Embassies in Thailand warning their citizens to "behave"

I don't know how often people actually look at what their embassy posts online, I know that I never have, but I think that the fact that some embassies are starting to post things warning their countrymen to behave while in Thailand is probably a step in the right direction, even though the people that this message reaches are probably the kind of people that would behave anyway even without a governmental warning.

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Just two days ago, due to mounting pressure from the Thai people and the rather quick-to-jump-to-conclusions online public the Prime Minister made a vague but realistic promise to Thai people to increase the penalties on visitors to Thailand and I think this is a good thing. I find it very odd that people would treat this country as if it was a lawless free-for-all that people can just behave like selfish idiots and never face any consequences.

Of course, much of this has to do with the individual because I think it takes a special sort of idiot to deface national treasures, to drive drunk all the time as if that was ok, and to get into fights with security and just do something like wreck a nail salon because you disagree with the prices.

Now to be as fair as I can be to the visitors, there are a lot of scams here and this can end up leading to outbursts of emotion on the part of a foreigner, and if that is the case, the PM as well as other officials need to take this situation very seriously as well. Unfortunately in Thailand a lot of time once xenophobia kicks in, the people want to point the finger at outsiders every time even though it is their own systems that sometimes make these things possible in the first place.

For example: People drive drunk in Thailand all the time mostly because of the fact that they know they CAN get away with it but in their own country they would be busted almost immediately. The police force in Thailand thrives (financially) on corruption and until that is addressed, you can't really make a promise to crack down on foreigners misbehaving. I mean, they can just buy their way out of it, right?

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The translation of the Hebrew (that's what it is called, right) is informing Israelis that the government of Thailand intends to crack down on foreigners especially in places like Phuket that are now in the spotlight because of a couple of situations involving petty theft where foreigners were targeting (whether intentional or not) innocent Thai people. This is a very rare instance indeed though my friends, very rare. The idea that these foreigners intentionally targeted anyone is untrue. They were just assholes that saw a drunken opportunity and took it. They had no idea who they were victimizing and they almost certainly didn't care.

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I wouldn't mind seeing a sort of "crackdown" on people behaving badly just in a general sense but the problem here is that Thailand is a society of rules that can be broken by certain people who are willing to pay their way out of it and foreigners in particular, are seen as being more capable of buying their way out than most other groups. It isn't unusual for someone to pay some under-the-table-money to get out of a situation that in their own country, would be guaranteed that there were quite serious repercussions and the situation would be made worse if you were to so much as offer to bribe your way out of it.

In Thailand, often a "crime" will be fabricated simply to set up the bribe. I know a couple of people that have been sold drugs by someone (foolish thing, buying drugs from a stranger) only to have the police waiting for them outside the place that the sale was made.

In a western society this would be an obvious case of entrapment, but that is not how it works in Thailand. In both cases that I am aware of, the "charges" magically disappeared after a trip to the ATM machine. That's not justice at all

I will support the Thai government in their "crackdown" on foreigners behaving badly, but only if they do it properly. Based on my years of experience here, I am not holding my breath that this will actually end up being the case.

What I believe actually will be the case is that there are going to be a couple of "fall guys" in the upcoming months that will be used as examples of the Prime Minister following through on his promises and then everything will go back to being exactly the way it was before.

I don't believe it is possible to have a lawful society when the people that you have in charge of enforcing the laws are breaking the laws themselves. We'll see I guess. I run the straight and narrow and play by the rules. The most "illegal" thing I do in a day is to drive on a sidewalk for about 50 meters to save me the 5km ride in the opposite direction for a U-turn. Thousands of Thai people do this every day at the exact same stretch of sidewalk... How do you think I learned about it?