Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, well I actually saw a comment on one of the videos that said, if Ben doesn't say "as the title of this video suggests", and just jumps into it, get ready for a rant. So I guess I have already kind of broken with my usual traditions here but yeah this isn't really going to be a rant, but this is kind of one of my more, well let me just jump into it. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Masks Rule to stay for public transport. Quoting directly: "Wearing face masks on public transport and in cinemas is still mandatory, the Department of Health said." Really? Just because you say so? Really? Okay, let me keep going. Quoting further: "That being said, the Department will moderate the measures applied to some higher risk businesses while the aforementioned platform will be retained as those firms are required to follow the Public Health and Communicable Diseases Act." Explain to me where, in either of those Acts there is a codified mask mandate? Where is it? I am perfectly happy to stand here corrected, very much so but you know I made a video back in April of 2021 and it was pretty lengthy, I think it was about 31 minutes long. We have combed through this. Now admittedly I haven't gone through the Public Health Act as much as I have gone through the Communicable Disease Act, but the Public Health Act to the best of my knowledge and yes I have reviewed it and I have looked at it with Thai Attorneys; again I am happy to stand corrected but I have seen anything in there that has a codified "mask mandate". And now the Emergency Decree has gone so truly what are we even talking about here? I mean I didn't agree with the argument that the Emergency Decree just magically made non-codified mandates somehow legitimate. I didn't agree with that argument but at least I can understand the argument. Okay, we are under special circumstances; there is an Emergency Decree, all right. Still it is not codified, so what are we talking about? Again as I have said before, the quarantine was codified. When they imposed the quarantine, that is in there. Okay they invoked the Emergency Decree and then they invoked the quarantine. Okay? Where is the mask mandate anywhere?  And by the way this is not my invitation to create one; I think it is a terrible idea and I would probably try my best not to abide by it if it was codified but I mean truly! Now there's no further Emergency Decree and people are just running around saying this and the media just kind of keeps doing it too. They don't even dig in at all on any level to whether or not this really has any legal backing, or legal basis. There is nothing out there. It is just, "oh well they say so, so that is just is what it is!" No, I am sorry, I am just sorry this is just not right to do.

On top of that, we are now seeing data about it. I think I read the Johns Hopkins study on this discussing how all these methodologies are very flawed. I think it best we can all kind of say to ourselves "look we got really scared in 2020 about something and we kind of overreacted, that over reaction just kind of continued but now we do have the data. We know where we stand on this stuff. This is not October of 2020, or even October of 2021. This is October of 2022 and the Emergency Decree is gone. Ostensibly there is no emergency, so what are we doing? Just saying things? I mean seriously I don't bring this up lightly. I love Thailand, I love everything about Thailand, I love the "live and let live" nature of Thailand. I don't like being disharmonious either particularly but when Governments start telling you, you have to wear things, you need to be very, very concerned because that can lead to some very dark places at the end of the day. Seriously this just needs to end now and just sort of saying it, doesn't make it so.