# Are people in the UK jailed for "insulting the Queen"

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 11, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648 "2015-09-11T04:12:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 53

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### Author: ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/53 "2015-09-12T11:20:28Z")

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Hi **Monty**. I find it very hard to reconcile your two posts. Do you have anything at all but empty rhetoric and the Lèse-majesté law? Did you even read my comment on that law?

> [@Monty](#):
>
> Heck, I’m gobsmacked at how the Thais treat the Thai royal family. …Thailand is the country in the most need of getting rid of royalty, but it’ll never happen thanks to that vicious law.

Constitutional Monarchs are sometimes thought of as just decorations. There is a socialist perception that their huge wealth is undeserved, but it was acquired in due course. Do those who want to confiscate the wealth of royals, also want to confiscate the wealth of the Walton family (larger than the wealth of Windsors and Thai royals together)?

If you compare the political history of Thailand over the past half-century with that of its neighbors (Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines) it’s hard to avoid concluding “one of these things is not like the others.”

I strongly believe that the Monarchy has provided much stability for Thailand. You might differ from this conclusion, but still your “Thailand is the country in the most need of getting rid of royalty” is utterly devoid of any merit.

> [@Monty](#):
>
> Right. And if the monarch had been on the ball over the years, there would never have been a military coup in the first place. I don’t care how many awards his wife gets or how many people blindly say “He’s wonderful”. The simple fact is that Thailand having a monarchy really hasn’t worked out all that well for them. The man is not capable of keeping the country from falling into disorder.

So If I like the King, I’m “blind”? And you’re incapable of comparing Thailand’s history with its neighbors?? Do I need cites that Burma, Cambodia, etc. have suffered far worse tragedies than anything in Thailand???

It is true – and I have a hunch this is the ONLY tidbit of knowledge backing up your assertions – that the military removing civilian governments is not the American way. However it sounds like you are unaware what contemptible kleptocracies these civilian gvernments have been.

Where I live the move away from corruption now that the kleptocrats are deposed is palpable. Recently a joint army-police task force conducted a search for weapons and fugitives in the estates of our regional crime overlord – a search that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago when he and his cronies ruled the country.

Fight ignorance. One inch forward, 2.5 centimeters back.

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