A Military Coup D’état is a Hindrance to Democracy

Before World War II, there were just three old glorious countries in Asia that held their independence: China, Japan, and Thailand. During the War, none of them could defend its own country from invasion with its own standing army: China and Thailand were invaded by Japan. Japan finally lost its war to America. After the War, the standing armies of China and Thailand have constantly interfered in their domestic affairs, by showing their savageness towards their people, instead of their valor for them. It is probably a good thing for the Japanese people that Japanese army is restrained as a result of war so that they needn’t suffer more from their own army.

Thailand is supposed to be a republic of Machiavelli’s (Niccolo Machiavelli1469 – 1527) republic government form: a tripartite state of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. However, when a military coup d’état occurred, it became a despotic government. Thus, its people, in the democratic part of its tripartite, are no longer citizens, but subjects. That is why the world is seeing the standing army of Thailand shoot at its peaceful mass assembly, because “[a]s fear is the principle of despotic government, its end is tranquility; but this tranquility cannot be called a peace: no, it is only the silence of those towns which the enemy is ready to invade.” (Charles de Montesquieu, 1689 – 1755)

The People’s Republic of China is its ruler’s self-entertainment republic. Deng Xiaoping (1904 – 1997) was the worst type of ruler; he ruled China nakedly with his military leader title. Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) still knew to add a ruling party leader title upon himself whether for his ostentation or not. Deng was a retired army political officer, yet he re-entered the Chinese PLA as its top leader. I don’t know if his “out and in” the Chinese PLA was inspired by the notion of Japan’s “in and out” China or not; yet by this, he still didn’t make himself a real statesman, but merely a state leader. The consequence is: Deng executed like a leviathan and committed the June Fourth Massacre through his most trustworthy troops in the standing army of China. It is shameful to the standing army of China because it likes the Thailand’s army to be only able to show its valor to its own people, not to its country’s enemy. “Add to this [to the standing army] that to pay men to kill or to be killed seems to entail using them as mere machines and tools in the hand of another (the state), and this is hardly compatible with the rights of mankind in our own person.” (Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804)

If, in soldiers’ mind in China, Japan, and Thailand, their killings were not only for their lords, but also for their countries, that would only show their un-enlightenment. In the movie Doctor Zhivago, 1965, there is a scene about the Russian officers to urge their soldiers to go to the front line in World War I:

Officer: Listen, lads. Ten miles up that road are the Germans!
Soldier: Rubbish!
Officer: It’s not rubbish. They’re coming. And they’re coming fast. You’ve let them in! They’re coming for your wives, your houses, your country.
Soldier: Your country, officer!
Officer: Yes, my country! And Proud…
[Some soldier shot at that officer and killed him at the scene.]

Those Russian soldiers knew: wives were their own wives, houses were their own houses; but country under Czar was theirs? Humm…

So how do military personnel participate in the political affairs as he/she is entitled for being a citizen? Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) said:

I reply: The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment. … Thus it would be disastrous if an officer on duty who was given a command by his superior were to question the appropriateness or utility of the order. He must obey. But as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its judgment. …

In America, both Ulysses Grant (1822 – 1885, his presidency, 1869 – 1877) and Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969, his presidency, 1953 – 1961) retired from their military position before entering their political life, and neither them re-entered US army afterwards. Grant’s military retirement cost his finance dearly, for until 1958, the former presidents of the United States were without pensions.