The King Is Dead: Rest In Peace

The old way was to say, "The King is dead; long live the King." But I do not know that Thailand would be best served by another king. I just know it was well served by the last one. Many years ago when I was watching PACOM/SOCPAC issues professionally, I was continually impressed by how much better off Thailand was than its neighbors -- and how much that seemed to have to do with the wise guidance and steady hand of a good king.

Tolkien would have approved.

5 comments:

james said...

Good government is the goal. Democracy is a means.(*) Amazing how many people confuse means and ends...

(*) Sometimes it doesn't work at all ("One man, one vote, one time.").

Gringo said...

A member of the Thai royal family visited our house several times. He came with friends of my parents who had met him when they were working in Thailand. The Thai royal family was not as exclusive as the English royal family, because at least at some point, the king had multiple wives. He was a direct descendant of the King in the King and I. With all the time he spent being schooled in the US- private boarding school before college- his English became better than his Thai, and he had an adjustment period each time he came back to Thailand. He worked as a STEM professional in Thailand after his education in the US.

At one time we had an abstract portrait painting he had done. Don't know what happened to it.

Grim said...

I'm glad to know of this connection, Gringo.

douglas said...

It's easy to concern oneself with personal pleasures when the ship's tiller is in good hands. When you suddenly find it's now your hand on the tiller, there's a chance a newly found seriousness can emerge, and perhaps the lessons one has been exposed to, if not practicing much, can rise to the surface. For the sake of the Thai people, let's hope that's true.

Ymar Sakar said...

Human governments matter less in their form than in how many righteous humans you can get into leadership positions. The righteous can make a communist utopia into a workable reality, and the righteous can make monarchies, dictatorships, and democracies work as well.

It works up until the righteous die off or are replaced, then the system collapses. All democracies or republics did, was to delay the inevitable crash cycle.