Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Blacklisting here in Thailand. As we discussed in other videos, the Blacklist is not new, the Blacklist per se, but blacklisting for things associated with overstay are relatively new; it's about 10 years old, I've done videos on that in other contexts. This particular video is kind of an example of a rarity which is someone whose sort of activities here in Thailand resulted in a Blacklisting, and again I'll jump into it here in a moment.

That said, very quickly, we have had a number of people that will tell me “Hey, I don't necessarily always need a law firm, is there anything we can do to support you on the channel? We know you're not monetized through this channel; is there anything we can do?" Well as I have discussed in other videos, my better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It's called Pancake Palace, as the name implies breakfast anytime. We also have American Diner style food, it's not limited to breakfast. We have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, chilli bowls, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. So if you are interested in that, please feel free to check out the links in the description below; we would love to see you, come on by.

That said, let's jump back in here, to this whole lifetime blacklisting. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Chinese tourist blacklisted after damaging Airport Immigration gate. Quoting further: "A Chinese National has had his visa revoked, been placed on a lifetime blacklist and now faces criminal charges after damaging an automated immigration gate and verbally abusing officers at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Samut Prakarn province." I'm making another video contemporaneously with this one discussing the issue of “abusing” or “insulting” Officers on duty. That's a specific issue here in Thailand and I delve into it deeper in another video; stay tuned for that. 

That said, quoting further: "The incident occurred in the Departure Immigration area of Thailand's main International Airport on Wednesday at about 2pm. When the gate failed to open, the tourist reportedly kicked the glass barrier, damaging the equipment. He then tried to use the gate again incorrectly, kicked it a second time and forced his way through without completing Immigration procedures. Airport Security Officers, with the help of the man's wife, intervened and restrained him after he allegedly shouted abuse in Chinese and English and attempted to assault Immigration Officers. He has been charged with property damage, a crime carrying up to 3 years' imprisonment, a fine of up to 60,000 Baht, or both. Officials estimate the damage at about 450,000 Baht. Immigration authorities have revoked his visa and placed him on a permanent Blacklist". Yeah, again there are different amounts of Blacklisting. As we have discussed in other videos, if you are on overstay by a day over 90 days, 90 days or more, you immediately get blacklisted for 90 days, and it goes up from there. It can cap out if you will at a lifetime Blacklist, which is what has occurred to this person. Quoting further: "barring him from re-entering Thailand. Officials confirmed he will be deported once legal proceedings are complete. While emphasizing that visitors are welcome, Authorities warned that criminal or inappropriate behaviour could result in Visa revocation and removal from the country."

Couple of things here. One, I'm not depending this person's conduct. Again, it sounds like whatever happened here was really not good to say the least. But, as we are moving more and more into this sort of dystopian future where we are all going to be tracked, traced, biometrically checked every time we're moving through an airport or whatever, and as they are increasingly automating everything - and as we have discussed in other videos it looks like they increasingly want to cross reference our bank data and tax information in a travel context - I have got to imagine this is not going to be the first incident of this. And again, while I don't condone this kind of behaviour - in fact it sounds pretty childish, kicking in doors and doing all this kind of stuff - look, people get frustrated and we are entering something that I can only describe as sort of a Neo-Soviet dystopia. There's a great series, it's called The Americans, it has Carrie Russell in it and I believe his name is Jonathan Rhys as well, or his last name is Rhys, I can't remember his first name, in any event, they play these like Russian spies in America in the '80s but there are scenes of Soviet Russia from the '80s, the late Soviet Russia, there's a great scene where the male protagonist's son who lives in Russia is trying to get over to America, and he's leaving the old communist bloc. And you see him going through these checkpoints where everything is, it's very, everybody just looks like they are like a coiled spring sort of thing. Very stressful, a lot of heightened scrutiny, and for what? Just because people want to move around? Why? Well that was the Soviet system. More and more with this globalism, supranationalism, whatever you want to call it, we're seeing more of this nonsense, and again, I understand that there can be benefits from these automated kiosks and again, this person is a foreigner, it's my understanding that now they can use the automated system - although I'm not sure if he even was able to do that and maybe just wanted to use it and it made him mad that he couldn't - but I can see incidents of people getting very frustrated in these airport situations for very justified reasons. Now I am not saying that this person was justified, and frankly it sounds like it wasn't particularly, but I don't think that this is going to end up being uncommon in the longer-term scheme of things, because quite frankly, humans don't want to be treated like cattle. That's not inherent to folks’ nature. 

So I don't know what that means long term, but again this is an example of what can only be described as a foreigner behaving badly in Thailand, and this person shouldn't have done this, and they damaged state property here in Thailand, and they are a guest in this country. So it sounds appropriate to me that blacklisting is in order; just you don't have to deal with this person ever again. That said, we are rolling out all of these - again for lack of a better term - dystopian mechanisms and systems, there is going to be consequences to doing that.