My own philosophical journey

Well I am back in New Zealand, indefinitely, and so I thought I'd reflect on my own political journey, not least because as I've gotten older my expectations have lowered somewhat as to what to expect in political change.  So I thought I'd pontificate and largely reiterate what I want from a New Zealand government in 2020, review what I think of the registered political parties and what matters. See if there is one thing you can be sure of with libertarians, is that they can easily disagree and lot, and vehemently, on points that are an honest disagreement on what is meant by individual freedom. However there are quite a few people who "identify as" libertarians, but whose views are not consistently so (and probably plenty would say the same about me). Furthermore, it isn't just about individual freedom for me, but it is also about reason, science and a sense of what the purpose of life is - this is what I get from objectivism. 

Now if you know me, you know I can go on and on and on about a lot of stuff, so let's make this fairly quick:

• I support capitalism, not just empirically, but morally. I believe that competitive, open, free market economics can, mor often than not, reflect a balance between personal preferences and the costs of supplying goods and services, and that the best way to address issues of scarcity, price and monopoly is to allow this to be open.  It doesn't mean people have the right to use force and fraud in trading, because that isn't freedom. Sell something that isn't what you said it is, and you're a fraudster. Misrepresentation is fraud.  Morally, capitalism is the only system that allows free people to own property and trade their efforts (labour), ideas (intellectual property) and property with others.  As such, it is not concurrent with slavery, nor is it concurrent with legal monopolies or the use of threats to inhibit the choices of others to sell or buy.  It is also not without consequences.  Sell a product that is designed or produced negligently or recklessly and you should face legal consequences.
• I support freedom of expression, tempered by expression that initiates force or fraud against others. On private property, that freedom of expression is limited by the permission of the property owner. If you use expression to threaten others, you are initiating force, whether you are threatening specific individuals or groups of individuals.  If you steal intellectual property, you are initiating force (and yes I know some think intellectual property is not libertarian, to which I say, you probably have never written a book, recorded a song or created a patent that others are willing to pay for). If you defame someone, you are initiating fraud and force (people's reputations are their "property" and you don't have a right to claim someone is a criminal if it is not true). You don't have a right to be protected from the words of others offending or upsetting you.
  
• I support private property rights, as a corollary of the above and believe that greater use of such rights can enhance environmental as well as economic outcomes. Property is the fruit of your own efforts, including relationships (why people gift or bequest their property to you), it is not anyone else's.
• I support freedom of religion. Sure I'm an atheist, but people's private beliefs are their business and they have the right to hold those beliefs and express them.  The line is drawn when those beliefs (including non-religious beliefs) are used to promote or plan violence against others or their property. Yes, I really don't care much if you are a Salafist or a Marxist-Leninist or a Nazi, until you move from quietly living your life in peace according to your beliefs, to attacking, planning to attack or promoting attacks against others, for any reason. Violence is an act of hate. 
• I'm an atheist, but people of faith shouldn't be ridiculed for their private beliefs. Most people with faith are good people who raise families and live quiet lives doing the best they can, and as long as their religious beliefs don't cross a line of infringing on my (or anyone else's rights), the fact of them existing should be respected.  Live and let live.
  
• I believe constitutionally limited liberal democracy is the best political system that has been devised to date (not liberal democracy untrammeled). However, I doubt very much if there is sufficient support to contain the role of the state with a written constitution at this stage.
• Racism, sexism and all other forms of bigotry are irrational and immoral. All people should be judged primarily on the basis of their actions, intentions and beliefs, not on immutable characteristics. No government authority should apply any such bigotry to its actions and no laws should seek to force distinctions based on such factors, unless it is objectively relevant (e.g. segregating female and male prisoners). Racial supremacists should be ridiculed for what they are, troglodytes who think pride should be based on your DNA. The post-modernist identity politics shysters should be as well, classifying people based on race, sex, sexual orientation and other factors into the oppressor and the oppressed, and seeking to undermine and overturn economic, political and legal systems based on the false premise that unequal outcomes need to be reversed into a new set of unequal outcomes.
  
• Corporatism and subsidies or protectionism of industry is immoral, outside the context of war or civil emergency. Government should not take money from some to give to others for producing, nor should it penalise others for producing. Sure the international trading system does allow for some leverage to be exercised to open up foreign markets through reciprocity, but rarely does protectionism of trade benefit an economy or the population. Free trade IS fair trade, but that doesn't mean consumers shouldn't trade wisely and consider preferences or boycotting products because of where they are from, due to their own political beliefs. Boycott goods from China or Israel if you like, or prefer them, that's your choice.
• The welfare state should ideally be replaced by benevolence as a means of helping those in need. My ideal is that human beings help each other out voluntarily, whether they be family, friends, neighbours or more widely through communities, charities or other non-governmental means. Compassion doesn't come from the state taking money by force and handing it out to others.  Having said that, the welfare state isn't going anywhere soon, and without enormous transformation in how people live and act with one another, there is going to be taxpayer funded education and healthcare to ensure universal service, and a taxpayer funded welfare state as a safety net.  The welfare state in NZ is much much bigger than this, and includes subsidies for employers and subsidies for having children, as well as the ludicrously unfair National Superannuation.  Welfare should be reformed to a social insurance model with individual accounts, so people pay to have insurance for unemployment, sickness, injury or other loss of income, and if they do not claim it extends to their retirement (and it gets topped up for a lengthy transitional period).  
• Education should be under minimal state control and regulation. Schools should be autonomous and able to teach whatever they wish, within legal limits around promotion of illegal behaviour. Pay and recruitment of teachers should be completely decentralised to schools. Funding should follow pupils directly through vouchers to whatever school parents choose. Curriculum standardisation should be scaled back to a minimum, and schools should teach English, Maori or whatever languages parents demand. It is critical that education be driven by what works to raise the skills and knowledge of children in their capacity to think critically about the world around them, and no, critical theory doesn't do that.
  
• The Western alliance of NATO, ANZUS and other bilateral allies, centred around the US, as well as much of Europe, has a patchy history of many mistakes, but it is still the most positive force for international rule of law in a world increasingly challenged by authoritarian regimes ranging from the PRC to Russia, to the DPRK, Iran and Syria, as well as multiple non-state actors. New Zealand contributes inadequately to this because it spends too little on defence (and has eliminated its air strike capability). The UN is useful as a talking shop, but is incapable of taking action against any of the Permanent Members of the UNSC, and so the Western alliance needs to be prepared to respond to military aggression, industrial espionage, spying, hacking and other actions by those wishing a new world order. It doesn't mean NZ should follow the US always, but it doesn't mean NZ should solely depend on the UN Security Council to determine when military action is justified.
• Climate change is real it is accelerated by human action, and governments should get out of the way of technologies and innovations to reduce emissions. Policies to reduce emissions should be based on net benefits and not be absolutist, like many groups like Extinction Rebellion and the Greens insist. However, just because a policy appears to reduce emissions doesn't mean it is good to implement. There is no point kneecapping industries in one country to have them relocate to another with similar or greater emissions. Climate change is not the end of the world and humanity needs to learn to adapt to it, and there are much bigger issues and higher priority issues that can be addressed, at lower cost, than reducing emissions, to improve humanity - e.g. access to drinking water, vaccinations. Indeed it is immoral to cause net economic harm to achieve incremental reductions in emissions that do nothing.  If you want to fight climate change, then change your own behaviour, not having children is the number one thing you can do. What should government do? Get out of the way of innovation and don't subsidise the use of fossil fuels (and to be fair most Western economies don't). I'm highly sceptical of the merits of meeting the targets under the Paris Agreement because it gives a free pass to large growing emitters like China to not care and so import high emitting industries from other countries, and grow its economy with little scrutiny from others.
  
• Conspiracies are almost always nonsense. People you don't like aren't conspiring on a global scale with an agenda you disagree with. Sure, there are institutions with philosophical goals and methodologies to achieve them you will disagree with and I do too.  The moral equivocation of the United Nations is almost unbearable as is the gratuitous rent seeking behaviour of some of the staff and leadership and recipients of its largesse, but overall the world is better off to have a talking shop of the good, bad and the ugly than not (although it would be better off if some of its subsidiary bodies reformed or were replaced).  5G isn't going to kill you and vaccinations are almost always a good idea. Covid19 isn't a conspiracy.

The great enemies of individual freedom and humanity today come in a number of forms, but all have a common theme, a belief that some humans have the right to do violence against others or their property, to achieve some state of nirvana or heightened collective goal.  Today we see it most virulently in:

• Environmental catastrophism:  There are many legitimate issues with the environment, but it is the catastrophists of Extinction Rebellion and much of the mainstream Green movement that seek to undermine capitalism, individual freedom and human productivity to reach certain utopian goals. This includes "zero emissions" or "zero plastics", both of which would harm humanity and shorten life in the ways that are suggested.  Their focus is monomanic, has no scope for nuance and no sense of balancing costs and benefits (and certainly little concern about actual impact).
• Islamism: Easily the most toxic religious-political philosophy is the advancement of Salafist-Wahhabist stone-age beliefs with politics and militarism. This form of fascism lures young people in many part of the world into a death cult of a totalitarian dark age of slavery, misogyny and eliminationist violence. A big source of political violence in recent years.
  
• Post-modernist collectivist authoritarianism: Whether it be the banal identity politics view of oppressor vs. oppressed based on race, sex and other characteristics, or the "cancel culture" intolerance of views that are not the "correct line" and seek to destroy individuals and businesses because of their incorrect views, it is new form of Maoism that pervades much academia, but also parts of the media and elsewhere.  It is seen in the need for outcomes to be equal, not just opportunities or treatment, and for "representation" based on race, sex etc to be equal in everything from government to businesses, for there to be fairness.  None of those touting these concepts loudly believe in freedom of speech, private property rights or even the rigorous use of science or objective analysis to inform decision making (after all that's white supremacist patriarchal talk).  Everyone's opinion is to be seen through the lens of their race, sex, sexuality and background, just like the Nazis, just like in Maoist China.  Note that this lot turn a blind eye to Islamism and paint the first as a symptom of the problem, being the white hetero-normative patriarchy that wants to keep everyone else in their place.
• Reactionary fascism:  In response to the third are the so-called populist, far-right reactionaries who use the language of freedom to claim the right to proclaim superiority of their race and of men, with lashings of anti-semitism and conspiracy theories about the wiping out of white Europeans. Few they are, but their methods are violence and in NZ it culminated in the vile terror attack in Christchurch.  
• Socialism: It seems that forever more, there are plenty who think no only that people in need should have their needs provided for, but that the entire economic/social system should seek on the one hand to take forcibly from those who are most financially successful, and to give others as much as possible "for free" paid for by this confiscation.  The calls are endless, it's gone well beyond universal healthcare and education, and a basic welfare state, to taxpayers being told they should buy food for the children of people who aren't going hungry, or to buy sanitary products for all women and girls, to buy public transport for those who happen to find it convenient, or to pay for high income professionals to send their children to childcare.  The draws on taxpayers are endless, it's "fair" for everything to be free, except that it corrodes personal responsibility and generates a culture that you don't need to do anything if you claim a "need" except make anonymous people pay taxes to provide for you. 

So after all that

Dad was diagnosed as having terminal laryngeal cancer in April 2013 and was told he wouldn't see Christmas.

Well he did, and it was the biggest family Christmas we have had for a very long time.

I am not going to publish my eulogy to him on here.  He used to read this blog regularly and said I was bound to upset some people, but he enjoyed it.

So what I am going to say is to reflect on the dignified way he put up with the deterioration of his life and the inability of medical professionals he saw to treat his cancer.  

RIP Dad

and thank you

Happy New Year 2014, and why I haven't been blogging

Well readers, for those who have stuck with me, you'll have noticed a paucity in posts, as I have been a combination of uninspired and very busy in the past few months.

Quite simply I can put it down to real life consuming my time and energy to an extent that meant that, beyond outing Gareth Morgan for his naivete over North Korea, my attention has been elsewhere.

In part it has been work, which from May till early December kept me mostly consumed for a good bit over 40 hours a week.

In part it has been the drawn out process of jumping onto the London property bubble (which still isn't over).

However, it has also been time and energy taken by four trips in under six months to New Zealand to help and be with my terminally ill father, and help my stressed and regularly distraught mother.

So for now, I'd like to talk about my Dad, as he remains with us, albeit not as active or as cheerful as he usually is.

I'd advise you to not read any further if you are squeamish or easily upset.  What comes includes some graphic descriptions of his condition.

New Zealand - far away without a care in the world

Having recently returned from a couple of weeks in NZ - almost entirely to see family and to get away from it all, I thought I'd start 2012 on the blog with a post about my observations as someone who has spent the last six year living abroad.  I've learned how much there is to appreciate in NZ, but also how much there is to bemoan.  It is something that can only really be understood once you have got used to how things work elsewhere, and what your expectations are around all sorts of everyday activities.

Whilst I was in NZ, the Eurozone crisis ticked over, Kim Jong Il died and Christmas happened.  However, the one thing you learn about being in NZ is that it is almost impossible to rely on the domestic media to know what is going on in the world, unless it is big.  Even then, you can rely on it to get things wrong - perpetually.

In NZ the economy appears to be ticking over nicely (no I didn't visit Christchurch) and there appears to be a level of optimism that is absent in Europe.  It can't all be the weather, as that was a bit patchy while I was there.  I put it down to naive lack of awareness of the stagnation in Europe and malaise in the United States.  Those I talked to about it appeared curious, but unaware of how it impacts New Zealand.  The real impacts are seen in how many more Japanese and Chinese tourists there appeared to be, relative to European and North American tourists, compared to previous years.  

The absurdly high New Zealand dollar is a crippler for tourists.   It was rare to ever think anything in NZ is cheap or good value.  The rip off prices for tourists seem absolutely ridiculous now.   Yes there are many items you can only buy in NZ that are quite unique and nice to look at, but they are not made by luxury brands in Italy, and they are not that special that foreign tourists are willing to fork out huge sums to buy them.   Asian tourists come to Europe for the European experience and will buy one or two luxury items while there, and a few items to remember it by.  NZ is not quite in the same league for shopping, what it has is scenery.

So anyway, what are the pluses and minuses I saw from NZ:

Pluses:

- Space!  You have LOADS of it, so much you don't appreciate it.  Why would ANY cities ever consider urban growth limits or intensification when you can offer so much living space to residents.  You do not appreciate how quiet and peaceful NZ is until you have spent lots of time in countries where you are never far away from towns or villages.

- Friendly service.  Service in the UK is variable, but rarely are retailers particularly friendly and helpful.  In NZ almost all were, including staff at food establishments that do not expect tips.  I nearly weeped with the standard of service I got at times, it was helpful without the "I'm obliged to try to sell you more" attitude that training foists upon some in Europe.  

- Supermarket packers.  Yes I know I mean New World, but it is brilliant to have someone pack your groceries. Ignore those infuriating self serve devices which have infected British supermarkets.  Far better to get a minimum wage teenager or grateful retiree to happily pack things for you.

- Well maintained roads.  I know why this is, and why it isn't like that in the UK and the US.  The more you keep politics out of decisions on road funding, the more that roads keep well maintained over everything else.  That includes signs, lines and lighting.  It is an absolute delight driving around New Zealand.

-  Seafood.  Seriously wonderful fish is available across NZ, even if at times it is a bit pricey.  However, you can't go past freshly cooked deep fried hoki or terakihi for fish and chips. Most British establishments absolutely wreck it by cooking cod in bulk so the top layer are dried out under heat lamps and the bottom drenched in fat. 

-  Bread.  Lighter, without the texture of freeze wrapped cardboard that much British mass produced bread has.  Almost all of it in NZ is far far more delicious than much of that which passes as bread in the UK.

- Ice cream.  Yes there are wonderful ice creams in Europe, but premium NZ ones are simply delightful.  I know Kapiti ice cream is Fonterra owned, but that hasn't done away with absolutely fantastic flavours.

- Scenery.  I only drove in the North Island and I have seen a lot of NZ over the years, but the one thing NZ has to offer over the UK and indeed many other countries is diverse scenery over short distances.  Driving in the UK is almost always tedious, with straight roads, few hills and little interesting scenery until you get quite remote into Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Yorkshire, Wales and the Highlands.   Natural beauty with very few others to share it with is rather special.

- Rewarewa honey.  Beats Manuka.  It's truly heavenly.

Minuses

-  Braindead television news.  I once thought it couldn't get worse, but it has.  Stop telling people what to think about a story by slanting how you describe events a certain way.  Yes, you love disasters, celebrities and sport because your tiny minds can easily grasp the concept of good vs bad, you can't grasp politics or world affairs because your frame of reference is adolescent.  Seriously, NZ would be better off if TVNZ, TV3 and Prime all abandoned national news and broadcast infomercials instead, you would all be better informed.

-  Nanny State on alcohol. Why the hell can't I buy spirits or liquours from supermarkets?  Grow up New Zealand.  Yes there are some who have major alcohol problems.  Funnily enough you don't have less of this problem than countries which sell the lot at a multiple of outlets.  Beyond that, stop taxing it to buggery.   Yes it is cheaper to buy NZ wine in the UK, figure that one out.

-  Media mispronunciation.   Are there no people who can enunciate words?  TV in particular, but also some radio is full of cringeworthy butchers of the English language, and even worse butchers of foreign place names and personal names.  Who told you Kim Jong Il is pronounced Kim Yong Il?

-  Fruit juice.   Largely non existent in NZ, as most of the market is occupied by reconstituted fructose laden concentrate.  Freshly squeezed proper juices tend only to be orange, rare is apple available as a proper juice.  I know it is price, but there is no point drinking the cheap stuff.

- Yoghurt.  The lack of variety and with premium varieties resembliny desserts rather than actual yoghurt you want to eat, is rather dire.  What's wrong with rhubarb and vanilla, what about blueberry, what about boysenberry and blackberry?  Why so much damned sugar in it?

-  The accent.  Yes I've become a snob.  It's bloody awful.  If you have aspiration, try to de-nasalise yourself, otherwise it really can make one sound like you're a friendly naive idiot.  The PM leads the annoying accent stakes, but that may well be deliberate!

-  Rip off New Zealand.  How funny for the Honey Hive to be the most expensive place to sell its goods.  The pricing of "official outlets" and tourist spots is a serious rip off, when it proves not that hard to find the same products in other stores for 25-30% cheaper.   Yes I know it feels great targeting Johnny Foreigner because you think he's rich, but he's also not stupid. 

Oddities:

-  So many travel agents? Hasn't the internet been discovered yet?

-  Retailer websites with no useful information.  Why doesn't anyone put their products and prices online?  Why doesn't anyone offer to sell things online?  This is domestic websites, there should be no international bandwidth issues.   It is almost impossible to go online "window" shopping to see who sells what at what prices.  

- Ancient cars everywhere.  The Cuba of the South Pacific.  Mitsubishi Sigmas, Ford Anglias, Holden Kingswoods, Ford Falcons (XC, XD, XE), Holden Commodores, Ford Lasers, Mazda 323s, Ford Telstars, Ford Cortinas.  Seriously, someone should organise tours for UK car enthusiasts to have a look around. 

- Mr Ed on the Te Reo Channel.  Accidentally found this one, found it hard to stop laughing when I saw Mr. Ed on the phone saying "Kia Ora Wilbur".  Something inspired about doing that.

Humans first, not animals or the supernatural

I don't say it enough.

I detest cancer, I detest the fear of cancer.

I thoroughly embrace and endorse all those who develop pharmaceuticals, ontological procedures, stem cell treatment and other research to eradicate this heartless scourge.

I detest those who interfere with such development because they care more about the brief lives of animals than the lives of humans who would be saved suffering and death from it.

I detest those human hating environmentalist  Zeus's who treat those who engage in the bio-chemistry of genetic engineering like Prometheus, and do all they can to spread their lies of fear and blind hatred of science, through their Dark Ages worship of the "natural".   Cells growing out of control and taking over a human being is fucking natural you fools.

I detest those religious believers who treat embryonic stem cells as if they are equivalent to human beings, and who seek to interfere with that research.

Most of all I am fed up with having to face the fear of cancer in loved ones again and again.

This time it better not be.

Blogging disrupted

Just to note my blogging regularity has been disrupted because of:

1. Being overseas twice in the last few weeks (with glacial speeds available);
2. Moving home;
3. Two and a half weeks to get a phone line installed to carry broadband (and no, there is no cable TV option, as Virgin Media hasn't cabled my street).

So whilst I wait another 7 working days to get POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), after which I can get broadband, service is not going to be regular. No, I'm not getting it from BT, not only because it is an expensive and poor quality deal, but also because since BT has lobbied hard to destroy BSkyB's property rights in programming (which were built up commercially against two government owned competitors, and three government licensed ones) I figured I no longer needed to give a damn about BT's property rights on local phone lines.

Meanwhile, the British media has been focused on:
- Gunman who went on a shooting spree (but few have asked whether others having guns might have stopped him earlier);

- The Gulf of Mexico oil leak, Obama's xenophobic attack on BP to make up for his own impotence on the issue, and BP's own incompetence;

- The World Cup (which sadly is unlikely to see a New Zealand-North Korea final, as much as it would upset millions) is hyping up England and South Africa;

- The next stage of austerity, as the Con-Dem government "warms" up the British public for spending cuts perhaps ten times that already agreed (whilst the public continues to remain ignorant about what cuts actually MUST mean, such as cutting the welfare state and increasing university fees). Much good is being said about focusing on the role of the state. Few yet understand how drastic and urgent the cuts have to be, and sadly it will also include tax rises;

- The ultra-tedious contest for leadership of the British Envy, Spendthrift and Spin Labour Party, now no longer including a relative unknown who said Margaret Thatcher should have been assassinated in the 1980s. Most recently it now include Diane Abbott, who is notable for being a black woman. One of the contenders, Ed Miliband, said it showed the diversity of the Labour Party. It was pointed out to him that two of the contenders share the same mother (his brother David Miliband is also standing), and of course another man called Ed is standing as well.

Christmas, Hanukkah or simply Seasons' Greetings

Yes my blogging has been very erratic as of late, not because there is nothing to write about, but because much of the month I've been spending long hours in front of a laptop and when I haven't been, I've preferred to enjoy the season. After all, with daylight starting at around 8am and ending from around 3.30pm, with ample snow, and Europe so close, I've taken the time to enjoy time with me and my other half, as well as deal with

I will write a summary to 2009 as I see it before the New Year.

I'm about to have turkey, veges, pudding, champagne and chocolate, although it is NOT a white Christmas in East Anglia today (although ice and snow remains in a few corners), but it IS rather special to have Christmas in this part of the world rather than New Zealand.

Even more special to have spent a few days in Vienna, where hot spicy drinks, strudel, torte and umpteen sausages (and all seriously good), and the colder weather, and symbolism of this time of year is much stronger. Glad also to have not chosen the "weekend in Paris going Eurostar" option given what a debacle that has proven to be.

All I miss is my family in New Zealand, but that wasn't to be this year.

I hope all of you have a good time with your loved ones, enjoy the food, drink and simple benevolence and joy of the season. For those experiencing a little sadness at this time, I hope it gives cause to remember good and happy times.

Merry Christmas and Seasons' Greetings, and may you simply enjoy life.

For now

It is worth simply linking to this and that.

It's inevitably sad and death is damned annoying. It is not "part of life", it's the end of it.

Anna's blog showed how she has lived facing death with more certainty about its imminence than others. She sadly appears to now have rapidly slipped closer to the inevitable, so now may her family and friends simply surround her with the love, affection and joy they hold for her life.

It is only because of the joy we have from the life of one that we fear and feel such sadness for the loss.

It's a lesson to be reminded of day after day.

Enjoy life, it's the only one you have, you don't know when it will come to an end. It does have a purpose, the purpose is for you to pursue your values, your passions, your joy and to do so alone or with others as you and they may choose.

It is, after all, what Anna has been doing, even with the rude interruption.

Temporary break

Mum's very ill, so being a polemicist isn't very important for now.

UPDATE: Stable and somewhat optimistic now, a scare, so here is hoping echocardiogram produces positive results. It appears a viral infection put the body under extreme stress, causing heart failure.

Regular service about to resume

Let's just say a combination of a ton of work, medical concerns and unrelated stresses have just meant I couldn't be arsed writing much in the past week.

I will be after I've had a day off for a regular anniversary and got my head out of the backlog of menial tasks I must do to pay for bread crusts, shelter and train fares!

Post number 2000

There are times in one’s blogging life when it is an appropriate chance to look back at what one has done and why one blogs. This is my 2000th post so is a self-indulgent reflection on why I do this, and more importantly what’s important to me.

Bloggers generally blog as an outlet for their opinions and comments, with a particular bent politically and philosophically, and a particular focus on certain issues. For me, it is because, with the exception of Not PC, my views are consistently NOT represented in either the mainstream NZ media or blogosphere.

So what flavours of opinion do I add?

Well, I have specialised in New Zealand politics and in that sense the promotion of individual freedom. That being the freedom of being to do as they see fit with their own bodies and property whilst respecting the same right of others to do so. The banality of those who say this means the “freedom to hurt others” or “freedom to push drugs onto kids” does not detract from this core concept. It comes from the principle that adults generally know best how to run their own lives, and more importantly that other adults do not have a claim on their body or property. It is a principle that is almost universally disregarded across most of the political spectrum.

Those on the left treat private property with contempt, regarding the income and assets of people considered “rich” to be ready picking to supply what they see as the “rights” of the relatively poor – people who are wealthy by the standards of most of the world’s population. The sneering contempt that “the left” holds the financially successful is mean spirited and revolting. It implies that those who raise their heads above the average owe everyone else a share of their success, or at worst they must have earned it unfairly. However, the left does not confine its claim to people’s property, but to their bodies too.

The left proclaims the superiority of state provided health care and education, despite state health care regularly failing those who are forced to provide their services, and state education by definition standardising what and how children are taught. The idea that people might choose alternatives provided privately is seen as undermining these sacred signs of universal service, ignoring that monopolies rarely seem able to meet the varied needs of all those who use them.

However, the right is far from immune from claiming peoples’ bodies or property. Historically this was seen most specifically with conscription, but the conservative right also say its role to protect and reinforce “traditional role models”. Much of that is now gone, with few laws restricting or defining personal relationships or sex relations between consenting adults. However, the fight that many have had to demand equal treatment under the law was always resisted by some. Today the most egregious example of the right promoting interference in people’s bodies are laws on drugs. Criminalising people for what they put in their bodies is a gross infringement on individual liberty, when the real concern should be what people do to others – intoxicated or not.

So I start from the view that the individual is sovereign. That the individual should not be subordinate to other individuals, whether dressed up as “the public good” or “general will” or “will of the majority”. Those phrases are the tools of both the left and the right, both who believe the decisions of a small group of individuals (Cabinet, Parliament, bureaucrats) should be able to spend the money of others, and regulate them. The difference is I don’t believe in “public good”, as it implies that there is something higher than individual rights, and so individual rights can be sacrificed for the public good. Every dictatorship through history has justified its actions, and indeed every democracy has justified what it did for “the public good”, particularly when it was curtailing individual freedom and spending other people’s money.

The Greens, for example, appear to have a strong interest in many things that a lot think are good. Who argues against clean air, clean water and protecting cute animals from extinction? Yet the means the Greens wish to employ is violence – state force – to tax, to subsidise, to ban, to compel, to regulate. On top of this authoritarian desire to push people around is scaremongering against science and technology, such as genetic engineering and cellphone transmitters. The apocalyptic glee that evidence about global warming gives them to excuse their joyless agenda of restricting flying, driving, trading or even using appliances at home gives me despair. The forked tongue of opposing racism, but demanding racially separate Maori seats and saying it isn’t about race, when they are DEFINED by race. Meanwhile the anti-racist party promotes opposition to foreign trade and investment, because foreigners can’t have “our” interests at heart. No different from similar remarks Winston Peters used to have an audience for. Environmentalism has become the pathway for those who have a vision of changing people to fit a view of what they should be like. It has disturbing parallels with Marxism-Leninism in that respect, with the use of terminology like “climate change denial” to imply that those who debate science are debating actual events not theories of causation.

For me, I believe the jury is still out on anthropomorphic climate change, with contradictory evidence pointing in two different directions. However, I am most disturbed by the way that the climate change evangelists regard it all as an excuse to fanatically intervene in sectors from energy to transport to agriculture, without any serious analysis as to the implications of doing so except for the holy grail of CO2 emissions. Climate science is one thing, but the “answers” given are typically devoid of serious analysis then there is no wonder it is seen to be a religion.

Naturally, Labour and National pander for the middle ground, Labour especially now fertile fields for largely mediocre individuals to seek to spread their bile of envy of the successful, patronising the proletariat and scaremongering with the “we’ll look after you” attitude that sadly pervades this once proud party. National watches polls constantly, and forever runs away from principles even though so many inside it know that the state is largely incapable of delivering substantially better results in health and education. ACT has soiled itself lately with the gang patch law, and I await to see if Rodney Hide can cut the size of local government whilst he has been promoting the biggest council ever for Auckland.

The Maori Party being defined by race is a mix of good intentions and racial superiority, how else can one think of a party that treats the people it represents as being “special”.

Beyond that, religion has a low impact on New Zealand politics and for that I am glad. I am an atheist, and proclaim the doctrine of Voltaire in defending freedom of religion, but at the same time damning religion itself as being at best unnecessary, at worst a justification for murder and denial of humanity. My first priority for religion is to expunge it from the state, so that it has nothing to do with the supernatural. The secularisation of states that are populated primarily by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists should be a priority project for the 21st century for all who support civilisation and humanity. For conflicts in the Middle East, South Asia and Sri Lanka can be linked to those who reject this. I’m an advocate for reason and an objectivist, and derive my values and morals from objectivism, not religion, though I rarely blog about that.

So for me, I blog about NZ politics, UK politics, occasionally US and Australian politics, the Middle East, dictatorships in Africa and Asia and Europe, the European Union. I focus regularly on sectors I have professional experience in, such as transport, communications, trade and broadcasting, with a particular distaste for the European Union Common Agricultural Policy, environmentalist worshipping of railways and damnation of aviation and the private car, and a hatred for those who seek to restrict trade based on random political geographies.

However, most of all I detest the attack on the human mind, on human achievement and on reason. Which is why my greatest advocacy is for the removal of the initiation of force (and threat of force) in adult relations, and that means between states and between states and their citizens. Most people will say yes to this at first then “but”. For me there is no “but”. After all, what right do you have to initiate force against another adult?

So after 2000 posts I thank those of you who read regularly, and have seen my average daily unique reads average at around 200 a day the last couple of months. I’m no supporter of ACT or National, but will praise and damn either when I see fit, the same with Labour, the Greens or any other party anywhere. I am not aligned by political tribe, but by philosophy. A philosophy that says that human individuals have the right to exist for their own purpose and own reasons, and no other adults have a claim on that at all, that anyone claiming this is selfish is damned right. Because unless I own my life, I am a slave to another – and I’ll be damned if I’ll support any who advocate running other people’s lives because anything else is selfish.

So to you all, be selfish, live your life to enjoy it, share yourself with whoever you see fit, who wishes to share with you, and to be yourself, respecting the same in others. Be benevolent in sharing yourself and your values as you see fit, but do so being true to yourself, not because you feel obliged to do so. You exist for your values, for if that is not your first priority, then nothing else can follow.

Off to the Middle East

So I am disappearing at the crack of dawn to the Arab world- so blogging may be a bit light for a while. It's work, but I'm hoping to keep this going, as long as Blogger isn't blocked by local proxy servers.

Yes I am returning soon

Basically it's like this - I was in New York - and that is reason enough not to sit behind a laptop, then I had a lot of work, then my laptop became virtually unusable, now I'm in New Zealand.

and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend long periods behind a computer until I return to the UK early in January.

So I hope you all have fun, it is cleansing to spend a month or so away from politics - because you soon realise how empty headed almost all politics really is. However the big political battle of our generation has started, it is NOT an election, it is the battle of ideas. It is free market capitalism against those who point at what is not and proclaim it is a failure, whilst offering nothing besides the failure of the past.

The new US Administration is highly unlikely to embrace open markets and less government. The UK government has already decided today is about mortgaging future taxpayers, more.
The NZ government is saying little, which means, I hope, that lots of hard drives are having "deleted files" recovered to dig up the dirt on the last government. However, you wouldn't have noticed much change - but I'm giving this lot till Parliament sits again, because New Zealand shuts down over summer.

Oh and on that note, it was damned annoying not to be able to go to the supermarket on Christmas Day. That is one law that could do with being gutted - prohibitions on when shopkeepers can open for business. It isn't your business, or the government's, and if you don't want to work there, don't. If you treat it as a religious festival, then good for you, respect that - don't force others to shut down because of your beliefs.

So let's see if any shops get prosecuted for opening on Christmas Day, and if so, what this government's reaction will be. That will tell you a little about how little has changed.

Don't spend time thinking too much about it, it is time to spend this period with loved ones, to enjoy their company and life. I come back this time of year for a reason, and it is obvious when I see the sun, clear skies and the space, and see those I love. The UK this time of year is bleak, enjoy what NZ has.

Have a Happy New Year.

Thanks and a short break

Now I'm off to the US today for a while, but will be blogging there - erratically. Thank you for your support, the hit rate has been high since the US election getting around 400 - 500 a day. I may blog from the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow tomorrow, but I will in the weekend.

Meanwhile what is going on?

Obamania continues, although his fans have to remain calm as he wont have power for a couple of months. News drips out about what he will do, around stem cell research, remove restrictions on funding support for abortion as part of aid programmes, but my biggest fear is on trade.

New Zealand awaits the mind blowing excitement of seeing what portfolio Peter Dunne gets, (racing sounds appropriate), what "Business portfolio" Rodney Hide gets (what's a bet Minister of Economic Development - the portfolio invented by Jim Anderton) and what the Maori Party gets (what's a bet it is Associate Maori Affairs and Youth Affairs). Once the Cabinet is sworn in, I'll be posting a beginners' guide to Ministers - which since I've dealt with five in my previous life as a bureaurat - does have some basis in reality.

The UK - meanwhile - languishes under the cold dead hand of Gordon Brown. If only the unprofitable black hole called the London Olympics could be abandoned!

So farewell, have fun and a rest from political mania - until the special votes are in and the new Cabinet is announced.

Post 1500

Well it has been three years since I started blogging, meaning I have blogged, on average, more than one post a day. My main inclination was to have an outlet for my endless rants on global, NZ and UK politics, and it has grown a little bigger than that. It is intended to reflect my own profound beliefs in personal freedom, the role of the state and belief in reason and that the highest value is life, and the pursuit of the enjoyment of it - within the bounds of reason and respecting the same right in others.

You see my views on both the NZ and US elections are influenced by that set of beliefs. It starts, you see, with values. My highest value is life - the protection of life, and the enhancemet of it. I don't believe my life exists for anyone else, nor should anyone else's. Your life is yours, and you should enjoy it, as much as you can, as long as you do not interfere with the right of others to do the same.

You see this is where rights come in. Your right to life is fundamental, and in order to realise that life your body is owned by you - it carries life and is your greatest instrument, because it contains your brain. So you must control what your body does, what you ingest and your interactions with other bodies Quid pro quo that others have no right to your body.

So your right to life means your right to control your body, and those rights end with other people's bodies.

Of course you can't survive with body alone, for human beings to survive they need to apply their brains to the environment, and collect, farm, hunt or otherwise produce. So you need to have the right to what you produce - that is called property rights. So you have a right to not have your property stolen or vandalised.

So the right to life means your right to control your body and your property.

Now to maximise your life you almost certainly need to interact with others, but the only person who best knows your interest is you. So all of your interaction should be voluntary. Surely you should own what you produce, and trade on terms and conditions that are mutually agreed.

Reason is the means by which human beings must survive. You can't escape it. Faith wont work. Reason is why human beings know how to hunt, how to farm, how to trade, transport, how to combat disease, prevent disease - how to live longer, how to have enough time for leisure.

The antithesis of reason is force. Force is the tool of the murderer, rapist, thief and government. It is the tool of the censor, the warmongerer, the bureaucrat. Force denies debate, discussion or agreement.

So it is important for people to be protected from force. That is the right to self defence. However, when people commit crimes of initiating force or fraud, it often isn't clear who the perpetrator was, and that person needs to be caught, and tried. That is what government is for- to protect citizens from each other. It arbitrates disputes on contracts, it provides the objective legal framework that clearly delineates rights of property, contracts and relationships.

Anything beyond that by government is the initiation of force. It isn't human beings interacting voluntarily. Democracy isn't that either, it is the counting of votes for who you want to govern - it doesn't give a right to take away the rights of others to not have force initiated against them.

This is why I am a libertarian and an objectivist. I believe all adult human interaction should be voluntary - it doesn't mean I agree with it all, or like it, but it does mean that, fundamentally, what consenting adults do personally, contractually or in trade is not my business.

That's why I despise the cheerful statism of the Greens and the Labour Party, both loving how government can "do" things, meaning use force to make people pay for what they otherwise wouldn't choose to pay for, or to make people do things or ban them from doing things that, fundamentally, are not about initiating force or fraud. National ought to be opposed to this, but it is not much different, ACT is somewhat - but it isn't consistently committed to individual freedom.

So I'll be blogging from THAT perspective - the one that says freedom matters, whether it makes you uncomfortable, or whether it reveals failures in our current set of property rights (public nudity being one), or whether it means you have to convince people to care for others. It's a different way of thinking - the idea that you can't just force change on people - but you need to convince them - and that you can't force people to pay for things, you have to convince people.

Next time you get a chance to ask a politician about a policy ask him or her, why do you have to make people do this? Why can't you convince them, and if you can't, why is it moral to use force?

A sense of life

Just read this regularly - life is finite, bloody awful how the culmination of that comes sooner than later for some (and indeed vice versa).

However read it with joy, as someone who has a life definitely worth smiling about, but for one grossly inconvenient bother.

One year

Since my birth mum passed, it saved her from the agony of the cancer inadequately treated and misdiagnosed, it was relatively quick and she was 56. It is death that challenges my atheism, that makes me wish more than anything that I'll see her again, but I have joy of the time we did have and the memories that will be with me till my final breath. Nine wonderful years for which I will always be grateful.

F'ing Tracksy

Yep I know I'm not the only one. The website I use to track who you all are, where you came from, where you went, what search engine words you used, what you looked at and who linked to me etc etc is playing up big time. Tracksy simply says I've logged out when I log on.

So I may have to go elsewhere, since I need a way to find out whether searches on urolagnia, getting upgrades, Jade Goody's tits (shudder) or the like remain popular or not. For those with blogs it is fascinating how people actually find it. Disturbing when you find a post on a rather nasty crime attracts hit from people looking for "crime porn", those that enjoy reading the graphic details of some nasty violent or sexual offence, providing courtesy of the media. Anyway, it may be time to choose another excellent little spy site to keep an eye on who you all are and what you are doing.

So what's Queen's Birthday about then?

No we all know it's not her real birthday, that's 21 April. It's meant to be the date of her coronation (and it is this year, 2 June).

Yet it isn't a public holiday in the UK. Ah the colonies.