OPINION

Pilots in a pickle

Re: "THAI union leader slams pilots' lack of 'the right spirit'", (Online, Oct 22).

Thanks to THAI union president Damrong Waiyakanee for telling the pilots that without passengers there would be no work. These four pilots have already turned off a number of passengers. Friends scheduled to visit Thailand from San Francisco have already changed their flights to airlines a bit more "accommodating" and "sympathetic" to their passengers. These pilots remind me of the Korean Airlines snit when the chairman's daughter had a hissy fit over packaged macadamia nuts and delayed the flight by forcing the airline to return to the gate. THAI might be fly high, but their staff fly low.

Re: "Organ-less kitty 'needs necropsy now'", (BP, Oct 24).

If true, the alleged killing by torture of the kitten warrants all the disgusted outrage it has occasioned. But honestly, is it any worse than the treatment meted out on a daily basis to the factory farmed pigs and chickens that chicken and pork consumers pay others to inflict on those animals for no better reason than to feed a lust for tasty animal flesh? In 2018, we do not need to eat meat, certainly not in the vast quantities that, contrary to medical advice, we tend to shovel into ourselves.

Whilst understandable, it is irrational moral hypocrisy to get in a tizzy over one person brutally killing a kitten for money whist happily paying others very well to inflict similar suffering unto death on far more animals on a daily basis. And whilst I'm not a vegetarian, those who advocate vegetarianism on the grounds that eating meat causes needless, and therefore unjustifiable, suffering do make a point that we meat eaters need to address. Even more challenging to reflect on is what justifies treating other animals that can suffer differently to how we treat humans when it comes to killing them. It is telling that, when philosopher Peter Singer followed through the logic here, the response from those incensed at the implications of how speciesism, which proffers only the lame excuse that "we're human and they're not", not only fails to justify the mass daily slaughter of animals, but that the only sound answers to it require that both abortion on request and euthanasia under some circumstances be accepted, he received death threats!

Sound, rational thinking, as Socrates discovered in democratic Athens in 399BC, can be a deadly business. The recent murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state operatives for engaging in rational discussion illustrates the same point, as do the shameful episodes of Thailand's October 1973, 1976 and Black May killings by state officials. These modern events reflect the same feudal mindset against the good morals of critical inquiry that continue to underlie the imprisonment or self-exile of patriots for such "crimes" as engaging in critical discussion or merely liking on Facebook an article from a respected media source whose accuracy has never been rebutted, and the even more brutal media and online censorship that some nations engage in to enforce ignorance of national issues, history and figures. Contrary to the propaganda of despots, contrary even to much traditional majority consensus, respect for critical reasoning goes hand in hand with other good morals.

I have to salute the Democrat Party for its crafty manoeuvre to circumvent the junta's order prohibiting political campaigning. The three-way race to find the party's next leader looked to me like a sneaky way to drum up support for the next election, and the media completely fell for it. I can bet my house that Abhisit Vejjajiva will win the symbolic race, and he will use this fake "primary election" to gloat over Pheu Thai and other parties for not having one.

I think the Democrats are competent politicians but they lack a competent leader. They are like a pride of lions led by a sheep so they bleat and die like sheep; no way they can match Pheu Thai, a flock of sheep led by a lion so they roar and fight like lions.

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