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And only in Thailand could such a great joke, malicious though it might seem, turn into a national security threat and a political bombshell.

If Abhisit had actually said such a thing in front of such an audience, he should have been immediately removed, not as a tyrant but as a completely incompetent tyrant. After all, tyranny likes to kill people first and frame them later.

But while I can laugh it away, the 18-year jail sentence handed down to Daranee Chancherngsilapakul (Da Torpedo) left me speechless. And to compound my confused state of mind when reacting to political developments nowadays, Jakrapob Penkair, from his unknown whereabouts, has renewed his red revolution agenda.

It's either us or them. Someone has to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There have been periods in history when Da Torpedo would have been beheaded on the spot for making far less controversial remarks in public; when everyone related to Jakrapob would have been hunted down and wiped out; and when, of course, the Abhisit "statement" would have been anything but funny.

We have come a very long way, but obviously the likes of Jakrapob and Da Torpedo remain unsatisfied. Yet if they are guilty of living too far ahead in time, what can be said about the 18-year sentence when murderers, rapists or big-time fraudsters are given less?

We can't help but wonder if the harsh sentence and Da Torpedo and Jakrapob are like the chicken and the egg. Is it because there are people like them, so the punishment is warranted (at least in the eyes of the judges), or is it because there is such a law, that people like them come out and challenge it?

Either way, the judges were seemingly oblivious to political circumstances. The verdict is more of a stern message to others than a straightforward handling of Daranee's thinking. Like it or not, this could be a big gift for those campaigning against the lese majeste law. "Check out this ruling, if you don't know what we are talking about," they must be saying.

However, that the ruling is likely to reflect poorly on Thailand internationally is not as important as the possibility that it could provoke a backlash locally and make it even harder for both sides of the polarity to find common ground. What the woman said and did was controversial to say the least, but 18 years covered it all up and shifted the spotlight totally away from her.

Da Torpedo, Jakrapob and the fabricated voice clip are all connected. We, though, are left to judge them via different emotions and have become too perplexed to be certain which one is the most worrisome symptom. (If the whole episode is an illness, that is.) In other words, who are we to think that the audio clip was just a joke, not something intended to spark a red riot?

If the 18 years is a result of ultra-conservatism, the doctored voice clip is probably an example of what could happen if "freedom" is allowed to run amok. And it boggles our minds to try to answer this: If a government trying to frame citizens should be called despotic, what should we call citizens trying to frame a government?

Some people have come up with a theory that the government made the clip and planted it at SC Assets in the hope that the ridiculous content would turn the tide in Abhisit's favour. (That's what I would deem a smart tyrant.) Again, just as the creator of the clip had the freedom to make it, everybody else has the freedom to speculate on who the culprit is.

Personally, I'd like to see the audio clip saga remain a joke as I see it, not least because I don't want my political life to degenerate too fast into enjoying a potential calamity. You never know these days. Even as Jakrapob Penkair preaches revolutionary ethics and strategies from his hideout, nobody knows his real motives. In the eyes of some analysts, his articles comparing the current red-shirt leaders to a "monkey show" could be an encoded message reading, "Thaksin, screw you!"

Last week, three political dramas unfolded. That we don't know quite what to make of them or what should be the appropriate reactions only confirm that we have become completely jaded by the performers.