OPINION

Grim logic

Re: "Financial injustice" and "What a cop out", (PostBag, Nov 11).

Like many others, it is somewhat difficult to understand the suspended jail sentence given by the Thon Buri Court to a doctor for speeding and drunken driving in his Porsche, causing two deaths and one injury. However, there is a grim logic in the soft sentence. He is a specialist in surgery at the Police Hospital, which is popular with victims of accidents. In incarcerating him for three years, it would deprive society of his life-saving services for that time.

Court judgments are sometimes dependent on the eye of the beholder on whether it is fair, just like beauty. That is why there is a higher court to review such sentencing again.

Rice scheme redux

Re: "Bhumjaithai touts policy 'successes,'" (BP, Nov 7).

Bhumjaithai wants to buy from farmers using futures contracts, with the government being the buying party -- as in Thaksin's infamous rice schemes, riddled through and through with corruption.

Futures contracts are fine. But rather than having the government meddle with free markets by taking title itself, Bhumjaithai should teach farmers how to forecast demand and supply, use futures contracts as an option, diversify into other products and markets, etc. In short, promote market mechanisms -- not subvert them.

Orwell would agree

Re: "Who are the beneficiaries of free speech?" (Opinion, Nov 10).

To further Elon Musk's dedication to free speech, Peter Singer attempts to distinguish between "speech that appeals to reason and evidence" and that which "seeks to vilify others and stir up hatred against them". This is a noble aspiration.

Alas, reason and evidence frequently lead us to conclude that some people truly deserve vilification, such as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose government, as the author points out, "is killing young women who want to be able to show their hair in public".

I share Professor Singer's horror of what is happening to the young women of Iran. But as with all totalitarian states, the Ayatollah's actions are predicated on reasons and evidence.

In free societies, we are, of course, at liberty to vociferously reject such totalitarian views, vilify those who hold them, and, yes, even call them hateful.

This is why free speech is fundamental to open societies. As Orwell expressed it, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the ability to tell people things that they do not want to hear."

Dictatorial disputes

Re: "Anti-hate hating", (PostBag, Nov 10).

It is not clear exactly which of Jason Stanley's "own words" manifest, as Sam Wright alleges, "anti-democratic views [with] dark dictatorial promise". Mr Wright usefully reports the professor's points that fascism is both rotten and that it does tend to be Christian conservatives peddling their fantasies as all-justifying facts, fake claims if ever there were. He also helpfully summarises Prof Stanley's analysis of the threat that Trump poses to US democratic institutions and principles. But there is nothing in all this that is manifestly anti-democratic or fraught with dictatorial promise of the sort that continues, for example, to afflict Thailand, another nation where religion plays a conspicuous role as a pillar loyally propping up glorified tradition opposing democracy that respects human rights.

Mr Wright has more solid grounds for his observation that Prof Stanley fails to also rail against much else that is rotten, such as "left-wing authoritarianism." But since Mr Wright does not trouble himself to indicate what he might, in fact, mean by the undefined term "left-wing authoritarianism", with neither explanation nor a single example being given, we can only speculate as to whether or not Xi and that ilk qualify.

Mr Wright might also have pointed out that Prof Stanley could have broadened his comments beyond Christianity. But wait, what was that we read in Prof Stanley's essay about the political acts of Hindu nationalism in India?

Perhaps a closer reading by Mr Wright would have suggested that Prof Stanley chose to focus on one acute threat to democracy in the West today, not to analyse every political ill, such as seen in the never-democratic likes of Iran, where religion also naturally allies itself to viciously anti-democratic violation of basic human rights, nor was he analysing the decline and fall wrought by "left-wing authoritarianism" of Chinese democracy under Xi's rising Maoification.

Apples to oranges

Re: "Destructive booze", (PostBag, Nov 9).

I read Felix Qui's interesting comments pertaining to my recent letter on cannabis use. While I certainly concede that alcohol is a big driver of social harm, which has gotten much worse in Thailand since the Covid years, when Mr Qui states that alcohol is worse for society than meth, I would reply that very much depends on one's point of view.

Yet, what I found very odd was when the writer attempted to compare the social harm of alcohol to the social harm of eating excess steak. Respectfully, context is important, and my comments pertained to a naked murder rampage. To be blunt, in any such incidents that I've seen, well, I simply am unaware of any mass killings or naked violent rampages which were suspected to involve being greased out on a can of Spam.

I really did appreciate Mr Qui's letter, but in the end, I'm not sure if it's a little too academic, trying to excuse hard drug use, or if it's just comparing apples to oranges.

Covid vs pollution

Re: "Fix PM2.5 at the source", (Editorial, Nov 11) and "Kingdom to order 18m vaccine doses", (BP, Nov 11).

In the past, I did wear 3M face masks when air pollution levels were dangerously high in Chiang Mai. Yet I was about the only person wearing such a mask.

Although air pollution doesn't need a co-factor to cause lung damage and Omicron is usually a wimp even when there is a co-factor, Covid gets far more attention than air pollution. That's because Pfizer hasn't found a way to make 40 billion dollars a year vaccinating people against air pollution. And that's what this nonsense is all about -- in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet.

Our best hope

Re: "Playing with fire in the garden of humanity", (Opinion, Nov 11).

Gwynne Dyer claims, "There's no point in yearning for some universal Gandhi to change the human heart. He doesn't exist, and it's not hearts that need to change. It's our institutions."

Pray tell Mr Dyer, how do institutions change when their members are corrupt? This is an age of universal selfishness and unconscionable greed. It is obvious that unless people change at heart, powerful organisations like the United Nations or the EU will never be made to bend to the service of others.

The World Health Organization and countless other institutions responsible for public health have covered up the now-proven man-made bioweapons origin of the SARS CoV-2 virus, which has killed millions. Through coercion and collusion with governments, media, and big tech, they have enabled the gene-altering inoculation of hundreds of millions of people with an experimental vaccine designed to instruct the human body to produce the extremely toxic Covid spike protein for an unknown period of time, perhaps even a lifetime.

Under the guise of a climate change-based "green agenda", an unknown number of people will needlessly suffer, starve or freeze to death this winter. What's green about that?

Contrary to Mr Dyer's profound ignorance, heart-yearning has a primordial and self-authenticating purpose, and no institution can substitute for the love of even a single human heart. If anyone is interested in learning how to awaken heart-feeling, there are qualified teachers alive today whose sole purpose is to enlighten others. Their teachings are no longer hidden. Thailand is very fortunate to have such people and a culture which supports them. Perhaps Mr Dyer should pay us a visit sometime?

Sense of humour

Re: "Smart move!" (PostBag, Nov 9), "Readers want say", (PostBag, Nov 10), and "Puzzling question", (PostBag, Nov 8).

Regarding today's correspondence about the cartoon page, I agree that you can't please everyone. However, I believe you removed the popular strips and kept the inferior ones. You see, that's the thing about a sense of humour; it's a very subjective thing. So the way to please a larger audience is to restore your original content.

Why cartoons exist

Re: "Papers more than journalism", (PostBag, Nov 6).

Mr Brown afforded us with a rather impressive history of the use of entertainment in newspapers! He convincingly made the case for the inclusion of cartoons and other entertaining things in a medium which has been in existence for hundreds of years. Nonetheless, the point is that cartoons and puzzles exist for our entertainment. They are thus not "real" news items and so should not be commented upon much in a part of the newspaper, the letters to the editor section, where topics of real significance and relevance are discussed.