Thailand Jails Dissident For What People Thought He Would Have Said

patiwat writes "A Thai court has convicted a man for censoring himself. In a 2010 anti-government rally, Yossawarit Chuklom said several people were against the dissolution of Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. He mentioned a few names, and then put his hand over his mouth and said he wasn't brave enough to continue. A court ruled that he would have mentioned King Bhumibol Adulyadej — thus earning him a conviction for insulting the King, who is constitutionally banned from any political role."

Comments

King Bhumibol Adulyade

[MyLongNickName]

King Bhumibol Adulyade enjoys licking my toes.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[drinkypoo]

King Bhumibol Adulyade enjoys licking my toes.

Ha, ha! You got the short end of the deal. You should see what parts of me he licks.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[Vekseid]

King Bhumibol Adulyade enjoys licking my toes.

Ha, ha! You got the short end of the deal. You should see what parts of me he licks.

With a username of 'drinkypoo', I'll pass on that offer, if you don't mind.

Or even if you do.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, original jokes like HURR DURR look at what parts of me he licks!11!

Shoot yourself.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[meerling]

From the reports I've seen over the last 5 years, the King himself neither likes nor supports this law, and has publicly spoken out against it, however the government in charge refuses to do anything about it. (Other than using it as a spike club against people they don't like.)

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[tibit]

Thailand's wealth comes from exports. Without exports, it'd be nothing much. It's not about some bad outside world supposedly trying to change the Thailand's system. It's about your customers telling you to put up or shut up, in a roundabout way. Thailand is free to ignore it at its own peril, pretty much. They are participating in global trade, with it come both benefits and obligations. You're deluded if you think otherwise.

Greece, Italy and Spain were also offering everybody a chance in exactly the same way: offering crazy wages and benefits for little productivity. See where that went? Thailand is going there if a joe random hat seller can make $2k in profits. Unless you're just saying that your GF is in a very lucrative spot and sells high-end goods, which doesn't make her representative of what's going on then, does it? Just like a $100k/year NYC panhandler isn't representative of how most jobless have it.

Never mind the fact that no matter what the King has done, everyone should be free to "shit" on him. It's a basic freedom. You don't need to trade it off for the other greatness bestowed by royalty (supposedly, as you claim). One doesn't preclude the other. There are other relatively successful kingdoms out there where such freedoms exist, duh.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[guises]

What I've read, unreliable speculation, is that the King publicly denounces the law and privately supports it in order to maintain his popularity. He also, reportedly, wields a great deal more influence than he's actually supposed to.

Re:King Bhumibol Adulyade

[Reziac]

Well, yeah... I mean, what if he landed in jail for speaking against himself?

How does cuba have an embargo

[i kan reed]

But Thailand is still where a huge chunk of consumer goods in the U.S. come from? How are the communists so much worse than monarchist totalitarians?

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[TheRealMindChild]

I haven't seen a "Made in Thailand" mark in, it has to be, 15 years. I just looked around at everything in my immediate vicinity, and it is almost all "Made in China", except for this pad of sticky notes that is "Made in USA" and my shoes which are "Made in Philippines"

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[iserlohn]

Hard disks - lots of them come from Thailand. Easier to ensure that sensitive technology is kept in-house and not leaked to up-and-coming competitors.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Coisiche]

Presumably because people are taught from birth that communism is evil but it's okay to invite monarchist totalitarians to the barbeque? And if they're rich and likely to bring plenty booze, so much the better.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[alen]

Florida has lots of ex-cubans who hate castro. florida is a battleground state
if a candidate supports lifting sanctions the ex-cuban population is enough to guarantee the loss of those electoral votes

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[ericloewe]

communism tends to be aggressive towards you.

your average monarchist totalitarian couldn't care less, as long as he lives as king and you don't piss him off.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[nedlohs]

Remember how hard drive prices shot up a while ago? And how there was flooding in Thailand just prior to that happening?

That wasn't just a coincidence.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Those are americans who have seen horrors and can never forgive the communist for what they did.

That. Was. NOT. Communism.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Baloroth]

Presumably because people are taught from birth that communism is evil but it's okay to invite monarchist totalitarians to the barbeque? And if they're rich and likely to bring plenty booze, so much the better.

One of the fundamental principles of communism is that it must spread and take over the entire world. Marx himself said that. Communism inherently cannot co-exist peacefully with non-communist countries, not if they are sticking to their ideology even moderately. That's why people are taught from birth that communism is evil. Because it is.

The relevant quote from the end of the Communist Manifesto (Chapter 4 if you want to find it yourself):

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.

OTOH, most monarchical totalitarians are perfectly willing to let everyone else live in peace so long as their power isn't threatened. Pragmatically speaking, most countries are fine with that so long as they keep their humanitarian fouls to a relative minimum. Other countries only turn their attention towards them when they either a) expand their power by conquering other countries (or threatening to), or b) start murdering lots of people in cold blood. And even those can be ignored if it's politically convenient, since starting war over someone else's problem is... well, frowned upon, at least after the fact, when people notice the bill.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to have to learn to live with the fact that political parties and movements take up names, yet often end up taking positions and performing actions contrary to where their name came from, and they will be remembered for those. It also doesn't help if there is a repeating pattern of movements in a particular name going sour in the end. Regardless, brighter people can keep things separate, that there are many factions and flavors of some movements, and the dumb ones that can't keep things separate aren't going to be fixed by arguing with their labeling or risking going down the route of "no true Scotsman."

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[tqk]

communism tends to be aggressive towards you.

Citation needed. Seriously.

You have got to be kidding. Kulaks, a history of the KGB.

This is not to suggest that (so-called) Capitalism isn't every bit as aggressive, or that monarchies are any better.

Geez man, read a book!

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Cro Magnon]

It's true: King Bhumibol Adulyade caused the flooding.

Well, when you gotta go, you REALLY gotta go!

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[dryeo]

The secret police was a Russian invention predating the communists and still part of their culture.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[causality]

Just like Lenin tried to do. The failure was that Lenin didn't have the support of the people and couldn't install a communism with democratic means.

And, being a True Believer, he didn't let a little implementation detail like that stop him. No, sir!

That's the problem with True Believers. They tend to think that the ends justify the means.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[gsslay]

The USSR was not a communist state. It claimed to be, but plain fact demonstrated it was not. Read a book.

The USSR was a totalitarian state, which fully explains the Kulaks and KGB without any need to implicate communism.

So your conclusions are based on a false premise from the start.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Nethemas the Great]

Because the neo-cons are still pissed about that whole missile deal from back in the beginning of the 1960's. On the other hand, they're rather fond of lady-boys.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[ericloewe]

Considering that communism in practice is restricted to Leninism and below, I'd say it's irrelevant if Marx wanted democracy or not.

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[timeOday]

Communism is an unstable state in nature. It was tried lots of places besides Russia at around the same time - including many religious colonies in the US. None lasted. So the meaningful question is not, "what is a Communist nation like" but rather, "what tends to happen when a nation pursues Communism." (And by the way, the same is true of libertarianism - it is unstable. Unregulated freedom for everybody lasts for about 5 minutes before power consolidates.)

Re:How does cuba have an embargo

[Cruxus]

I'll take a shot at this one. First let's look at a couple of etymologies. For 'corporation', think of 'corpse' or 'body', which is the Latin meaning; for 'capital', think 'head', again from the Latin. Think of then a business in capitalism, or a corporation, as an organic body composed of individuals. Capital is the head, the brains that think, plan, and create. The rest of the body is labor: the arms, legs, and strong trunk that build at the behest of the head that commands.

What happens when the body is flush with arrogance and decides to form unions and starts getting radical ideas: that it does not need its own head, for example? Communism is the body's notion that it can chop off its head and then organize itself into a headless "collective" that can think by combining the cells of its arms and strong torso, yet muscle cells and are not brain cells, so tyranny is inevitable.

Pretty radical view of intent

[DarkOx]

Okay maybe he "thought about it" but clearly did not form the intent to name the rest of those names including the kings because he self censored after all.

It would be kinda like being charged with conspiracy to commit a felony here for talking with some friends about how you go about robbing a bank; in a purely hypothetical manor.

Re:Pretty radical view of intent

[mrsquid0]

I can easily see this sort of thing happening in the US. Imagine a group of olive-skinned young men sitting in a cafeteria talking, in a purely hypothetical manor, about potential local terrorist targets and how they would go about hypothetically attacking them.

Re:Pretty radical view of intent

[mrsquid0]

Hmm... I typoed. Manor should be manner. A hypothetical manor is where I live.

Re:Pretty radical view of intent

[mwvdlee]

That is completely different.

The guy in TFA was sent for a predefined amount of time to a jail within the border of the country that convicted him in a legal trial.

I'm sure none of that would happen to those olive-skinned young men in the US.

Re:Pretty radical view of intent

[Stewie241]

On the other hand but you could approach the argument the other way. Does he actually have to utter the name in order to communicate something. i.e. if I said something like, I have a strong distaste for recent versions of Windows, especially Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and *censored* then it would be pretty clear what the item was that I was referring to.

I'm not saying that I agree with this sort of law, but I think the headline is rather sensationalist. From what I gather, from the perspective of the prosecution, it should be more like 'Thailand Jails Dissident for what the dissident communicated (non-verbally)'.

I suspect most posters will miss the point

[squiggleslash]

The injustice here is that he's being imprisoned for expressing an opinion that involves the King and his role in politics. That's rotten.

I suspect most people here will assume, instead, that the injustice is that he didn't name the King explicitly, but courts tend to make reasonable inferences that people using certain language and gestures intend to communicate a concept even if they don't state it explicitly in ${language}. Just as you couldn't say "One of my co-workers is a pedophile and it's not" ${list of everyone except the person you're refusing to name} without being at serious risk of being sued for libel, likewise it sounds like the dissident made gestures that would only be interpreted in one way by the crowd.

Re:I suspect most posters will miss the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reasoning is wrong.

While it is true that a court can make reasonable inferences, as in your example, that is not what the court did at all. They made a huge jump. While the court claimed to be doing such a reasonable inference, the court was in fact lying through it's fascist, censoring teeth. Only a fool believes the word of a fascist censor.

The question is not what a Thailand, fascist, censoring court would do, but instead what a fair court would do.

The main problem is that the law he is being accused of violating does not say "You can't say the name." If it had, then you and the court would be correct.

No, the law says you can't actually insult or defame the king.

He stopped short of insulting the king. It does not matter that he communicated what he felt about the king, what matters is did he actually insult or defame him.

Yes it was clear he was talking about the king. So what? It is legal to talk about the king. The question is not whether or not he was referring to the king, the question is whether or not he did so in an insulting or defaming manner.

When it comes to insults and defamation, then often it hinges on what the exact words are. When you leave out words, you cease to insult and defame.

If I say "President Bush failed to catch Bin Laden", that is the truth. If I say "President Bush was so incompetent he failed to catch Bin Laden", that is an insult.

If I say "President Bush was so..... he failed to catch Bin Laden", then I have studiously avoided insulting him. Yes, you personally may think I meant to do it, but I refused to actually do it.

The law in question was about insulting and defaming the King. It was not about thinking about insulting or defaming the King. The poor victim thought about insulting and defaming the King, but refused to do so.

As such, he is innocent.

Re:I suspect most posters will miss the point

[SleazyRidr]

Most of us are concerned about both injustices. We've become a bit desensitized to people being beheaded for criticizing the king of Siam. Someone being jailed for /not/ criticizing him is a new development which can both bring up dormant disgust at the previous crimes and fresh disgust at the new crimes.

Re:I suspect most posters will miss the point

[kaatochacha]

Generally I agree, but there's one point that we may not see.
It may be a common way in Thailand to refer to the king by covering your mouth, and this may be a known way of referring to him while not referring to him. Sorta like saying "the F-word" in the US.
I don't know, but if it is,the sentence would make sense

PS: Bush hasn't been President for four years. Either use the current one in your analogy, or choose a doozy, like Millard Fillmore ;)

Re:I suspect most posters will miss the point

[ozydingo]

No, the law says you can't actually insult or defame the king.

He stopped short of insulting the king. It does not matter that he communicated what he felt about the king, what matters is did he actually insult or defame him.

Yes it was clear he was talking about the king.

Here's where you lose me. If it was expressing obvious that he was talking about the king, whether by gesture or even simply highlighted omission, then let's look at why your next premise is or is not true: that it matters exactly what words he said and if he explicitly mentioned the king. Why? I'll grant you that if you try to objectively define the law, then it probably matters. But who says laws have to be enforced or defined objectively? I mean, I personally think they often should for several reasons, notwithstanding the fact that objective definitions usually suck at capturing real-life situation. But who am I to the laws of Thailand?

Obviously to any of us, the laws are screwed up in the first place. But under the screwed-up law, I see no reason an obvious implication, even without direct statement, can't be interpreted legally as communication all the same. I believe this was OP's point.

If I say "President Bush was so [highlighted omission]..... he failed to catch Bin Laden", then I have studiously avoided insulting him.

To me it's pretty obvious what you mean, and thus the insult is complete regardless of the actual words used. Pauses and implication are a part of most languages, and words even including pauses are only one way of communicating. If you want to define insults as strictly of words spoken, then you have not insulted Bush above. But I think that's a pretty useless definition.

Damned

[O('_')O_Bush]

They are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Since they are now a country filled only with criminals, they may as well act like it and make sure all of the government is represented by criminals like themselves.

Of course, I don't have much room to talk... as I live in America, land of the arbitrarily scheduled herbs and weapon restrictions set up to make sure that everyone has bomb making supplies or some other contraband in their homes.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[SJHillman]

Glad to hear you've made the move to using only solid state drives or other non-hard drive storage in everything you buy. I still need a few hard drives until large capacity SSDs are affordable, so I'll have to be giving Thailand some of my business.

But that is quite logical...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the ninth incarnation of Lord Rama, who himself was the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Preserver of the Universe. His Majesty is omniscient and He knows what everyone is thinking. It might look odd to the West with its mechanistic interpretation of the observable universe. But, rest assured, they know what was on his mind and they know what he would have done. The only thing that perplexes the holistic Eastern minded Thai people is, "Why is His Majesty using the mechanistic physical instruments like courts and jail, like the simple minded Westerners, and is not using His omnipotent powers to punish him directly and demonstrate His powers over nature for all to see?"

Re:But that is quite logical...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Look at all the titles and decorations he has. Everything from the Grand Cross to the Order of The Peacock, second class.

Look! even the Collar of the Grand Cross of the Order of a Million Elephants and White Parasol (Kingdom of Laos)

Bhumibol has received numerous royal and state orders appropriate to his status. He is the Grand Master of all twelve Thai royal orders. Foreign decorations Cambodia: Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia, 1954 Burma: The Most Glorious Order of Truth (Thiri Thudhamma Thingaha), 1960 United States: Chief Commander of Legion of Merit, 1960,[101] : Recipient of the Royal Victorian Chain, 1960 Portugal: Grand Sash and Cross of the Three Orders of Christ, Aviz and Saint James of the Sword, 1960 Denmark: Knight with Collar of the Order of the Elephant, 1960 Norway: Grand Cross with Collar of The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, 1960 Sweden: Knight of the Order of the Seraphim, 1960 Germany: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1960 Italy: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, (22 September 1960)[102] Vatican City: Knight of the Collar of the Order of Pius IX, 1960 Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold, 1960 France: Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur, 1960 Luxembourg: Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau, 1960 Netherlands: Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, 1960 Spain Collar of the Order of Civil Merit (Spain) - 1960 Indonesia: Order of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia, 1961 Pakistan: The Order of Pakistan (Nishan-e-Pakistan), 1962 Malaysia: Order of the Crown of the Realm (Darjah Yang Maha Utama Kerabat Diraja Malaysia), 1963 Argentina: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of The Order of the Liberator San Martin, 1963 Japan: Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 1963 Taiwan: Grand Cordon of the Order of Brilliant Jade, 1963 Greece: Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer, 1963 Laos: Collar of the Grand Cross of the Order of a Million Elephants and White Parasol (Kingdom of Laos), 1963 Austria :Great Star of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, 1964[103] Iran: Collar of the Order of Pahlevi (Empire of Iran), 1968 Ethiopia: Knight and Collar of the Order of the Queen of Sheba (Empire of Ethiopia), 1968 Philippines: Order of Sikatuna, 1968 Korea: Grand Order of Mugunghwa, 1981 Nepal: Nepal Pratap Bhaskara, 1986 Spain: Grand Cross Collar of the Order of Charles III, 1987 Brunei: Collar of The Royal Family Order of the Crown of Brunei, 1990 Laos: Phoxay Lane Xang, 1992[104] Spain: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Spain), 2006 Foreign State Decorations : Grand Cross of The Most Most Esteemed Royal Family Order of Selangor (Darjah Kerabat Yang Amat Dihormati Kelas Pertama), 1999 : Grand Cross of The Most Distinguished Royal Family Order of Trengganu (Darjah Kerabat di-Raja Terengganu Yang Amat Mulia), 2009

Re:But that is quite logical...

[rwa2]

Actually, the king of Thailand is just as censored as anyone else. He's not allowed to speak to his people, and is always silent and muted in public and on TV. All the lese majeste laws are created and enforced by parliament. The Thai monarchy is very much a symbolic post... the only political thing the royal family appears to do occasionally is send flowers to their favored candidates, or sometimes the news media picks up on a certain color they're wearing and interprets it to mean that they support this group - which has led to some hilarity as everyone else starts wearing whatever color to associate themselves with whatever support.

The king is just some Harvard-educated jazz musician. He's probably pretty groovy, we'd never know. Some people blame the queen for starting some of the political upheavals, but I'm guessing it's mostly due to misogyny.

Re:But that is quite logical...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody in Thailand believes the King is omniscient. Nor do they believe he is the reincarnation of anybody. They are just really uptight about having him disrespected or made into a political football. Which actually isn't as irrational as it sounds, when you consider that it is about the only way you could possibly cause a civil war in this country.

But while laughing at the stupid "easterners", remember that your President and 80% of your countrymen purport to believe that after death they will be brought back to life by a magical carpenter who was nailed to a tree 2000 years ago, that a 900 year old man fit a breeding pair of every single animal species on a boat he built himself, and that the greatest ethical issue of our time is whether or not the government should issue marriage certificates to two blokes. Significantly stupider convictions than the invented ones the parent post finds so amusing.

Also check out what happened (and how many people died) when the dissidents he was addressing tried to burn down Bangkok shortly after this. Then try and tell me they wouldn't have found something to convict him for in the US too.

Re:But that is quite logical...

[HPHatecraft]

I would mod your comment slightly funny, overwhelmingly ignorant. Good job playing off of broad stereotypes.

Firstly, Adulyadej doesn't enforce these rules. He has publicly stated he that invites criticism.

Disingenuous? Perhaps, but when you take that comment in context -- the fact that he is a figurehead without any actual power, and he has demonstrated a nobles oblige that, I am guessing, few contemporary monarchs have matched-- then I tend to believe he is speaking honestly.

From what I have read about him, he genuinely cares about his people. He has an inquisitive mind, and while I wouldn't call him a polymath, his interests are varied and deep. That mindset doesn't lend itself well to someone who lacks perspective and self-insight -- qualities you typically will not see in a despot.

Reminds me of kids

[Chrisq]

My daughter used to tease my son when they were little calling him "monkey face". One day a monkey came on children's TV and my son turned round and said "mum, dad, can you tell her off ... I know what she's thinking".

Seems some people don't grow up

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[macbeth66]

I haven't. That doesn't mean I can't try. At the least, I can minimize what I do buy that comes from Thailand.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as it doesn't require too much effort, right?

That won't happen in the US

[gmuslera]

But don't try to joke, suggest, or even imply the word "bomb" in an airport or a plane. Even mentioning a related joke on Twitter could give you troubles.

Re:That won't happen in the US

[dkleinsc]

Yeah, you can't joke about a bomb! Well why is it just jokes? What about a riddle? How about a limerick? How about a bomb anecdote? You know, no punchline, just a really cute story. Or suppose you intended to remark, not as a joke, but as an ironic musing. Are they prepared to make that distinction? Why, I think NOT.

-George Carlin

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[JazzLad]

but yet you replied ...

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[ShanghaiBill]

steaming turd if he allows such crap to happen.

He doesn't "allow" it to happen, since he has no role in making or enforcing the laws. In the past, the king has spoken out against political abuse of lese-majesty laws.

One more country I'll never visit. One more country I will avoid when buying things.

I am sure the people persecuting this man will be glad to hear it, since they are part of the opposition to the current government. Your boycott makes as much sense as boycotting the USA because the a court makes a ruling that the Obama administration doesn't like. The government of Thailand is far from monolithic.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[cbhacking]

Thailand is actually a lovely country to visit - great beaches and diving, friendly people (just don't try to hire them to do work for you unless you understand their work ethic and speak their language), incredible culture, and some awesome things to see and do (visit the "tiger temple" where abandoned or orphaned tiger cubs are raised by humans; it's an incredible experience to go up and pet live tigers). There are also some... other... reasons to visit, ranging from "medical tourism" (dental, in particular, is high quality but orders of magnitude cheaper than in the US) to "sex tourism" (exactly what you think it is).

Their politics, on the other hand, are a complete flaming mess. Stay away from them (fortunately, this is easy; I was there for about five weeks and spent almost all of it out of the cities).

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Runaway1956]

I think maybe you're uninformed. The king doesn't "allow" such crap to happen. The kind is obviously a figurehead, and a tool. I've never heard that the king accused anyone of badmouthing him. It's all the nincompoops who run the government doing it. If Kingy-Poo objects, those more powerful members of the government who enjoy using the king as their tool will set him straight.

I'd rather be a dirt-poor nobody, right here in America, than to be in Bhum-boy's position.

(Who thinks that Thailand will try to have me extradited for calling their king a Bhum-boy?)

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, I agree the AC was being a bit of a dick. But the point to which he is reacting emotionally does seem worth exploring.

How far should we, those outraged by this king's treatment of his people, go to do something about it?

If hard disk sales drop 2% due to every existing geek moving to SSDs, will that change the King's mind about anything?

Amazon and Google cannot provide their current level of services at anywhere near the price point that they do if they immediately abandon rotating media, and they dwarf our HD purchases. I am uncomfortably reminded that in the U.S. I'm a citizen, who can bring the fight to the doorstep of big money interests, by voting, buying and referending. On the world stage, I am a peasant who, due to his lack of wealth is no more capable pressuring this king than my centuries back british ancestors were of pressuring theirs.

I don't *like* being reminded of this.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[KingMotley]

You are correct. It isn't the king that is the problem in this case (I'm not sure of any cases actually where the King was the problem). His people love him dearly, much more so than we in the United States care for our current (or any president).

In fact, the King has used what powers he has to pardon those who have been arrested for bad mouthing him. It seems his majesty is actually a quite reasonable person, and I'm sure there was good intentions on the part of the government when they made the law, however, the law enforcement on the other hand....

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a case of culture clash. I spent a year there in 1974 while in the USAF, and literally everything there was completely different than here, including the colors of the sky, dirt, and vegetation, but especially the people. In the US, hookers are laughed at, jailed, scorned. In Thailand they are respected. Flipping someone the bird is meaningless there, but point your foot at someone and you're looking at a fistfight (actually, a foot fight; Thai boxing makes extensive use of feet). I once had a gun stuck in my face for refusing a shot of whiskey; it turned out that refusing a gift is a grave insult. Funnier was the guy was cool after I drank the shot.

And they revere the king. His picture is on every coin and bill, so if you're there do NOT step on money! Stepping on money is incredibly dangerous. Of course, being American I consider the idea of royalty itself to be absurd and wonder why my British cousins need them?

But if you're going to refuse to buy from Thailans because of this, you're pretty much stuck with only buying things from your own country, because every foreign country is going to have something normal to them that is atrocious to you (and vice versa). Like kings, or censorship, or guns, or burqas, or drugs, or drug laws, or something you consider corrupt where they think not having it is corrupt.

If you want a world econiomy, you're going to have to put up with other cultures' things you hate -- like guns, or gun laws, or censorship, or pornography, or royalty, or religion...

(mcgrew here, can't seem to be able to log in on this PC)

Re:Also tuna fish

[lxs]

I know that Thai is a human or a language but not a land.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[JoshuaZ]

Not at all accurate. The King pardons people after they've been in jail (since they generally don't get any bail) for weeks or months, and even after convictions he takes time to pardon them, and then gets to be all generous. The King could if he wanted too, tell people that he doesn't like the law and they should get rid of it. He, and his people are together stamping on others basic ability for the most important forms of free speech- the ability to criticize their government. So fuck him, and fuck the monarchy and fuck their laws. Fuck em.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[TechyImmigrant]

Of course, being American I consider the idea of royalty itself to be absurd and wonder why my British cousins need them?

We don't *need* them. We have them anyway. A bit like a fancy car or an iphone.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[NicBenjamin]

And they revere the king. His picture is on every coin and bill, so if you're there do NOT step on money! Stepping on money is incredibly dangerous. Of course, being American I consider the idea of royalty itself to be absurd and wonder why my British cousins need them?

Clearly you have not been paying attention to the antics in DC. If you're British/Australian/etc. when some idiot decides to bring the entire government to a halt as a negotiating tactic you can close your eyes and pretend Grandma (aka: Her Majesty the Queen) will fix it. She may not (she didn't solve Australia's Constitutional Crisis in 1975), but she could.

Sometimes she even does. Canada's Prorogation Crises was solved largely because she realized that letting the Tories get their way for two months (ie: proroguing Parliament from December 4th to January 26th) would not actually hurt anyone, but agreeing to the Opposition's demands could force a new election a few months after the old. If the Opposition actually had the votes in Parliament to govern the country in early December they'd clearly also have those votes in late January, but it they only had the votes to dump Harper, then Harper would be dumped, nobody would run the country for a few moths while they proved they had no plan (literally nobody -- they hadn't agreed who should be Prime Minister), and then everyone would have to pay for a new election. Which Harper probably would have won because a) in october he'd won, and b) would you vote for those morons?

Granted the person who actually did this crap was the Governor-General, but it was widely reported that Governor-General Jean only did those things after consulting with the Queen; and the Canadians got a whole lot of shit for that. It never seemed to occur to anyone that she's got hundreds of years of experience being Monarch of a Westminster-system Democracy (50 years ad Queen of England, Jamaica, Barbados etc. adds up), which is quite useful when something weird happens.

But if you're going to refuse to buy from Thailans because of this, you're pretty much stuck with only buying things from your own country, because every foreign country is going to have something normal to them that is atrocious to you (and vice versa). Like kings, or censorship, or guns, or burqas, or drugs, or drug laws, or something you consider corrupt where they think not having it is corrupt.

If you want a world econiomy, you're going to have to put up with other cultures' things you hate -- like guns, or gun laws, or censorship, or pornography, or royalty, or religion...

(mcgrew here, can't seem to be able to log in on this PC)

Heck, you're stuck with not buying anything, ever,

I've never met a geek who does not have significant problems with his own government, an obscure plan to fix said problems, and extreme frustration that everyone else is not passionate about replacing first-pass-the-post with proportional representation via the Condorcet method.

Thailand has it's problems. They are definitely way too protective of their King to be a good Democracy. But they don't have a debt ceiling, or a Speaker of the House who thinks he has a mandate to thwart a President who won (by almost 5 million) despite losing the popular vote by more then a million.

I fart in King Bhumibol's general direction

[Stormwatch]

His mother was a binturong and his father smelt of durians.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[happy_place]

Please don't visit Thailand for sex tourism. It only perpetuates the tragedy of human trafficking, many young people are sold and enslaved for a short, disease-ridden, and trashy life, due to the wealth and privilege of those who think they can use people like objects. It is a haunting horrific thing that needs to stop. We humans should treat one another better.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[meerling]

No, he can't. He has to do his own wheedling and backroom dealing to get the right people to back him, since he essentially has no power. I've seen a couple of these things happen a few years ago, and the day & hour he heard about them, he began speaking out against that law and what was being done 'in his name' but against his will.
Even though he has no official political power, he does know people, and the populace love him. That allows him to do things, but only after he's been able to build a sufficient backing so that the ones in control won't just ignore him and sweep it under the rug.
Remember, a king he may be, but it's a title that comes with no power.

Re:Sad state of the Human Race

[Quiet_Desperation]

Wow. My Little Pony fan fiction has gotten way too serious.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Roger W Moore]

We don't *need* them.

Actually I disagree - we do need them for two reasons. First the monarch can break up political log jams by either dissolving or proroging parliament as required. This is a very limited power but used at the right time can keep the system flowing smoothly. Second having a monarch avoids the need for yet another clueless politician who only cares about getting reelected and will likely cost the tax payer far more than the monarch they replace.

While a monarchy may be somewhat old fashioned the only reason to get rid of something old which works is to replace it with something better. Frankly I have yet to see evidence that there is a better system out there. Given that power rests almost entirely with the elected parliaments I fail to see any gain in replacing a hereditary monarchy with, what will effectively be, an elected one.

Re:Bhumibol Adulyadej must be a giant

[Cederic]

We don't need them, but they're good PR and make a profit. It would be daft to get rid really.

Of course, the public pomp and circumstance should be matched by utter irreverance when meeting them in private.

"Hey Liz, stick the kettle on!"