Transcript of the above video:

As a preface for this video as we have discussed in other videos made contemporaneously with this one that have come out already, or should have as of the time of this video coming out, there was a real tragedy in Thailand. It was terrible. There was the attack basically on a child care facility here in Thailand and there are no words for what happened. I mean I have read through some of the stuff, I couldn't even read all the way through it, it is awful what happened, that is just it. In the aftermath of that, there was a kind of less than appropriate moment that occurred as a result of some reporters here.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: CNN visas revoked, charges pending over 'unethical' coverage. Quoting directly: "The Immigration Bureau has withdrawn visas issued for two CNN reporters after they entered the off-limits child care centre where mass shootings took place to report on the story." Now they name these folks in here, I'm not going to name them so, "Name redacted and Name redacted were assigned to cover the massacre at the daycare centre of the Uthai Sawan Tambon Administration Organisation on Thursday," and this is where it just really threw me way off, "they trespassed the crime scene and reported from inside the building where 24 children had been murdered. The picture of the two climbing over the fence from the centre went public on Saturday." There is further stuff that they get into, I urge those who are watching this video read this article, very detailed coverage. Bangkok Post did a good job on this, a lot of information out there. There's still stuff kind of coming out about this, none of it is good but it has Immigration implications and frankly it has implications that kind of speak to kind of the Zeitgeist of this channel or the overall paradigm of this channel which is foreigners want to come to Thailand but at the same time, there's coming to Thailand and having a good time or coming to Thailand and working or whatever and then there is coming to Thailand and in my opinion, acting totally unreasonably. As they note it further in the article, these folks said that "well we were given permission by someone." Well it turned out apparently they were given ostensible permission by someone who didn't have authority to give it. I have a hard time reconciling the notion that they had been given permission to enter the premises with the fact they were 'climbing over a fence'. Generally speaking if you're allowed to enter the premises, there is some sort of gate or door that you would go through when you would be entering those premises, you wouldn't be climbing over a fence. I also truly wonder how much permission was granted or was it just sort of, as we noted in other videos, these folks are here on Tourist Visas; they weren't work authorized so they just came in, started doing this without work authorization in Thailand. As we discussed in other videos, there are media visas. There is a Media Visa category here in Thailand. We don't discuss it very often, it's not overly pertinent to frankly the folks that watch this channel, but yeah there is a media visa category. So that is inappropriate visa for journalists, it is out there. There is no problem with that.

That being said, I think this was pretty over the top and then the notion that there was 'permission'. I'm really wondering like how much of an in-depth conversation was had or was it just one of these kind of deals where they were talking to some low-level person and they were kind of I don't know, trying to shuck and jive as they say back in the United States and try to kind of pull a fast one or something. I don't want to cast aspersions, I wasn't there. I don't fully know but it seems odd that they get permission from somebody who didn't have authority to give it and then it also seems odd that you would climb over a fence. I don't understand that. 

That kind of brings me to the thrust of this video which is foreigners tend to come here and they just do things sometimes that, I'm not mad, I have dealt with it in a criminal context. I have been present when dealing with Thai Attorneys here that are dealing with clients that have done something that has caused them end up in jail and you talk to them, you find out that under any other circumstances, anywhere else in the world, they never would have done something like that. I don't know what it is about Thailand. Maybe foreigners come here and they just kind of lose their inhibitions or something. There's also kind of this weird, I hesitate to call it 'colonial' but there is kind of this weird mindset of certain foreigners especially from the West that, I don't know how to put it exactly but a kind of like "well we know best or we know better, or we know what we are doing" kind of mentality that arises when dealing with Thailand and I think to myself "What are you thinking? This is these people's country, it's not your country. You don't know what's going on here. Can you read Thai? Do you know what's going on?" I mean what are you doing kind of thing? I am not really trying to do this to just drill down on these folks and how this happened but it really, I can't stress enough how it's a bit of a microcosm of kind of foreigners or Farang acting badly in Thailand where they just kind of sometimes come and just do whatever they want and think they have impunity. Then when they get into problems; well the other one that always seems to pop up is then the sort of opining as to the Draconian nature of the Thai Justice System comes up. Well it is sort of like "Hey, the Thai Justice System didn't tell you to climb over a fence into an active crime scene. What is going on here?"

So that said, not to belabour the point or beat a dead horse here, but a lot of people have asked me to do videos to kind of note that Thailand is a great place in the aftermath of this and this shouldn't be sort of indicative, or people shouldn't sort of in their minds automatically put this tragedy associate it with Thailand but it did happen in Thailand. It is terrible but that said, it is a massive anomaly. This isn't something that happens in Thailand. I think that is why folks here in Thailand are so shaken by it but at the same time I have got to be honest, I have seen a lot more antics by foreigners in this whole thing, behave, well obviously not behaving as badly as the perpetrator obviously not that, but I mean in the aftermath of this as I said in another video, maybe folks just got overwrought, they weren't really thinking, they were trying to deal with a really bad situation and that can certainly happen. I don't think these folks deserve to be vilified forever. I am more kind of making this in a more general context to just kind of talk about the fact that yeah foreigners tend to come here and think that it is like there is no Law in Thailand and that is just so far from the truth, I don't even know the words to say how far from the truth it is. It's just not correct.