strong secular morals compel at least a show of good morals. That is why Christianity in the US and modern Europe at least pretends to value human rights and respect even women, sometimes even LGBTQ people, and even those of competing faiths. In nations blessed with sound morals freed from the unquestionable commands of the sacred, even Islam can be brought to behave with some decency. These modern miracles are wrought not by faith in religion but by the efforts of critical reasoning, openness to correction, and an honest search for understanding taking hold in those societies and their liberal democratic governance, for which praise be given. 

 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 April 29, 2023, under the title "Hell on Earth" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2559715/road-chaos-inaction

Ignoring liquor's ills

re: "Singapore hangs prisoner over 1kg of cannabis" (BP, April 26, 2023) 

Dear editor,

A foundational principle of justice is that the law treat like acts alike. This entails that Singapore's law also require the execution of alcohol dealers, for alcohol is also a drug, one that is in fact more harmful to users and to society than cannabis. Basic justice requires, therefore, that Singapore make its criminal law consistent by criminalizing with the imposition of a death penalty the possession, use, production and trafficking of alcohol. Either that, or decriminalize the use, possession, production and sale of other equally or less harmful drugs, which is all of them.

It is unjust to treat one drug differently to others merely because it happens to be popular in society. That is crude prejudice, which is never a justifying reason for state interference in personal liberty. 

 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 April 28, 2023, under the title "Ignoring liquor's ills" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2559001/prawits-watch-saga

Cruel execution

re: "Branson urges Singapore to halt execution of cannabis convict" (BP, April 24, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Sir Richard Branson's call to Singapore to halt the execution of a man duly convicted of the charge of trafficking over a kilogram of cannabis is doubtless well intentioned. However, by making that call conditional on the fact that the man might be innocent of the charge, Sir Richard obscures what is really wrong with Singapore's imminent killing of a person not known to have harmed anyone. 

It is always possible that any verdict returned by a fair court after a fair trial is wrong. Mistakes happen, and there is no concatenation of facts that can not also be explained by a different, however exceedingly unlikely, account. That truth is not relevant in this case.

Even if Tangaraju Suppiah is in fact guilty as charged, executing him is a vile injustice. Injustice is not magically made just by passing  a law that supports whatever prejudices lurk behind the injustice thereby blessed by law. That Singapore is a sovereign nation that has the legal right to make whatever law it wishes is not being disputed. 

It does not, nevertheless, follow that any law is just merely because it is a properly made law. Singapore could tomorrow pass a law to start imprisoning gay men or to execute those who sell unhealthy sugary drinks to children; that would be its legal right, but those laws would also be morally repugnant to decent society.

Singapore should halt the execution because the law with which it accords should not exist. Imprisoning adults who do not directly harm anyone but merely do what some segment of society, even a large majority, personally dislike, which dislike is the only reason for the law behind the proposed killing, is unjust. To execute people who have not harmed or threatened to harm any other is a moral abomination unbecoming a nation that would see itself as civil, civilized, educated, and decent. 

This, not that there is some finite possibility that he is innocent, is the reason Singapore should stop the execution. It should then look to amend its antiquated drug laws to better comport with good morals. 

 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 April 26, 2023, under the title "Cruel execution" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2557374/nacc-must-comply

More polls needed

re: "The politics of post-poll govt formation" (BP, Opinion, April 21, 2023) 

Dear editor,

As May 14 approaches, the poll statistics are, as Professor Thitinan Pongsudirak notes, perfectly clear: "the momentum favours the opposition Pheu Thai (PTP) and Move Forward (MFP) parties well ahead of the government side, comprising Palang Pracharath (PPRP), United Thai Nation (UTN), Bhumjaithai (BJP) and Democrat (DP) parties. This is consistent with the clear trend the author also describes that "Over the past two decades, it has been clear where Thailand is going, despite military coups and consequently concocted constitutions as well as judicial interventions."

But this same evidence from polls and elections also undermines Professor Thitinan's concerns that "If the PTP forms a government with the MFP, the poll-leading party would be accused of subversion of the throne." The evidence would seem, on the contrary, to suggest that a sizable and growing segment of the Thai people think no such thing. Surely their views on the matter should be respected? In a democracy, their views will be respected, will they not?

It is certainly possible, as some regularly claim, that the highest institution is held to be fantastically revered by the entire Thai nation, but whilst repeatedly asserted, this claim is, to the best of my knowledge, never actually supported by the solid evidence that can alone prove such claims fact rather than fantasy. It would seem, therefore, of the highest importance to establish exactly what the Thai nation does in fact think about its highest institution. That is, a series of well-designed polls need to be done to put the percentages on the attitudes and the thinking of the Thai people regarding this matter of the gravest national importance. The absence of such knowledge is not a sound foundation on which to base policy. It is certainly not a healthy basis for making or applying law. A further benefit of regularly conducted polls of public opinion is that they would show trends in the nation's evolving perceptions and feeling, surely a most pertinent insight? 

In the absence of formal polls directly addressing the issue, the best available evidence is that of the obvious de facto proxy: the solidly rising popularity of the Move Forward party. 

 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 April 23, 2023, under the title "More polls needed" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2555136/panda-woe-number-one

Nod to Helen Clark

re: "Reforms 'can't end' with legalised cannabis" (BP, April 18, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It was a welcome corrective to traditional thinking of six decades to see the Bangkok Post's "Reforms 'can't end' with legalised cannabis" on the front page for a few hours. Former New Zealand prime minister and current member of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Helen Clark is correct on all counts. The 60-year-old punitive approach to recreational use of drugs has been an abject failure that has not reduced drug use, except in places like Singapore, where moral decency is rejected in favour of extreme force, including judicial killing in accord with law made up for that purpose, to impose the shining totalitarian vision of some, albeit perhaps a majority, on an entire society. Singapore resembles too perfectly the fabled city state of Omelas described in writer Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". In that moral horror story, all looks light, cheerful, healthy and perfectly happy; that glowing happiness is dependent on the abuse of an innocent child locked away in a dark place, an evil that all know of but of which none speak. 

Ms Clark is right that not only have the last six decades of drug wars indefensibly killed thousands of drug users, but they have not reduced the natural human urge of thousands of years to use drugs for fun. The populist drug wars have, however, very effectively debased the public morals of societies practicing such morally indefensible abuse of individuals. Ms Clark is right to praise Thailand's recent decriminalization of cannabis, and to insist that it needs to go further in the pursuit of good morals for society. 

The drug wars and their killings, their overcrowded prisons, their massive economic, social and moral costs to society, are premised on the notion, shared by communist and right-wing authoritarian ideologies alike, that human beings are not born to be free, but to serve as productive units for self-serving groups wielding political power. 

The lame excuses that drugs must be suppressed to "protect society" or to "protect children" are false claims. That such claims are not truly believed even by the parents and populist politicians who promote them is proved by the fact that they do not apply their reasoning with any attempt at consistency. The facts are that whilst all drugs, cannabis, alcohol, yaba, heroin, cigarettes or whatever, are harmful to the user, as Ms Clark sensibly admits, when it comes to harms to society, the drug that is far and away the most harmful is alcohol, as concluded in such studies as those of Professor David Nutt et al. ("Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis" The Lancet, 2010, DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6 ) and Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo et al. ("The Australian drug harms ranking study", 2019, Journal of Psychopharmacology, DOI 10.1177/0269881119841569  ). Since alcohol is the single most harmful drug to non-users and society generally, were the advocates of prohibition sincere in their principles, they would be calling for the imprisonment and execution of the alcohol barons, those wealthy executives of famous businesses producing and peddling that very popular recreational drug to the great harm of society. Were they consistent in their professed moral convictions, the anti-drug advocates would be demanding that the law imprison those in possession of the drug alcohol to further uselessly, harmfully, swell the grossly overcrowded prisons. They conspicuously are not. 

Those pushing the 60-year tradition of suppressing some popular drugs whilst allowing free rein to a more harmful drug might think themselves acting for the good of society or the family, but they are wrong. Their confused, delusive, irrational and morally corrupt vision is the path towards Omelas, founded on an unspeakably vile truth lurking at the dark heart of their ideal 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 April 22, 2023, under the title "Nod to Helen Clark" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2554676/handout-pros

Review appreciated

re: "On the naughty Stephff" (BP, Life, April 7, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Thank you Dave Kendall for the review of "Farang Affairs 2" by Stephff, aka Stephane Peray. As a long time fan, Stephff's healthy poking of fun at farangs is rich humour, but the political satire skewering sacred Thai cows is way better. It always brightens the day to see his latest on Prachatai or wherever.

But all was not such wholesome good cheer. Mr Kendall's impertinent phrase "the new woke dictatorship" is sadly all too often right. Once upon a time, instead of attending to his lesson, which must have been history or English from the teacher I remember chastising me for being mightily diverted by what he conceded was indeed highly diverting, I was caught reading a novel by Agatha Christie that has subsequently been rechristened as "And Then There Were None", the original title, "Ten Little N*****s", being unpublishable these days. And this last week we read in world news that along with other great all-brow classics, Ms. Christie's entire corpus is being reviewed to "correct" the language that accurately reflects the sexism, racism and other offensiveness that she had absorbed and reflected as normal in her day.

This sort of nonsense run rampant is what we expect of book-banning American Trumpists and like conservative snowflakes terrified that their delicate children will be forever corrupted by exposure to intelligent, honest, challenging literature. And yet it is now those who pretend to be liberal who are intent on destroying the record of the sexism, racism, totalitarianism and other unpleasantness that abounds in the work of Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl, and pretty much everyone before the 1970s simply because they accurately reflected the less developed moral awareness of their times.  As a reminder of how much worse humans were so very short a time ago,  it is much better not to equate being woke with the snowflake illiberalism of authoritarians intent on opposing the threat of more honest history or improved respect for others. It is much better to keep intact, for example, the black and white record of Winston Churchill's ugly racism, and even Aristotle's certainty of the inferiority of women, the naturalness of slavery, and, albeit nowhere near as bad as Plato, the conviction that farmers and labourers were unfit to be allowed a say in politics. (Aristotle's "Politics" and Plato's Republic" are not for the faint of heart.)

If the latest fulminations of the self-esteeming big wigs of the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party ("UTN leader vows to drive out ‘nation haters’" BP, April 8) now grossly misrepresenting what it is to be a Thai patriot are anything to go by, those who colluded in or cheered on the latest coup against the Thai people's nation have a mindset solidly back before 500 BC, apparently having learned nothing of worth even from the Buddha, whose "Kalama Sutta" they presumably want cast into the flames due to its blunt dismissal of tradition and status as authority to be revered regarding any alleged truth. 

But I'm sure that Stephff can do the UTN authoritarians more justice than me. I look forward to his take on 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 April 15, 2023, under the title "Review appreciated" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2550094/unnecessary-directive

How patriots act

re: "Rangsiman: Pirapan doesn't own country" (BP, April 11, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Having been nurtured in the Democrat Party and done an internship with Palang Pracharath (PPRP),  Pirapan Salirathavibhaga has found his spiritual home in the United Thai Nation Party (UTN), where he hobnobs with the likes of former PDRC cadre Akenat Prompan, and of course army General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who continues to cling to the political power his took for himself on May 22, 2014. The leader of UTN is to be thanked for most recently raising for public debate what counts as being a patriot of the Thai nation. And what can not so count.

Naturally, at least in a healthy democracy, we expect there to be a variety of contested definitions of what constitutes something so fundamental as patriotism. The sensible starting point are the current (2017) and former (2007), along with several previous, Thai Constitutions, Sections 2 of which are short and clear: "Thailand adopts a democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State" (English trans., Office of the Council of State).

From this, it follows that patriots of the Thai nation are those who serve, protect and nurture Thailand's democratic form of government. There are of course many versions of democracy around the world: the UK version is very different to the US version, and they are different to the Australian and Finnish versions of democracy. There are, however, some non-negotiable foundational principles that must be met if a nation's government is to be honestly described as a democracy. Paramount among these is that citizens be open to their fellow citizens holding and peacefully expressing radically different ideas on what matters, irrespective of how strongly some will disagree. This openness to genuinely, substantively dissenting ideas, which openness alone can correct inherited mistakes and injustices, must be protected by law, which section 34 of the current Thai Constitution weakly appears to do, thereby at least acknowledging the foundational necessity of respect for free speech in a democracy.

From this constitutional foundation, it follows that Thai patriots are those who seek to honestly strengthen and further evolve their nation's democratic form of government, and that necessarily includes identifying weaknesses and suggesting reforms. It entails both presenting and being open to ideas that dissent from old mindsets. There can, otherwise, be no progress. Conversely, those who would stunt such adaptive evolution by insisting there be no wholesome, open discussion of matters of the greatest national importance to the nation can only be the antithesis of patriots, however otherwise they might wish to see themselves.  

The UTN leader's recent tirade seemingly intent on shutting down healthy debate comporting with democratic principle is consistent with the known membership of that party. It will be most interesting to see how the polling goes on May 14. Thanks to Mr. Pirapan's outburst about "nation haters", the general election will serve as a useful proxy poll on what percentage of the Thai nation shares UTN's articles of faith. The evidence will not, I suspect, be pleasing to Prime Minister Prayut's party newly minted from antique coin. 

Thailand, meanwhile, should perhaps follow the example already set them by South Korea's May 18 Memorial Foundation and similarly honour its true patriots. Why, after all, should Thai heroes of their own democracy be internationally honoured by foreign democracies yet not by their own democratic nation long aspiring to reap the happiness, political, social, moral and economic, that correlates so strongly with liberal democracy? 

 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 April 14, 2023, under the title "How patriots act" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2549566/handling-refugees

Reformed man

re: "Prawit advocates unity, non-violence" (BP, April 5)

Dear editor,

In news related to the nightmare rumour of a Pheu Thai deal with Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), it is also now being reported that PPRP leader General Prawit Wongsuwon is industriously seeking to present himself as a voice of reason, a shiny, new convert to peaceful dialogue and democratic principle. He may well be sincere. If so, he can easily enough prove that.

If Gen. Prawit is truly committed to peaceful dialogue, if he is truly "willing to listen to different opinions" as quoted in "Prawit advocates unity, non-violence" (BP, April 5), he and PPRP will join Move Forward in proposing long overdue reforms to the lèse majesté laws, section 112 of the criminal code. That law has, to Thailand's enduring shame and the taint of every lawful institution involved, been used with increasing excess over recent years to deliberately violate the right of Thai citizens to peacefully share their ideas about matters of the highest national importance. Adding his voice to Move Forward's proposed reforms will credibly reassure that Gen. Prawit has indeed changed his spots to those of an advocate for wholesome, open dialogue on all matters that matter to the Thai people. In the meantime, he can also prove that his claim to be "willing to dialogue with all sides" is not hollow by speaking with those who have been arrested in accord with those laws, and speaking up for their right to peacefully speak their own minds. His words will then be every bit as credible as Pheu Thai's commitment to only form a coalition with those who truly support democratic principle and process. 

 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 April 9, 2023, under the title "Reformed man" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2546100/burn-offs-persist

Beyond reason

re: "College student slain on Bangkok street" (BP, April 3, 2013) & "Veteran ghost-chaser Watcharapol livestreams to new generation" (BP, April 3, 2013)

Dear editor,

Two articles in today's Bangkok Post (April 3) might seem unrelated, but their intersection sheds much light on Thailand 4.0, as the rampant vision of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his faith-driven zealots of sacred coups have made it. The two articles are "College student slain on Bangkok street" and  "Veteran ghost-chaser Watcharapol livestreams to new generation". They intersect in the realm of the sacred. Freed as they are from all Earthly reality, ghosts and such supernatural phenomena are the supreme manifestation of the sacred, as Thailand's rich traditions have insisted for centuries. If you want to get ahead, you summon the sacred, if necessary bribing it with a suitable sacrifice of tasty flesh (whole boiled chickens or left over pigs heads being popular choices in my area) or you less carnally gift a large donation to an already gilded edifice of the sacred. That karmic trading in merit is one side of the sacred setting an example religiously followed by the profane aspects of social custom venerated for generations.

A more telling aspect is that the sacred reliably renounces reason and evidence in favour of faith, of pure, unquestioning faith. The problem here, as radio host Watcharapol Fukjaidee admits, is that "No one can prove it is real except the caller", who is convicted by faith alone. Whatever reality the sincerely held supernaturally sacred might thereby have exists solely in the mind of the believer, never in objective reality. It would not otherwise be supernatural: were there any reason or facts to back up sacred claims, they would not be sacred but profane reality solidly supported, or rebutted, by science or other honest, critical discussion.

As cultural anthropologist Andrew Alan Johnson is quoted: "Ghosts become a way to tell stories that are denied elsewhere." There is no shortage of sacred topics about which plain, honest speech is truly, literally, unspeakable in Thailand in 2023. This sacred realm cuts a wide swathe through modern Thai society. Royal Thai Army chiefs, no less, come out to insist on its pre-eminence, even in response to a little graffiti temporarily staining with honest opinion the image of an immaculately white wall deemed sacred by decree. The sacred plainly needs to be pillared by serious secular power. 

Having cut itself off from reason and evidence, the sacred has no option but to demand on pain of secular punishment that its dogma be believed without question on the basis of faith alone. This is why Catholic popes traditionally imprisoned, tortured and killed heretics and apostates, or co-opted profane Earthly powers do so. This is why Afghan's faith-driven rulers today ban women from education using secular law that perverts justice in service to their sacred tenets. This is why Thai law imprisons those who think critically and ask highly pertinent questions of what is deemed sacred and therefore off limits to reason and honest investigation. 

And this elevation beyond all reason is why those who cite the sacred as their supreme justification commit coups that, by their very nature, set the example of violence to Thai youth. That message has plainly been heeded by those who slew in brutal gang fashion a 23-year-old engineering student from  Pathumwan Institute of Technology. We do not yet know the precise  motivation, which might have been infringing on a prerogative or simply a perceived slight. The killers, nonetheless, have demonstrated that they learned well the lesson that when your sacredness has been disrespected, violence is the appropriate reaction. Reason and facts being ruled out, brute violence remains the only option to protect your most sacred image. Thus rules the sacred. 

It being so, the profane is perhaps to be preferred by those who respect reason and open discussion that seek true understanding of worth. 

 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 April 8, 2023, under the title "Beyond reason" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2545631/beyond-reason

Shameful antics

re: "Pheu Thai denies 'secret' PPRP deal"  (BP, April 5)  and "Prawit advocates unity, non-violence" (BP, April 5)

Dear editor,

If Pheu Thai wishes to credibly quash the rumours that it might do, or worse, might already have done,  a deal to form a coalition government with Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) after the upcoming election, the party itself can, and must, issue a formal, unequivocal statement that it has not and will not enter into any such deal with any person or party connected with the 2014 coup, which overthrew the Thai people's very popular "democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State", as both the 2007 and the current 2017 Constitutions succinctly describe it in their sections 2. No person and no party tainted by association with that act committed against the Thai nation's supreme law and the institutions defined thereunder for no good reason, specious claims by the perpetrators not withstanding, can be deemed to have any sincere commitment to democratic principle and process.

It is not enough that Pheu Thai party members or officials speaking merely in personal capacity disavow any plan or intention to form such a shameful alliance with those whose acts plainly demonstrated their true feelings regarding democracy for the Thai people. Before the 2019 elections, then Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva made similar promises, only to be betrayed, to no one's surprise, by his own party, which Time Magazine had aptly characterized as "Thailand's hilariously misnamed Democrat Party" (Nov. 2013), when it's members were fomenting the deceitful excuse for the coup committed on May 22, 2014. To be fair, Abhisit had the good grace to promptly resign as leader of such a duplicitous party. 

In related news, it is also now being reported that PPRP leader General Prawit Wongsuwon is industriously seeking to present himself as a voice of reason, a shiny, new convert to peaceful dialogue and democratic principle. He may well be sincere. If so, he can easily enough prove that. 

If Gen. Prawit is truly committed to peaceful dialogue, if he is truly "willing to listen to different opinions" as quoted in "Prawit advocates unity, non-violence" (BP, April 5), he and PPRP will join Move Forward in proposing long overdue reforms to the lèse majesté laws, section 112 of the criminal code. That law has, to Thailand's enduring shame, been used with increasing excess over recent years to deliberately violate the right of Thai citizens to peacefully share their ideas about matters of the highest national importance. Adding his voice to Move Forward's proposed reforms will credibly reassure that Gen. Prawit has indeed changed his spots to those of an advocate for wholesome, open dialogue on all matters that matter to the Thai people. In the meantime, he can also show that his claim to be "willing to dialogue with all sides" is not hollow by speaking with those who have been arrested in accord with those laws, and speaking up for their right to peacefully speak their own minds. His words will then be every bit as credible as Pheu Thai's commitment to only form a coalition with those who truly support democratic principle and process. 

 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 April 7, 2023, under the title "Shameful antics" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2544829/shameful-antics

re: "For Easter, the Strangest Story Ever Told"

re: "For Easter, the Strangest Story Ever Told" (The New York Times, April 6, 2023)

Or someone honestly writing down what they remember someone sincerely telling them, they themselves having been zealously told that by someone who knew someone who had been there to witness it all from Jesus's birth to his death. 

But this does not really matter. No matter how sincere eyewitnesses are, it is irrational to believe something impossible in the absence of impossibly strong evidence. The Christian god, all three of him, is in the same position as every other god: a persistent failure to present a shred of direct supporting evidence for their existence. Every single god on Earth is equally well attested by solid evidence of its existence. 

Should jurors believe that the accused was not guilty of murder because an eyewitness, or several, sincerely reported that the the alleged victim got up after being shot through the head several times and then walked away into a passing cloud? But we know that even more mundane eyewitness testimony sincerely believed is often not what happened. Under stress, or simply under creative interviewing (not necessarily intent on corrupting), memory becomes flexible. 

Hearsay evidence, however sincere, just isn't a good reason to believe anything that matters.  

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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/2023/04/06/opinion/easter-christian-tradition.html#commentsContainer&permid=124249344:124249344

Speaking bluntly

re: "Beware of boredom" (BP, PostBag, March 30, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Whilst not entirely disagreeing with David Brown's concerns, to be fair, if the Bangkok Post continues to publish stories on the same issues, it is not unreasonable that the same responses be made. Since, for example, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's government persists, in strict accord with bad law made up with such intent, in unjustly arresting and imprisoning Thais for peacefully expressing honest, healthy opinions, there is a call for Burin Kantabutra to repeat his accurate observation that on one occasion His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej the Great truly did ever so mildly voice some gentle objections to the injustice being perpetrated in his name by that Thai criminal law. 

Any benevolent and righteous person, as Mr Kantabutra's regular contributions clearly prove him to be, would speak out bluntly and regularly against such legalized abuse, would they not? 

 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 April 1, 2023, under the title "Speaking bluntly" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2540901/no-to-navy-salvage