Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing "Big Joke" yet again, currently in the headlines. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Big Joke requests time as Bangkok police station weighs cases against him and the Police Chief. 'Big Joke' seeks 10-day delay in money laundering case. Bangkok Police Station handles cases against him and the police chief amid intense scrutiny. It follows a complaint filed by lawyer-activist Sittra Biebangkerd there against the Police Chief General Torsak Sukvimol. Quoting further: "A lawyer for suspended Deputy National Police Chief General Surachate Hakparn, (so-called "Big Joke") on Wednesday asked for a 10-day extension to submit his defense testimony in the money laundering case against him. 27-year-old Miss Pimpisut Chanlert made the request under the glare of media cameras at Tao Poon Police Station in Bangkok. The country is avidly watching the progress of this case. It sees Thailand's most popular policeman fighting for his career. General Surachate is charged before the court with money laundering. The case is linked to illegal gambling website BNK Master. At the same time similar and extensive allegations concerning dozens of Police Officers and suspended National Police Chief Torsak Sukvimol are also being examined at the same police station. It follows a criminal complaint by lawyer Sittra Biebangkerd. However, no prosecution or charges have been decided upon in that case." Note: no prosecution or charges; they haven't been brought yet. So again, for all the sort of fanfare and all the sensationalism out there, there aren't any charges in this.

I thought of making this video overall, and titling it the way that I did because somebody asked me the other day - they basically kind of put me on the spot and said ‘what do you think of him”? And I have said for years I only started following "Big Joke's" career because he became the head of Thai Immigration and really shook things up there and that was pertinent to this channel. And then his career was such a colourful thing after that that I just kind of kept following. Up until really a couple of months ago, I would say I was fully neutral on "Big Joke" generally. I kind of felt like there were some good things and there was some bad things but overall I was just sort of neutral. My thoughts on that have changed a little bit but let me explain the framework under which I'm thinking. There's a poem by Rudyard Kipling called IF. I urge anybody watching this video to check that out. Actually Michael Caine does a really good version. I'll try to put up, if I remember I'll put a link in the description below to that video itself, but again if I forget to do that it's Michael Caine: IF. You can just search it on YouTube; it's a great rendition of the poem. But there's a line in there, quoting directly: "If all men count with you but none too much," and that is kind of my thought with regard to "Big Joke" as of now. Again there was a time I was much more neutral and the reason I have a certain amount of affinity or I found kind of a lot of positives in here very recently, at least in his career, a few months back was the first time I had ever seen in the entire time I've been here in Thailand, and let me be clear, Thai Law enforcement is fine, I don't think that they were remiss in the past but it was the first time I had ever seen a law enforcement officer in this jurisdiction or quite honestly really any place else I've ever been, take upon themselves with great zeal, the cause of trafficking of primarily women and children and the abuse, sexual or otherwise, of women and children because that is just awful. And me personally, I have been witness in my own life to a person who I greatly respect who had to adjudicate, deal with matters pertaining to sex offenses and it's not pleasant. I was watching the film Citizen X the other day and there is a part where the psychiatrist that they bring in to help in this case to find the serial killer, says: "yeah, if we weren't affected by these things we would all be monsters"; it's something no one wants to talk about, and it's something nobody really likes to deal with. It's uncomfortable but it has to be dealt with; we have to have strong law enforcement with regard to those issues. So insofar as that is concerned when that came on "Big Joke's" radar and he came down like a brick bat on it the way you should, but with his usual flair. I admit and I guarantee there are plenty of officers in the Royal Thai Police and elsewhere in other law enforcement agencies here in Thailand who are diligently working on those cases without any of the fanfare okay and I'm not belittling or diminishing what they do because what they do is just as important as any flamboyance or boisterousness associated with a different method of law enforcement, in this case the type that "Big Joke" tends to like to practice because he just seems to kind of like to make a splash. But that said, on that one issue, that was where I went from sort of neutral to favourably positive albeit in sort of again a neutral sort of way because at the end of the day that is just something that I think we absolutely have to have vigilant and assertive, quite honestly aggressive law enforcement to deal with those issues. There can be no lack of proactivity, there can be no lack of alacrity with regard to going after people who traffic in children and who abuse people sexually or otherwise. We have to have strong law enforcement there. So that's why I like "Big Joke". But again as the title implies and in the spirit of that of that poem by Kipling, "but not too much." 

Now with regard to gambling and again from what I've read about the current head of Thai Police who is presently sort of on a sabbatical pending this investigation and everything, Torsak Sukvimol, he seems to be a very assiduous law enforcement officer as well, and seems to be someone who is not messing around either, quite honestly. I have no doubt that he is just his dedicated to law enforcement in Thailand as "Big Joke" is. But the point I'm trying to make it and with regard to gambling by the way, if all of this is just sort of, they talk about a sort of broad investigation, there are a lot of people accused and all of this good stuff, if we're going to go ahead and legalize gambling this is just a thought. Much like cannabis where when they legalized it, they just amnestied everybody and pardoned everyone, they opened the jails and let those folks out because quite honestly it was a bit silly for them to be incarcerated for Cannabis related crimes. If we are going to legalize gambling in Thailand, let's be realistic about it; let's quite honestly be mature about it. In the past, there had been, I won't call it involvement necessarily by law enforcement, but maybe folks were looking the other way about different things and quite honestly I would argue gambling is a victimless crime, or maybe the victim is the person who undertakes it to begin with so again can you call somebody who does something to themselves, a 'victim'? Hard to say, reasonable people can disagree. I'm sure there are social scientists and anthropologists or whatever out there that would say "well yeah it is", but I don't think so. Again if we're going to legalize it which is what we are talking about, maybe we should think about just amnestying everybody that may or may not have had some sort of direct or tertiary involvement with the thing before it was legal and if we do that, maybe we just put it all behind us. That's just a thought on my part. But that said, people have asked me what I think of "Big Joke" and that is what I think.