Helen Clark partly right... again

Yes I know it's strange, but true. No Minister reports on the PM saying that at least ACT believes in something, unlike National. Stuff quotes Clark saying:

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"I think the way National's behaving they are leaving room for ACT because the National Party doesn't stand for anything, the National Party only stands for power and people in ACT at least have things they believe in and they believe in them quite passionately"

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I'm not sure about ACT - certainly Douglas has beliefs, and Hide does, though you wouldn't always know them. I'm sure that, on the whole, ACT members believe in less government, sadly they have by and large not had the courage of their convictions to express them.

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However, Clark is right about National. It by and large stands for power and sells out principle for that at any cost. Of course this is a little pot calling the kettle black, Labour's backtrack on the Treaty of Waitangi before 2005 is part of that, as is backtracking on tax cuts.

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Yet for all that, as much as I disagree with Clark, I do believe that she has a vision of the state and society that she is willing to defend and argue for. She believes passionately in the welfare state, in central government control and supply of health and education, and that the state should direct areas of the economy when it sees fit. She is a statist, and has little resistance to using the state to change people and society.

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ACT may, just may, have a good go at being a party of principle and courageous policies this year, although the signs are yet to be seen. It is this failure to show conviction about freedom consistently that is why Libertarianz exists today.

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However, what does the National Party stand for that is consistently different from Labour?

Initiating force is wrong

Tomahawk Kid has an excellent article reminding us all of why it is wrong to initiate force to get what we want. He said

"There is no more moral system than the voluntary interaction between consenting adults when applied to ANY situation."

Quite and who would disagree with that? Well, every political party in Parliament for starters and most other blogs. You might see some saying yes, BUT... as they justify the exception that they want to see, something they can't convince others about so hey, let's use state power.

If we want a culture of non-violence, which so many on the left purport to support, it should start by an unequivocal condemnation of force initiation against people and their property. That requires acceptance that the state should shrink until it no longer initiates force. That wont happen overnight, or within three years, but it does mean the end to victimless crimes, respect for private property rights, the withering of taxation down to core state responsibilities and moving towards choosing to pay for what you use, rather than force.

Utopian visionore creative as human being as to how to resolve problems and conflicts - peacefully? Well in the sense that it is idealistic yes - but it is moral, and we can debate the hows and the priorities, but shouldn't it be where human beings head? A culture of civilisation, of non-violent voluntary interaction?

The greatest barrier to it all, unfortunately, is that all too many of you are happy to be forced to do what others say, and you are prey to those who are happier telling others what to do.

"Redistribution of wealth" - the phrase of lies

Now this phrase is thrown about endlessly by the left, usually with the weasel word "fairer" in front of it. Now there are two key points about the use of this phrase, and the complete dishonesty behind it.

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1. It is a euphemism: Yes, what it really means is theft. The word "wealth" is used to imply abundance, a sense of "those who have more than enough", so it is a value judgment that some have more than enough (according to the person who said it, remember this isn't some moral guardian, it is just an opinion). Redistribution does not mean to let people give, or encourage people to give, it means "take". A more neutral way to describe this is "taking property to give to those deemed by me to be more deserving". Those who advocate redistribution of wealth are advocates of theft, given that taking property without permission is quite simply that. After all, if you went into the home of one of these people (or their bank account) without permission and decided to "redistribute" the wealth, they'd call it theft wouldn't they? However, when THEY or their friends do it, it's "ok".

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2. It is based on a false premise: You see the concept of "redistribution" implies that someone "distributed" wealth in the first place. It implies a central power did so, and also implies that it was not done so fairly. This is complete nonsense. By and large, (the exceptions are in kleptocracies and authoritarian states) property is not distributed. Nobody sits in a room and decided "how much wealth will x or y get today". Now before you say "hold on, my boss decides my pay", well yes - but your boss doesn't decide what property you own, just what you earn based on your labour - which you can remove, or augment through your own effort.

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The wealth you have is because you earned it through the application of your mind either through owning a business, your job or making a wise investment, or you received it as a gift, inheritance or gambling. Of course some may have wealth due to theft, or due to the state giving what has been taken from others, or due to the state skewing the market through regulation or protectionism. That is the state "distributing" wealth, or rather engaging in theft directly or indirectly.

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So next time a politician talks about a fairer "redistribution of wealth" ask him or her "who distributes wealth now?" and more importantly ask "don't you mean theft?". You see it is them wanting their hand in your wallet. You might respect them more if they simply said "I want to rob the majority of you so I can give that money to the minority", at least it would be honest.

Battle of values: Part One

Much of the political and philosophical debate around policies, ideas, practices and even the use of language surrounds values - in other words, what is someone declaring is more important than something else. While it may seem obvious what "commonsense values" may be, they are not - indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find universality about values across major civilisations around the world. What is the chief value of Islamists? Arguably it is submission during life and pursuit of death (and the believed afterlife). What is the chief value of an environmentalist? Arguably it can be other species, or even simply matter. What is the chief value of a Marxist? The so called "working class". The values actually believed in may not be expressed explicitly, but they do guide philosophy and speak volumes about how philosophers and politicians (indeed everyone) see the relationships between human beings and the universe.

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Without going into a long, and potentially turgid explanation of values and philosophy, I'll state what my highest value is - human life. Sounds self evident, but in valuing life I am rejecting the worshipping of an after life as an end in itself, or that human beings should be sacrificed for other species, or indeed that human beings should be sacrificed at all. Human beings have a rational faculty which they must use to survive and to prosper and be happy. In order that they can use this they must have the freedom to apply their minds and its greatest tool, their bodies to the universe. However, the initiation of force is the denial of reason and the denial of another person's rational faculty. That is why I reject the use of force, except in self defence.

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So coming from that, I believe that government and more importantly, societal values should respect reason and as a corollary of that, individual adult autonomy and freedom, and reject violence except to defend that. Human beings should be able to interact voluntarily, and can choose what they do together or for each other, or in exchange. From that human beings can maximise their own life and the lives of those they care for.

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There are plenty of people and philosophies out there that reject this, in fact none of the political parties in the NZ Parliament accept this, although ACT come closest in its rhetoric (and in the last three years has said the least that is inconsistent with this). So this post, and the series to follow over the next week or so will be focusing on the battles of values which i see as being most pernicious to confront in the 21st century.

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I see them as being:

- Islamism;

- Environmentalism;

- Christian fundamentalism;

- Nihilism (or rather a lack of values at all);

- Nationalism/racism

- Marxism.

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I hesitated to add the last two. Nationalism/racism and Marxism are less of a problem in the 21st century compared to the 20th, but they are still a problem, infect minds with an evasion of thought and reason, and both are harbingers of bigotry. Nationalism is bigotry by location and origins, Marxism bigotry of property ownership. So they both need to be covered, imagine if US politics was devoid of the politics of nationalism and Marxism - what would the Democratic Party do without Marxism?

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The most urgent battle is against Islamism - because Islamists are waging war against us, against Western civilisation. Unfortunately environmentalists along with Marxists are appeasing it and Christian fundamentalists want to replace Islamo-fascism with their own. The others are, by and large, not waging an orchestrated campaign of war.

Greens and communists

So Frogblog is cheering like a groupie at the visit by Angela Davis, which appears to be funded by the New Zealand taxpayer. Maia is one of the biggest cheerleaders for her as well.

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What is she about? Well Frogblog linked to Wikipedia about this woman, who has her place in history because she was charged as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping and homicide. This was because a gun registered in her name was used by the brother of a man in prison to enter a courtroom and take a judge hostage in order to get his brother freed. The judge was murdered by his captors, two of the captors were killed in a police shootout. She was acquitted of all charges and pursued a life of political activism, which until recently included the US Communist Party. She stood as Vice Presidential candidate for the Communist Party in 1980 and 1984.

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Understandably, growing up in Alabama she experienced the rampant racism of the 1960s and 1970s, but she turned to communism for intellectual solace. As a student she found appeal in communism, gained her Masters in San Diego before crossing the Iron Curtain to get her Ph.D at Humboldt University of Berlin, East Berlin that is. Humboldt was a true communist university till the end. It was run by the Socialist Unity Party (east German communists "by rigorously selecting students according to their conformity to the party line, made sure that no democratic opposition could grow on its university campuses. Its Communist-selected students and scholars did not participate in the East German democratic civil rights movements of 1989 to a considerable degree"). A training ground for the bureaurats who liked the world in the Orwellian oppressive superstate of the GDR.

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In fact, her view of dissidents to these suffocating police states is noted in Wikipedia:

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"Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn criticized Davis' sympathy for the Soviet Union in a speech he delivered to the AFL-CIO on July 9, 1975 in New York City, claiming hypocrisy in her attitude toward prisoners under Communist governments. According to Solzhenitsyn, a group of Czech dissidents “addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?' Angela Davis answered: 'They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.'”

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Bitch!

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How despicable to be so callous towards those wanting the freedoms she took for granted in the USA. Indeed, the fact she campaigned for the Communist Party indicates clearly she didn't believe in political or individual freedom, she believed in communist revolution that would entrench a single party, with one truth, one source for media and imprisoning anyone who disagreed.

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The main reason the Greens are excited about her is because she supports the abolition of prisons. All those rapists really should have their freedom shouldn't they?

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Now to be fair Davis left the Communist Party USA because it supported the failed August putsch against Gorbachev and also supported the Warsaw Pact (funny, because she did too for so long), and founded the Committees_of_Correspondence_for_Democracy_and_Socialism. Nevertheless, she still holds up Cuba as a great example of democracy and socialism working together (no doubt forgetting those Cubans in prisons for their political activities and the complete lack of freedom for Cubans to set up private organisations without state approval).

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However, if Davis has repudiated her sympathy towards the USSR and its former satellites, then good. However, she should be held to account for her past sycophancy and lack of compassion to the victims of the communist nightmare. What sickens me is FrogBlog's complete evasion of the truth. It said:

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-"A woman who faced capital charges in the USA three times for her work for justice" Or being an accessory to kidnapping and murder, how about that? Or is it ok to demand the freedom of some men by kidnapping and shooting a judge at point blank range?

- "but also her warm humanity that really shone through". Maybe she has it now, but she shows little towards Cuban political dissidents or indeed showed none at all to Czech dissidents. Maybe she'd like to visit Prague and apologise, given that the Czechs have freedom no thanks to her.

- "She spoke of the enormous international solidarity of progressive people that has been demonstrated at times". Progressive meaning - people who want to replace one form of statism with another. It's a code word for socialist.

- "She also pointed out that women are the fastest growing section of the prison population". Couldn't be because they are committing more crimes could it? No! It's the capitalist industrial complex oppressing them.

- "Prisons, she said, are a dumping ground for people, as a means of control and maintenance of economic domination and conceptually, as a way of disposing of the unacceptable face of capitalist society" Or a place to put a lot of dangerous people who kill, rape, assault and defraud others. Not saying there is room for removing those who commit victimless crimes, but to say that violent offenders are the "unacceptable face of capitalist society" is actually true. They are unacceptable, and why not?

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Now I am not saying that she is wrong about many points, such as the role of prisons in not rehabilitating, and the uselessness of a single minded approach to law and order, but there is a point for prisons as preventive detention. To keep bad people from committing more offences. Angela Davis has some useful points to make, but she is no angel - her past support for murderous totalitarian regimes is despicable, and I am disappointed nobody seems to have asked her what her views are of that time now. I am certain Keith Locke regrets his cheering on of the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, you think the Greens might have learnt, or is it ok to have friends who believed in dictatorships?

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UPDATE: This website has a fuller quote from Solzhenitsyn's book. He noted "Although she didn't have too difficult a time in this country's jails, she came to recuperate in Soviet resorts."

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You're either stupid or immoral to think the Soviet Union was a more moral system than the USA.

Bill English provides hope?

With Bill reported by RNZ as saying that large numbers of taxpayers should only pay a top rate of 20%, there may be hope yet that the 39 and 33% rates are either cut or the thresholds raised sky high. Of course I'd go one step further and say 20% should be the top rate.

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Yes there are the usual groans from the left that either part of the "punish the successful" brigade (because people earning more than $38,000 p.a. are rich and they do so by milking the blood of children), or that it would be damaging. You see, they believe the state, which produces nothing itself (it does own producers, but it has to keep its sticky hands off them for them to be successful), is efficient and when it takes your money (takes it, remember that, it was never asked. If it stuffs up the best you can expect is a chance every three years to tick a couple of boxes in the hope that you out of over 2.5 million people can fire those responsible, but they never get to compensate you for the stuff up), it has that "right".

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Imagine if a company required you to pay for everything it sold, by force, and the most you could do is vote at a shareholders' meeting where you and everyone else had one vote to vote in or out one person out of the 120 or so that decide how the company is run. If the company's services were inadequate, didn't meet your needs, or the company paid for goods and services you were ethically opposed to, the company spent money on telling you what to do, and absolutely none of those 120 or so directors could ever be imprisoned or fined for misspending funds, breaking fiduciary responsibilities to the shareholders (promises), or destroying the value of the company, or being negligent.

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It's called government. Where people are voted by you to take your money and spend it on what they think is best for you. Where after taking a fair proportion of your earnings, when it doesn't provide the healthcare you want, doesn't provide the education you want for your children, is not responsive to you as a victim of crime, and spends large sums for people to breed, make music videos and tell others what to do, the response basically is "it's a democracy, it's what you pay for civilisation".

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Only politicians, public servants and the starry eyed state worshippers of the left could defend a system that makes them as unaccountable as possible for spending other people's money and failing to provide what people expect.