So he figured out where the biggest trough is, since he wasn't able to formulate a quick enough coup de'tat during his reign, I guess he figured.....why not join the other swine like Prayut and Prawit.

This reminds me of a bunch of  geriatric  rock stars reforming in the twilight years of their lives an attempt to raise a bit of cash whilst desperately attempting to appear relevant once more, despite most of their fan base having passed away. and little interest from the anybody else.     I doubt he or any of his prospective political pals are short of cash ,   He should  direct his efforts to the golf course, take up beekeeping, or perhaps occupy himself by posting rubbish on this forum like any other self respecting geriatric whinger 

                Many on here, for some reason  seem to strongly object "in principal" to a military based government.   Yet it is the non military  "elected" governments that have been responsible for the increasingly onerous immigration regulations  that we have to abide by..

                As expats that should be our only concern,  its all about taking care of oneself . that's how it works in Thailand ,  the woke political ideologies that  some  westerners carry with them is nothing more than a liability ,  worthless emotional baggage, that needs to be discarded. 

                "Expats supporting  democracy in Thailand"   is just as ridiculous as " Gays supporting  Gaza"  and nothing more than vacuous virtue signalling by people who really have no idea what is best for themselves or indeed Thailand

                 The confused emoji this post has received  proves  my point

                  

  

21 hours ago, mfd101 said:

The thing about 'hierarchy' and 'equality' is that, ironically, you need both.

 

Hierarchy follows from the fact that you can't govern a country of 70+ million people without 'organisation' and 'administration'. There's always going to be 'leaders' of one kind or another and at various levels, and  - in modern mass societies - millions of 'followers'. It can't in PRACTICAL terms be otherwise. The nearest countries to reconcile the 2 in reasonable ways are small-but-modern countries like the Scandinavians or the Netherlands or NZ. And in Australia's case, lucky to have both a strongly egalitarian culture (traceable back to settlement by convicts) and great wealth.

 

The issue is how the 'leaders' become and remain leaders and how they are moved on when their time is up. In countries where all power is narrowly concentrated at or near the top of a hierarchy, force is usually the only means of moving people on.

 

As to the MORAL aspects, 'equality before the law' is the basic concept. This works well in modern countries but is always subject to traditional cultural attitudes (ie who is a 'better' or 'more valued' person than another and for what reason). Thus 'snobbery' or 'class consciousness' remains strong in some otherwise modern monarchies (UK obviously), and obsession with wealth (eg Usofa) is a modern blight on egalitarian concepts.

 

Of the 4 countries you cite above, only India has much resemblance in all of this to Thailand, and that because of the caste system - that is, an unmoveable classificatory system having no useful bearing on quality or skills or anything else. In that it resembles also the UK.

 

China however is different, because its founding ideology is one of equality for all, but the PRACTICAL problem of running a nation of over 1 billion people means that a ruling class gradually forms and perpetuates itself (lots of sons of famous fathers) and, through corruption, begins to misuse & steal the nation's wealth.

 

There are no simple answers. Just lots of blood, sweat & tears.

 

 

Main problem for all countries is corruption & nepotism resulting in incompetent sycophants climbing upwards who would never get to their positions without corruption &/or nepotism (UK - House of Lords (many members), Jeremy Corbin, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson to name a few) e.g. 'promoted' far above their abilities.  This, may I suggest, leads to the decline of countries over varying lengths of time.

5 hours ago, MarkBR said:

Main problem for all countries is corruption & nepotism resulting in incompetent sycophants climbing upwards who would never get to their positions without corruption &/or nepotism (UK - House of Lords (many members), Jeremy Corbin, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson to name a few) e.g. 'promoted' far above their abilities.  This, may I suggest, leads to the decline of countries over varying lengths of time.

As far as I was aware Corbyn was put there as a joke,  many  true blue tories signed up as labour party members just to vote him in as leader, knowing full well that it would render the Labour party unelectable.  They were not wrong either