Forever to blame the bearer of bad news as the bad news itself, those who don’t like to hear the truth, or at least a great speech about it and why it’s occasionally necessary to be told the truth, often resort to little tricks to as quickly as possible extinguish growing embers before they become searing flames burning up centuries of lies and deceit.

One such effort along these lines was just announced by Mr. Sakolthi Phatiyakul, deputy spokesman of the Democrat Party, speaking about efforts to amend and repeal the infamous Article 112. Said the gentleman, (Thai below, extracted from Manager Online):

“The various [instances of] activism are most often using areas within Thammasat University. So I’d like the Thammasat University rector to take a look into the teachers there who think along these [ Article 112 activism] lines and determine whether they have problems [personal, mental] or not. Because students who come in to study are like white sheets [metaphor – unpainted canvasses] and might be steered toward the wrong direction. So I’d like them [the students] to be looked after.”

ส่วนการแก้ไขประมวลกฎหมายอาญา มาตรา 112 นายสกลธี กล่าวว่า การเคลื่อนไหวต่างๆมักใช้พื้นที่มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์บ่อยครั้ง จึงอยากให้อธิการบดีมหาลัยธรรมศาสตร์ ตรวจสอบด้วย ว่า คณะอาจารย์ที่มีแนวคิดแบบนี้จะมีปัญหาหรือไม่ เพราะนักศึกษาที่เข้ามาเรียนใหม่ก็เหมือนผ้าขาวอาจถูกชี้นำไปในทางที่ผิดได้ จึงอยากให้ดูแลด้วย

Besides the logical errors and unsupportable innuendo present, including but not limited to sweeping generalization, hasty generalization, irrelevant conclusion, false cause cited, deductive fallacy, and more…but why drag on the issue? If one were to reciprocate and delve into the convoluted logic used by self-proclaimed loyalists to denounce others, one would spend an entire lifetime finding error upon error upon error. But in the land where error does not matter, why try to make a difference?

In fact, that is another tactic that the die-hards are using time and time again to wear down opposition, to discourage logic and inquiry, to wind the grand old mortar of ignorance and obedience through one generation layer after the other to build a wall of sameness, a wall that is non-responsive to need for change. A great wall, or a moat, a bastion against the onrush of enlightenment peeking around at very foolish and frightened - but also very malicious - charicatures.

Much more can, and needs to be, said about those advocating retaining Article 112 as it now stands and refusing to budge from their positions that it must remain inviolate. Their arguments that if no one defames the monarchy then no one has anything to worry about is as simplistic as faulty logic can get. Yet it remains the standby of people who fear self-determination. Self-determination means empowerment of others to the point that they can stand on their own and make adult decisions based on fact, not fiction, and it means competition. This evolving process is a dangerous scenario for the inept and the ill-intended, the willfully ignorant and the pompous procrastinator, all of whom can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag when it comes to a one-on-one battle with logic, fairness and the right to speak freely. Some says this is one reason Thaksin would never meet Sondhi on an open stage to debate issues. Thaksin’s weakness in this area was earlier well-observed when going one-on-one with Anand Panyarachun a while back, and coming out a poor second.  There are people like this all over, on all sides, a reality which makes reconciliation and even debate impossible. Too much ego, too much ignorance, too much inculcation from military-friendly educators, and little awareness of wrongdoing and accountability for it.