OPINION

Driven to distraction

The government has blamed the increased wealth of Thais for traffic woes (BP, Feb 24). That doesn't sound reasonable because an owner with a myriad of posh cars in his/her garage can only drive one car at a time on public roads.

The government should look at things such as how to improve traffic flows and get a computerised lighting system in place. This would allow police to fully concentrate on cracking down on traffic offenders during and outside of rush hours instead of helplessly changing lights manually from their cosy booths.

There is a system in Thailand and its constantly working away, unexposed to public participation, aside from the bright lights of disclosure, scientific investigation or popular discourse. This system brings us overpriced goods, useless items, outdated technology, poor public utilities and badly managed companies. This system works constantly to enrich certain people, deny civilians their rights, refuse the public their choices and to declare opposition immoral. It cares not about coloured shirts or political parties because it is all the time seeing its wishes carried out in beneficial financial terms regardless of who holds the reins of lesser power.

Its name is corruption and it starts with wealth so massive as to be inconceivable to ordinary civilians, and it seeps down through every layer of business, government, institution, company and work group that no construction is made, no plan is complete and no purchase is made without its inclusion. Every road, bridge, dam, runway, shopping centre, government building or house includes corruption in its final price tag. The bigger the deals, the higher the costs, the better for those concerned. Even the religious orders have got a taste for it. It is highly addictive and seemingly impossible to eradicate. An enemy far greater than drugs but never seriously fought.

For those readers and journalists following the hot debate about the Krabi coal-fired power station, ABC News Australia has just published a report which shows how much cheaper solar power generation is now compared to so-called "clean coal".

Key the following words for the search: solar power cheaper than coal climate council

George Cuppaidge (PostBag, Feb 23) makes several off-the-wall comments in his attacks against "political correctness".

He gives no sources to back up his claim that half the people in the world like Donald Trump. In fact, the latest polls show that not even half the people in his own country like him!

He argues the fact that we have canine teeth is proof we were born to be meat eaters. Then how come gorillas who also have canine teeth are vegetarians? (Even if there was a legitimate need for a caveman to eat meat it has nothing to do with what's appropriate to eat now). He thinks it's wrong to tax alcohol and cigarettes but fine for the rest of us to have to pay for the health costs of alcoholism and smoking.

Ironically, since it's now politically correct to say you are not politically correct, Mr Cuppaide is more "politically correct" than I am!

George Cuppaidge's ramble through several disconnected issues includes the rather remarkable and unsupported statement that half of the people in the world who know anything about Donald Trump, actually like him. Really? That obviously excludes the 40% minority of those who really know Mr Trump, the US electorate. I know who I believe.

Re: "No one above the law", (PostBag, Feb 23).

"Don't Do Anything Illegal" is the heading of precept #9 from The Way to Happiness booklet authored by L Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. You can observe Scientology for yourself and had you done so you wouldn't put out misleading comments and opinions such as you have.

With regard to Korat Chris's response to my earlier " Democracy failings" letter, I did not venture to suggest that either ballot result was " invalid because an unseen majority didn't bother to vote", as he alleges.

The point that I was humbly trying to make was that if we cannot get all of the people to come out and vote, we must accept that elections in their present form simply invite a take-over by a large minority of extremists, and that the result of properly regulated opinion polls (which represent more accurately the opinions of the entire electorate and not just a proportion of disgruntled citizens) are truly more representative of the majority.

Some evidence can be found found in the US result, a tiny majority taken from barely more than half of the population has given us a world leader generally considered to be the politician most likely to start a nuclear war. Incidentally, his Republican predecessor, George W Bush, who generously presented us with the Iraq war and arguably the Syrian imbroglio and much of the current refugee crisis, was elected on almost identical minority numbers -- a mere one in four of the US electorate!

As for the UK Brexit result, approximately one in three have supported Brexit. What they have actually voted for is an indefinite period of attempting to unravel 44 years of negotiating hundreds of deals which are already taking most of the government's attention, amid massive uncertainty for all concerned.

As a UK citizen myself, I believe that we should have left the EU some 20 years ago when the European Court first began overruling decisions made by the highest UK courts, often at great cost to UK taxpayers.

The current issue should have been whether it was realistically and financially possible to actually achieve Brexit, and the general public were not equipped to do that anyway.

As an ex-UK citizen myself, I have to declare that I myself have not cast a vote in my entire life. I simply didn't bother on the basis that whether or not I voted personally would not affect the result. Since not one of those elections was decided on one vote (of about 40 million), I always felt vindicated.

Unhelpful that this attitude may be, I feel that it probably goes a long way to explain why democracy in it's present form is proving dysfunctional.

Re: "Meet the five very different Trump administrations", (Opinion, Feb 23).

Thomas Friedman ably guides us through the swirling contradictions, but there is surely a sixth Trump. The "Medical" is the most fateful of all, namely that the US government is being led by a man with an exaggerated sense of his self-importance, a deep need for admiration, an inability to take any criticism and complete indifference to the feelings of others. That's narcissistic megalomania.

Of course, millions of US citizens support Mr Trump's populist agenda. It is likely we have reached the stage in political development where many voters expect their politicians to be sociopaths. They are refreshingly different, entertaining and can certainly get things done. Who needs sanity?

Regarding Terrence Shan's comments in his Feb 23 letter, "I won't be scanned", he does not say which country he is from, but he had better get used to staying at home because an increasing number of airports around the world now use body scanners.

These body scanners are part of the increased surveillance and security unfortunately needed in this new age of aircraft hijackings and terrorism, and while it is inconvenient, frequent travellers are inured to it and accept it as part of the price we must pay for our own safety.

Re: "As UK attacks whistleblowers, EU defends them", (Opinion, Feb 22).

I take issue with this supposed piece of "information".

In 2015, the British government under David Cameron, following Edward Snowden's embarrassing disclosures of the sort of information any government would be justified in regarding as "state secrets", asked the Law Commission to "consider" what sort of counter transparency measures might be required in the digital age.

What Jean Lambert is presenting as if it were law, is her take on a small part of the report. One asks what US President Trump means by "false reporting". Surely this is an example.

This piece suggests that all whistleblowing in the UK has been criminalised, when the report has not even been considered by the politicians, let alone has any of it been adopted by any political party, brought forward and then gone through the tedious drafting process, committee stages and finally debated in the House of Commons to allow it to become UK law.

Ms Lambert's credentials are that she is a member not of the UK parliament but of the EU parliament. She stood last month for the office of president of that house and polled 53 votes -- approximately one twelfth of the votes cast; she is a member of the British Green Party which holds one seat out of 650 in the UK parliament; she is on the "Remain" side as regards Britain's decision to leave the EU; it will be remembered that, after an incredibly well-publicised and hard-fought campaign, the British people democratically voted to exit from the EU.

Re: "McCain says free press key to democracy", (BP, Feb 20).

US President Donald Trump loves making the media his favourite "whipping boy", just as do many other world leaders with authoritarian tendencies who have difficulty accepting criticism.

Bravo to Senator John McCain for underscoring the importance of a free, and at times adversarial, press in protecting democracy.

Mr McCain joins Thomas Jefferson, founding father and third president of the US, who once famously stated, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

The world needs more statesmen like Mr McCain and Jefferson, who -- despite having their occasional disputes with the media -- recognise and respect the essential roles of a free press in safeguarding the interests of society.

I can't tell you how happy I am that I could show my significant other the recent story in the Thai press which quotes Pattaya's chief of police, no less, as saying that tourists do not come to the city for sex, but for Pattaya's natural wonders, (BP, Feb 22).

I think she was suspicious every time I told her I would travel to Pattaya, not for a naughty time, but for it's natural wonders such as err, umm -- actually I was at a bit of a loss to describe to her the joys of nature such as Walking Street which I convinced her was a hiking trail, and the birds to be found at night near the pristine Jomtien Beach.

Now she knows.