OPINION

Ideal confusion

Re: "Poll recount takes its toll on US sanity", (Opinion, Dec 2).

Gail Collins notes the irony that Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who took enough votes away from Hillary Clinton to help Donald Trump win Michigan, now wants a recount which could hypothetically help Hillary Clinton win Michigan!

Some people think the definition of an idealist is someone like Ms Stein who is a total purist who won't compromise. But that's my definition.

As someone who considers himself to be an idealist, I think it made more sense for me to have voted for Hillary Clinton who I usually agree with than to have wasted my vote on Ms Stein (even if I agree with her more frequently) and thus help Donald Trump.

In 2000, another Green Party candidate Ralph Nader took enough votes from Al Gore to help George W Bush get elected president and consequently America ended up fighting in Iraq.

If Ms Stein and Mr Nader are such idealists then why do they knowingly hurt their own causes by helping the candidates they least agree with to become presidents?

The recent Bangkok Post coverage of the junta's rice scheme reads like mindless propaganda. The reporters explained nothing. They were after headlines. Indeed, what was below the headlines was unintelligible.

It appears that someone is claiming to give farmers more money when in fact some farmers are getting nothing and the money is alleged to be going elsewhere.

If the government is really to give Hom Mali rice farmers 13,500 baht per tonne, somebody had better tell them because not one farmer I have spoken to knows about it.

Is the government to withhold half of the 13,500 baht per tonne offer to farmers to pay for storage of the rice until it can be sold? That does not make sense.

Is the government offering the farmer 13,500 baht per tonne but withholding 6,500 baht to pay someone else to store the rice until it can be sold?

This latest rice scheme, touted by the junta, sounds like a racket. In fact, the government can store the rice, as it always has, in its own name, at its own expense, without involving farmers.

Who is storing the rice?

Re: "Children told not to drive motorbikes", (Postbag, Nov 30).

Charcoal Ridgeback focuses on the draconian ways we might solve the problem of under-age use of motorcycles by school children, but does not ask the question: Why are children using motorcycles to get to school?

After-hours use is a different problem, but let us at least sort out the school transportation issue. The obvious answer is many of them need a means of transport because alternatives (buses, songtaews) are not available, or their parents are working and not able to provide transport.

So why don't we look for constructive solutions? For example, accept reality and issue students above 14 with a special licence. This can only be used for the purpose of going to school, with the conditions that crash helmets must be worn and there should be no more that two persons per motorbike. The motorcycle's engine capacity should be limited to 50cc and the rider must pass a test organised by the school and local community officials in conjunction with local police.

Another option is the use of electric bikes. How about each school or community having a stock of these to be rented out per term to children?

Last, Charcoal focuses on the police to do something, but that is flogging a dead horse. Why are the schools not expected to take this up on their own initiative as part of education?

Further, why are not community leaders lending their weight to child road safety and traffic law compliance as a community initiative? We might also understand the real reasons for under-age driving and perhaps find some simple community remedies.