Transcript of the above video:

Yeah this is not a video I particularly want to be making as it pertains to something that has unfortunately occurred and some are calling it a scandal. I would just say it is an unfortunate series of events that has transpired but quite honestly, the title of this video: "You called down the thunder. Well now you got it!" pretty well sums up my thoughts on this whole thing, at least initially. 

I am doing some other videos contemporaneously with this one where I get into, and I will go into a little bit in this video, I am getting kind of tired of the Western press sort of constantly trying to play "gotcha" or something like that with Thailand, where they will focus on one thing and then sort of use that to sort of collectively punish all of Thailand as if all of Thailand was engaging in some kind of untoward activity. At the end of the day, single events are what they are. Collective punishment, there has been sort of, ever since the beginning of COVID there has been an almost default position of a kind of collective punishment needs to be meted out when in reality we could just run our law enforcement functions the way that we always did and things would be fine. 

That said, let's get into the meat, the high weeds of this thing. So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: "Big Joke" probes Pattaya sex scandal with high stakes not only for ‘Sin City’ but Thailand itself. Quoting directly: High stakes investigation into DW TV's exposé sends shockwaves through Pattaya and Thailand. Deputy National Police Chief, 'Big Joke', (so that is Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn) quoting further: "takes charge as the scandal unravels. Controversial claims of bribery, blocked evidence and a city's image at risk. The real victim, a young girl lost in the sensational storm." Quoting further: "Deputy National Police Chief General Surachate Hakparn also known by the public as "Big Joke" is to take over the investigation into an underage sex scandal in Pattaya exposed in a German TV documentary aired in recent days which targeted Pattaya as a haven for sex tourists and those seeking underage services. It comes as Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and local business operators are extremely concerned about the damage being done to Thailand's image across the world and its known effect within the already struggling foreign tourism industry."

A couple of things here. So first of all let's get into, I have not seen the documentary for various reasons. One of them is I don't have any prurient interest in such matters. I have read sort of a factual breakdown of what happened. Long story short, one thing that just off the top of my head was my understanding that occurred here is this person was issued bail; they basically skipped bail pending their trial, got out of the country. Now on the one hand, yeah justice needs to be served. On the other hand, they are not here. And at the end of the day I think most everyone in Thailand would probably agree "hey if they are out of the country that is also a net positive". That said, again I don't know the full facts of how all this went down. There seems to have been, let's call it "improprieties" perhaps, that may have occurred. Again I don't know and quite honestly I think a full police investigation is warranted based on what we have seen here. That said, quoting further in that Thai Examiner article, quoting directly: "The President of the Pattaya Night Business Operators Association, Mrs Lisa Hamilton, voiced her concerns, asserting that foreign media had sensationalized the news." Yeah and there you go and that is a fact. Now I want to be clear and I am going to get further into this here in a minute, no one messes with kids in Thailand, so that is a given, okay? We all agree on that so anybody, but it is always hard and I really applaud this woman for standing up and saying "hey not everybody in Pattaya! Stop tarring us all with this same brush. Not everybody in Pattaya is involved in this terrible behaviour, so kind of stop doing that." I am doing another video specifically on that because the Western press for whatever reason just loves to pillory Thailand, loves to make Thailand out to be something she's not.

Okay, setting all of that aside, something bad happened here. It involves trafficking in underage, children basically it appears to me. "Big Joke" is now on this, okay? I have watched this man's career pretty much since the time he came on my radar over at Thai Immigration. The quote in the title of this video comes from the film Tombstone starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp where he is finally, he is trying not to be a lawman at that point in his life and finally just comes to the point where so many bad actors are in his town, that he has no choice and he says "You called down the thunder. Well now you have got it!" and that is what has happened here, okay? I actually think this event if you want to call it that or at least the involvement of "Big Joke" in this event probably marks a watershed moment here. I think that a couple years from now or years from now or even months from now, we are probably going to look back on this whole thing as a "before and after event". What do I mean by that? I mean it is kind of like how when "Big Joke" went to Immigration and Immigration was a certain way before "Big Joke" and after "Big Joke" took it over, even though he left and was not part of that organization anymore, it had changed; things had changed. Again, you called down the thunder and now you have got it and believe me, look again I have been watching his career for years, there is not any political jockeying he needs to do for some years now because of the way sort of the system works here in Thailand. So you have got his full attention and you have the one Police Officer that I have been watching who is relentless. In thinking of making this video, I thought of coming up with something snarky to say like” oh who is "Big Joke" the equivalent of? And sort of pick two characters from pop culture to sort of come up with it. I had a hard time doing this. I came up with one, Colombo, from the old Peter Faulk series Colombo and then I was like well who's the other one/ and be somebody who is tough da, da, da? At the end of the day, the only thing I could ultimately think of was The Terminator because he is that doggedly relentless in going after his goals. We saw this in Immigration and we have since seen it when he has gotten involved in other sort of high profile investigations. Once you call down the “thunder” it doesn't go away, it's just there and now "Big Joke" is on this. So who do I feel somewhat bad, well it's not “somewhat” I feel bad for in this? First of all who I feel bad for is the legitimate entertainment operators and I know you are out there; there is going to be blowback. Because to use the parlance of American Common Law Jurisprudence, especially in a Supreme Court context back in the United States there's going to be strict scrutiny here. "Big Joke" is going to be looking at everyone and he is going to want to make sure that everyone's paperwork is in order. That means more admin costs; that means more time making sure your house is in order, getting your ducks in a row because again there are plenty of people and look, I am tired of the pearl clutching from the West, yeah guess what? The rest of the world has basically said “men are terrible and we are going to ignore them or sideline them or marginalize them”, whatever. And I don't want to get into all of that; frankly I moved out here to be away from all that, But yeah guess what? News flash! There are places here in Thailand, throughout the country where men of all stripes go from time to time to enjoy a beer, like the nightlife, like to boogie; I do too truth be told from time to time. But again, there are rules. There are no children involved in adult activities, but yes adult entertainment occurs. That is a thing, okay? I don't know why, they kind of use these type of stories to then conflate and make Thailand look bad for what I call Thailand's notion of ‘conservative tolerance’ where basically, look 98% of Thais are super-duper conservative but is just their paradigm that “hey, live and let live”! Conservative tolerance. Guess what won't be tolerated? The victimization of Thai children will not be tolerated. So on the one hand where I am a little bit angry with the Press on this because again they use it as stated to sensationalize and at one particular incident into sensationalizing and trying to make quite honestly the country look bad which is just terrible and secondly it is also kind of disingenuous because looking at Thailand solely through the lens of Pattaya, would be like looking at America solely through the lens of Las Vegas; it would be wildly warped from the reality, okay? I'm not saying there's anything bad about Pattaya or Las Vegas. Both of them have been described at one time or another as “Sin City”, but look, again it is this whole adult entertainment. Look, I'm a grown man. I don't want to go be entertained by Disney movies or something. I'm a grown man, grown men enjoy what grown men enjoy, there's nothing criminal in that. But those who traffic in children are a scourge on decent society and guess what, we have our own scourge that we can set against you and that is "Big Joke" and guess what? This is the perfect job as far as I can see for "Big Joke" to sink his teeth into and get in there and deal with this. 

So again there are sort of three sort of groups, four if you will that I am really kind of targeting this video at. One, folks again who run legitimate entertainment businesses "batten down the hatches, a storm is coming." Be ready to comply; have your paperwork in order; be ready to present your documentation that your house is in order. I think that is coming down, okay, and if your house is in order, I don't think you have anything to worry about here, okay? So that's said. Next thing, punters, end consumer, tourists. Is there anything for you to worry about? No this will all be occurring at a law enforcement level; they will be dealing with the vendors and things. It will be kind of a behind the scenes thing from your perspective. Okay, so don't even worry about that. Now if you are worried that more of this could happen in the sense that “well I don't want to go to venues that there's even a possibility that they could be harbouring children or in some way exploiting children”, let me tell you here. What is it they say? "The best time to fly an airline is the day after they have had a plane crash." Well to paraphrase The Big Lebowski, “the plane has crashed into the mountain” when it comes to this issue. That part is over. In one sense this this is kind of good news. This bandage is already pulled off, this has already occurred. We can set to dealing with the problem effectively and as I said “the best time to fly an airline is the day after a plane crash”, because they are going to be running things as tight as they possibly can. That is kind of the similar situation going into this high season now.  "Big Joke" is on this. We have seen what "Big Joke" is like when he sets his mind to something. I suspect anyone who is even remotely involved in this just absolutely terrible activity, you are in a bad place and we will get to you in a minute. But again tourists, so-called punters folks that want to come here and have a good time in Thailand and don't want to worry about whether or not they are involved in something elicit or illegal, rest assured this is already being handled; you can by the way that it has moved. I have already sort of mentioned the Western press, I am doing another video on that so I won't get too far into that.

Finally, let's actually speak and I am going to say a few things that, this is one of those topics where people become very reticent about speaking because it is an uncomfortable topic. Who wants to think about even the exploitation of children? It's awful, it really is awful. That said I think this needs to be said. To all of you evil people, ‘people’ isn't even the right word for you, but to you "entities" that are hell bent on abusing children; there was a time I understand where the analog nature of Thailand's Immigration system was such that this place was porous in the sense that it was possible to get into this country and for you sick folks to perpetrate just truly awful heinous things against the children of Thailand. Thailand's sons and daughters are yours no more. The digital capabilities with the Immigration System placed basically what amounts to a metaphorical ‘iron dome’ over this country against letting any of you that have any kind of record in. Now let's also bear in mind that now as I said you have called down the thunder. Our best law enforcement guy that quite honestly I think every Thai can agree, this is the perfect job for this man at this time to be doing, is on you and then on top of it, what due process was out there is now all called into question. So ask yourselves is this the place you would want to be in where they are questioning even the need to put you through due process, okay? I mean I am not saying anybody is going to come to the conclusion that you are not going to get it, but the questions are being asked okay? Point B, you're not welcome here, you're not wanted here. For all of us it would just be better if you went away. My personal opinion, I would kind of prefer it you all went to hell, but that's me okay? But whatever, it would just be good if Thailand was rid of this scourge on her people quite frankly. You are not wanted, you are not welcome, get out! And to any of you out there that think that the shadows in this country are somehow going to provide you some camouflage, let me tell you from personal observation, the shadows in Thailand will be far less kind to you than the light ever would be. Get out, NOW. We want you gone. I don't know if we can evidence it any more than by appointing "Big Joke" to rooting you out. And as I have said in other videos, in my opinion this is great; tear this out root and branch, and even if we find a few more scandals as a result of looking into it and yeah that will be something that we will all be real sad to see, at least it will be gone and we will have burned this cancer out of our body politic sooner rather than later.