Blessed are the kids

re: "Society must keep kids safe" (BP, Editorial, September 23, 2023)

Dear editor,

In attributing a fair share of blame for the horrendous crimes committed in the heart of a Thai family against innocent children, the Post rightly admits that "A community that remains silent and does nothing emboldens such perpetrators." This reminds us yet again that merely being a venerable tradition is no guarantee of moral worth. In this case, the hoary custom of not respecting the voice of the weak in deference to social status led to the vilest of abuse being continued for many years. Exactly the same toxic habit of blindly respecting saffron robes enabled child abuse to thrive in monasteries, as it did in Western Christian churches until respect was tempered by healthy critical questioning and respect for voices raised against traditional abuses blessed by social custom.

In Thailand, it is the law itself that too often sets the example of nurturing such ugly traditions with grievously harmful consequences for the innocent. What else is law that brutishly intimidates into silence by imprisoning children and other morally courageous citizens merely for the peaceful expression of honest opinion? Their voices, too, deserve to be heard, no matter that they offend against some tradition every bit as ancient and respected as that embodied in the silence blessed by custom that enabled the most recently unveiled evils to be committed for years on end against children in the bosom of their very own family, by their father and mother. 

Unless all voices are heard and respected, how can deeply entrenched moral corruption even be discovered, let alone healed? 

 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 September 25, 2023, under the title "Blessed are the kids" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2652283/lack-of-interest

Drug war harm

re: "The fight against drugs" (BP, Editorial, September 19, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Whilst the Post is right to warn against any repeat of the horror that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra unleashed in his infamous "war on drugs", it should not be forgot how truly popular that slaughter was. It was egged on by the morally deluded from all walks of life and all levels of society. Those behind that killing of thousands have never been brought to justice, nor have those whose public support enabled the executions and disappearances even been called out for their complicity as justice demands. 

Sadly, the Post's editorial responding to PM Srettha Thavisin's promise to "make the fight against narcotics part of the national agenda" (September 19) betrays exactly the same sort of blunted moral thinking that led not only to Thaksin's publicly lauded killing spree but to many other abuses equally committed in the name of law and allegedly noble ideals over the decades and today. 

Society would perhaps be better did the underlying conditions that foster recreational drug use not exist, although since that state of perfect abstinence would also be extremely abnormal in the history of human societies, it would require substantial analysis of the pros and cons before we rashly assume that our consistently drug-loving ancestors were so totally wrong about the joys of drugs: opium, alcohol, ganja, mushrooms, and all the rest of nature's bliss-bestowing bounty.

The Post's mistake that betrays the shallow, simplistic thinking required to naïvely describe PM Srettha's promise as "good news" is the failure to ask when and why it is ever justified for the state to force the personal likes and dislikes of some, even a majority, on an entire nation. No one disputes that drugs are harmful. They are all harmful to their users to varying degrees, from heroin and yaa baa, through alcohol, to the relatively harmless such as cannabis and Ecstasy. But in a society that values liberty and respects human rights, adults have the right to do things that harm themselves, even to the extreme of drinking whisky and fine wine until blotto. 

The only reason to criminalize an act is that it directly harms or threatens to harm others. The use of drugs does not meet this condition. Someone enjoying a glass of wine with dinner is no more a threat to another than is someone shooting heroin and nodding off, or someone gulping down ya ba on party night at the local club. True, many people do harm others under the influence of drugs, alcohol being by far the worst for this. This is why policies that encourage more constructive, informed, regulated, and safe drug use are to be applauded. 

It is salutary to note that since the effective legalization of cannabis over a year ago for both medical and recreational use that Thai society has not in fact collapsed, or even stumbled noticeably. For this constructive progress against the social problems caused by illegal drugs, Bhumjai Thai's sensible and right policy of legalizing that drug for sale and use by adults is to be commended.

If that same regulatory approach is held to work acceptably well even for the more socially harmful drug alcohol, rational people who value justice that respects the rights of others will also support the legalization with due regulation of all other drugs in popular recreational use.

Of course, such a sane, morally informed drug policy will be anathema to those who traditionally prosper from the long failing policy of irrationally discriminatory criminalization of some popular drugs: criminal gangs and their loyal aids in law enforcement with a Ferrari in the garage. Would anyone really want to inflict such a blow to this font of lucrative traditional corruption in the police and elsewhere? 

At the very least, there needs to be more public discussion about what could justify criminalizing some recreational drug use whilst legally blessing the use of other, more socially harmful drugs by adults. 

 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 September 23, 2023, under the title "Drug war harm" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2651633/tax-rule-needs-clarity

Pick a just policy

re: "PM Srettha vows to eliminate speed pills" (BP, September 17, 2023) 

Dear editor,

How thrilling to hear that new Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin's "government will eliminate the abuse of methamphetamine pills within its tenure." Two of his flagship policies now copy the renowned of two former prime ministers. Under his watch as prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra also famously eradicated illegal drugs, and Prayut Chan-o-cha with equal righteousness reformed the Royal Thai Police with the blessing of all. Thaksin and Prayut having set the crown on their new-found relationship as best mates with that most gracious pardon signed off on on September 1, it is only fitting that the new government should adopt their well-remembered policy promises. The known historical record sets a memorable standard for PM Srettha to match.

That said, it must be conceded that whatever qualms decent people might have about its role in forming PM Srettha's well-cobbled government, coalition partner Bhumjai Thai does have a proven solution to solving illegal drug problems. Legalizing cannabis really did pretty much end that illegal drug problem literally at a pen stroke. It is also the just policy, recognizing that adults have a right to engage in reckless behaviour that directly harms only themselves. But if that sensible approach to solving illegal drug problems is to be followed, the same legal regulations must also be applied to that socially most harmful drug of them all, alcohol. 

Of course, when drug users go on to commit other crimes, such as domestic abuse, which is so often fueled by alcohol, fatal traffic accidents when under the influence, fights driven by drunken rage, and rape driven by alcohol induced lust, those auxiliary crimes must still be strictly punished. The right of adults to seriously harm themselves by reckless drug use does not extend to directly harming others absent their consent as participants in the high fun. 

 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 September 20, 2023, under the title "Pick a just policy" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2649995/murder-cover-up-

re: "After Ballot Losses, Where Does the Anti-Abortion Movement Go Next?"

re: "After Ballot Losses, Where Does the Anti-Abortion Movement Go Next?" (The New York Times, August 21, 2023)

Does the radical anti-abortion zealot have any reason for thinking that there is inherently any reason why abortion is intrinsically morally wrong? What qualities is an unborn human baby supposed to have that make it somehow radically different to the unborn baby of  a chimpanzee, pig, dog, rat or any other of our near relatives? So far as I know, there is no such quality. None. 

There is nothing wrong with abortion. 

There is, however, a lot that is wrong with treating the bodies of women as something that others, such as radical zealots running on unreflective, unreasoning, inhuman faith in a blinded and blinding ideology, should control above any right to personal autonomy of a pregnant woman. 

 

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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/2023/08/21/opinion/kristan-hawkins-abortion-republicans.html#commentsContainer&permid=127171547:127171547 

Lofty thoughts

re: "No conscience" (BP, PostBag, August 17, 2023) & "Denmark on heightened alert after Koran burnings", (BP, August 4)

Dear editor,

I agree with Don McMahon that both social conscience and intention matter in determining law in democracies.

Even for reasonable people, however,  judging intent is a little more complicated. There is no doubt that those who burned the Koran did so with intent. They fully intended to perform that act. Reasonable people will likely also hold that they knew that act must "inflame, [and] stir up emotions." Anyone who burns a US flag in Washington to make a statement knows the same. And yet the US Supreme Court consistently upholds that the law protects such acts, even  against popular efforts by well-intended law makers who would criminalize such an offensive act. 

There is a distinction to be drawn between knowing that some result might follow and intending that result. A Koran can be burned with the intention of demonstrating that it is just one more book made of paper and ink, having no more magical quality than any other book ever produced. A Koran can be burned intent on expressing that the burner does not believe in its particular god. A Koran can be burned to intentionally dissent from the perceived bad morals it preaches. None of these intentions entail a further intent to "cause civil unrest," even if the actors know that such a consequence is likely. No more is it my intention, even though I know it is a certain result, to worsen global warming when I take a fossil-fuelled taxi to Paragon to buy unagi flown in from Japan. 

This is where social conscience becomes relevant. Our conscience pricks us to do what is right against our wishes, attitudes, and inherited prejudices. The bedrock of democracy is not mob rule by majority opinion. What sets democracy apart is the principle that each individual counts equally as an individual. This is why democracies respect human rights, even when a majority personally dislike something like same-sex marriage.  In particular, each individual person in a society has an equal right to a voice in forming the cultural mix out which that society elects it government. This is why free speech is foundational to democracy. This is why social conscience demands that Koran burning, like flag burning and making bonfires of other sacred vanities be not merely permitted but actively protected by the law.

Denmark and Sweden set the democratic example of respecting social conscience by legally protecting Koran burning and similarly peaceful, albeit deeply offensive, expressions of opinion. 

 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 August 20, 2023, under the title "Lofty thoughts" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2632445/down-with-the-devil

Hiding behind S112

re: "Pita: ‘I’m not giving up’" & "Pita loses first PM vote" (BP, July 13, 2023) 

Dear editor,

As widely reported not only in the Bangkok Post's articles on July 13, but elsewhere both locally and globally, including by the New York Times in its front page article "Junta’s Allies Reject Thai Election Results, Derailing Top Opposition Figure" (July 13), the senators and others who voted, either directly or by abstention, to deny the pro-democracy coalition's choice that Pita Limjaroenrat become the next prime minister of Thailand did so largely on the excuse of protecting the existing lese majeste laws. For that clarification, those who so set themselves against the will of the Thai people, who are the Thai nation, are to be thanked. The Thai people has made its will perfectly clear through its properly elected representatives in the pro-democracy coalition, who unanimously chose Move Forward's Pita Limjaroenrat as their sole nominee to serve the nation in the position of prime minister. That is what was rejected by those who failed to to vote in accord with the duly expressed wishes of the Thai people, the Thai nation, that is. 

That some should hide behind the lese majeste laws as a deceitful excuse is unfortunate. That law as is exists is the antithesis of benevolence, which does not imprison for years on end those who peacefully express an honest opinion, however much some might disagree with any such opinion. Even less do the existing provisions of Section 112 of the Criminal Code comport with righteousness, let alone with justice, neither of which virtues countenance the suppression of honest, peaceful speech. 

Worse, the false claim that Thailand's monarchy needs the protection of such blatantly undemocratic law suggest that there is some inherent defect in the institution that does not apply to the even older monarchies of several flourishing, modern democratic states of Western Europe. Not least among these is the ancient monarchy of England and its fellow members of the Commonwealth, including my own country, Australia, which institution, the current head of which is His Majesty King Charles III,  thrives perfectly well in globally respected democracies that themselves respect the will of the their peoples benevolently, righteously, and justly, each under a "democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State", as Section 3 of its own current (2017), and many former, constitutions describes the Kingdom Thailand.  

How could it not be insulting to suggest, and to taint by such suggestions, that Thailand's monarchy needs anything so contrary to benevolence, to righteous, to justice and to democratic principle as the existing lese majeste laws? Those who genuinely value it would free Thailand's respected institution from such law that appears to put it in in direct conflict with good moral values and with the will of the people. In parliament today, that genuine concern for the well-being of the institution is most apparent in Move Forward, the outstandingly popular choice of the Thai nation's democratically chosen representatives in the pro-democracy coalition, whom the Thai people wish to govern their 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 July 15, 2023, under the title "Hiding behind S112" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2611881/pita-had-no-chance

Slippery stuff

re: "Yok as a political pawn" (BP, Editorial, June 19, 2023) 

Dear editor,

In its editorial ostensibly railing against the politicization of the 15-year-old Thanalop "Yok" Phalanchai, who they apparently did not think to contact to directly learn her side, the Bangkok Post concludes with talk of "upholding the moral values expected from most students." Oddly, or typically, there was no discussion of what those moral values might be. There was no discussion of whether those moral values might be decent or not. Even more oddly, or typically, there was no indication of whether the rest of society, for example teachers, parents, national leaders, heads of state, and so on, should uphold the same moral values.

Does the Post think that there is one set of moral values for students and some other set of moral values for other groups? That would be an interesting position to take. Should honesty be expected of doctors and other professionals but not of school children, or vice versa? Should respect for the rights of others be expected of school children but not of social leaders got up in pretty uniforms, or vice versa? Such moral relativism by social group quickly gets weird.

And then there is the issue that the Post's editorial oddly glosses over. At the heart of the issue that the courageous and arguably patriotic Yok has raised is that Thai law criminalizes peaceful, honest speech. That is, after all, the reason that led to Yok being arrested, thereby leading to the just public outrage, including editorials from the Bangkok Post. Exactly what sort of moral value is it that criminalizes peaceful open dialogue on matters of national importance, even to the extreme of arresting children? What sort of society, or group within society, condones law that enshrines that sort of moral value? 

Perhaps the true lesson that the Post failed to draw is that the traditionally upheld moral values forced on others by those preaching rather than following them are in serious need of an update to bring them into line with good morals. Or perhaps the same set of moral values should apply equally to and be upheld equally by all? 

Since open dialogue is a necessary condition for correcting errors and improving our understanding in the moral realm as much as in the scientific, I would suggest that, however offensive some might find honest opinions that are soundly supported, respect for such free speech that critically questions is foundational.  We might not have to change the law to follow the passionately advocated positions some might hold, but unless they are listened to and their arguments addressed, there can be no confident holding that the law or the moral values it purports to uphold are in fact morally decent. 

 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 June 22, 2023, under the title "Slippery stuff" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2597120/slippery-stuff

Wrong examples

re: "On Chiang's orders" and "Just for defence" (BP, PostBag, June 10, 2023) 

Dear editor,

If I might defend by slightly revising Eric Bahrt's more important point in this instance against the useful historical corrective provided by Przemo Kranz, Taiwan, like South Korea, only truly flourished from the 1980s on, after it had managed to free itself of the curse of military interference in civil matters. In this regard, Burin Kantabutra's timely letter published on the same day, "Just for defence", is yet another reminder that Thailand's growth, culturally and economically as well as socially and politically, has been severely stunted for many decades because the Thai people have been persistently denied that same exorcism of unholy military interference in matters having nothing to do with the defence of the realm from external enemies.

In his letter, "On Chiang's orders", Mr Kranz makes the highly pertinent point that Taiwan has very dark deeds in its history. This makes Taiwan the same as every other nation. As a personal example, my own country, Australia, continues to grapple with the genocidal policies against our Aboriginal people, whose outright abuse by the British colonizers, later joined by other Europeans fleeing brutish lives for better, continued well into the 20th century, and arguably beyond. Nor did Australia escape the institutionalized depredations of socially respected clergy of the imported Catholic sect of the Christian religion preying on children. These are indeed evil. Such evil needs be recognized and called out as such, irrespective of the fake, undeserved good name of perpetrators from the political or other institutions that committed it.

This is where the difference between Taiwan and China is salient. The people of Taiwan can freely investigate, discover, speak out about and memorialize the victims of abuses formerly committed by their nation's institutions, such as those cited by Mr Kranz. The people of China are denied that basic human right. They are kept in ignorance of their own history by despotic rulers who know that the truth damns them, hence the desperate need to viciously suppress free speech. China ruthlessly censors the commemoration by Chinese citizens of the evil committed at Tian An Men in 1989. 

If it is to flourish as they have, Thailand should follow the progressive examples of Taiwan and South Korea, not the repressive lead of China or North Korea. 

 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 June 14, 2023, under the title "Wrong examples" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2590459/questions-remain

Pointless bans

re: "MFP slams holiday booze ban" (BP, June 5, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Move Forward is right that the current bans on the sale of the drug alcohol on Buddhist holy days should be ended. Buddhists who take their religion seriously already abstain from alcohol and other drugs on such holidays exactly as they do on every other day of the year for exactly the same reason: that such drug use is contrary to their deep religious beliefs. That a small percentage of Thai adults actually follow that Buddhist principle is no just reason to force their religious precept on everyone else in society. If such reasoning for a ban were actually sound, it would be equally reasonable to ban the eating of meat, which typically involves a meat eater paying others to kill for them for no better reason than to enjoy the delicious taste of purely recreational meat consumption, often to a medically harmful extent, a reality that plainly violates the First Precept of Buddhism as largely ignored by Thai Buddhism.

The pro-ban excuse from Phetchawat Wattanapongsirikul, a list-MP candidate for the Pheu Thai Party, is even weaker since he presents zero evidence that such a ban on the sale of the popular drug actually "helps prevent road accidents caused by drink-driving." As even Songkran Pakchokdee, director of the StopDrink Network Office concedes, "People can still stock up in advance for consumption at their homes, anyway," making any causal relationship between interfering with adults buying alcohol on Buddhist holy days unlikely. What does, or could were it enforced, prevent road deaths and carnage caused by alcohol use is the consistent enforcement of drink-driving laws.

Unlike a ban on the recreational use of alcohol by adults, which would violate their liberty to decide how best to pursue a happy, meaningful life for themselves (however foolish and self-harming the rest of us might think their choices), banning driving under the influence of drugs does not violate any right, but protects others in society from a very real threat to their own life and well-being. That is why such behaviour, but not the drug itself, may be justly banned by law, as is similarly the case for every drug in popular recreational use by adults. 

 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 June 6, 2023, under the title "Pointless bans" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2585756/hazardous-waste

No fan of religion

re: "Malaysia seizes ‘Pride’ watches" (BP, May 24, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It is well-known, millennia of evidence across cultures attesting to it, that religion reliably leads to false beliefs and moral stunting masquerading under arrogant claims of unquestionable infallibility. Still, the sad seizure by Malaysian authorities of "Pride" watches bearing a design inspired by nature's beautiful rainbow is seriously kooky behaviour for the faith-driven as they seek to despotically impose their faith-sodden ideology on an entire society. 

Sadder by far, however, is that their unreasoning intolerance and contempt for basic human rights leads ineluctably to the creation, in the name of their ruthlessly commanding gods, of all too real hell on Earth for actual human beings. 

 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 May 26, 2023, under the title "No fan of religion" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2578784/reckless-riders

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

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

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

Keys to happiness

re: "More than a forced smile" (BP, Editorial, March 27, 2023)  

Dear editor,

In view of the facts coming to light, it must be wondered whether "the Land of Smiles" was ever anything more than an "Amazing Thailand" trope invented by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to better sell the nation. 

More seriously, perhaps Finns and others in the top tier of happiness are there because they are allowed to reflect freely and honestly on themselves and their nation, because they have the liberty to question, to experiment, and determine how they live their own lives. These are things that laws like sections of the Criminal Code and other repressive laws deny Thai people, dictating instead that all pretend to perfect faith, untouched by critical thought, by honesty, or by evidence of reality. 

Is it to be believed that the clear correlation between happiness and commitment to liberal democracy is an accident? As Thailand has been made less free under Prayut and his allies opposing democratic principle, so too have the Thai people become less happy. It is also unlikely to be a random accident that the most economically successful nations are the liberal democracies, while the authoritarian countries are most plagued by thriving corruption, which naturally flourishes best when honest speech is socially sanctioned or legally criminalized.

The Buddha knew better. In his Kalama Sutta, he warns against believing anything merely because of the authority of tradition or allegedly revered figures. The Buddha would surely approve the healthy honesty of the Finns and other most happy people, who are not forced by law to pretend to smile at what too often rings hollow, at what they rightly suspect to be deceit. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 31, 2023, under the title "Keys to happiness" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2540091/lame-excuses

Level the playing field

re: "Trans women banned from female athletics" (BP, March 24, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The unhappy decision by World Athletics that "transgender women will no longer be allowed to compete in female track and field events regardless of their levels of testosterone" again confirms that common sense is indeed common, typically meaning crudely populist, and not particularly sensible. 

There was a much better solution to this contentious sporting issue borne of improving technology and respect for individuals. World Athletics has squandered that opportunity. Instead of perpetuating the ancient obsession with biological sex, the focus could instead have been put on relevant physical criteria, such as the cited testosterone levels, and allow athletes to compete in categories according to which set of those relevant physical criteria they met, irrespective of genetic sex. How could that be unfair to anyone competing in such a category? This solution to it would have defused the controversy without perpetuating inherited notions that focus on judging women differently to men merely because they are biologically women.

In what other area of human contest is such sex-based discrimination still an accepted norm? Are women managers kept carefully sequestered from male managers, or do both compete in the corporate field on the same set of relevant criteria, with their sex being irrelevant? Are women doctors, and now transgender doctors, kept from competing on equal terms with doctors born male, or are they judged according to their competence as doctors, with sex properly deemed irrelevant?

The sensible resolution to the new biological and social realities made increasingly common is to get over separating humans according to whether they have a Y-chromosome or not and instead judge each individual according to actually relevant criteria. In the case of athletics, those criteria would include things like testosterone level, height, weight, lung capacity, and so on. Why, after all, should weaker women be forced to compete against stronger women merely because they happen to be in the category of biological female?  

When other playing fields are moving past it, why does sport remain determined to discriminate on the basis of sex? Why the refusal to treat individuals impartially according to relevant criteria for ability? 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 26, 2023, under the title "Level the playing field" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2536289/level-the-playing-field

Myanmar viewpoints

re: "Dialogue: A step in the right direction" (BP, Opinion, March 21, 2023) 

Dear editor,

When Kavi Chongkittavorn writes of the conflict resolution regarding "the Myanmar quagmire" itself remaining conflicted that "It's nobody's fault," does that mean he thinks committing a coup against your own people to overthrow your own nation's popular form of democratic government, and to thereby massively regress the economic, social, political and moral well being of the people and their nation is not an act with appalling consequence for which its perpetrators are at fault?

Kavi's piece, however, might leave readers a little perplexed: Was Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), one of those "dialogue partners" present for the "unfiltered exchanges" that most recently confirmed the divisions? More or less perplexing, the author later opines in the same piece that "besides Nay Pyi Taw, other participants understood full well who the main troublemakers were and the sources of all the troubles that preceded the current quagmire." That does sound as though the author might well suspect who is at fault for "the Myanmar quagmire."

Naturally, the State Administrative Council (SAC) likes ASEAN's Five Point Consensus; since it was promulgated in April 2021, they have used it as a convenient tool by which to put off any substantive move to restore the governance of the Myanmar nation, and its natural wealth being plundered, to the Myanmar people. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 24, 2023, under the title "Myanmar viewpoints" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2535069/little-to-smile-about

True colours

re: "No time for cruel jokes" (BP, Edirorial, March 17, 2023) and  "By royal decree" (BP, PostBag, March 15, 2023)

Dear editor,

When Prime Minister gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha and allies insist that they act to protect children from bad influences, they accidentally speak a muddled truth, one that warrants clarification.  The latest telling quotation from the man who publicly exposed his attitude towards the majority of the Thai people and to the rule of law that established the Thai nation's popular form of "a democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State" (Thai Constitution, 2007; Thai Constitution, 2017) when he committed a coup against them is his recent response to a Thai citizen's quest to air her grievances, regarding which recent incident "video clips show at least six officers, men and women, charge and try to silence the 62-year-old woman."

When asked about it, Thailand's prime minister responded with the dismissive: "she breached the law, didn't she?" And therein lies the problem that is at the heart of all that is wrong with PM Prayut and those who think as he does. They refuse to see, or are unable to understand, that the law, their law, is the problem. The law is unjust. Since May 22, 2014, when he overthrew its supreme rule of law along with Thailand's "democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State", Prayut and supporters have weaponized the new law they had made up to serve their agenda, making the law itself a tool that corrupts justice, along with the institutions that serve that law. They then childishly insist (they do love to insist), like a schoolyard bully, that if only those being abused followed to the letter the bullies' laws, they wouldn't have to be punished in accord with those laws. This is the only sense in which authoritarians seek to protect the childish. In any sense of actually caring about Thailand's children and youth, they manifestly intimidate them into silence rather than listen to an alternative, and typically more mature, point of view.

Such authoritarians thereby prove themselves enemies alike not only of justice and democracy, but also of benevolence and righteousness. As Burin Kantabutra recently reminded us, ("By royal decree", PostBag, March 15, 2023), the example of what a genuinely benevolent and righteous person does when confronted by unjust law is that set by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great, who explicitly spoke out against the very law that PM Prayut's administration is using to silence patriotic Thais who peacefully call only for just, democratic principle to be respected. Benevolent and righteous people do not stand silently by, let alone condone it, while unjust law is used to abuse. Such abuse is the bullying of an immature child. Such childishness deserves to be neither protected nor accepted. Those who are in fact benevolent and righteous do not, whether by tacit silence or more culpably, accept such injustice masquerading as law.  

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 19, 2023, under the title "True colours" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2531381/mixed-appeal

Twisted morality

re: "Activists decry Malaysian ban on LGBT books" (BP, February 16, 2023) 

Dear editor,

When Malaysia's Home Ministry bans books that treat same-sex love and gender uncertainty in positive ways on the grounds that "its objective was to 'prevent the spread of elements that are harmful to morality in the community'," it is important to clearly identify exactly what that morality being so protected by bad law is. It is the morality of traditional violence against LGBTQ people. It is the morality of hate and intolerance. It is the morality that condemns 5% of the Malaysian people to fearful hiding of their true selves. It is the morality that pushes parents to reject their LGBTQ children. It is, in short, a morality that rejects love, liberty, respect and decency in favour of hate, oppression, fear and injustice. 

 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 February 18, 2023, under the title "Twisted morality" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2509369/no-shortcuts-in-war

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: "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