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I have got to be honest with you, I almost made this video entirely to make the thumbnail because I get particular pleasure out of making thumbnails regarding Bill Murray quotes from various movies. And fortunately for me, this thumbnail is from Ghostbusters 2, where he is talking to the special, or whatever, the Deputy Mayor of New York, the special assistant to the Mayor or whatever, and he is talking to him, this guy is being real condescending to him and Bill Murray says, "I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to like lie to me and kiss my butt?" It's just a great little scene - link is in the description below - you can see it, but that's the reason for the thumbnail. I actually thought of making it after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: MOU vote faces stiff opposition. Quoting directly: "Opposition leader Natthapong Ruengpanyawut is urging the government to withdraw its plan to hold a referendum on the controversial Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Cambodia signed in 2000 and 2001." It is important to point out, these documents are from 2000 and 2001, 25 years ago. Quoting further: "saying such complex international issues fall squarely within the government's remit -- not the public's."

Now let me be clear here. I'm not sort of taking aim at this because I am necessarily at odds with his position. I actually can kind of think there are some reasonable points being brought up on this. But that said, I find it somewhat ironic that it would be coming from this sector of the Thai polity if you will, and secondly, honestly, I kind of tend to think that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to get the public's voice on this one, I mean frankly. Now that said, and as we will get to it here in a moment, that could require some public discourse on the matter but in and of itself, the idea of folks chiming in on their thoughts on this might not be a terrible idea. That said, quoting further: "Mr. Natthapong who heads both the opposition and the People's Party", - which first of all let's be clear. The opposition, somebody put a comment on the channel, it was like where they said under the British system that they called this like supply and confidence or something, there was a word for it there was a term and some part of it was "supply". Look, I come from the US. I come from a Congressional System if you will and Thailand has its own unique Parliamentary System. I am not real familiar with how the British System works but I find it difficult to call this a minority government. I find it also a little bit difficult to call People's Party the opposition because they did vote for this PM. Now they voted for him under certain terms and under the idea that this Government is only going to last four months until it dissolves and goes into an election, but it just rings a little off with me when it is called the opposition. That said, quoting further: "Who heads both the opposition and the People's Party voiced strong reservations about Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's proposal to let the public decide on whether Thailand should retain or revoke the two MoUs -- known as MoU43 and MoU44 -- which define frameworks for resolving land and maritime boundary disputes with Cambodia. Citing a recent Nida Poll, he said around 70% of respondents admitted they had little or no understanding of the MoU's content, with 44% saying they do not understand them at all. This he said raises serious doubts about whether a referendum could genuinely reflect the people's will." Yeah, fair point, very fair point; I think reasonable people can disagree on that. 

I go into some deeper detail and deeper dive analysis on some of this stuff in our paid news service. If you're interested in that, you can email us at [email protected]. I am building a new platform for this. We are going to have it up by the end of the year, but from now, if you want to get on the email list for the long form content, we generally put it out every Sunday, if not more often. Please feel free to email us there. While I am also talking my book, it is fair to point out that my better half and I did set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, breakfast anytime. The place is called Pancake Palace. As the name implies, again breakfast anytime with pancakes being the focal point of the menu. But we also have American Diner style food, buffalo wings, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, grilled cheese. We also have Sloppy Joe's; I don't bring that up enough. That's actually something that is kind of hard to find here in Bangkok. We do have Sloppy Joe's as well as glass bottled Coke. If you are interested, links are in searching below to come on down and see us at Pancake Palace. 

That said, quoting further, quote: "A referendum can only represent the people's voice when voters are well informed," he said. "Educating and engaging the public is far more important than the act of voting itself." Well, is it? First of all, this whole notion that, "well those scruffy voters, they might not know everything?" Is that always true? Or are you trying to educate them toward what you want them to think? There's always that. 

Now that said, on this particular topic I do think he brings up a good point. I'm following this quite carefully and I'm not overly aware of all the details and nuances of these MoUs, which by the way are 25 years old; that's important to point out. I don't think the notion of possibly having a new iteration of this whole scheme is on its face a terribly bad idea. In fact quite the opposite. I think it is probably a good idea overall. That said, okay also I think it's probably a fair point that there needs to be some public education on the topic. We have four months; we have a guaranteed 4 months. We effectively know when this Government is going to end. We know we're going into elections. Why not do some of that public awareness raising now? I mean to my mind it looks like a good time to be discussing this, to be engaging the public in explaining via discourse what these MoUs say and what the outcome is for Thailand and the Thai people. Probably a good idea. I don't think that necessarily dismissing out of hand the notion of them voting on it is exactly the thing to do. Again I also find it kind of an ironic position for somebody heading up the People's Party, somebody who is, again I don't like to take one incident sort of use it overly broadly, but generally speaking this whole notion of broad popular mandate seems to have been a major selling point, and here we are on something that is a pretty big deal for every Thai where National Security is involved, and on this one it's kind of well maybe let's pump the brakes on having a vote on that. Really? Is that the best way to handle this? And I will be honest with you; I don't know the answer to these things. That being said, we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.