Cut the cameras
Re: "The price of a life" and "We need to do more", (PostBag, Aug 9).
Both letters express grief for the latest murder of a tourist in Phuket. Songdej Praditsmanont wants an assurance that this cannot happen again. The writer's distress is understandable, but as meaningless in reality as asking for somebody to promise there won't be another tsunami.
The other, on the other hand, suggests that more CCTV cameras and security personnel in all corners of the island is the answer. I couldn't disagree more. With very few exceptions, Thailand has for more than five decades been considered a very safe country to visit.
Western tourists come to Southeast Asia, and Thailand in particular, to escape from the constant (if necessary) police and security presence in their own countries. Is Khun Vint really suggesting that the Phuket authorities should now install a CCTV camera at that waterfall as well as a full-time security guard?
And it's worth noting that the existing CCTV network identified a suspect very quickly. We really don't need a camera on every tree in every national park.
RAY BAN
Ugly truths lurk
Re: "Govt living in fear of its own frightful errors", (Opinion, Aug 10).
Censorship is imposed for only one reason: To impose ignorance so that others cannot form informed opinion of worth on a topic. It is clear from what speech is censored where the ugly truths lurk in Thailand. Equally clear are the sort of people who want to protect those unspeakable truths from just exposure in a transparent, open, and free society that respects democratic principle under which all have an equal right to a voice in determining the form of their society, whence comes their government, and thence the laws of the land.
Unless they are at every level the result of just democratic process, those laws of the land can not be justly imposed on citizens denied by censorship a fair voice in either their creation or their evolution by amendment.
FELIX QUI
Jail the sycophants
Re: "Uncertainty continues", (Business, Aug 9).
The chairman of the FTI proposes that the government helps companies to pay for Covid rapid antigen test kits.
We are only a small company with 12 employees but of course the company pays for the test kits. But the big shots -- the richest 10 of them just added almost a trillion baht to their assets in the last 18 months -- need government support to buy test kits for their staff? This is a small snapshot of what is wrong with the existing Thai political and economic system.
Meanwhile, protest leaders are put in jail. I would propose putting some of the sycophants and bad advisers to the government in jail. They do enormous damage. But the real problem are of course the "important" people they act up to.
KARL REICHSTETTER
Not a fascist
The liars in the media and the medical establishment are saying that those of us who question the vaccine are right-wing Trump supporters. You know full well I despise Trump and it was during his term when the vaccine was developed. (Back then now Vice President Harris said she would never get a vaccine approved by the Trump administration). I believe we have a right to make informed decisions with all the facts before being vaccinated. And that makes me a fascist? What in the name of God has become of the free press. I'm horrified!
ERIC BAHRT
