stroll

Simple.

They can be either, helpful or a hindrance.

If you ask them for directions, they are generally helpful, if you ask them where to score some Thai sticks, they are mostly a hindrance.

The blonde not wearing a bra is me.

It is the same sort of 'just' punishment many TV members wish to subject crime suspects to, nothing 'Thai' about this.

Looks like I am the first one awake. I was a good boy and was home by midnight, the young mixed crowd of predominantly soapdodgers went on to the Dubliner. A good night out, a number of the forum girls turned up as well, overall about 20 people.

"every hour in Thailand is happy hour."

Do they know that 'happy hour' means cheap drinks?..at least in the USA.

Same here, cheap drinks early evening. But with the new licensing hours, bars close after happy hours, so the slogan fits the 'new' Thailand.

I thought it needs two persons to acquire HIV...

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...but only one leg, apparently.

Happiness on earth, eat dirt farang!

The weather is also better in Thailand.  All you foreigners who are critizing this article are running away from the hign cost of living and the cold weather in the west,

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Thanks for sharing this insight with us, I am glad there are people with such clear analytic minds commenting on the faults of Thailand.

But if you're farang, you can leave. And after seven years

of this utter nonsense, I am.

Good-bye.

Disillusioned

BANGKOK

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Good riddance, moaner, Bye, bye.

Start reading the news in your homecountry to see some similarities in how the country is run.

He doesn't look American, I think it's an Asian who has never been to the States. Probably a masquerading Muslim with twisted sexual phantasies who wants to discredit Americans and Thai people on this board.

Expats beware!

Anyone seen in Nana Plaza would seduce or rape your daughters given half a chance!

Do not allow these godless animals, nor the liberal sympathisers who excuse their evil actions to work as teachers, visit your homes or walk in the same street as our wives or children do.

Let's assume the best - that he is just phantasizing about some heroic deeds in a tiny booth as the night watchman.

Sure, private cars in public places should also be banned, why should I be poisoned because somebody wants to travel in comfort unnecessarily?

What are you, an anarchist or something? People are pigs...the more rules to keep them in check the better.

I completely agree, Dick, people need to be prevented from being pigs and damaging themselves, others or their surroundings. Everything unhealthy should be banned to start with: Cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, sugar, staying up late at night, watching TV for more than 2 hours a day, playing football, sports posing risk of injury, wearing high heel shoes, debating politics or religion, prostitution, sex without prior approval from a family planning health practitioner, playing loud music, wearing make-up, being in the company of others while carrying commutable diseases such as common cold, well, there are just to many things people could messup on...

Why not issue cards which will list daily approved activities for the individual, including timeframe within which these must or may be performed?

DICK for president!

Why UK man come to Thailand to find wife??  Is true UK woman not very good? 

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Uk woman good.

But Uk man same same US man, if poor, ugly, or stupid, cannot find US woman, he go to Isaan find wife. Thai woman also likes man who wants look like woman. No problem, up to you, monsterman!

It is I amMaiC. For reasons unknown to me he is obsessed with this forum he logged into by mistake, I have been honoured as well now:

Ps. None of you guys would like to swap pics would ya? I have several that i took to swap with threm, but i have noone to swap with now mad.gif

Stroll, just curious.  Is your avatar your portrait?  Mine is! 

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Same, same.

Stroll, the plight of the world seems to bear heavily on your shoulders.

No, it doesn't, I just don't want it to be left behind while discussing different world views, and I'd like to know what your comments are regarding these more extreme versions of the variety of 'choices'.

For me to insist that people do have the right to make their own choices I can imagine the outrage you feel when you consider that this liberty would then also extend to the the same types of people you mention in your post. For they do not seem worthy of deserving any liberty whatsoever. Punishment would seem to be the only thing they deserved.

I consider these type of people worthy of much more than you read into my post. I am curious if and where you would draw a line, and how your understanding of 'choice' and 'will' fit into this. My queries are genuine, not just rhetoric. I do not subscribe to the 'hang 'em high' club. But I do disapprove of a range of manifestations of 'choices of experience', some so strongly that I approve the use of force to prevent or stop them. For me, as for most comments I have read here, the question is not whether prostitution should be controlled and regulated, but which areas, to what extend and how.

I will introduce only a smidgeon of concepts which relate to this topic matter.

Please do.

I reckon this remark will qualify you for a free subscription of his circulars.

this  guy  obviously  doesnt  live  in  the  real  world......ive  got  no  doubts  he  lives  in  a  condo  in  Bangkok  with  security  on  the  front  door.....some  of  us  dont  .

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That's why he urges you to consider more effective and less risky ways to protect yourselves!

Poverty does not create prostitution.

But it furthers recruitment of those who under different circumstances would not choose this occupation. Thailand is an illustration for this.

The Thai government

last

month ordered to have a DNA test for the hill tribe people

because a lot of them got their citizenship taken away from them because

the blood

was not Thai.

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So, in practical terms, one needs to carry a plastic pouch with Thai blood as well as a clean urine sample when out clubbing in future?

A misconception among people is that it is your responsibility to take care of the world. Which is vastly different from simply caring and upholding your vision of a better world through living your life as you intend to live it. The latter truly teaches and truly helps. The former just makes you a bug up someone's arse.

I hold the misconception of sharing responsibility for the wellbeing of others, not only by upholding my vision, but also by supporting punitive actions to limit others' "choice of experience".

I urge everybody to be "a bug up someone's arse" who buys hilltribe boys in Nothern Thailand and rents them out to western paedophiles in his villa, and also to brothel owners chaining girls to a bed and taking money for letting them be used. I also have an urge to interfere with the liberty of individuals who make it their "choice of experience" to sexually abuse underage relatives in their family or in their care in educational institutes.

I'm not an alkie.

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A case of chang a day,

keeps the hangover away...

If Thailand was a drug, it would be Heroin. It's so addictive.   

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That's why a number of former addicts manage well in Thailand without it.

My daughter has the advantage of a variety of choices as to what to do with her life while securing survival and some comfort. I advice her against selling herself, be it through prostitution, marrying somebody for security, wasting her prime years in a job she doesn't like, or anything else. In some families the choices are rather limited, and within the legal and cultural framework of some societies, a career in prostitution is a viable option.

I think the stereotype of girls being driven into prostitution by poverty is pretty much just that -- a stereotype. Greed, laziness, and short-term thinking are more of a factor in most cases, I'd be willing to bet. Everyone has choices.

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I argue that, whether intentionally or not, a career in prostitution for sections of Thai society is a viable choice with a different set of apparent pros and cons than other options, by socio-cultural circumstances. Looking at government policies and behaviour of authorities, combined with an investigation of interest and financial benefits derived, one might well suspect that there is indeed an effort 'to drive girls into prostitution'.

This is not to say that every prostitute is a victim or chooses out of desparation, but I pose the question what is free will, and how are choices made?