Transcript of the above video:

The impetus for this video came up as a result of a couple of things in actually multiple correspondence but it distilled down to two things. This first one came from Richard Barrow in Thailand. This is on his Facebook page, someone sent me this. I am going to go ahead and put this up. Quoting directly: "A heads up for people going to Immigration at Chaengwattana. They are now asking for proof of vaccination. The sign says (in Thai) left for unvaccinated, right for fully vaccinated. If you cannot show proof then you need to fill out a form." Now the first thing is, a lot of people I have seen have conflated this with this being a requirement to have a vaccination to get for example an Extension. No, in point of fact that is not a requirement associated with getting for example a visa extension or doing whatever business you are going to do down at the Immigration Office; 90-day reporting for example, TM 30, Resident Certificate, whatever. 

However they have foisted this new requirement on everyone. I always find it interesting; I have seen this a lot dealing with bureaucracy especially I have seen it happen from time to time with the American bureaucratic system especially the Immigration System where this kind of false, I was about to call it a false choice and in a sense it is but because it is imposed as an "either- or" dichotomy kind of thing, I don't know to say it exactly but it is put out there as if it is not that bad because it can go either way, you have the choice but when someone imposes two bad choices on you, it is not really that great a thing. Just as another for example we will put this up. Someone sent me, this was a tweet and this came from @Arthuristheboy, A Ball of Confusion is the byline. The tweet was: “Koh Phangan Immigration is now asking (this morning) for proof of vaccination for 90-day reports and 60 day COVID extension. If no proof, no 60-day COVID extension...Still unclear what they intend to do if on valid one year extension of stay for retirement, marriage but not vaccinated."

Now this turns out to be someone erroneous on its face because the original poster goes on to say: "Apparently different Ms (Immigration Offices) can set their own rules. I should have mentioned that KP (Koh Phangan) Immigration is asking for COVID test or proof of vaccine, so it is a COVID test OR proof of vaccine. Still either way this will be fun. Imagine getting a positive test but asymptomatic and having to go into temple quarantine here." 

So, the reason for this video, there are a couple of reasons 1A, What happened to Medical privacy? I mean that is my big question in all of this. When in the past have we ever seen it? And let me be clear, this is going on in an American context. I am not just pointing out the Thais but it seems like Government's around the world are in my opinion getting pretty grabby with the old power when it comes to medical privacy, basic medical privacy. I have never heard of a situation where, and to be clear no one is keeping anyone out, they are just now delineating folks that have been vaccinated versus unvaccinated to get in which begs the question why. Is this for a further policy change down the road where you can only get in if you have certain qualifications? But meanwhile move back a notch. Definitely I know people are aware of my stance on so-called COVID Passes which is ardently against them for a number of different reasons. To be clear and I have gone through this in other videos and I don't even like adding this as a preamble or as sort of a pretext to what I have to say, but I am not anti-vaccination. In fact vaccine technology is one of the modern marvels of the world and I am sure there are millions of people walking the Earth today who otherwise wouldn't be if we didn't have this technology. I am in favour of that. What I don't like is:

1) it being imposed upon people, 

2) I don't like tracking apps and tracking people via this type of technology and I also don't like a "papers please" kind of world anywhere. This could be America, this could be Europe wherever; this notion of "papers please".

I was watching Casablanca the other night and there is a scene where right at the beginning of the movie they said: "papers please sir" and "oh these papers are expired" and he runs off and then they shoot him! I mean the "papers please society" ain't a great place to live. We have seen this from posterity and this seems to be the way things are going. Setting that aside though, again what about medical privacy? What if people were asked if they have ever had an STD? or if they have been vaccinated against an STD before being able to go into a given place? Would we be in favor of that? I get it is apples and bowling balls I am not getting into the medical side of this. STDs are different from pandemics and things but at the same time I was talking about it with a friend. Tuberculosis isn't treated this way. And let's be clear in a US Immigration context, Tuberculosis is a major issue. If you have been previously infected and we have done videos on this, it results in increased documentation, increased processing time to go ahead and have the Civil Surgeon sign off on somebody as being medically fit to enter the United States. So there have been doctrines and policies put in place for example with Tuberculosis but not like this where people are required before just going in the door of a public place, to have to sign documentation as to what their statue, posture is medically. There is a notion of legal posture for example standing to sue in a case for example, but now we have to disclose our medical posture before being able to enter public places? Do we really want to be living in that kind of world?

Long story short, when I heard about this stuff I found it really concerning again not for some of the reasons that I think people think I find it concerning but just again medical privacy and just the notion of being able to go where you need to go, or where you want to go, without having to be asked for papers. I find that very disturbing especially in public places. We are talking about public forums.

So long story short, that is where things sit. Understand the post script to this whole thing. Immigration which is where the Richard Barrow thing I put up earlier, we are talking about foreign Nationals here. Non-immigrants as we have gone over in other videos they only have status up to the end of their visa. Quite frankly their rights such as they are in Thailand are quite truncated so understand that. I am not making this video to make a bunch of waves and cause people to become agitated or angry or something at the Government. It is more a video I am hoping to get people thinking about where this seems to be drifting. I am not one of these people that believes there are people twisting their mustaches aiming for some ultimate goal. No I have found that in most cases these things just drift that way of their own momentum and it just sort of ends up in a place where you don't want to be. That is what I am hoping to forestall in the making of videos such as this one.