Woman Is Sentenced to 43 Years for Criticizing Thai Monarchy | Hacker News Reader

Woman Is Sentenced to 43 Years for Criticizing Thai Monarchy

nytimes.com

383 pointsmzs259 comments

The way Thai's feel about honor and defamation is a lot more complex and causes friction when the (existing Western) system tries to apply legal rules of how conflict is resolved (and punishment is applied) in an environment where the old values of honor are still valid.

when I still lived in the South of Thailand early 90ies we took people diving from Koh Samui, Koh Phan-gan, Koh Tao. The relationship between Thai's and the law is a strange one. It's almost like there are 2 systems. One for Thais one for "Farang".

A Thai would not dare to speak ill of the monarchs. They leave the room if a "farang" has had one too many and says something critical (they're peace loving but their love of peace might end there). This applies to both the very rich and the very poor.

We hired the captain from another region of the South to transport our divers. He was with the company since the day these islands were still 100% jungle and the place belonged to local fishermen. The reason why he left the region was because he had an argument and killed his neighbor. The deal was that he would not get killed only if he left the region and settled without ever returning to his family - this is considered not just shameful but seen as a huge disadvantage to make a living. They settled it without police, lawyer, bailiff, or judge, all among themselves.

Our other captain (in charge of the boat that left Koh Phangan) was also the right hand man of the most powerful person on the island. That guy was like a major, or village elder because he owned what was then the only "super market" on the island, and lot of the land. Our captain and "right hand man" to this guy was a devout monk (every year for several months left his wife to sweep the floor in silence in the monastery). He was a family man, highly respected within the community, and it was no secret among Thais that he was also heavily armed and had a body count of 12 people in his short life (late 20ies).

While murder is obviously illegal by law in Thailand, it is still used as a way by locals to settle disputes within rural areas of the South. The illegality isn't even considered here since in this case they see it as their moral duty which still trumps whatever some judge/lawyer's definition of justice is who has never before left Krung Thep.

Long story short it's quite complex to transform what is still in ways a tribal society into what we call "law-abiding" citizen. Especially when the law contradicts the values of society. And even more so when the existing police force is just a show for the tourists and to the urban population.

Thank you for this comment. It’s a breath of insight in a sea of predictable (and perhaps justified) outrage.

thank you!

> A Thai would not dare to speak ill of the monarchs

Well obviously at least one would

The current youth generation isn’t adhering to these ideals. I hear a lot of people’s parents tell them not to talk or post about the protests or anything, but they seem more interested in the movement, autonomy, and democracy than worrying about the traditions.

the current youth generation as represented here by a 65 year old civil servant.

Often the intellectual vanguard of youth movements come from older and sometimes isolated pioneers.

FWIW there are parallels to organized crime in what you wrote.

This *is* organized crime, however the author made it a point that these areas are *not* under rule of the law.

Law enforcement is effectively just the use of (threatened or actual) violence in a way that society has agreed is accepted. The police for (and similar entities) in many modern countries are just the group that has a monopoly on that accepted use a violence.

It seems like what's being described _is_ the rule of law for that area, just not the rule of law most people expect.

> It seems like what's being described

yes this was exactly what I wanted to say. the local norms have over time become illegal and many regions still have a combination of both. Say ... if a local person was just arriving on the island, without any reference (would be an odd thing to do but for the sake of argument[1]) this person then (hypothetically) gets robbed at the pier, his next stop isn't the police who might end up beating him or finding ways to extort him, but they would visit whoever ran the village. They would beg for work, and they'll chat about who they might know in common, and find an arrangement (maybe even find the offender and get their stuff back). The police would be the last place they'd go to not only because they're corrupt but because it would potentially make the village elder who is actually in power lose a little face.

[1] it's risky traveling being both without reference AND poor. especially poor folk would do everything in their power to arrange with people at their destination about their visit. so a job seeker turning up at the police saying they've been robbed would raise a lot of questions. (the person might be a good shoe-in for case they have open since a while and are still looking for a suspect).

Writing from the US: parallels to organized crime abounds in law enforcement here as well. Look what happened to Adrian Schoolcraft [1]

> After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was repeatedly harassed by members of the NYPD and reassigned to a desk job. After he left work early one day, an ESU unit illegally entered his apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days.

The issue is that people here assume things like this are exceptional rather than systemic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

obviously so. the Italian mafia is said to exist because the local (legal) system of distributing punishment was ineffective/unfair. modern what we call "democratic systems" will paint a different story - they will tell you these people were unable to live in peace until they came along.

it's where the parallel ends though. my comment certainly was _not_ an endorsement or fetishization of crime, just an observation from my own experience living there. the alternative view point which is to call everyone who hasn't been integrated into a "civilized system" a crook (or backwards) is too imperialistic for my taste, especially since Thailand is also the home of many hill-tribes who have a natural difficult relationship with empire-building city folk.

Shqiperia (Albania) is run by the Besa code. It is still feudal today since neither the Italians, Communists, or Ottomans have been able to rule the country. The Besa code was able to hide the Jews from the Nazis when every other european country would turn them in. Today, the Besa code allows Shqiperia to serve as Europe's leading marijuana supplier. 75% of the population is agrarian based, children learn organic farm work ethic, and the family still reigns

not sure why you're being downvoted, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besa_(Albanian_culture)

The cannabis produced there ends up mostly in the EU (via Montenegro by ship to Italy or the land route via Croatia). EU countries simply pay more for weed then potatoes so it's the market working as expected IMO (but sadly also as intended). The way to address this is to legalize it like Portugal which curbed addiction rates and freed up the legal system with more important work.

The interaction between organized crime and formal law, nation to nation, is absolutely fascinating. The more I learn about it, the more fascinating it gets.

I'm adding this story to what I've learned about the history of the yakuza in Japan and the various US mafia, gangs, and crime families.

When reading through the Old Testament I came across something I hadn’t seen before, the Avenger of Blood. Essentially, a family member of a person who was murdered had every right to seek out the killer themselves. There were even rules around it.

If you watch the old Disney 3 Musketeers movie, that’s essentially what the man pursuing Countess de Winter for killing his brother is doing.

Just the first historical parallel that came to mind on reading this. Similar figures in a family were also responsible for helping other family members who couldn’t find work, gotten sick, etc.

The family unit structure historically accounts for a lot.

> The family unit structure historically accounts for a lot.

indeed it is interesting how when we compare "Western" society with more tribal norms, how much the individual in the West expects the system to do the things for them where previously family was in charge of. Taking French or German late night news I don't recall once that the word "clan" ever used in a positive way. It is always about criminal associations (often about Balkan families) where the attachment of individuals is still stronger within than (the trust) in the state. People are absolutely terrified by the idea of others belonging to a family that knows it's roots since 300+ years with an also non-local footprint and reach. Also a clan is usually always a foreign group.

In the USA, there are "political families" or "presidential families" who serve as pseudo-patrician organizations [0][1]. Western individualism is often performative, not structural.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:United_States_preside...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_family

This is (crudely speaking) because the Catholic church stamped out such things in the core of Europe 1000 years ago. (Or perhaps that sentence should be the other way around.) Many edges of Europe skipped this process -- Sicily (under the Sacreans?), the Balkans (Byzantine & then Ottoman), the Gaelic fringe (local kings), etc.

> People are absolutely terrified by the idea of others belonging to a family that knows it's roots since 300+ years with an also non-local footprint and reach.

And, you know, organized crime.

yes a a crime family will need to display very similar behavior as a clan in order to protect itself. And some clans certainly are criminal.

While a large criminal syndicate would be a combination of families (that act like a clan), a clan by itself does not need to be part of a criminal syndicate. Also if a person from a clan robs a bank then this doesn't mean the clan is the cause (or the problem). Especially not when the group consists of a 600 or 1000 individuals who are part of that tribe. (whats your chances of bad apples over several extended family trees in the UK/US/France with such a size).

My point specifically is that the media will 100% of the time criminalize the word clan and by extension anyone who is born into it.

There is distaste for clan-like behaviour even when no crimes are committed. For example, most westerners would not like to work in an organisation where your family connection to important people is valued over your work. Few would accept their choice of spouse being greatly constrained by what their grandfather thought was good for his little empire.

yes indeed, ... no doubt for some tribes a total contradiction (if not an adversarial intent) what Western cultures consider their right. If a group is so socially different also smaller chance they see a host country as their final destination (at least not those in power). Then an appeal to "integrate themselves" is a harder sell since the speaker has not only no authority in their eyes but what is proposed means cultural genocide in their eyes. Pretty hard place to build trust from here (maybe over generations but not years imo).

unrelated: I do not want to give the impression that I am defending behavior which belongs to the stone age within our own societies. What might come across as too vague (or apologetic - though hopefully not), IMO the process is always violent for those who are on the receiving end of the more dominant system that incorporates them. Our own imperialist crimes in not too distant history (and still ongoing ones) indicate there is a lot of housekeeping still needed before we let the word clan get hi-jacked by our own (and perhaps unconscious) racial biases :)

I find it curious and vaguely racist that the word 'clan' is almost exclusively used in reference to immigrant and poc families and with an allusion to inherent criminality. This despite the fact that many Western countries have a handful of large, old families which own an inadequate proportion of the companies, resources, have outsized political influence and so on, and those families are almost exclusively in many generations from the country in question. They are as clan-ish as a 'clan' gets, but since they do not match the 'criminal immigrant' stereotype, nobody ever calls them a 'clan'. It irks me.

Are you sure about that? Members of rich families in the US are routinely called as part of a clan - Roosevelt clan or Vanderbilt clan. Or they're collectively called something like Boston Brahmans.

It's less used in Europe, but they are still referred to as aristocratic clans.

To me the connotation has always been something like Hatfields and McCoys, not exactly positive, but not linked to race.

Brahmans isn't related to race either. It's just an alliteration. You're right that they are mostly referred to in the plural form (eg: The Roosevelts bought out....) but the clan usage is fairly common too (eg: he's a member of the Roosevelt clan/dynasty).

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

You have an over-developed sense of vengeance. It's going to get you into trouble someday.

Beat me to it

Isn't this just eye-for-an-eye, the oldest and most reliable type of justice that has ever existed? (reliable in the sense that it functions even in situations with low practical governance like a remote village or an understaffed nation / area).

Sort of but there were also 6 cities of refuge where the accused could flee for safety. If I remember correctly, there may have been a period of years after which they could no longer be pursued? It’s been a while since I read about it though.

Whenever the high priest died, all such people accused of manslaughter were made innocent and could leave the cities of refuge again.

Yes, and it's a shame such justice isn't applied in the US like drug possession laws, where the punishment far exceeds the crime.

Isn't Thailand one of the places where you get either 50 years or life for bringing tiny amounts of marijuana across the border?

I don't know anything about Thailand. I'm only commenting on the US.

The Bible is also rife with passages that talk about justice for the fatherless, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. These are categories of people that by and large have no access to the same channels of justice that strong, large family units had. So the community- especially those in power and able to do something about it- were called to step up and fill in that void.

I'm not in favour of revenge. But I find it irritating how rarely people resort to it. For example if I was a father and somebody killed and raped my daughter. I'd like to think of myself as someone who'll kill that person if he receives anything less than a life sentence - or maybe even anyway. I'd be aware that this is a crime and I'll have to serve a prison sentence for it myself - I'd even see the point of it - a society cannot tolerate revenge. But I'd non the less feel morally obligated to do it. The only possible good reason not to resort to revenge would be if there is a possibilty of being wrong about the identity of the culprit.

That this doesn't happen more often just shows to me that most wo:men are cowards. Not just that - our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness. But this is true in a more general sense and not restricted to revenge of course. This can be observed on a daily basis at work, at school, pretty much anywhere.

---

Of course, I get downvoted - but how do you argue against my point?

What good would come of such revenge?

Edit: to expand, if (god forbid) someone did that to my daughter, my instinct would not be to kill them, it would be to find them, talk them, to understand why they did it. And to try somehow to make them truly understand the consequences of what they had done. I don't feel like killing them would achieve any of that.

Thanks for your response instead of just downvoting.

> What good would come of such revenge?

One bad person less. And, yes, I'd feel a bit better. Not much maybe. I might even question it in the long run. But think about the alternative. In Germany it is not at all unheard of that murderers (who murdered for sexual desire or greed) get less than ten years of sentencing and are on day parole after a couple of years. How would you feel about that? What "good" comes from that? Do you maybe even wish that person a happy life?

> to expand, if (god forbid) someone did that to my daughter, my instinct would not be to kill them, it would be to find them, talk them, to understand why they did it.

You want to ask the guy "Why did you rape and kill my daughter?"? Are you kidding yourself? What would you expect for an answer? Also in this hypothetical situation you'd have to use force to even ask that question. You think you'd get an honest answer? "Sorry, didn't know it's your daughter." "I was just so horny - didn't know what else to do." What would you expect for an answer that even has the slightes potential of being meaningful to your pain?

> to make them truly understand the consequences of what they had done.

People who rape and kill don't tend to be the "understanding" type ... just think about how f'ed up someone has to be to do that.

> I don't feel like killing them would achieve any of that.

How about asking questions, then torturing, then killing. You'd get the cake and eat it, too.

> One bad person less.

Reform is better than revenge. Not only would society lose a bad person, we'd gain a good one.

> How about asking questions, then torturing, then killing. You'd get the cake and eat it, too.

This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn.

“Reform is better than revenge” Cite your sources where a rapist and murderer is a benefit to society after reform.

“This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn” How is the murder and rape of an innocent comparable to the punishment of a murderer and rapist?

How do you measure reform? Are their limits to what should be reformed? Do the risks of relapse ever outweigh the benefit of reform? An example to consider are the France Shooters or the Boston Marathon Bomber.

I explained my logic in the previous comment and don't feel the need to go into further detail. Demanding sources isn't really a logical argument, anyway.

IMO the limits lie where someone isn't interested or can't be reformed. If I could turn the Boston Marathon Bombers into adovcates against extremism I would. And if successful they'd likely be very good at it because they'd understand the motives of other extremists better.

It doesn't work with everyone (that's why we have prisons), but AFAIK it's not that uncommon for people to tunr their lives aeound in this way. Most criminals are not inherently sadistic: they do care about other people. Their upbringing and circumstances just lead them to a bad place and they ended up taking that out on someone else.

That doesn't mean they aren't repsonsible for their actions or that they shouldn't be punished, but it doesn mean that they can often be rehabilitated with the right support. And that's generally a win-win scenario where it is possible.

>This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn.

But they can reform.

Per capita both rapes and murders happen in the USA at around 10x the rate that the respective crimes happen in Germany.

Rather than give lectures about how stupid the German approach is, you should probably be asking questions about why their approach is working better in practice. If you're looking for the time to do so, I'd suggest reallocating the time you're currently spending imagining the pleasure of torturing an imaginary criminal in the aftermath of an imagined crime that hasn't actually happened.

For the full book length explanation of why your attitude is bad for everyone, read Enlightenment Now.

The short version is that in a society where justice relies on the strength of the individual, there is more conflict, more injury, and more murder. In areas of the USA with more of an honor culture, the murder rate is 10x what it is in areas without one.

The problem is that in an honor culture, people have a need to demonstrate how capable they are so that they will not be considered potential targets. This demonstration takes the form of proving that you will be willing to seek to right any perceived injustice, and are capable of doing so. But these demonstrations tend to involve violence, and lead to conflict. Up to and including murder.

In a law and order society, by contrast, people's safety is based on the continuation of law and order. Which means that justice is available to all, regardless of strength.

Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture.

I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me.

Prison is often described as an honor society. So it seems like those that won't tolerate a law and order society and commit violent crimes are placed involuntarily into prison (an honor society).

Your comment is of course facetious. Nonetheless I'd like to express that most interpretations of honor are of the perverted kind. This is especially true for professional criminals.

what's facetious about it?

> Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture.

I've heard of guns described as 'the great equalizer'. An NFL linebacker, average man, and an average woman would each have an approximately equal ability to obtain 'justice'.

> I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me.

As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent.

There is no need to theorize. You can just look at statistics. According to Wikipedia, the rape rate in Germany is estimated at 9 per 100,000. (Men and women.) The rape rate in the USA is estimated at 2.1 per thousand women per year. Rapes happen per capita at 10x the rate in the USA as in Germany.

Theories about deterrence notwithstanding, Germany is actually working out better than the USA. This is typical of other statistics that I've seen. Being in a society that has internalized law and order is safer. By about a factor of 10.

(Side note. The internalized US belief in deterrence is why we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. And yet we also have higher rates of violent crime than any other developed nation. Deterrence may sound good, but it doesn't seem to work out very well in practice.)

I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police for law enforcement is a descriptor of both the US and Germany.

It's a cool statistic, but it only says that whatever the US is doing must be worse than whatever Germany is doing. You would also have to say that the two countries are sufficiently representative of law and order vs. extrajudicial, which I don't think is true.

The fact that both countries have police and courts does not mean that their attitudes about the use of violence in self-defense is at all comparable.

As an example, over 40% of Americans have a gun in the house, and the most common reason given is self-defense. We literally have more civilian owned guns than civilians.

Meanwhile in Germany it is estimated there are 5x as many people as civilian owned guns, and over 60% of the population wishes to increase restrictions on gun ownership. The idea that you should want to own a gun to defend your home or person is nowhere in the national discourse.

When it comes to rape and violent crimes, Germany is more of the rule than the exception. Europe is generally at similar rates to Germany. The USA is an outlier. Within the USA, areas with more of a historical honor culture (for example the South), have higher murder rates than areas without (like New England). Internationally, all countries with murder rates above the USA's also have a belief that it is your individual responsibility to defend yourself.

For a source of all of this, and more, read Enlightenment Now. Seriously. There is a very strong correlation, which is likely causative, behind violent crime rates and a belief that you are responsible for protecting yourself and your loved ones from a violent world.

The stats are nice, but as I said before, you have to tie them much more closely to the actual theories being discussed.

You're trying to equate 'extrajudicial death penalties' (and in context, they were revenge-based, not defensive) with gun ownership and self-defense.

You're then equating 'Germans don't really think about using guns for self-defense' with 'a law and order society'.

And then you're trying to say that we can make informed comments about "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" by looking at "more gun ownership in the US vs. less gun ownership in Germany". It just doesn't compute.

The comparison isn't there. The stats don't fit the argument.

Why don't you read the book-length version?

You're right that I'm stating things that are correlated without showing a good argument for causation. But the book that I keep recommending, which (incidentally) is on record as Bill Gates' favorite book, shows multiple lines of evidence including lines that indicate causation.

But if you don't want to be convinced, I won't bother trying to convince you. Because any one line of evidence is easily dismissed and life is too short for me to pursue this topic in full depth.

Life is too short to read every book someone recommends to me. If you want to prove your point, go ahead and prove it. But shunting the work of making your point off to me, by telling me to go read an entire book just to be convinced by you, isn't super persuasive. I already know what I think - you want to change my mind, then change my mind. I'm listening, but I'm not credulous.

So far, my original interest in the book from your earlier mention has been reduced by your less-than-stellar use of statistics in making your point. If that's all the book offers, my time is better spent elsewhere.

If that was all that the book offered, then it wouldn't be Bill Gates' favorite book. You can read https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now for his description of what is good about the book.

As for this topic, let me add some more. In interviews with convicted murderers, the most common reason for murder is that they felt wronged and that there was no other form of justice available to them. This is direct evidence that a desire for extrajudicial justice is the top cause of murder.

Murder is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated in places and communities where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system. In the USA that means concentrated in minorities, inner cities, and rural areas. Unsurprisingly, murders are concentrated in the same groups.

This suggests that improving trust in the police should reduce crime. In fact that is the idea behind community policing, and there is evidence suggesting that it really works.

Let's focus on minorities for a second.

From https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-w... you can verify that over 80% of blacks believe that the police system is unfair to them. Over 60% of whites agree with that assessment. We had a bunch of protests last year over this issue.

Independent research has verified that the blacks are basically correct. This has lead to consequences including many successful lawsuits that put various police departments under outside control for particularly egregious behavior.

We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites. And indeed, US blacks commit murder at about 6x the rate that US whites do.

Let's contrast to Germany. Germany does not have a large disenfranchised minority equivalent to US blacks. In fact you can see in https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_topl... that an absolute majority of every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system. Which means that the top reason given by murderers for murder is much less likely to happen in Germany.

So you see, it isn't as simple as saying that both the USA and Germany are law and order systems. A significant minority of Americans believe that they don't have access to law and order. And that portion commits most of our murders. Therefore while we have a justice system and it works pretty well for you and me, inequitable access to justice is still a problem in the USA.

> Bill Gates' favorite book

I'm not that interested in what Gates thinks a good book is. Being famous/successful/rich/humanitarian isn't super relevant to being able to identify a good book.

> interviews with convicted murderers

Accumulation of anecdotes != non-anecdotal evidence. It's interesting, but just anecdotal.

> where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system

A statement that is very hard to prove. I don't think you did, and I'm not sure if it's really possible given the general replication crisis within psychology.

> improving trust in the police should reduce crime

I think your evidence is once again insufficient to make the point, but I will agree that the conclusion seems more-or-less valid.

> We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites.

You don't have to predict that, because it's already well-known. As such, a) you made a trivial prediction, b) you have to show a causal link, c) you have to show that your posited cause is in fact the dominant cause of the effect you're looking at, and d) you have to demonstrate the direction of the causality. You haven't done b, c or d. IIRC, there are a lot of persuasive alternative explanations for the difference in the black/white murder ratio, all of which would have to be addressed. Since I think this explanation of that ratio is much less persuasive than other potential causes, I don't think this point is tenable.

> every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system

That's a really good bit of evidence, and interesting to think about. I will agree with you that as far as "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" goes, Germany seems decently representative of the latter. However, as I mentioned above, the US side of the comparison is far less apparent: the critical piece of the logic puzzle doesn't work.

After my first reading of your comment, I didn't really expect to find holes in most of the points you made, when I made my response. Thought I'd be agreeing with you more. But here we are. It was definitely interesting. Thanks.

When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided.

However some of the successes of community policing (particularly when you have neighboring cities, one of which adopts it and another of which doesn't) do suggest a causal link with causality going the right way. Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.

> When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided.

Yeah, though that just means it's harder to actually find out what's true. That's why the replication crisis in psychological sciences is a crisis. We can't treat gaps in our knowledge like supporting evidence.

> Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.

That sounds great, and does seem like you're right about that specific item.

You are responding to an imaginary comment - not to mine. I don't argue with "honor" for example. I'm also not arguing that we should establish a society based on strength ...

> [some dumb thing about women for some reason, and also] our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness

is definitely arguing for some kind of honor or strength system.

A Utilitarian would argue against your point by pointing out that the utility created by the revenge murder is less than the utility created by not doing so. With the revenge murder you add another corpse to the pile and probably end up removing yourself from the utility pool. Without it, perhaps the rapist-murderer adds something of value to the world before their death, and you don't remove yourself from the utility pool.

Utilitarianism is simplistic, but then again, so is "I'd feel morally obligated to do it, and I'd be a coward if I did otherwise." Point being, this is not a hard point to argue against, using almost any philosophical framework created in the last couple thousand years.

From this I would conclude that it is utilitarian-bad to revenge, but utilitarian good to murder

Huh? Revenge murder would have the same net utility as regular murder.

My stance is based on a society which isn't able to protect its citizens. Why would I care about utility for this society with respect to the described scenario?

You murder this rapist/murderer, and now you're in prison, and for what? Because you were mad, because you feel you'd lose face if you don't? Who benefits from this macho bullshit? The rapist is dead, your daughter is dead, and now your life is over. You've basically amplified the rapist's impact on your life- in a very real way, you let the rapist control you and ruin your life even more than it was when your daughter was murdered. What's so brave and manly about that?

I did not downvote you. But you haven't actually argued the point, you just said that you find it irritating. Why? What benefit do you envision revenge would provide you or society?

> For example if I was a father and somebody killed and raped my daughter. I'd like to think of myself as someone who'll kill that person if he receives anything less than a life sentence

And then some relative of that person would kill you, and some your relative would kill your killler and so on. Hopefully, after several generations and few tens of dead such cycle of vendetta would end.

It's also worth noting that the rules included protection for the murderer: in fact, that's where the term 'sanctuary city' came from, I think. If the murderer made it to a predefined sanctuary city, the "Avenger of Blood" wasn't allowed to touch them.

Yep. "City of Refuge"

I read your response aloud to my partner who was born and raised in Thailand. She agrees with what you've said. Communities often prefer to settle disputes amongst themselves. She also noted that, unfortunately rich people get away with injustice. If a rich person has done something wrong to poor person, the family feels like they have no choice but to accept monetary compensation instead of seeking justice by law. They feel like they are better off taking a settlement. And even in the pursuit of justice, bribery is so common that things will often get brushed under the rug.

thanks, I am horrified by what happened especially in the Vorayuth Yoovidhaya case. But I wasn't shocked, because as your fiance might know is just the tip of the iceberg. If we look at what shameful things our people in power get away with in the West, it's not hard to imagine what the situation looks like in a developing systems/states. If you look at what happened in some of the elections around the world and the dismantling of institutions for profit by kleptocrats and rent-seeking billionaires, it seems these days Western nations are often on par with some developing countries.

Also I don't want to paint the past better than the present by insinuating our Western way of punishing crime is "correct" while their traditional way was in any form more "pure" and better fitting for them. Foucault does a good job on how we came to our system in the West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

But also I'm not a missionary who wants to go to visit the Jawari to "bring them god".

Unfortunately I don't have an answer because if you drill down to the roots of power then it's all violent no matter how well dressed up it is with language. And "justice" is an incredibly slippery and ambiguous word meaning 5 different things to 2 people.

For Thailand what I see as a bigger problem than the monarchy is the military. It doesn't matter what case people "legally" have against an army general (and by extension any professional soldier in Thailand). They're normally off-limit to law enforcement and cases usually don't become public. They're also the gatekeepers to big business. Both things are problematic. I think trying to navigate and make sense of power there is not difficult as long as people keep in mind the history of its stakeholders.

I'm optimistic seeing how younger generations understand and question these power structures (better informed because of the Internet). I'm worried about violence and revolution since anyone can do a coup but the question is what will they do the next day. In the end any type of system will never just pack up and agree that it's time to make room for a replacement. (or it takes generations not years) New ideas on top of the toxic base we know well enough from Tech, but replacing a base is a trade off so hard it's ofc always a crime within the existing structure.

I'm a westerner currently in SE Asia, and what I recognise from your comment is that what causes these kinds of conflicts is the culture of face-saving. Saving face is deeply embedded in Asian culture. Most of the locals down here where I am are very careful to avoid confrontation or criticism of anything or anybody because in a culture like this it can lead to losing face and then the next step is generational conflict, banishment, and sometimes even murder. People often want to avoid going to the police to settle disputes because the cops are just as corrupt as the local government, and graft and bribery are endemic.

> unfortunately rich people get away with injustice. If a rich person has done something wrong to poor person, the family feels like they have no choice but to accept monetary compensation instead of seeking justice by law.

This cuts both ways. There’s now an expectation from a lot of predominantly poor Thai’s that if they are involved in a traffic incident with a larger vehicle, the driver of the other vehicle owes them compensation, regardless of fault or circumstance.

This is not an urban legend, or rare occurrence. I’ve experienced it personally. When you add in the corrupt police, who upon learning the car is insured, try to pressure the driver to just admit fault because they want a cut of the compensation money, you end up in a weird scenario where you have more trust in the fucking insurance rep than the police.

I still don’t know what’s more shocking: the outright lies from the police, or the sister of the guy on the motorcycle complaining - in a hospital hallway - that they “won’t get any money till he dies”.

I’m sure rich assholes get away with plenty here, but poor assholes try to milk the system and Thai culture just as much.

Edit: brain fart, reference was to his sister not her brother.

This comment, and your many replies to the other comments below, are wonderfully insightful; thank you for sharing.

I'm actually in the middle of reading the Nebula-winning novel The Windup Girl, which takes place in 2200s Thailand, and the insights you've provided add great context to what I'm reading.

Thanks for sharing!

thank you for the kind words it makes me very happy if these old stories are useful to somebody in 2021.

many thanks for the book tip, it looks like a fascinating read, and I will certainly devour it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl

> the old values of honor are still valid.

Putting someone who is 60 year old in jail for 43 years for simply sharing a video is not "honorable" to the slightest degree. In fact, this barbaric and cowardly action shows a complete lack of honor on the part of the royal family. It shows weakness; it shows moral evil; it shows corruption.

I would add that the King fled Thailand because of COVID-19, and "rules" from Bavaria, so he's also a coward who abandoned his country in their hour of need.

Generally, the term "values" usually means a justification for the purest and rankest evil, so I'm not surprised.

> A Thai would not dare to speak ill of the monarchs. They leave the room if a "farang" has had one too many and says something critical (they're peace loving but their love of peace might end there). This applies to both the very rich and the very poor.

I can tell you with confidence that is not the case nowadays, certainly not where I am.

In Poland, we still have a blasphemy law. A newspaper along the lines of Charlie Hebdo had its owner dragged over courts for over 8 YEARS. The offense was illustrating an article about emptying churches with a surprised Jesus in a road sign. The newspaper routinely posts much more offensive content: cartoon dicks, cartoon sex, caricatures of pope, Jews, politicians (some dick-headed or engaged in homosexual sex), national flags in dog shit... But it was ostensibly a surprised Jesus that crossed the line.

Since the current government entrenched itself, police is investigating things like suspicious duck-shaped snowmen next to statues (related to last name Kaczyński). The party leader that had 80 police squad cars guarding his villa.

One of worst parts of thin skinned politicians is fabricating excuses to harass people they don't like.

There are literally words you can say in so called 'Western Liberal' countries that can get you arrested or charged with hate speech.

Those are our version of 'Blasphemy' laws.

It's basically very disrespectful what Charlie Hebdo does, but shouldn't be illegal, and I guess, there should be 'someone somewhere' who is pushing the boundaries. Similarly, there are a lot of very rude things you can say to people, but none of it should be illegal, and frankly I don't care if there's a website somewhere that people say nasty things. So long as none of it gets out of hand.

While the top commenters bit about Thai, local law and 'face saving' is fine, it's also obviously unjust. Justice takes many forms but there is some degree of universality to it.

> Those are our version of 'Blasphemy' laws.

There's a difference in a racial epithet, which is aimed at a person in hostility, and a religious mockery, which is aimed at something people believe in - not people directly. Attacking a person vs attacking something someone believes in.

Saying "Christians are stupid" is different than saying "Christ is stupid".

We should all be able to tolerate having our ideals and beliefs criticized and mocked. But we should stand up for anyone of a race or group being attacked or marginalized. Black, white, gay, straight, religious, atheist, educated or not, whatever.

A belief doesn't have feelings and doesn't feel pain. People do.

> can get you arrested or charged with hate speech.

Maybe in some democracies, but in America we allow it. Free speech is one of the core foundations of our democracy. If you want to put your foot in your mouth and say something stupid or hateful, be my guest. I'll even defend your right to do it. But it doesn't free you from being judged by your peers.

Pretty sure free speech is gone from "liberal democracies" now that the left has decided that Twitter and Facebook should be arbiters of what speech is allowed.

I'm confused, are you arguing that if I host a popular website, the government should be able to compel to promote ideas I disagree with? How is that not worse than the current situation?

Exactly, just like the telephone company. Or that lady who didn’t want to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

Ok let’s practice. I’m the government. I order you to post the following “I don’t think the government should be able to order Twitter not to delete tweets”

If you don’t want to post that, why should Twitter be forced to do so?

And what would the right do? Pass legislation to force these corporations to host unprofitable content on their website?

Here I thought it was the right-wing/conservative/republicans that were in favor of private enterprise, free association, no government intereference, etc. Which is exactly what happened here.

Must only be for bakeries and gay wedding cakes.

If the lady has to bake the cake, the cloud provider has to host the content hahaha

Holy shit, I'm a liberal and I'm being downvoted to hell anytime I bring up free speech.

Any time I point out fascist China.

Any time I say tech giants like Apple have reduced our ability to freely compute on our own hardware. Or create software without bowing to a cartel. Or that Google has destroyed the free and open web with its URL-destroying, AMP-chugging browser.

If we don't protect our speech and our technology, we'll have nothing left to protect us when the monsters come.

Imagine if freedom of speech was taken away and leveraged against you. Imagine not being able to speak out against religion or members of the ruling class. Or finding yourself on the other side of the tyranny of the majority.

What happens when the next great issue is, say, transhumanism or human cloning and you have no right to talk about it?

I'm a liberal. I voted for Biden, Warnock, and Ossoff.

Why are there so many fascists in my party?

> Why are there so many fascists in my party?

Maybe because you have no idea what "Fascism" means?

Fascism does not mean "Someone told me what to do."

> "the left" blah blah blah

Happy inauguration day! So glad to see the back of Trump. Now he goes to jail and dies there! Aren't you glad.

Also: are you both right-wing and advocating for government control of what private corporations can publish? Can you justify that?

There's a fundamental difference between blasphemy - which by definition doesn't attack anyone, and the right to which is one of the cornerstones of our civilisation, being a part of religious freedom - and hate speech.

In Poland it's not literally called blasphemy, but "offense against religious feelings". So it's framed as if someone was hurt. There are no equivalent laws for other kinds of feelings, like atheistic feelings, romantic feelings, vi vs emacs feelings, or even patriotic feelings. I think disrespecting the flag and national symbols is illegal. But it is essentially a blasphemy law.

This caricature pokes fun at it:

https://memnews.pl/images/0/0/0/6/7/6/7/1/2levbnjk.png

"Doctor, will my husband come out of it?" "Hard to say. Religious feeling damage is very deep."

"blasphemy - which by definition doesn't attack anyone"

There is a difference of course, but religious affiliation is absolutely a 'protected category' in most places and it's a very nuanced thing to say 'attacking a faith' is not attacking a culture or group.

Most people in the world identify more with their faith as much as they do nationality, or skin colour.

"Here's my funny, irreverent comment about X Religion"

"Here's my funny movie questioning X Religion"

"Here's me in a costume of X Religious Figure"

"X Religious Figure is a cockroach"

"People who follow Religious X Figure are cockroaches"

"These Specific Religious Folks are cockroaches"

"This Specific Religious Building is full of cockroaches"

"There's no evidence This Specific Religious group was massacred"

I'm going to bet some of those things are possibly a little 'blasphemous' but really benign, whereas others are 'blasphemous' to the point of straight up, 'hate speech' by legal definition.

It get complicated quickly, it's not all just benign.

In India, Myanmar etc. this seems to be quite evidently a problem, especially on Facebook.

It’s true that blasphemy can sometimes turn into hate speech. But when it happens, then it’s wrong because it’s hate speech, not because it’s blasphemy.

It’s also worth noting that in many, or perhaps most, cases of blasphemy the root of the problem is preventing someone from harassing others in the name of their religion. Good example is Poland, where people are being sued for protesting against Catholic discrimination of minorities.

> There are literally words you can say in so called 'Western Liberal' countries that can get you arrested or charged with hate speech.

And a good thing too.

> Those are our version of 'Blasphemy' laws.

Not at all. For example in Germany, you can't be a Nazi or show Nazi symbols. Why? Because Nazis murdered millions of people in death camps, not because "Blasphemy".

Hate speech, death threats: these are illegal in civilized countries because these things have been tremendously destructive to society in the past.

America's First Amendment prioritizes paid lies casually invented and spread by anonymous billionaires over hard-won truths spoken by individuals. It doesn't seem to be working out so well.

Imagine living in a country where this is your king: https://www.dw.com/en/thailands-king-living-in-luxury-quaran...

Siphoning off your tax money AND you're not allowed to say anything about it. Ridiculous.

And saying something against the king may end up to jail for 14 years. Ridiculous. And even companies like facebook are helping them to identify the person who spoke against them.

Well, companies have to abide by the rules of the country they operate in, hopefully we can both agree this is a good thing? I can then say that I wish FB didn't chose to be present in Thailand at all, but since they are there, they should comply with the laws.

offtopic, absolutely!

But Facebook/Whatsapp don't abide to the European GDPR.

They don't? In what way? At least through a very quick google search it seems like they do?

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/facebook-gdpr-changes/

no they don't : European citizens have not sufficiently been informed of pii-data sharing between Whatsapp/facebook :

https://www.politico.eu/article/whatsapp-privacy-fine-data-p...

One of the things about being a personal sovereign ruler is that you get to put your face on all the money — “render unto Ceaser” etc.

(Social media TOS are not a direct analogy of this, but as the saying goes: history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme)

The entire image of that King and the chair and being hauled around by people is just .... so over the top ridiculous.

The Spectator in the UK published an article about him as well. It wasn't very positive as you may be able to guess from the URL:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-depraved-rule-of-tha...

The previous king (current king's father) was revered in Thailand and I think far fewer people had a reason to violate this law. Now that the son is king there's going to be a lot more problems with Thai citizens wanting to be openly critical of him. I married into a Thai family and we've had a lot of discussions about this exact issue, since long before the previous king passed. In my mind you can't have a free and open democracy when you still have these monarchs hanging around and especially when you aren't allowed to be openly critical of them. Thailand has an elected assembly and prime minister, but the king is still head of the military and both the previous king and current king use[d] their influence to stir things up as they saw fit. Thailand has technically been under a military dictatorship (with the king ultimately at the head) since 2014 which is why these lèse-majesté laws are much more frequently enforced now. In my opinion trying to maintain a monarchy (even as a symbolic figure) and democracy doesn't work, they've had 20 different constitutions in Thailand since 1932 and they've had the 4th most coups in the world in modern history. Currently Bangkok is in state of civil unrest with pro-democracy protestors forming the #MilkTeaAlliance with protestors in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We'll see if they are able to enact any real change in the country.

When I went first time in Bangkok I got few tips from born Thai person, among them, I was warned among other things to avoid talking about politics, and to never say and do anything that would insult royalty.

But one tip I remember the most was: "If you drop your money to the ground, and it starts flying away, never try stepping on it with the foot, as you may end up in the brick or angry mob may lynch you", apparently each note has picture of the king so stepping on it has equal effect as insulting royalty. :/

There must be some Thai readers on HN.. even ones who support these lèse-majesté laws.

I'm curious, for Thai supporters, what is the justification for them?

You will not find Thai people who support it, except cronies who benefit from the royal patronage network.

The lese majeste laws are simply the work of an autocratic leader and institution that positions itself above the law. Any ordinary Thai who might have been okay with these laws[1] during the reign of the last king (who did genuinely serve as a kind of emotional anchor for Thais, despite the self-enrichment of his family) certainly sees them for what they are: The frantic efforts of a demented, bizarre, spoiled boy-child to deflect criticism and cement power.

[1] Also remember, during the time of the last king, the laws were not really enforced. We all remember stories of black-out drunk Aussies pissing on a portrait of the king by a busy road getting arrested for it, but beyond those theatrical and scandalous episodes, the laws did not really affect many people until the new king took over.

You actually do. They're mostly old generations

I live in Thailand and I know many Thai people don't love the current king. But from what I've seen the father of the current king was loved by most -if not all- Thais and I feel most Thais supported the laws in case of the previous king.

But I believe it's very important that in Thai schools there are practices, even starting at kindergarten, to teach children to kneel or bow in front of the picture of the king daily. From what I understand children also sing the Thai national anthem at the start of the school day. Every day at 2 moments (09:00 and 17:00) many people stop what they're doing and stand in attention for a second while the national anthem plays on TV, radio in cinemas, etc... So you might understand that reference for the king is a big part of the education system here.

Also, most Thais just don't have the money to travel abroad. And likely also don't see much of other countries on television. News channels on TV might spend 95% of the news on happenings inside the country (e.g. visits of royal family to villages, etc...). As such, many Thais might not be aware that some countries operate very different from the Thai system.

> But I believe it's very important that in Thai schools there are practices, even starting at kindergarten, to teach children to kneel or bow in front of the picture of the king daily. From what I understand children also sing the Thai national anthem at the start of the school day. Every day at 2 moments (09:00 and 17:00) many people stop what they're doing and stand in attention for a second while the national anthem plays on TV, radio in cinemas, etc... So you might understand that reference for the king is a big part of the education system here.

That is creepy as fuck.

Those 80 years of brainwashing is not working for majority of kids today anymore. 2020 turned out as a year of mass awakening. I have some hope for gen Z teenageers, though uncertainty is very uncertain .. how would they be able to dismantle these network monarchy.

> That is creepy as fuck.

Maybe, but I suspect Thailand is a more united nation than the US.

Schools in USA do something quite similar.

And yeah, from European point of view it's quite creepy.

We have out Pledge of Allegiance (and arguments over including or excluding "under God" from it.)

The thing about the USA is that what unites or unifies us is our shared values, not the (worship of) a King.

The whole point of democracy is that free people coming together to support each other can create a government more stable and durable and satisfying than Monarchy. The experiment is ongoing.

(It's also more humane: think about what a mind-fuck it must be to be singled out and told "you're the prince, you're the king". You have no personal freedom at all. Your whole life is regimented and programmed. What are you doing today? Put on this funny dress and sit on this uncomfortable chair for N hours looking stuffed while everybody else rattles around you like so many robots. Oh and by the way, a few determined people are trying to kill you all day every day, and some of them are your own family.)

(Our guys only have to do four or eight years before the mast. Then we chuck 'em. They're always grey and drained afterward but at least they live through it, mostly.)

“The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

You're preaching to the choir my friend. :)

Don't many (most?) American schoolchildren also recite the pledge of allegiance daily?

Thai tech people have different problematic mindset. They do not support lèse-majesté law, but most of them (in my observation) are not progressive either. These coming up gen Z are chasing their pro-capitalism ass (But these tech ppl hide those mindset really well .. not getting caught so easily!)

Absolutely, the first argument is always the country is "free" (Thai means free) because of their heroic ancestors in the past. The freedom in this case means never being colonized by other countries. The irony is we have never been freed from them,and all the propagandas are made so that we must feel indebted. There's a song playing every Dec 5 whole day on almost every street saying our value is less than a speck of dust under their feet. Your kids are taught to sing these kind a songs every day as well in some schools.

Secondly you are not taught to question, and rather criticized for questioning. Not sure if any of you have been in a class with a Thai student, but I bet they all are quiet. In a family, you must never question your parents or you will be punished. These royal families (plural because there are many) have a pronoun like your royal father mother etc, so know your place.

3rd, they are very coupled to religious institutions and it's like a heresy to even talk about them. Any bad happened to those anti monarchy people are believed to have conducted bad karmas. It's stupid, but there are many stations that would revere them as the reincarnation of the Buddha.

Last for now but there are more, they have high influence on the military and Thai conglomerates. The king even has his own unit, brainwashed to just serve him. Thai conglomerates will marry their children with the royal families just to gain more power and respect.

There are more but gotta get back to work now.

Every nation needs something that unites it, a sense of identity and purpose.

The French, for example, were united by the King and the Church, until they were not. After the revolution they became very united by their nationalism, in the original sense of the word - shared language, values, traditions, symbols, customs, as well as by the ideals of republican democratic governance.

Historically most nations were united in Monarchy and/or Religion. Over time some switched over to either nationalism or an ideology like communism, and some even switched back to Monarchy later on.

A country that lost its uniting force can easily disappear into a fiery flash of a civil war or sink into a suffocating simmering of gradual societal disintegration. One might conclude that any attack on the Uniting Symbol is a heinous crime and needs to be stamped out as quickly as possible.

This is questionable from the modern western perspective, but I can see how one could make this argument in good faith from the other parts of the world. Especially from the countries where they do not (yet) have a different Uniting Symbol.

Pretty sad to see this insanity happening in such a beautiful country. I guess Thailand is due for a revolution. And it seems the West doesn’t care that much about human rights abuses as long as the government only oppresses its own people while playing nice with the West otherwise (like Saudi Arabia).

Many civilized societies hand prison penalties that are considered insane and counterproductive by sentencing experts.

US inmate composition analyses are great example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092753711... https://jlc.org/news/what-foster-care-prison-pipeline

Regretfully it is hard to sue the foster-child-care system as sharing guilt for the civil damages done to these children:

As much as US is a good example, it's also a country with by far the worst incarceration rate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

Interesting that Thailand is in 5th place on that list, 80% the US rate. And about 65% the murder rate (placing them pretty close together on the world scale):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Also interesting that including high estimates for China's "re-education" camps would still only move them up to about 30th place, for incarceration, somewhere around Russia/Turkey/Nigeria. Although that's one area being diluted by the whole.

Due to its unique geographical situation, Thailand already had more revolutions than any other country. It has the highest largest-to-second-largest-city ratio among comparably sized countries, making it ideal for coups.

See more here: https://youtu.be/S9SMRuvnl2g

The video has a lot of incorrect or outdated information according to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_city

Second city is Chiang Mai with 960k people. So the ratio is about 10:1 and not 26:1. This puts it in line with Japan, and Austria. Hardly churn factories.

I'm always a bit sceptical of PolyMatter's videos indeed, thank you for pointing that out.

However, your link suggests a ratio of 17:1 with Chang Mai in the list, which is still quite high and also on the same page there is the contradictory mention of a 35:1 ratio with Nakhon Ratchasima (in the 'Examples' section). The Wikipedia 'Bangkok' page says the population (metro) is 14M, while this Wikipedia page says 17M.

Other sources have wildly different numbers too. 5M here for example, suggesting a ratio of 13:1 with Samut Prakan, yet another city: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/thailand-popu... ("includes boroughs, districts, urban agglomerations, etc.")

Well, I would say the opposite. The West cares too much and incited too many revolutions.

Remember the Arab spring? People are still burning in hell and nobody in the West gives a shit anymore. Sure, Gaddafi was a terrible dictator, but his death is making things much, much worse. If Assad was dead, things would become even more ugly. All the West wanted is to judge and prevail instead of solving the problems, or at least try not to screw everything.

Imagine yourself as an average Syrian or Lybian person, the government is imperfect just like anyone else but life is Okayish. All of a sudden some superpowers just yell freedom in your face, then soon there's wars and bombs - your home turned into rubble, many people you were killed.

It's not only painful but also confusing and not constructive at all. Nobody learned anything. That's worse, things like these doomed to happen again, in another year, on another land, and happens to some other people.

I wouldn't blame the West for the Arab spring though, that was an organic, local movement. NATO bears some blame for what's happening in Libya since they did side with the rebels (though I think if you want to calculate blame you should compare the current situation with what would have happened if NATO had not intervened, which still would have involved a lot of casualties). But Syria? The West's support of the rebel movements has been token at best, and actual military support has been devoted almost entirely to ISIS and ISIS-aligned fighters.

The Arab Spring was partially catalyzed by the leak of the US State Department cables to Wikileaks. I think it's fair to claim the US has some responsibility in the set of causes (there's a reason State Department correspondence is private).

It turns out that while sunlight is a great disinfectant, it also sometimes starts unintended fires.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cable...

The cable leaks sparked outrage because the US Tunisian embassy was reporting back to the State Department the Tunisian President was corrupt and self-dealing. If the US has some responsibility for the Tunisian revolution, it's a distant 4th: behind the President of Tunisia, the people of Tunisia, and Wikileaks for leaking the cables (and I'd put Wikileaks way, way below the others)

The Syrian government would not have lost control of the situation if it wasn't for Western support of the insurrection, Western bombings of infrastructure, and droves of Western armaments - ATGMs especially - that enabled the survival of the insurrection,

The material support was absolutely not token, at all.

There are also literal US troops in Syria that are used purely to prevent the Syrian government from taking control of land in Syria.

These are also in strategic places used to cut off land trading routes to Syria and cause economic pain to the government via military means, in the hopes that the government would fall.

Also, the US government actually did bomb the Syrian military multiple times.

So no, the US is actually at war in every single sense of the world against the Syrian government, and without the US government and it's allies there would be no civil war in Syria past a year or two of unrest. Not anywhere even near 400 000 deaths.

I strongly disagree with your assessment that, without Western funding for the rebels the government forces would have resumed control within a couple years, for a variety of reasons. The rebels made significant territorial gains before Western involvement, and the large number of factions that emerged is a solid demonstration that Assad was unable to control the population. The usage of artillery, air strikes, and chemical attacks on civilian targets greatly strengthened the resolve of the rebels. Repeatedly refusing to take actions to improve the humanitarian situation, along with draconian treatment of rebels and suspected rebels, ensured that the population would not yield to government forces without a long and protracted fight.

It should be noted the large degree of foreign involvement in this war. You've got Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militia groups working alongside the Syria government forces. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar provided bases, training, and equipment to the free Syrian army. Turkey has even mounted offensives into northeast Syria. There's Kurdish forces, some funded by Kurdish nationalist elements. There's jihadist groups such as the al Nusra front and ISIL which took advantage of the power vacuum to grow in power and influence. Foreign fighters from throughout the middle east (and throughout the world) flocked to the region to join various factions. Russia has deployed troops to assist the Syrian government and is regularly striking Syrian opposition targets. And, of course, funding and training from several Western nations. None of the above was at the behest of the US, these are actions taken by different countries and groups in service of their own foreign policy goals and ideologies. It seems odd to place the blame squarely at the feet of the US when so many competing interests were involved, especially when others intervened significantly more.

And things changed significantly with the emergence of ISIL, their invasion of Iraq, and numerous terrorist attacks around the world. The US was absolutely correct in providing support to Iraq and building a coalition to stop their territorial gains and mount a counter offensive. I think expecting the US to remain neutral in such a conflict is unreasonable. It was necessary to push them back into Syria, and to take steps to make sure they could not regain ground in western Syria. And while the Syrian and Russian governments might complain about this, the fact is that the region is far outside of their area of control.

I think that blaming everything on the US belittles the decisions and actions or local groups, and groups around the world.

The funding and training by other Western nations was entirely contingent on US support. The US did the delivery, and operated the physical bases that allowed for training.

As for foreign support, except for US-led support, all of it was to support Assad.

Whats more, even at the very beginning the US limited Russia's support of Assad by threat of military intervention.

As for the rest, if you think it is tenable for a fractured force of over twenty different factions without an access to weapons, training or funding to persist more than a few months against a modern army, you are simply wrong. Insurgency would have been possible, but not holding territory.

In any case, the non-jihadist non-Kurdish independent (which were amenable to limited autonomy since the beginning) forces basically dissipated within a year with the fall of the Free Syrian Army in 2012. Your theory that the revolt would have been protracted and last for years without international support is completely absurd, because it was almost completely destroyed, leaving only the YPG and the Jihadists, within a year until US support returned.

Indeed, the successor of the FSA, the SMC, was explicitly backed by the US-led coalition from its very founding.

I'm not belittling the actions or decisions of local groups in anyway. I speak Arabic myself, and have friends that lived in Syria at the time. The movement was not sustainable at all, and was much, much, much less bloody until the Western weapons fell into the hands of Jihadists.

I never asked the US to remain neutral in a conflict against terrorism. If they wish to do so, they could have joined it with the accord of the Syrian Government instead of waging war against it and indirectly (and directly) supplying the terrorists.

I'm blaming the US squarely because she, and her allies which operated through the US, are the only source of armament for the opposition and the Jihadists, and knew very well that Democracy was completely impossible in Syria at the time since the very beginning, but instead saw an opportunity to pursue geopolitical interests at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths, yet again.

Your attempt to deflect the blame by accusing entities that never facilitated the Civil War at all of "doing it too", denying the clear pattern of US involvement in the rebel and jihadi elements of the Civil War is frankly disgusting.

From 400 000 to 600 000 people died in a Civil War that, even at the very beginning, never even had a majority amongst the rebels of support for a secular democracy, and that was prolonged 7 years past the functional collapse of the rebels - which were then swiftly reorganized under the watchful eye of the US - is denial of a horrible atrocity done for literally no possible benefit - which was clear from the very beginning to anyone that made even a cursory attempt at an independent reading of the situation.

And by the way, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey were solidly allied with the US in military matters in the large majority of the conflict. Qatar never actually put boots on the ground, by the way.

The Turkish invasion itself was only ever possible because Kurdish control over NES allowed Turkey to invoke the Asana accords signed by Turkey and Syria that allowed them to invade. Note that I wholeheartedly support the Kurdish cause and identify very strongly with their politics, but I cannot let that influence my analysis here. The Kurdish forces whose presence made the Turkish invasion possible are only there because of US boots on the ground that are intended as tripwire forces, which prevent Russian and Syrian forces of taking control of that territory - either peacefully in exchange for limited autonomy, or through force, the first option being significantly more likely due to Russian pressure to allow this.

No matter where you analyze the cause of the ridiculous prolongement of the war, you almost invariably find that the US is a blocker in the process of removing them.

I'm not trying to defend the Syrian Government either. I deeply dislike them. But there was, realistically, absolutely no way for a stable alternative to exist at the time of the revolution. Popular support for a preferable government was never in the absolute majority, and the inevitable conclusion of the Civil War was either a victory by Assad or something even worse - in both cases at an incredibly high cost.

This was explained and predicted to me by my father and Syrian friends all the way back in 2011, and while I did not agree at the time, in retrospect its clear that this was correct and I'm convinced the US knew as much too.

It's not just governmental foreign policies, it's about the overall mentality, of both the government and people.

The parent thread I was responding written "I guess Thailand is due for a revolution".

There would surely be many people trying to convince Thai people "your government is evil, go overthrow it". Maybe sometimes to an extreme like "burn the parliament and everything will get better".

To be "supportive" over the Internet is almost too easy, especially if it's not someone's home country it's easier to said than done because they don't need to take consequences. Yell at your boss and you'll be at risk of losing the job, but it won't hurt to encourage foreigners to go for the rebel path.

The protests in Tunisia started because an unemployed young man burned himself to death. In Syria it was because the secret police abducted a few teenagers for making some graffiti, and tore out their fingernails. In both cases, ordinary people were fed up. These things happen in corrupt and oppressive regimes, but blaming the west is really condescending. The people over there made their own choices for their own reasons.

+1. People can have their own revolutions without it being caused by 'the West'. That's definitely noble savage territory when people say that only the West is capable of creating the problems of the world.

Of course it is true that NATO, EU, the US, Russia, and China are engaged there and are part of the landscape but that's part of strategic power plays more than Westernism.

For a better perspective, flip the scenario around on a Western country. Black people have legitimate grievances with how they're treated by police in the US. "Ordinary people were fed up." If moves were made for a revolution to overthrow the US government, you would be ok with foreign countries' people encouraging and helping this revolution take place? After all, "The people over there made their own choices for their own reasons."

I’m absolutely ok with the west helping these people in their struggle for autonomy against oppression. I’m just saying they’re not puppets to westerners who are driving their agenda.

During the Arab Spring, I was working in a different part of the Muslim world. One of the single most poignant moments of my life was when a local driver/fixed we contracted with asked me

"How many people must die so that American's feel like everyone wants to live the way they do"

I didn't have an answer, and at that point barely knew enough of my own country's 'real' history (despite 24 years of US education) to understand the scope of it.

It wasn't instantaneous, but I can draw a clear line between that connection and the better and more knowledgeable person I am today.

"All of a sudden some superpowers just yell freedom in your face"

This is completely false.

The Arab spring was not incited by the West.

It was well underway long before the West was even paying close attention.

In Tunisia, the West was not involved.

In Libya, the West stayed away as long as they could.

In Egypt, the West avoided until they were forced to pick a winner and Obama weighed in politically to 'support' a transfer of power (they were all looking to the US Pres. at that point).

In Syria, the West stayed out for a a long while, an when they did get involved, it was mostly against ISIS.

The grievances on the Arabs street are very real.

The Arab Spring would not have happened without Twitter, right?

So it was Twitter's "fault" for allowing people in these countries to communicate about the injustices they were facing? And please spare me the tired comparison to the collective hallucination that the Republican party is experiencing. People in Syria and Iran were being gunned down for acts of peaceful protest.

It's nobody's "fault"; no one said that. But without this western owned and operated platform, how would they have communicated?

It would not have happened without the Printing Press, Television, Radio, AK47s designed in Russia and Made in China, the Suez Canal or Saudi Oil either.

Of all possible contentious issues with respect to the Arab Spring uprising (and there are many) - this is not one of them.

It definitely was not an 'inciting' factor.

Frankly, if you want to point at 'the thing' it would be Chelsea Manning's cable leaks: determined to show her own nations foibles, she did nothing of the sort, rather she exposed the vast, totalitarian corruption among Arab state leaders, which lit the match in Tunisia and then elsewhere.

It was a raw, populist uprising against the 'dumb tyranny' of those systems and had predictable results in each of the nations.

It was completely outside the scope of US/Western control, and by and large totally outside the foreign policy objectives of most US/Western players. Nobody really wanted it - way too much instability and risk. There were also no winners, and a bunch of losers for sure, sadly.

Do you really think that nations intervene like that out of a genuine desire to spread freedom?

I think the West has done enough meddling in other country's affairs the past 120 years.

Totally agree. I am not advocating for the West to start a revolution.

This is much worse than Spain, where rappers Pablo Hasel and Valtònyc are facing only 4 years for singing that the king is a thief. Valtònyc managed to escape his home island of Majorca (dozens of fans bought many plane tickets to Brussels in his name, and he took just one). Unfortunately, Hasel is facing prison and has said he is not willing to go into exile as Valtònyc.

I would expect EU free-speech laws to supersede such laws in Spain. Can these two appeal their case to the EU courts?

The "EU laws" have no teeth and are only effective when EU states want to act against each other. When they concern internal affairs of a single state they are in practice meaningless. For instance, Spain is routinely condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (last time, this very week!) because it consistently fails to investigate allegations of torture by basque prisoners. The Spanish state doesn't even bat an eye about that, and the judge who has been in charge of blocking most torture investigations is currently the Spanish minister of justice! There's also an elected EU member of parliament that is currently in a Spanish prison on bogus charges, and he could not join his seat even when the EU law gave him parliamentary immunity. Likewise, three more Catalan MEPs are living in Belgium because they would be jailed (and probably tortured) if they returned to Spain.

It's a shame they didn't even mention Germany in the article, considering that's where the king actually lives.

What kind of King lives in another country? A terrible one (good thing I don't live in Thailand).

Canada's?

Also a fun read, the abdicated Spanish king Juan Carlos secretly fled to Saudi Arabia, because he is investigated for money laundering/tax evasion back in Spain: https://www.dw.com/en/spanish-former-king-juan-carlos-i-pays...

In constitutional monarchy, the king is the institution. His personal location may be irrelevant to the case.

The Thai king lives in Germany? Why? Anyone can freely criticise him there.

He might actually be doing his subjects a favor, if he lived that life closer to their eyes chances are that far more would feel an urge to criticize him despite the prison threat. (obviously, the good thing to do would end both, stop the permanent vacation and stop the prison threats)

fear, COVID among them

In Germany, lese majeste laws made it technically illegal to insult a foreign leader until the law was abolished in 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair

Because:

- No one cares there. There are many elites in Thailand that don't like him. Thai elites only like his father! The current king's behaviour does not spark joy (does not serve their cultural value whatever). I'm quite sure there are more people in Thailand than in Germany who like to criticize the king (and they've been gossiping for many decades!, he does not like these gossip .. he can't throw these elites in jail easily, too much damange)

- Bavaria is nicer than Bangkok apparently since he like riding bikes .. nicer nature than bangkok.

- He likes power, money, women, but he does not like anything that interfere his private life! In thailand, he has to do lots of ceremonies, it's annoying.

I thought about this too. It appears he may have left December 9th, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Turbulent-Thailand/Germany-..., though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajiralongkorn#Reigning_from_B... doesn't mention this yet.

I thought he may have spent the majority (or close) of his time since 2016 there. This article confirms he's welcome to return, doesn't need a visa, and is able to stay as long he wants. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-thailand-king/tha...

Undoubtedly he feels much safer in Germany considering his popularity.

The fact that he's allowed to walk free in Germany is a failure of German justice system.

It is worth noting that Facebook blocked some groups critical of Thai monarchy just last year.

True These American Company are like "We support BLM" but when it comes to Thailand, Hong Kong etc they are double standards and only use these things for PR stunts because they don't want government to block them. It seems we are living in century where lies and money prevails over ethics.

What gave you the impression that was unique to this century?

When I was in Thailand a few years ago, I went to see a movie.

Before the movie there was a montage about the king and everyone had to stand up out of respect. It showed pictures of the king throughout his life.

Then I read up on the king and found out he's real bad news. He's basically an overgrown spoiled rich kid who doesn't do much other than throws birthdays for his dog.

That's "Air Chief Marshal" Fufu, show some respect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fufu_(dog)

Laws protecting against insulting of government institutions exist in most countries of the world, but nowhere I heard about 43-year sentence. This conviction carries penalty that is over twice as long as maximum mandatory imprisonment for high felony in European countries.

It shows the difference between law system based on terror of penalty, and law system that attempts to resocialize offenders (see over 1000-year total conviction here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53003685).

Another unfortunate consequence is that Thai prisons are overcrowded and likely to infringe on human rights of detainees: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/14/joint-letter-thailand-de...

Theres a guy in the US sentenced to 845 years for a white collar crime [1]

[1] https://medium.com/lighterside/sentenced-to-845-years-the-th...

Probably because his crime was, rather arbitrarily, divided into sub-crimes, and the sentences for these were summed.

Probably. But to mangle a quote: nice reason, still injustice.

I'm not that familiar with the case. Here is the first result from google however, comparing his sentence with other notorious cases[1]

[1]https://www.freedomforsholam.com/

Right. Law systems based on terror of penalty. The US prison system is shockingly regressive.

On the other hand, in USA one can sometimes get sentenced a fine for murder, so perhaps it evens out

UPDATE: A day after we discussed this case here, Trump commuted this guys sentence (his last day in office)[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholam_Weiss

> Laws protecting against insulting of government institutions exist in most countries of the world

??? Lese-majeste largely exists as an embarassing relic of a few European monarchies and former monarchies and in several thuggish middle eastern and asian dictatorships.

In can insult government institutions in the US as much as I please.

Italy has lèse-majesté laws against the head of state and other institutions.

Are they actually enforced, or is it simply that they're still on the books? There are a lot of laws in the USA that are on the books, but would be struck down as unconstitutional if anyone ever tried to enforce them.

they are sometimes enforced.

... as an embarrassing relic of a former monarchy.

true!

it is medieval of course. Even Russia can't probably beat it. Though when it comes to absurdity Russia is still a contender i think - for example last year Russia gave 13 and 12 years prison terms to newlywed bride and groom for disclosing "state secret" - a friend of the groom got drunk and was telling everybody who he is, giving out contact info, etc. The friend is an FSB officer and that is usually not a secret by itself. Well, the unsuspecting couple posted the wedding photos and video on Internet ...

And Russian opposition leader Navalny has been just arrested right upon arrival back to Russia, for failure to check in with parole officers ... while he was treated for the poisoning in Germany. Because of that failure to check-in his parole may be revoked, and he will get to really serve the time.

When I visited Thailand many years ago, I secretly gave the middle finger to the King's photo. I'm basically a fugitive on the run now.

Well, fuck King Maha Shitgibbon Vajiralongkorn, I suppose.

>The former civil servant, Anchan Preelert, was sentenced to 87 years, but her prison term was cut in half because she agreed to plead guilty.

I looked her up, she is 65 now. I don't know why she even bothered pleading guilty.

Fundamentals of judicial process are constructed so at to evoke respect of the indicted.

While mathematical analyses tend to treat lawsuit as a pure game, most people would disagree on the moral grounds.

Many legal systems have a concept of early release/parole, especially with good behavior or humanitarian reasons; a reduction in sentence may bring this substantially forwards as well. (I can't speak for how Thailand specifically handles this, though.)

The main way people get out of these cases is to appeal to the king for clemency. Pleading guilty is the first step on that path once it becomes clear you'll get a defacto life sentence otherwise.

Imagine living in a country where it is a crime to criticize a person, better yet you should treat that person as a deity, when half the world is making fun of him. (There are articles of the current Thai king walking around half-naked in Germany...)

RealLifeLore made an entire video about it, including mentioning that making the video meant he could get busted if he visited Thailand.

https://youtu.be/9coptltk27s

I see a VPN ad.

The ad finishes after 8 seconds.

Followed by a person narrating the news with flashy graphics. I can't stand this sort of garbage, there's nothing new at all, it's just to sell an ad.

YouTube is blocking this video if you are in Thailand....

It could be worse. There are Western countries with blasphemy laws.

There are Western countries where militant factions are calling to take up arms against both their own government and the party that recently won the elections for all branches of government, going as far as breaking into a government building with tie wraps, intending to kidnap politicians.

It's like the 60's all over again!

I know a lot of Americans don't like Monarchies, I don't love entitled rich families either but the alternative is really having a second parliament, and I've learned having a parliament + Monarch works a lot more smoothly than President + 2 houses.

eg Western Monarchies: Canada, UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Norway

The difference is a bad president is only locked in for 4 years, a bad monarch is locked in for life because presumably their "blood" entitles them. Also, the entire concept of "divine bloodlines" flies in the face of equality of humans.

Interesting point. Monarchies are obviously not great, but it's good to remember that they aren't evil or something, and that there can still be a balance of power.

I've been thinking that, in a liberal democracy, there's not much of a national identity. It's like a football club where anyone can drop in, and vote to play chess instead.

I generally think that's fine, except that it seems like having no identity at all is a vacuum, and gets filled by something. That could easily end up being the opposite of liberal democracy, so lack of identity can be self-defeating.

The US president has much more in common with a 17th to 19th century European monarch than the current European constitutional monarchs do.

And have you noticed how many streets, businesses, and housing estates, educational institutions in the US have some sort of monarchical name? For instance Regency Parkway Cary, Regent and King Universities.

You really can’t count the UK as a functional monarchy, the Queen is largely ceremonial.

Same as Thailand, which is what we're talking about.

> Same as Thailand

Not exactly "the same", is it? While in England, you can say whatever you want about the English monarchy. And it has been like that since at least more than 40 years ago. The Sex Pistols made a lot of noise in the seventies, but they were never jailed (nor judged) for insulting and mocking the Queen.

America in 20 years if trends don’t change

It's incomprehensible how anyone would not shudder from anger seeing such injustice or how anyone would be clueless enough to argue that centralized, uncontrolled power of any kind has the right to exist in our time. We should all be working hard on dismantling these barbarian relics of the past as soon as possible, even if only to let their innocent victims to stand in the shambles and breathe the sweet air of freedom once again in their lives.

The same applies to blasphemy laws IMHO.

That need a bit of nuance IMO. Blasphemy in general doesn't need protecting.

But blasphemy targeting a specific person or institution is effectively hate speech, and there are good reasons to ban it.

Doesn't blasphemy by definition target a non-existent person?

You can craft the implication with clever rhetoric. You can imply that holding the lambasted beliefs would only be done by someone mentally-ill or mislead, maybe even the ideas are so ridiculous that it is likely those purporting to hold such beliefs are disingenuous and have more sinister motives.

Yes, but that decomposes into blasphemy (against a deity) and defamation (against a person). For example, Jehovah probably doesn't exist. That's blasphemy, but it says nothing about those who believe in Jehovah. It's optional to include defamatory swipes at believers.

For comparison, recall that Santa Claus also probably doesn't exist, and examine your emotions to see how you feel about the contrast between Santa Claus and Jehovah.

“Only a hateful racist Nazi-adjacent person could think that the gap between American black and white socioeconomic status is caused by degenerate, pathologically retarded black culture rather than ‘oppression’.“

Am I doing it right?

Blasphemy - the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.

It applies strictly to religion, not people.

>to argue that centralized, uncontrolled power of any kind has no right to exist in our time

s/no right/the right?

It's ugly but it's not "incomprehensible".

They got a monarchy. That means something. The monarchy serves as a kind of sacred cultural identity and attacking the monarchy is like attacking the society itself.

Places like England have more evolved monarchies, where saying something against royals won't land someone in jail, but the same sentiment is there. The only way to "dismantle it" is to wait and do it in steps over generations. Even Thailand is doing that now. The royals are largely symbolic and don't exercise direct political power. But there's still a strong cultural attachment.

the new king is not his father

> Even Thailand is doing that now. The royals are largely symbolic and don't exercise direct political power. But there's still a strong cultural attachment.

Don't know how biased the Economist is on this, but they've had a number of articles talking about the increasing role of the current king. An example is linked below.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/10/14/thailands-king...

https://web.archive.org/web/20210103234100if_/https://www.ec...

Thailand has been technically a constitutional monarchy like the UK since 1932. But the constitutional role of a monarch is a lot bigger in a country which has had more coups than most countries have had elections in the time period since, and everyone involved has tried to claim their legitimacy comes from the monarch

It sounds more like they have a military government, who claim to act in the name of a king. And hence claim that any criticism of them is criticism of him. Against which there are both strong laws (even if these were seldom applied so strongly before?) and a cultural taboo (which otherwise a general appointing himself leader would not command).

> Places like England have more evolved monarchies, where saying something against royals won't land someone in jail

... anymore. The last prosecution for that was in 1715 apparently. But it was illegal and probably still is; see also "Sedition". In a lot of countries, Lèse-majesté has only been scrapped from laws in fairly recent history (in part because it conflicts with the freedom of speech / expression codified in a lot of constitutions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9

Many people are fine with it when the centralized power is in the form of a corporation.

They fact that such an obvious comment such as this is immediately downvote here is the strongest evidence of the truth of this statement I can imagine.

We only question the authority of monarchy because we have moved on to a more powerful system of control. 500 years ago, when monarchs where publicly viewed as divinely ordained (a similar but less sophisticated ideology that create the idea that companies should be totalitarian) even questioning the right of a king to his thrown as seen as heretical.

You're on a forum created by company whose goal is to create as many billion-dollar corporations as possible. It's unsurprising that its users do not appreciate such a reductionist take on corporations.

I hardly feel that claiming that corporations are able to exert the same type of non-democratic control over society as a monarchy through a complex system of ideological tools that make even pointing out the existence of such a power structure forbidden is reductionist.

And the idea that HN should be free from any critical or skeptical opinions of the current state of the tech industry is at least against the hacker spirit, which, for all of PGs faults, is at least part of the founding of this forum.

The article is about a woman sent to jail for 43 years. The worst thing a corporation can do is stop giving you money. You can then join a worker cooperative if you wish.

Users are also free to downvote what they want. There's a good chance you'll be downvoted for defending corporations on Reddit, for example.

> The worst thing a corporation can do is stop giving you money

In a late capitalist society a worker has no other means of survival other than to work for a corporation. In 1820, yes you could just go live on a farm and provide for you self but being cut off from a mean of living is not a small thing.

It idea that you can "just" be denied a means of living, and that this is no big deal is pretty laughable. You are quite literally paraphrasing Scrooges infamous speech about poorhouses.

> incomprehensible ... shudder ... anger ... such injustice ... clueless ... right to exist in our time ... dismantling ... barbarian relics ... innocent victims ... the shambles and breathe the sweet air of freedom

A robust, well reasoned argument aimed directly at the rational principle in the soul of each reader. Exactly the sort of comment I expect to see recommended by a community of educated, intelligent people.

Breathless Appeal to Emotion, or related to it anyway. Breathless comments are quite common on HN.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

> uncontrolled power of any kind has the right to exist in our time.

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not anymore. Where do we not see this type of uncontrolled power?

Residents of the US live in a vast oligarchy where the elite define freedom as "the ability to change which feudal lord you work for", in a system where all lords serve the same master. Our "democratic" government is largely a spectacle which has little impact on the day to day lives of citizens despite how terrified they are of its collapse.

In the united states anyone who has too deeply radical thoughts will simply be unemployable, without a means of survival, healthcare or housing. The idea that employees of a company should have a say in the practices of the company is considered highest heresy. Even the times where some sort of worker union can emerge it's only to provided limited benefit to the workers.

The US has evolved a more sophisticated form of "uncontrolled power", one so powerful that even stating its existence is fought with controversy. At least in traditional monarchy you can find a way to life your live largely away these power structures, "heaven is high and the emperor is far away". Whereas the power structures in our own society literally mesh themselves in our flesh and minds. The best part is you cannot even question them (there's a 50/50 chance this very comment will be downvoted into oblivion).

This should be required reading for anyone who wants to repeal or limit the First Amendment in the US.

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