As I mentioned [stderr]: Fuck his highness Vajiralongkorn of Thailand.
Check out the kid’s expression. He’s thinking “what a twit!”
Thailand’s “guy who was invited to become king by a military junta” is apparently more thin-skinned than the U.S.’ “man who would be king.” While America’s pouting prince of pomposity tweets and trumpets about “fake news” Thailand’s unelected asshole has been moving to ban any speech that bothers him at all. I bet his fellow dictator wanna-bes are all biting their thumbs in envy.
As Cory Doctorow reports [boing] Thailand has extreme lese-majeste laws that prohibit, retroactively, criticizing the king. Or, basically, anything that annoys the king. Thailand threatened youtube over this video:
This is seriously embarrassing: if you’re going to go out looking funny, own it. The problem isn’t that he looks silly, the problem is that he feels silly. The king needs to take lessons from Eddie Izzard, or RuPaul. He doesn’t even wear his ink well, which I always find sad – if you care enough to get the ink, you should care enough display it.
The latest is that apparently the king is upset over a Thai-subtitled version of “The Great Dictator” including a famous speech by Chaplin, which apparently hurt the king’s feelings. In the name of the Streisand Effect, let me share it with you:
Guys like his highness do more to deconstruct the legitimacy of government than a thousand anarchists, every time they go to the mall.
I see your point, but I should be more upset by an embarrassed monarch who is pissed off at a one or two video-recorders than an orange Cheeto who attacks just about any and all who disparage him? I am not really sure I see the great difference.
BTW, that probably should be His Majesty Vajiralongkorn. As a life-long resident of monarchies I tend to notice these things :)
And, god, I’d hate to live in a republic. The skin crawls at the thought.
Reportedly, the fink’s sister is popular with the people of Thailand and would be been a popular ruler. The problem is, Thailand’s ludicrously sexist rules allow only kings, no queens.
*would have been
…Why?
@jrkrideau:
They’re both disturbing. It’s not so much that either person is better or worse but that in one case, insulting the leader of the country gets you up to 15 years in prison. In the other, it makes you the target of a bunch of high profile, childish, finger-pointing tweets that a significant portion of the population knows is probably full of lies.
So, the leader themselves? Dunno, if Cheeto had his way, maybe not very different (but I hope never to find out – lese majeste laws would not fly currently in the US). The law system surrounding them? That’s easy to choose.
To jrkrideau @1
I see your point, but I should be more upset by an embarrassed monarch who is pissed off at a one or two video-recorders than an orange Cheeto who attacks just about any and all who disparage him? I am not really sure I see the great difference.
Angry Cheetos are a lot more harmless. They are just like Internet trolls. All they can do is scream insults. And nowadays every person who has been online for a while has grown a thick skin and an ability to simply ignore insults. However, when you are sentenced to several decades in jail, it gets a lot harder to just ignore this fact (you literally can’t, because jails have walls, which limit what you can do and where you can go).
And, god, I’d hate to live in a republic. The skin crawls at the thought.
The good thing about democracies is that you get to replace rulers every four years.
And I’d hate to live in a state with any form of hereditary rulers. I simply cannot accept the idea that somebody has a right to rule and I have a duty to submit, just because the other person happened to be born to a specific set of parents. Even if the king was benevolent and cared for people and lead the country to prosperity, I’d still want to put a bullet in his head. I would believe that he has no right to issue me orders, and I fucking hate being commanded.
There are only two ways how to make me obey: 1) give solid arguments and rationally convince me that the particular suggestion is a good idea; 2) put a loaded gun to my head or threaten me with jail etc. “Being born in the royal family” is not a valid reason for why I should obey somebody.
I can’t even accept monarchs who have hardly any political power (most European monarchs, who have to obey what parliaments decide). I refuse to accept the idea that I should pay taxes so that “the chosen family” can celebrate royal weddings, wear fancy clothes, and live in castles.
@ 4 Holms
“Why”
Beats me, it just does.
Ieva Skrebele seems to have exactly the opposite feeling.