Fanaticism, Ignorance And Two Laws

Last Wednesday, lèse majesté bunco artist Tul Sitthisomwong led about 100 ultra-royalists to Thai PBS headquarters in order to call for the resignation of that organization’s executives.  

Tul and the rest of the knuckleheads who attended were upset at that station’s week-long special of its interview and  discussion program "Tob Jote Prathet Thai" (“Answering Thailand’s Issues”).  The last two episodes of the five part series were debates between Thammasat University Professor Somsak Jeamteerasakul and royalist nut job Sulak Sivaraksa, focusing on the draconian lése majesté law.

This proves that fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and continuously needs feeding in Thailand. Now, the police are even investigating the possibility that a criminal offence was committed. Evidently debating the controversial lése majesté law is a violation of the lése majesté law to some ultra-royalists.

But that’s the problem with a poorly defined and wicked law like lése majesté.  It’s upholders can initially make it a crime to threaten the monarchy, then the next day they can make it a crime to even discuss the law itself.  Pretty soon, they’ll be banning even more books, newspapers, websites, radio stations and television stations. And with banners flying and with drums beating they’ll be marching Thailand backwards into the dark ages.

The ultra-royalists clearly desire to incite fear, causing everyone to become afraid to even talk about anything remotely concerning the monarchy. It’s becoming quite clear that Thailand can’t have both free speech and a monarchy.

If any law was broken in the debates then it would be Godwin’s Law. In the final debate, Sulak did bring up Hitler. And whoever is the first to play the "Hitler card" has lost the argument as well as any trace of respect, as having to resort to bring up the most infamous mass-murdering dictator in history generally means that person has run out of better arguments. Thus, once such a comparison was made, the debate should have immediately ended with Sulak automatically losing the debate.

There are some things stupid arguments can't solve. 
For everything else, there's the Hitler Card. 

If only Tul and his ilk would be as fervent supporters of Godwin’s Law as they are with the lése majesté law.