OPINION

Free to buy influence

Mr Nagi, in his July 16 letter "Real taste of freedom", mentioned there is a great deal of freedom in the US. There are books expressing criticism of Jesus Christ, the government, etc.

I would like to add some items that he forget to mention, namely pornography, freedom of gun ownership and freedom to kill en masse. Nobody can legislate gun control, not even the president who espouses "change" as his flagship policy.

But in Thailand we have great freedom in buying and selling votes. Business-minded politicians, with political investment in the realm of a billion dollars, can buy political power and own the parliament that allows them to pass any law, for example an amnesty law to absolve themselves of political crimes.

Do you have this kind of freedom in the US?

I lived there for nine years and never saw the freedom to buy and sell votes wholesale. Mr Nagi, that's the major root cause of political ills in Thailand. I hope you can appreciate this tale of two countries.

Re: "Rank corruption tarnishes force", (BP, July 17).

The top brass seem more annoyed about the personal squabble than the endemic decay within the Royal Thai Police: for a long time, a plethora of promotions was predicated on payments to higher-ups.

It happens also in other Thai institutions. That's a big reason why Thailand has poor quality leaders. If promotions are based on payments rather than skills and wisdom, then problems ensue.

I'm so happy the government is offering incentives to companies that hire retired people and senior citizens if they are still able to cope with work (BP, July 16). It gives retired and older people a higher measure of self-respect as well as much needed income for many.

Now, if the government would look to relaxing immigration laws to hire many expats who might be experts in their own areas (language teachers and other subjects, chemists, engineers, auto maintenance as instructors, business, transport, etc), it would be fabulous.

But PM Prayut is blind to all this. Many knowledgeable expats are welcomed in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, but somehow, not here. Pity.

Re: "Turkey regains control after coup", (BP, July 17)

The Turkish military has a track record with the staging of three successful coups that ousted elected regimes in the name of Ataturkism.

Necip Torumtay, the chief of general staff of Turkey in the late 1990s, famously opined that Turkey's "liberty, independence, and progress towards contemporary civilisation were dependent upon [the Turkish military's] safeguarding the secular and democratic Turkish republic and the Ataturkian principles" of republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, secularism, and revolutionism.

The 2016 abortive coup no doubt was carried out under the pretext of the president's egregious abuse of power, running the gamut from stifling media freedom, prosecuting political dissidents, to violating basic human rights and civil liberties. In short, a classic argument for which every coup in world history was staged.

That the military believes staging a coup to save democracy to be a viable alternative is nothing short of a Kafkaesque dystopia given its oxymoron.

This time, however, the coup in Turkey was met with popular resistance with thousands taking to the streets to restore constitutional order and making citizen's arrests against coupmakers. After suffering three military coups, it seems the Turkish people have had enough of extra-constitutional powers playing "democratic" interventionist, knowing full well the mortal danger they were in.

This abiding faith in constitutional order and democratic transition is obviously lacking in Thailand. Thais would do well to learn from this event as we have had six times more experience than our Turkish friends in enduring military dictatorship.