I have been on youtube a fair while and my experience here has taught me two very important things:
- People don’t listen to what you say.
- People make up their own version of what you said.
Thus I have to follow up my most hated video so far with a couple of clarifications about the most common arguments used against me. And for you to understand what I mean by “hated” let me read you some of my viewer mail.
FUCK YOU, SON OF A BITCH
MOTHER FUCKER, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MY COUNTRY. DON'T SAY A WORD CONCERN TO MY HOMELAND AGAIN, JUST GO TO HELL.
That comment was from vidsdids0000, I want to thank vidsdids0000 for his thoughts.
I’ll tell you something. I honestly had a good opinion of the Thais before I made this, the video is not about Thais of course, but about lese majeste. But now I have a really bad opinion of them from reading the comments to this video.
Enough distractions, to the comments.
1) Don’t insult our king
Nowhere in my original video did I insult the king. It is a matter of fact that that friend who many of you denigrated told me in great details just how much the Thai people love their king and he told me just what the king did to deserve that sense of love from the Thai people. He described to me how much work he does for his people and I thought to myself “you know, he sounds like a great guy”.
The topic of this video was not the king himself. It was the laws of lese majeste, the actions of the Thai government and the principle of monarchy. If you can find any section from the original video where I insulted the king or cast assertions on his character then point it out to me.
2) You are not Thai, why are you commenting, why don’t you leave us alone?
I comment because I can and that’s the end of it. I don’t expect people who so furiously seem to want to put padlocks on their own mind to understand that point.
3) The Thai people want their king and monarchy
Great, of course I mentioned that I don’t like monarchy in general. My comments about wanting to abolish the monarchy were refined to my own country only.
But the point is, if you want to love your king then you can still do that without a lese majeste law. This law will have no effect on your love for the current king. But what will happen when the current prince becomes the next king? From what I’ve heard the Thai people do not think as much of him as they do of his father.
How will you like your petty laws then? Laws that tie your hands and threaten you under the penalty of punishment to not criticise him? I’ll bet that when that moment comes you’ll reflect on the wisdom of being able to think freely but perhaps it will be too late. I think this poem adequately reflects that position.
First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Pastor Martin Niemöller
4) You don’t know about Thailand. Do more research. You don’t understand! Followed by personal insults on my friend.
This might sound a tad ignorant. But there is not need to know anything about Thailand. I suspect that this is a thinly veiled version of the first point, “we love our king”, about the respect that the Thai people have for the king. But I must echo myself again. It is not about the king. The parts about the video that are about Thailand are about the actions of the government and the lese majeste laws. Both of which exist and don’t need to be studied to further confirm that they exist. The law is there and this has implications for freedom of speech which is my main point. Notice also that people who say I should study more
5) The example you give of stamping on the money is ridiculous. Followed by personal insults on my friend
I got a great comment that said “that is RIDICULOUS”, the law is only to stop acts intentionally done to disrespect our king. Sorry looks like I should have been more specific. If you step on it innocently then that may be fine but if it seems like you were thinking of a certain thing at the time or trying to express a certain thought then away to jail you go! Perfectly reasonable:
I got an interesting email from someone who wasn’t interested in spewing forth venom: Which is quite interesting:
I am sure that you don't get arrested if you step the blowing bank note. But if you do it on purpose such as testing how people will react on your action, intentionally insulting the king (I personally think it's ok to insult other royal family members), you will probably be arrested. But I'd say 10-20% chance.
Getting arrested if you step on a Thai bank note is a joke for expats and tourists in Thailand. As far as I was born, I've never been told from a Thai not to step on the bank note because it has the king face, but many expats asked me about it. I think it's funny and sounds make sense to me, so I say "yes! you will probably get arrested" I guess that's how your friend got this from.
May I suggest that if you don’t want people to get this idea, then you don’t tell it to them.
6) Who needs freedom of speech anyway
I have a hard time with this one, it’s hard to explain how something that seems to me to be so fundamental a human right cannot be seem by so many to be something that they want. Government may inhibit our actions but there is somewhere they cannot get. [taps head] up here, and I can think it and express it and organise with other people who think the same thing. Incompetent fascist governments all throughout time have feared the ability of people to think because those thought might lead the people against them.
Then you are a child, you are a helpless little baby crying in the night, subjugated by your masters, no more than shit on the end of their shoes. If freedom scares you then don’t come to me to express these slobbering views.
What is really worrying is the mentality of the type of person who wants the government to manage what they think. Who wants to be told that you can think this but you can’t think that.. I hasten to guess that they are of the moral majority and the types of things that would be banned are the types of things that they disagree with anyway, but again, I must cite. What happens when they ban something you actually agree with. Where are you then. First they came for the Jews and all that..
7) The king himself doesn’t agree with lese majeste and pardons those who suffer from it.
That’s great. Like I said before he seems to be a great guy. But there may be a day and a king who does not pardon these things. The kindness of one man has no effect on a bad law.
All in all I expected some faeces to be thrown but the hateful, emotional, anti-rational, idiotic, ignorant, disagreeable attitudes of the people who replied were still very shocking. Which brings me to the last common point:
8) Stay out of Thailand, don’t come to our country. I never want to see your face here, why don’t you kill yourself, why don’t you just die.
*ahem* I shall read something that I wrote on the thread.
Most people in this world are haters. People who cannot tolerate an opposing view and must instead resort to hateful tactics, shouting, labelling, insulting, threatening deaths and murder. Everything except a thoughtful refutation of my points.
I have already been warned against "going to Thailand". Perhaps the Thai people around he globe need to consider why their government should stop them thinking certain things.
Freedom of speech means nothing unless it also means the freedom to think different (and perhaps unpopular) thoughts.
A man who does not defend his views but will cower when he is subjected to the cowardly threats of others who cannot handle it. Is a coward himself.
Posted on: Sunday, May 11, 2008 12:06 AM