Diversity, Equity, Inclusion is a fundamentally low-grade, Orwellian anti-liberal project

Sunday Telegraph editor, and vehement classical liberal, Allister Heath, writes about the "DEI" movement, which has spread like a cancer around US universities and corporates, in scathing terms:

DEI is only interested in racial or gender diversity. It doesn’t really care about poverty, class or geography. It loathes diversity of thought; it preaches an imbecilic groupthink that can never be questioned. It denies the scientific method. Its more extreme North American proponents occasionally even reject the idea that 2+2=4, claiming it implies “covert white supremacy”, the sort of lunacy that would have made even the Soviet pseudo-agronomist Trofim Lysenko blush.... 

The woke demand performative adherence to dogma, even when it is evidently contrary to reality, hence “Gays for Palestine” chanting pro‑Hamas and pro-Houthi slogans, even though both terror organisations are brutally homophobic, whereas Tel Aviv celebrates gay pride. Eliminating objective reality is every tyrant’s dream: citizens can no longer judge the validity of what they are being told. 

That's it, it's the latest part of the 20th century post-modernist excrescence that denies evidence, reason and genuine diversity between individuals.  Indeed it is a movement of neo-Maoist Cultural Revolution, with staggering parallels with that most murderous period in China's history.

...DEI advocates group “justice” that is at once unjust and inequitable, based on confiscation and redistribution. People don’t matter, only aggregate statistics. Individual merit counts for nought: DEI judges people solely on their membership of a tribe based on racial or sexual characteristics. This is a reversal of centuries of Western progress towards individual dignity, a rejection of Enlightenment ideals and a readoption of pre-modern group politics....

DEI is horrifically exclusionary, seeking to cancel anybody who fails to pretend to agree: it embraces the permanent inquisition, the auto-da-fé, excommunication and (metaphorically) burning heretics at the stake. Staff are “encouraged” to take the knee, to wear special lanyards, to share pronouns. Employees are divided into “allies” and “adversaries”, with the “good” in-group pitted against the “bad” out-group. “Micro-aggressors” are denounced.

This toxic philosophy is as destructive to individual freedom as Marxism-Leninism, Nazism, Islamism and all other forms of mystical authoritarianism, because it is mystical. It is entirely based on the feelings of the proponent, it is inherently inconsistent and immune to evidence. It is a social movement that has life because of well-meaning people who take the claims of the philosophy on face value, but is catalysed by generals of sociopathic misanthropists who lead armies of dimwitted malcontents and grifting inadequates, keen to shame, cancel and scream at those they deem "the enemy".

Diversity movements, activists, units and managers are about the exact opposite. No business should have a bar of it, and should purge its marketing and human resources departments (especially the latter, which is an administrative overhead all businesses should minimise). 

Government should purge it as well, eliminate it from all government agencies and make all staff who exist to promote the concept within government redundant.  I wont be holding my breath though.

Abolish the Human RIghts Commission (but give everyone Tino Rangitiratanga)

It was 26 years ago that the Free Radical published an article calling for abolition of the Human Rights Commission (sometimes called the "Human Wrongs Commission" on Radio Liberty at the time).  The main reason for that was how egregiously the entity had been in dealing to what it claimed was unjust discrimination - such as a Wellington hairdresser that charged less for men's haircuts than women's, the Nelson strip club that charged women half price for admittance, the golf club that held a married couple's tournament (discriminating against unmarried couples!) and even weighing in on a political party's proposal to give welfare to a married couple if one spouse remained at home to look after their children.  This all seemed like pettiness pushed by a bureaucracy that was looking for issues that, fundamentally, were petty.

A lot has changed since then, the Human Rights Commission has gone from seeking to stop people being rude to one another, to being the taxpayer funded advocacy for a highly politicised, radical and controversial interpretation of human rights, and indeed of New Zealand society.  The Human Rights Commission is the public sector wing of advocates of a far-left vision of a post-liberal democratic, post-capitalist, post-modernist Tangata Whenua Republic of Aotearoa, where not just your ancestry, but your claimed identity determines who governs you, and the rights you hold.  Whether it be a state within which half of the power is held by Iwi who appoint representatives to the new people's assembly (the logical end-point of co-governance), or two nations in one, whereby Maori are governed by the laws set by their Iwi and everyone else is governed by a state that has limited power over Maori. At least, that's one way of interpreting the radical vision of the Human Rights Commission. It's inconceivable that when the Muldoon administration created this body in the 1970s that it would be seen as the taxpayer funded arm of Nga Tamatoa.

It's helpful to know exactly what the Human Rights Commission has been spending your money on

The Human Rights Commission has produced a 162 page report called "Maranga Mai!"  (don't forget the exclamation mark) which:

combines evidence-based literature and research with the first-person testimony of recognised experts in the field of anti-racism about the impact of colonisation, white supremacy and racism on tangata whenua and communities. This methodology centres and amplifies Māori voices, memories and experiences, the value of which lies in documenting lived inter-generational and cumulative insights of how Māori have experienced colonisation, racism and white supremacy

It is unsurprising that the authorship is collective:

The Tangata Whenua Caucus of the National Anti-Racism Taskforce (2021-2022) and Ahi Kaa, the Indigenous Rights Group within Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | the Human Rights Commission (the Commission), worked together on the development of Maranga Mai!

RNZ does give us a clue as to one of the key contributors, reporting that:

Co-chair of the anti-racism taskforce, Tina Ngata, said the country's constitutional arrangements such as the electoral and justice systems were based on centuries-old racist ideologies and were the root of racism here.

Now Ngata is a far-left activist who appears to see everyone and everything through the lens of structuralism - the "system" from her perspective, is designed to protect patriarchal colonial capitalism - apparently. She is also quite the romantic for life pre-colonisation.  I'm no fan of the view that colonisation was "good" overall (neither because British colonialism may have been better than others, nor the idea that Maori may not have modernised without colonisation), but I'm also no fan of fantasies of a fictional golden age of isolationist nationalism of pre-modernity. Medicine in ALL societies 200 years ago was primitive, and pretending it was "better" than today, for anyone, is deranged stuff.  Ethno-nationalism is often based on myths of a glorious past eroded by the "other".

It's a philosophy that sees malignant intent or neglect in political and legal systems that are deemed to have been designed for and to preserve identitarian privileges.  In other words, ANY system of governance cannot be based on objective principles of reason, rights and justice, systems exist only for those in power.  It is exactly the philosophy of Marxist-Leninists, that you need to destroy the system (and society, and culture, and art) of a capitalist society to liberate the oppressed proletariat. For structuralists, you need to destroy the system of the "racist, patriarchal, colonial settler" system to liberate the oppressed Tangata Whenua.

Taxpayers have paid a group of far-left radical to essentially assert that liberal democracy (one-person, one vote), albeit not constrained by any explicit constitutional limits on power is "at the root of racism", as is the common law based justice system, which has at its roots proof of fact and application (for crimes) a presumption of innocence.  It isn't about people being racist or laws being racist or government policies being racist...

Talking about a revolution...

Hence the recommendation of "Maranga Mai!" essentially for revolution as follows:

To eliminate racism throughout Aotearoa will require nothing less than constitutional transformation and we urge the government to commit to this much needed change. (emphasis added)

So a department of state wants a revolution.  It's a political manifesto. Not only that, it wants a constitutional transformation to be implemented by the government elected by a bare majority, it isn't calling on the general public, it isn't calling on Parliament (representing more than the majority government), but on the government. Pause for a moment to think where and when it is that radical constitutional transformation was implemented without broader public consent, but the Human Rights Commission is uninterested in a nation-state that is governed by the consent of the governed.

You need to understand...

Apparently "The first step in the process is for tangata whenua to tell the truth about the impact of racism on their whānau, hapū, iwi, ancestors, communities and lives".  Of course people can say as they wish, but there's no room for critical thinking here. What IS racism in this context? It isn't just individual behaviour, indeed that isn't the main issue. The narratives wanted are just that...

New Zealanders need to understand that colonisation, racism and white supremacy are intertwined phenomena that remain central to the ongoing displacement and erosion of tino rangatiratanga. The cumulative effects of this are evident in the intergenerational inequalities and inequities tangata whenua suffer across all aspects of their lives, These serious matters are the focus of this report.

Colonisation happened, but New Zealand is no longer a colony. The non-Maori citizens are not "colonisers" but people with as much right to live in the country they are born in, or admitted as immigrants in as anyone else. Inferring anything else is racist, even if it doesn't meet the definition of the post-modernists.  

Similarly, the idea that white supremacy is somehow endemic is ludicrous and deranged.  However, the New Zealand state DOES erode tino rangatiratanga, for EVERYONE, by increasing its power and diminishing the freedom of citizens and residents to live their own lives peacefully.

However, that's not what this report is about, unsurprisingly if you look at the Executive Summary....

Detailing histories of racism and white supremacy in Aotearoa is pivotal to developing an accurate awareness of the past that is sufficient to change the future.

It's not really about history though, in calling for anecdotes of the past, including recollections of what dead relatives said, it's about inculcating a culture that combines anger and hatred, with shame, guilt and repentance.  There's no room for critical thinking, and disentangling assertions, assumptions and narratives to look for objective facts.

The elimination of racism in Aotearoa requires true and authentic acknowledgement from the state that indigenous and tangata whenua rights exist.

Shut up if you disagree...

Actually it requires acknowledgement from the state that individual rights exist, but it isn't enough, because for racism to be eliminated requires individuals to think of people as individuals, not groups.  The Human Rights Commission doesn't do that, nor do the authors of this report.

You can see it in the threatening and racist tone of this language:

Also, that the continued dismissal and violation of these covenants, and Tiriti responsibilities, by the Crown and settler society must cease.

So if you are not Tangata Whenua (bearing in mind that this is a state of mind more than anything else, as all nationalisms are a psychological state), you are a member of "settler society", and you "must cease" dismissing indigenous rights and apparently Tiriti responsibilities that, in fact, do not apply to those who aren't parties to Te Tiriti (as the parties are only the Crown and Iwi signatories).

The Human Rights Commission wants you to cease arguing about the concept of indigenous rights and to cease breaching Te Tiriti.  Perhaps it needs to revisit freedom of speech, or is that a white supremacist concept too?

There is the red herring:

The reliance on the Doctrine of Discovery, to validate the New Zealand colonial state, must also cease alongside a transition to recognise Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the rightful source of kāwanatanga legitimacy in Aotearoa.

There is no colonial state anymore, and almost nobody relies on the Doctrine of Discovery. 

Give us your money...

Tangible actions will be required to atone and provide restitution to tangata whenua, while laying a foundation for healing and constitutional certainty.

Don't expect your bank account to be immune from that, it's a direct demand for taking your money (if not your land) to provide restitution to people who you have never harmed, who may even be better off than you are.  

Racism was invented by white people

There's so much in this report that is revealing, not only of the Human Rights Commission, but of the Labour Government that commissioned this report and has not dismissed it as a doorstop take this quote:

The social construct of race is based on the ideological notion of white supremacy, which is driven in society by racism (p.36)

This is nonsense, as the identification of different races was recorded by humanity thousands of years ago. The ideological notion of "white supremacy" emerged as Christian Europeans in the Middle Ages ventured forth to proselytise, albeit it was primarily religiously focused - but as were the motives of Muslim imperialists at the same time, but methinks that the authors of this report don't care much for breadth of history of many parts of the world.  Genghis Khan, one of the great imperialists and racists was no "white supremacist", but that gets in the way of a narrative of exuding guilt and shame against the vast majority of New Zealanders, and in particular parroting the US-inspired hierarchy of oppression. The anti-concept of "whiteness" is cited throughout the report, without being defined.  Of course if race is a "social construct" (it certainly is a psychological rather than a usefully objective one), then what happens if it gets ignored? Well this report isn't interested in THAT.

Racism is a primitive collectivist fear of the "other", inculcated especially by those with power either by state, religion or other form of collective governance.  Those with power don't want to share it with others, so demonising or diminishing the "other" is key, and it may not even be skin colour, it is fundamental identitarianism.  You see it in Northern Ireland and the Balkans, where people who are indistinguishable from each other physically, "other" different sides based on religious, ancestral and other claims to identity.  It's all in their heads, like all forms of ethno-nationalism.  

Europeans were (and some are) full of their own supremacy against each other, but the notion of "us" vs. "them", with little regard for universalism was commonplace throughout humanity until it started to be challenged by Enlightenment classical liberal thinking, which ultimately saw the rise of universal individual rights.

Unless your group was involved in creating an institution, it is biased against your group

Of course there is the claim that because Maori are not involved in creating institutions those institutions automatically become institutionally racist:

Institutional racism is not always obvious because the underlying prejudice hides behind complex rules, practices, policies and decision-making processes. These are framed, written and confirmed in the absence of Māori. (p.37)

So even if you can't find evidence of institutional racism, it's there. Structuralism teaches you that everyone in power sets up systems of bigotry to prejudice those in power, and because a system wasn't designed by the collective of "Maori", it is institutionally racist. You don't need evidence. Post-modernism regards evidence and empiricism to be eve

Māori in Aotearoa live under a constitutional and legal structure that is foreign to them and which derives from England (p.37)

What does this even mean? Almost nobody in a nation-state has much power to determine constitutional and legal structures, and most people in NZ are not from England. The system has evolved over many years, the electoral system has parallels to Germany, the legislation is passed by a legislature where every adult citizen has a similar say in who represents them.  It is, objectively, no more foreign to one person than another, and many would regard most of the systems and institutions of state to be alien to them. It is only by seeing everyone through a collectivist lens of "us" vs. "them" that perceives "us" finding a system foreign which mustn't be to "them".

Of course the report isn't clear on what should happen to those structures.  However, it appears it is about passing control to Iwi, so they control Maori, not the state.

You can spend a long time going through this document to find all sorts of gems, such as the need to abolish prisons:

Decolonisation, and constitutional transformation based on Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga, necessarily involves abolishing prisons (p.92) why... because “incarceration does nothing to address the underlyingissues the person may be experiencing”

Because the man (it's mostly men) who raped you, or murdered one of your relatives or friends, should not, fundamentally, be somewhere to protect you. How dare you claim individual rights you white supremacist?  You need to think of the person who violated you or your family, because he is basically a victim.

You see...

Colonisation introduced an Anglo-Saxon centred notion of western justice based on the fundamental principle of individual responsibility. This approach minimises the personal and social circumstances of accused persons (p.89)

Individual responsibility, remarkably, predates both the Anglo and Saxon peoples, and remarkably remains central to justice systems across the world. The report blanks out that personal circumstances are relevant to some crimes, and are certainly relevant to most sentencing. However, of course, it doesn't fit the collectivist mindset, which (as in Maoist China) focuses more on the context of the person who commits the assault, rape or murder, than the act itself.

The Human Rights Commission presumably believes individual responsibility is foreign to Maori.

Of course the report wouldn't be complete if it didn't recommend expanding the powers of the Human Rights Commission. It wants legislation to...

Give full effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Reo Māori text) throughout the Human Rights Act 1993. This includes all institutional arrangements for the Commission

and (bearing in mind the Human Rights Commission has quasi-judicial powers)...

Include via preambulatory paragraphs definitions of racism, institutional racism, and white supremacy within the Act. (p.98)

The effect this would have on freedom of speech, and indeed on liberal democracy could be chilling indeed.

It's not all wrong though..

Now there is a LOT that can be done to liberate Maori, such as decentralising education, ending the next to peppercorn leases enforced on some Maori land, granting Iwi (and indeed all) property owners real property rights to use their property as they see fit.  There is plenty of content in the report that rightfully points out the acquisitive, oppressive nature of the state, such as the Public Works Act and the application of local body rates on Maori land, even if that land received no services or benefits from local government. There was legislation discriminatory against Maori, and legislation that generally undermined property rights and individual rights for all New Zealanders, and had egregious effects on Maori. That's what an overbearing state does.  

As a result the report effectively recommends to not levy rates on Maori land, which is fine of course, if you accept that local government should provide no services that support such land.  I doubt the Human Rights Commission wants very small local government though.

and there are seeds of freedom in constitutional reform...

Fundamental to the constitution reform the report wants is for Maori to determine their own lives and make decisions over their own resources.  This is libertarian, it is freedom and property rights.  There remain two questions though...

Is giving Maori this power actually power as individuals with the choice to act together, or purely collective entities? If it is the latter, it is just another form of government, I suspect it is the latter.

Why can this not apply to EVERYONE in New Zealand? Why shouldn't we all be able to determine our own lives and make decisions over our own resources?  The authors would be confused because they will think non-Maori have this, but they most definitely do not.  That's what liberal democracy in a mixed economy without constitutional constraints on government power generates.

Unfortunately, I doubt the vision of a series of far-left collectivist activists really is about liberating individual freedom and opportunity.

Don't be saying no...

The report concludes:

Several barriers stand in the way of fully realising constitutional transformation. The first of these is the inevitable safeguarding of the settler-colonial status quo and the economic privilege that has flowed from that for generations at the expense of Māori. The economic implications of constitutional transformation and addressing racism are significant, because “Many Pākehā won’t oppose racism if it means giving land back and supporting constitutional reform” p.102

The main barrier, surely, is not having the consent of those that would be governed. Especially if this means taking away people's own land, acquired legally and privately. It would be shades of Zimbabwe.

Note that the report effectively accepts that protest, legal or not, and indeed violence must be expected if its recommendations are not followed:

Direct action to respond to and challenge colonisation, racism, and white supremacy are important in the assertion of tino rangatiratanga, as Ihumātao and internationally, the Dakota Access Pipeline, have shown (see Smithsonian Institution, 2018; Meador, 2016). So long as the settler-colonial status quo remains, this will continue to be an effective method of resistance p.104

Direct action is a euphemism for any form of protest that can include trespass, vandalism and violence, the Human Rights Commission is almost endorsing a breaking of the rule of law.

What to do with it?

It's a political manifesto, which the Labour Government commissioned, and it should be debated. Political candidates should challenge and be challenged by the concepts and views expressed in it, and indeed there is nothing inherently wrong with reflecting on state-inflicted racism, both direct and indirect, on Maori, in New Zealand's history.  However, it seeks fundamental constitutional change which, on the face of it, would destroy liberal democracy in New Zealand and severely limit freedom of speech and private property rights. It is a call for ethno-nationalist separatism, which if it were to liberate Maori from the state, I would applaud, but it steers away from that.  For a report purportedly about liberation it calls for a lot of new state institutions and a lot of new taxpayer spending, it is a report wanting more statism, and to transfer state power to collectivist institutions that are meant to represent Maori.  Maori as individuals don't feature much here, except for anecdotes about experiences and feelings, as evidence of institutional racism (although evidence isn't needed apparently).

What it demonstrates is that the Human Rights Commission has been completely taken over by far-left ethno-nationalists who see it as a vehicle to achieve radical political change, rather than to implement government policy - unless of course, this reflects government philosophy, which it may well do.

It's easy to brush Maranga Mai! to one side as ridiculous, but it embodies a philosophy that is being inculcated across all levels of the education system and the wider state. It appears to be shared by the Labour Party, and certainly the Greens and Te Pati Maori.

The easy response would be to abolish the Human Rights Commission, which is what any libertarian would do, but it might be more clever to reform it, legislatively change its mandate to actually defend the rights of the individual to control over his or her body, property and life. Imagine if it produced reports that called for a restructure of the state so individual rights were paramount.

My expectations, however, are low. Hipkins will pretend it isn't important, but will continue to let the philosophy underlying it dominate discourse in education and the state and the state's media. National will barely touch the Human Rights Commission, as it did create it.

What is more important is to have debate and discussion challenging collectivist and post-modernist ideologies for what they are - philosophical positions - not factual renditions of events. 

Colonisation saw many atrocities committed, but it is over.  The non-Maori who live in New Zealand are not "settlers". Liberal democracy and rule of law are not invented to benefit Pakeha, and the only human rights are individual rights, for without the freedom of the individual, everyone is at risk of violence being initiated by the state, Iwi or any other collective that thinks it should govern you.

Set Maori free by setting us all free.

Ardern's legacy isn't kindness

It's been over a week, and it's remarkable that Jacinda Ardern has simply disappeared from the politics of a country she exercised almost unprecedented levels of power over, for the previous few years. The (leftwing statist post-modernist identitarian) world has cried out "why", and far too many have come to the conclusion that it's no doubt sexism (in the country that gave her the greatest electoral mandate of any Prime Minister since 1951, and had previously had two female Prime Ministers).

However, Ardern's resignation appears on the face of it to reflect two things:

• Fatigue from someone who isn't intellectually or emotionally able to handle the time and the stress of the position
• Fear of an election campaign during which scrutiny will be its highest and the chance of defeat the strongest yet.

She is, after all, an almost accidental Prime Minister. She wasn't expected to become Prime Minister after the 2017 election, as National was so well ahead in the polls, it's just that National had "spent" its coalition/support partners over previous terms, and so angered Winston Peters that he chose to swing left.

Of course in this neo-identitarian political age (a variation on classic chauvinistic identitarianism), Ardern's age and sex were notable as an "achievement", enhanced by her clearly being someone who never seemed to covet the role (which is now born out by her fatigability), made her a darling of international media.  The Anglosphere in particular is dominated by mono-linguistic types who pay little attention to the likes of Sanna Marin, the Finnish (young female) Prime Minister who chose to ignore the wrath of Vladimir Putin and seek Finland's membership of NATO. A position of courage, and not remotely a position the likes of Ardern (or indeed Hipkins) would ever take in foreign affairs, as New Zealand's foreign policy since the Lange age has been to be largely weak against those that challenge Western countries (see, for example, how pathetic Ardern/Mahuta were in response to China's trade sanctions against Australia). 

Ardern was notable for embracing an explicitly sympathetic and emotional image to leadership, and for declaring how kindness in government is a virtue. This is extraordinary from a politician who has led a government that, by and large, has sought to take more of people's money, borrow more from future generations and to direct and centrally manage and control more intensely than any government since the Muldoon era. 

I suppose Ardern will regard the generosity of her government with welfare benefits to be "kindness", which of course is really kindness with other people's money.  That "kindness" certainly will have relieved some poverty, but also contributes towards a dependency on other people's money, and the labour shortage that has emerged since the end of Covid restrictions. Lindsay Mitchell has written eloquently on this noting that the number and proportion of people receiving a main benefit at the end of the last six December quarters is up 22% compared to when Ardern first became Prime Minister.  New Zealand has both a critical skills shortage, a restrictive approach to immigration and is generous to those who don't want to work, but Ardern can't connect the dots.  At no point has this government noted that being too "kind" with other people's money encourages people to be economically idle.

The reality of the "kindness" narrative is no joke to the victims of ramraid attacks, and the growth in crime, because the "kindness" is interpreted as there being an easy ride for perpetrators.  The fact so many of the victims are recent migrants who own businesses is a community that maybe sees less kindness in the rhetoric, particular the notion that the reason some young people drive cars to steal stuff is claimed to be poverty, rather than opportunistic nihilism.

Another group not feeling the kindness includes immigrants who invested time and money into New Zealand and have been told to fuck off back home leave.  The former owners of Tennyson Cafe in Napier, who migrated from France, poured $600,000 into the business, brought their children over and had to meet financial targets for the business to get permanent residency.  The pandemic, of course, got in the way, and they failed to meet the targets.

The family’s first year in Cafe Tennyson and Bistro did not go as well as hoped, but the year ended March 2020 was much better and boded well.  The Debords invested more than $600,000 in the business, and the kids Lisa, 10, and Thibaut, 12, had settled in and were thriving at a local primary school. For the past two years, while other cafes around them have closed and laid off staff, the Debords have battled on.

Immigration NZ said because the didn't meet their targets (regardless of reason) they could not be allowed to remain, local MP and Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash supported them, but of course these were the rules set by the government he is a part of and Ardern led. So imagine a family, relocated halfway across the world, setting up a successful business, contributing financially and personally to a community, being told by an unproductive minion of the burgeoning Ardern state to leave.  Claims that it was an administrative decision is ludicrous in the context of a government with a majority able to change the laws to address such discrepancies.  For someone who gained her mandate due to handling of the pandemic, it is a curious blind spot that Ardern literally couldn't care less about people from overseas who contribute demonstrably to New Zealand, being allowed to stay. It's something that foreign fans of Ardern wouldn't believe, because they think she's the antithesis of "Trump" and everything they hate, when in fact she's led a government highly sceptical of immigration, not least because of a strong streak of Maori caucus antipathy towards immigration (and trade union dislike of people who represent competition for their members - this is the left treating individuals as economic units - something that is often decried).

The legions of people who couldn't get home during the pandemic, whereas various minstrels, thespians, clowns, ball players, politicians and businesspeople were given special access to MIQ, was also the other side of the "kind" government, that granted special privileges to those who ticked the right boxes.  Ardern led a government of "pull" as Eric Crampton wrote about.  Ardern's Government was kind to the "right" kind of people, such as people working in horse racing, international film producers, America's Cup syndicate employees, minstrels performing and businesspeople with stands at the Dubai Expo.  Average New Zealanders don't have that sort of "pull".

Then there are the Afghans who helped New Zealand forces not getting automatic visas to move to NZ after the Taliban took over.  What could be less kind that for people who worked with foreign forces not being granted residency when their psychopathic totalitarian enemy takes over?  However, the Ardern Government's attitude to foreign policy was more about signalling virtue than substance.  Calling for a ban on nuclear weapons is the sort of naive student politics that demeaned Ardern, as was calling climate change her generation's "nuclear-free moment". Then again if she meant New Zealand taking action that would have no impact on a global issue or problem (which is what the nuclear ban achieved) then she might have been right.

A lot of money has been spent by the Ardern Government, yet the performance of public services continues to be woeful, not least because the incentives of prioritising the interests of vocal professional unions are not on consumers of those services.  The DHB model was poor, but centralised healthcare is unlikely to deliver innovation or pressure for efficiencies.  On education, the desire for more centralisation is clear, as diversity in education delivery is an anathema to a government full of sympathisers to teachers' unions.  The Ardern Government doesn't want parents directing schools when it has grown the educational bureaucracy in Wellington so much.

That's been the other effect, the massive growth in the Wellington bureaucracy more generally.  A 38% increase in policy analysts, a 43% increase in managers and 56% increase in information professionals reflects a bloating demand by the Ardern Government for regulatory and policy work, and little of it is about getting the state to do less, but rather to do more.  It's part of her belief system in an activist state, but this philosophy hits the reality that you can't make a lot of things "better" by just throwing more public servants at it to analyse what to do, especially since whole ranges of options are completely ruled out politically. It's telling that the Ardern Government wouldn't even look once at commercialising water, even though it has been somewhat of a success in Auckland (for fresh and waste water only), because it is only interested in options that centralise power.

Then there is whole issue of "co-governance" which means that Iwi are treated as equals in government to central and local government, and given power to choose their own people to sit alongside those chosen by election (who are ALSO chosen in part by those selecting Iwi representatives).  It also means abolishing one-person one-vote, as nearly happened in Rotorua.  The fact the Ardern Government is so willing to consider abolishing a core tenet of liberal democracy to placate Maori nationalists is far from kind. Finally Ardern's concern about freedom of speech being a weapon and wanting to suppress disinformation presents an overly confident view of the state benignly suppressing what is "bad", without suppressing what is good or even useful.  It is understandable that she is keen to see less rhetoric that supports the likes of the Christchurch shooter or those claiming conspiracies for all sorts of issues, but her inability to see the importance of freedom of speech created plenty of justifiable criticism.  Her philosophy feeds into the rhetoric of dictators from China to Russia to Nigeria to Venezuela, who simply call criticism "disinformation". 

The narrative now being conveniently trotted out about Ardern is the abuse she receives from critics, and certainly no one can justify threats of violence against her and her family.  Yet her main opponent in 2020 was Judith Collins, and abuse of her is largely brushed to one side, and of course many of those who decry abuse of Ardern are more than happy to tolerate abuse of male politicians as Graham Adams wrote in The Platform.  I'm old enough to remember the constant references to Robert Muldoon as "piggy", and the idea that somehow people shouldn't be able to throw pejoratives at women in power any less than men is rather chilling.  People have the right to call their leaders names and be rude about them, even if it is puerile and they don't like it, what they don't have the right to do is to threaten them. Ardern undoubtedly gets some nasty threats, and different ones from men because she is a woman, but it's intellectually lazy polemics to claim that the country that granted Ardern a remarkable mandate in 2020 is also dripping misogynistic hatred of women in power (despite having also granting a mandate for Helen Clark to govern for nine years), when hatred of men in power is just brushed over as part of the game.

It's good for Ardern to give up, nobody should be in the job if they find it too difficult, but just over a week on, and it is clear that Hipkins has just tweaked the dials, and done little other than give the impression he's a bit less woke-authoritarian, and he's more than willing to extend unfunded tax cuts (fuel tax/RUC discount) and say he's "reviewing" policies that Ardern and her whole government were dead keen on hanging their hats on.

What the polls suggest is that the politics of "kindness" were seen by enough of the public to be empty of substance, but it also suggests that Christopher Luxon has a fair way to convince people that his alternative is one of substance.

A key question will be whether a National-led government is actually going to embark on the sort of reforms needed to turn back the tide on the growing centralising state, and incentivise individual responsibility, entrepreneurship and freedom of choice,

In a postmodern generation that believes truth can be mine or yours, telling the truth and restating old wisdoms can be a revolutionary act.

"The prince across the water is now the world’s most famous truth bender, but he is far from alone. Last Friday, Trevor Noah, the South African comedian and US television presenter, defended the notorious skit in which he asserted there had been a “racist backlash” in Britain when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.

Rather than present proof of his claims, or apologise for his error, Noah argued that a joke can only be judged by its intended audience. “I wouldn’t tell a joke about South Africa the same way in South Africa as I would outside South Africa,” he explained. In other words, it mattered not that British people knew his joke to be untrue: he was making the joke for a liberal American audience, who believed it was true....

The intellectual origins of this nonsense go back to the postmodernism of thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Discourse is oppressive. Language, custom and tradition exploit the weak and sustain the powerful in their privilege. Victims of the powerful participate in their own oppression through their assumed social roles.

These concepts have been taken further by thinkers and radicals in America, and the arising critical theories are not only commonplace there but increasingly a matter of consensus among academics and politicians here as well.

And so truth is reduced to a battle between discourses. Whatever the evidence, the truth might be said to be merely “your truth”: a story that exploits one group and perpetuates the power of another....

The crime is always exploitation, and the currency is always victimhood because that is what the theories say. The truth must be bent to fit the template, and, handily enough, the theory tells us the truth is malleable anyway."

by Nick Timothy, Theresa May's former Chief of Staff, with an insight he couldn't get his boss to do the foggiest thing about addressing.. in The destruction of truth is at the heart of Western cultural decline  (Daily Telegraph)

Identify for yourself where and how this is seen across academia, the media and in education across NZ... and in the utterances of so many politicians

Remember Cultural Safety in nursing education?

This widely viewed Australian spoof about education isn't far from the mark:

This Ph.D thesis from Massey called "A Maori model of Primary Health Care Nursing" exemplifies this nonsense.  Take this gem:

Unfortunately, much of the present literature on which we rely to develop nursing curriculum, practice and health policies is presented, not only from a pakeha perspective but also with a strong
biomedical focus. This has proved to be of little use to Maori.

Post-modernist identity politics denies that modern medicine is of" little use" to people from a pre-modern culture.  Now I agree that being sensitive to the customs and beliefs of patients is entirely a sensible part of nursing, but this is simply treating people as individuals and customising providing services in ways that optimises their experience.  However, to treat medical science as being secondary or even almost dismiss it altogether is complete nonsense.

The insanity of not judging people's actions and capabilities as individuals, but as categorised groups, and the insanity of the denial of reality and objectivity are exactly what this little video identifies.  It's about time it was laughed at and challenged, because the philosophy and values behind it are not only irrational, but fundamentally corrosive to individual rights and freedoms to the point where, as in my previous post, those applying it become not only appeasers of fascism, but apply fascist techniques to their approach to any form of challenge.

The single biggest philosophical threat to our freedoms is not Islamism itself, nor a new generation of Marxism-Statism, but the entire edifice of post-modernist relativism and structuralism - for it is that which is hindering the policies and practices needed to confront the fascists from all sides.

So how far away from how things are is this?

Student Unions in the UK explicitly appeasing fascism

It's entirely logical.  The natural conclusion of the philosophy of post-modernist moral relativism, that refuses to apply moral judgment to those who engage in genocide, slavery and rape of women and children, incinerates prisoners of war, beheads those it simply dislikes (including children who do not submit to its religion) and kills men for being gay.  

For that is what University College London (student) Union has done, following on from the National Union of Students last year.  Brendan O'Neill in The Spectator writes more on what happened.  Basically, the Activities and Events Officer of UCLU (Asad Khan) said that a former student, who has fought with the Kurds in Syria to repel ISIS, could not talk about his experiences because "there are two sides and UCLU wants to avoid taking sides".

Moral relativism has hit its epitome in this act by Asad Khan.  I wonder if Mr Khan takes the same approach when confronted with any crimes.  Would he stop women talking about rape because "there are two sides"? Would someone talking about racist abuse be told that she couldn't talk without the alleged abuser being there because "there are two sides"?  I doubt it.  Asad Khan is a selective moral relativist, he only wants to appease mass murdering fascist religious fundamentalists who are explicitly sexist, racist, homophobic and touters of violence as the solution to any infringement.

NUS last year refused to approve a motion condemning ISIS because that would be "Islamophobic" and offensive.   As if this doesn't feed the belief of some that all Muslims are deep down supporters of the ideology and tactics of ISIS.

What this tells you is that student unions in the UK, which long have had remarkably selective morality about foreign affairs.  It goes without saying that for decades it rightly condemned apartheid, but never had anything to say about the slaughters of opponents by African dictatorships such as Robert Mugabe.  It's always been a friend of the Palestinians and opponent of Israel, but not so much the friend of the Iranian opposition to the regime.   In short, it has always been vehement against dictatorships and perceived oppression caused by the UK Government, the US, NATO member states or other Western regimes, but curiously quiet over any regimes that take on any of the above.   Standard far-left moral relativism which fits in perfectly with the current leader of the UK Labour Party.

Yet now, it should be abundantly clear to any students with a conscience, libertarian or even those who identify themselves as left-liberal (with the beliefs in secularism, free speech, feminism, LGBT rights), that the student union movement in the UK has now aligned itself with a far-left movement that is, at its core, fascist.

It's not that the student unions are completely amoral and relativist, demanding equal weight and time be given to all opinions on everything.   Like I said above, they would never take a stance on anything at that point, as all opinions are equally valid and it would be "disempowering" to take a stand which explicitly repudiates the views of others.  

No, they have views, it's just that the perspective that wins out, over everything, is fundamentally illiberal, intolerant and appeasing of fascism.  

A man who fought to protect civilians from violence, including murder, enslavement and women and children from rape, was not allowed to speak because those who would murder, enslave and rape deserve a hearing too.  What's that if not appeasement of fascism?

For that's what ISIS is, it is what the more "moderate" forms of Islamism (as seen in Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States) are.  Islamofascism.  This is what the mainstream of the British left now tolerates because it is what the Labour Party leader (and his acolytes) now express as their standard view

It is what journalist and former Labour Party member Nick Cohen described in The New Statesman:

the fact remains that the Labour party has just endorsed an apologist for Putin’s imperial aggression; a man who did not just appear on the propaganda channel of Russia, which invades its neighbours and persecutes gays, but also of Iran, whose hangmen actually execute gays. Labour’s new leader sees a moral equivalence between 9/11 and the assassination of bin Laden, and associates with every variety of women-hating, queer-bashing, Jew-baiting jihadi, holocaust denier and 9/11 truther. His supporters know it, but they don’t care.

For those of us who are libertarians, we are used to the far-left appeasing soft communist regimes like Venezuela, which harasses the opposition media, stacks the courts, wrecks the economy and blames it all on US imperialism.  We are used to the far-left demanding civil liberties, but seeking to take the majority of some people's income, and some of their assets, to control their entrepreneurial activities and even more lately, curtail their freedom of speech because it might cause "offence".

However, now the mainstream left appeases the very people who would impose a tyranny that would take all that it claims to care for back to the dark ages.

Even when some of them oppose ISIS, they are willing to appease a lesser tyranny (Bashar Assad) that drops chemical weapons and barrel bombs civilians, presumably because Assad is ideologically aligned to the left.  After all, the Assad hereditary dictatorship has long been aligned to the USSR (and now Russia), been anti-Western, has repeatedly occupied Lebanon, waged war against Israel and backed Hezbollah, and is now backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.  

This video from the BBC programme Daily Politics below reveals how Syrian opposition activists claim the self-styled (far left) "Stop The War Coalition" (which Jeremy Corbyn has long belonged to) has rallies against war in Syria to back the Assad dictatorship.  With a meeting chaired by Shadow International Aid Secretary Diane Abbott (a long standing hard-left Labour MP), "Stop the War"  refused to let any Syrians talk at a public meeting about "opposing war in Syria".

In essence, "Stop the War" coalition isn't opposed to war in Syria at all, simply opposed to Western intervention in the war.  As far as it is concerned, it doesn't want to know about the Assad regime bombing civilians and using chemical weapons, killing over 100,000, for it backs that side against both the small liberal opposition, and the wide swathe of Islamist opposition groups, including ISIS (but it doesn't support Western bombing of ISIS because the West can't do any good anywhere).

Hardly surprising, since mourner for the USSR and sycophant of multiple dictatorships, George Galloway, praised Bashar Assad:

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Galloway didn't seek to rejoin the Labour Party and become a candidate, presuming he loses his bid to be Mayor of London next year under his Islamofascist appeasing/Marxist RESPECT Party banner.

You'll find the same appeasement of Islamofascism in universities and increasingly the mainstream left all over the Western world, including the USA, Australia and New Zealand.  It is the banal end-result of combining identity politics (which deems all Muslims as "victims" deserving of special kid gloves treatment and tolerance, regardless of their own views) with the vacuous moral relativism of post-modernists philosophy (there being no such thing as objective reality or morality rooted in reason and values, just different cultural/identity perspectives).

In this environment, actual Islamofascists can shield themselves as being protected by those whose other values they despise.  Meanwhile, Muslims who seek to move towards more liberal values or apostate Muslims (who have converted to other religions or rejected religion) are largely ignored.  After all if you reject Islam, you're no longer a member of the oppressed identity.

In the 1930s, the far-left ignored and appeased Stalin, in the 1960s and 1970s it appeased Mao, today it appeases Islamofascism.  However today, the far-left IS the mainstream left.  In between patrolling language it considers racist, sexist and homophobic, it is providing succour for the most racist, sexist, homophobic band of terrorists seen in modern history.

It's time to call them out for what they are - appeasers and facilitators of fascism.

Rotherham Council more concerned about causing offence than stopping rape

What was the first response of child protection officers and Police in Rotherham, UK, when facing evidence of organised gangs of Asian men raping, brutalising and otherwise abusing young girls of various background?

"Better be careful, we might be accused of being racist".

That's one of the damning findings of an inquiry published today which found that 1400 children were sexually exploited in the borough between 1997 and 2013, a third of whom were known by child protection officers.

It is a wanton failure by the state to do its job as

"Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers.
At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE (Child Sexual Exploitation), regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime"

but what is particularly galling is how the embrace of the doctrine of Identity Politics and fear of being found to be politically incorrect closed down enquiries.

By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire
period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how
best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem,
which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the
ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction
from their managers not to do so.

In other words, they couldn't cope with the perpetrators being from an ethnic group they had deemed to be "vulnerable", "disadvantaged" or "subject to racism", so they themselves were racist in dismissing or minimise the crimes that included:

There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.

By applying collectivist Identity Politics thought to crime, they ignored reality.  Individuals had together, with a toxic cultural attitude to young girls particularly of non-Asian backgrounds, raped and brutalised victims with impunity.  Effectively protected by those too scared to call them out on it or act decisively, because they didn't want to be accused of being "racist".

It's the consequence of embracing post-modernist structuralism.  The philosophy that there is no such thing as objective reality, only power structures that need to be broken down, and which public policy and politics should reflect. 

The result is that real victims were neglected and not protected, real violent sex offenders were treated with hand-wringing anxiety and appeasement, because what mattered most was that nobody should be offended (except of course the victims who were treated as inconvenient or at worst, culpable).

Rotherham Council has been run by the Labour Party since it was created in 1974.

I've written more about it here, on my UK blog.

Only white people can be racist

Labour, Greens, Maori Party and Mana all share this view of racism.

The post-modernist structuralist view of reality is that which carries the mainstream of academia in universities in the English speaking world.  It is what most of our leftwing politicians were raised on, and it is what causes them to believe that a fairly simple concept - racism - is not simple at all.

Racism is, from a classical liberal definition, the belief that another person is inferior (or superior) purely because of that person's racial heritage.  It is taking those physical characteristics to judge that person.

Racism is irrational and has been the source of countless bloodbaths in history, and remains a primal drive within humans that overrides the rational faculty with fear and loathing of "the other".  

Objectivists consider it antithetical to individualism, which judges people on their behaviour and ideas, not their heritage.  Ayn Rand said as much herself.

Yet why do some say that non-white people can't be racist?  Well it has been eloquently explained by the Socialist Worker - the British Marxist newspaper which demonstrates that once you have put everyone into silos - then you can label them any way you wish.  Consider for a moment the irony of those who claim to be against racism using the very same techniques as those they oppose to classify others and then to seek to initiate force against them on that basis.

" the idea that black and Asian people can be racist towards white people is wrong. It confuses a reaction to a racist society with racism itself.

It is true that black and Asian people sometimes respond to racial discrimination by saying that all white people are part of the problem. Some say all whites are inherently racist. They may even make crude jokes to this effect.

These ideas can impede the fight against racism. But they are not themselves racist.

Racism is more than simple prejudice, no matter how ugly or unpleasant. It is the combination of prejudice with power. It occurs when a group of people are discriminated against because they are seen as inferior."

There you understand it, you are not racist if you are black and treat someone who isn't black in a negative way purely because of that person's race.  Why?  Because the racism isn't expressed by individuals' reactions, but by those actions with power.   

Power from the Marxist structuralist perspective is purely binary and is extracted from the bourgeoisie-prolertariat dichotomy that Marx and Engels propounded, but adjusted to fit the post-colonial narrative invented by academics.

It goes like this and it is worth deconstructing to see what it really means:

"The vast majority of people, black or white, aren’t in positions of power. Yet most of those who hire and fire staff, and make and implement policies that affect the lives of millions are white.

This, in the British context, is deemed to be because of racism.  Not to deny that it didn't exist officially and unofficially on a considerable scale when most of those migrants' ancestors arrived, but it is taken as given that position that this is the sole reason.  

Many among them hold racist views and they are given a chance to put their prejudices into action. And it’s not just racist individuals who discriminate—the capitalist state does too.

So it is now asserted that "many" who hold power, who are managers in business hold racist views.  No need for proof, it is "fact" and recirculated as such.  Then the state does so too.  Again, who would deny there are always a number in the Police and other institutions who act this way, but then the "capitalist state" disproportionately hires people of minorities as well - yet if they acted in an objectively racist manner in hiring, that would be "ok".

It is for these reasons that darker-skinned people are more likely to be out of work, in poor housing and the victims of racist policing. They are at the bottom of a racial hierarchy.

Again, just a bold assertion.  If a manager doesn't hire the black candidate for a job it is racism, not because the candidate might not be the best candidate available.  Another assertion is this "racial hierarchy".  It isn't one created by the state, or even businesses, but one that is created to fit the post-modernist Marxist view of race.

If a white person argues that all black people are illegal immigrants they are using racist ideas to side with the powerful against the oppressed.

Really?  Which of the powerful argue that all black people are illegal immigrants?  Who outside the nutty fraternity of the National Front claim such nonsense?  It's just an inane racist comment.

Racism runs deep in capitalist society because it is such a crucial component of the system. That’s why black and Asian people can accept racist ideas about themselves and other oppressed people. 

Now we are really into the fantasyland thinking.  If you think racism is a critical component of capitalism, you'll hate capitalism, yet racism isn't only irrelevant to capitalism it is antithetical to it.  For racism is fundamentally irrational, and it involves treating individuals not on their talent, intelligence and abilities, but their backgrounds.  Businesses that write off people on that basis are losing opportunities for talented staff and management, but would also be incapable of developing and marketing products for people, because of racism. The most systematically racist states in the world have been fascist-socialist constructions that have had capitalism under their jackboots.  

What does this all mean?

Leftwing parties almost universally advocate the state undertaking activities based on the "affirmative action" model following the philosophical contortions expressed above.  

If you are Maori, Black, etc, you are deemed to automatically fall into the oppressed proletariat category, so state sponsored scholarships, loans, grants and programmes, including quotas for employment, are deemed to be "correcting" the racism you have endured.  Blank out if you are actually a high income professional or son/daughter of such a professional (the people typically most able to take advantage of such programmes).  

Statistics of poor economic, health or educational performance are deemed to be "because" of racism, for any other explanation is inconvenient (and it is racist to even search for alternative explanations).

If you seek "one law for all" or to end racially determined institutions or programmes, you are "racist", because you don't understand that the state is racist and needs to be racist to counteract its own racism.

Yes, the racist state needs to be racist (which isn't racist unless it is expressed by the powerful, which the state is) to not be racist.

Of course in the 1930s in Germany, the state saw that there was vast racism in the management of business and government in the form of one race that ran everything and was seeking to dominate and enslave the race it saw as inferior.  That was swiftly addressed of course, and naturally few today would claim that the success of Jews in pre-war Germany was because of racism (indeed to some extent, in spite of it).

So is it not time to intelligently take on the post-modernist structuralist view of racism and the state in the developed world, and to do so by identifying exactly what are the sources of the disparities in outcomes that get labelled as racist by the baying mob of power hungry politicians on the left?

Could it be that cultural attitudes among communities regarding education, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, esteem, individualism, violence, the value of tight safe secure family structures, saving and aspiration are really what matters?

Judge says "society to blame" for sexcrime

That, according to the Daily Telegraph, is the conclusion of Judge Gareth Hawkesworth of Cambridge Crown Court (UK). It is also the logical conclusion of many decades of the embrace of the post-modernist philosophical morass of determinism and denial of the causality principle.

What happened?

A 14 year old boy tied an apron around the face of a girl of 4 and performed a sex act with her. The boy got a three year community order with supervision as a sentence.  The girl's parents are upset, but I don't want to dwell on what is an appropriate sentence, needless to say the boy needs both help and punishment.  What matters is how the judge got to his sentence.

The judge said of the offender:

"I'm satisfied it was impulsive and I believe you have become sexualised by your exposure to and the corruption of pornography. Your exposure at such a young age has ended in tragedy. It was the fault of the world and society.”

Actus reus and mens rea are the two key tests to secure a criminal conviction in most cases. Actus reus is the “guilty act” meaning the accused did the deed. Mens rea is the “guilty mind” meaning the accused intended to commit the crime. Prove both beyond reasonable doubt, and the accused is considered guilty of the crime.

Judge Hawkesworth has contradicted himself. For the boy has been found guilty and been sentenced, yet he effectively claims the boy did not have mens rea.  The boy was not "at fault".

For that to be true, there could have been a number of defences, such as acting under duress, or insanity. The age of criminal responsibility is 10, so he can’t legally claim that he is not responsible for his actions.  Yet the statement by the Judge implies just that.

He wasn’t under duress nor insane, but rather under “undue influence”, not by one person, but by “the world and society”. We are ALL to blame. He didn’t really have a choice. He was corrupted. Yet the murderers of James Bulger, who were younger when convicted, were not subjected to such an excuse (and their backgrounds did explain, but did not excuse their actions).

This is the philosophical reef upon which Western society has been wrecking reason, objectivity and justice against for many years. It is the underlying foundation of so much taught in the humanities departments of universities. It is the fundamental dimunition and denial of free will and conscious volition.

It is, in fact, the argument put forward both by the post-modernist believers in a large state sector and many religious conservatives. The Muslim women who are told to wear the niqab do so because otherwise men “can’t help themselves” but molest them. Christian campaigners for censorship argue that erotica, pornography and violence in the media “makes” people commit those crimes, indeed the current censorship laws are in part predicated on this. That’s why you can (in New Zealand, Australia and the UK, but not the USA) be prosecuted for writing or owning erotic stories about certain sexual acts ( a woman was prosecuted for writing such letters). David Cunliffe supported this strongly in select committee when challenged about it. The idea is that such stories “make people do them”, so it is better to take away a bit of freedom than to risk “making people do crimes”.

In this case, “society” or rather EVERYBODY made the boy commit the crime, so EVERYONE should feel shame and contrition. Not only the little girl, but the perpetrator is a victim.  Consider what effect that will have on the girl, to think that the offender is somehow less responsible.  If "society" and the "world" are responsible, isn't she a tiny part of that?

In which case, the judge is effectively saying who is he to blame the boy? Society must do more to shield people from such corrupt influences. It is deterministic. Because the boy was exposed to pornography (although it appears he looked for it, watched it and kept doing so), it was inevitable that he would commit this crime.  He wasn't just corrupted (probably true), but he was incapable of reconciling fantasy and desires with reality.  He could not control himself.   Yet he is not insane.

I don’t need to explain the consequences of extending that principle. For indeed we see them today:

Excusing people who steal, vandalise and commit arson against the property of innocent people because they were “upset” at their own lives. Yet vast numbers of people can claim the same or worse, but do not commit such crimes.

Excusing those who beat up their children because they don’t have enough money. Yet millions are in poverty and do not mistreat their children.

Excusing the woeful life choices of this generation, because of what happened to past generations. Yet many make different life choices having inherited next to nothing from past generations.

I don’t doubt Judge Hawkesworth is, in part, politicking. He wants politicians to restrict the access of young people to pornography. You see, he could have blamed the boy’s parents, for allowing him such unfettered access to the internet. He didn’t. He blamed us all, implying the solution is going to come from government or at least from people listening to his preaching.  We all raise all children, we are all responsible for everyone else's children (and of course we must pay for them and have our behaviour regulated, as if we are children too).

Let me be clear, I believe there is an issue about unfettered access by young people to extreme content online, and that there are potentially serious consequences that can arise from this. Whether the state acts or not is a political question. However, when sane individuals commit crimes, including teenagers (who are between being children and adults), it is quite simply incorrect to claim that others are to blame.

To attribute blame to an amorphous collective such as “the world” or “society” is meaningless and even corrosive. There is no such thing as a collective brain or consciousness (unless you subscribe to the malignant class or race theories that ultimately justified mass murder on hitherto unknown scales). For a judge to even think it appropriate to “blame” in this way is not just unprofessional, but dangerous.

Who will turn up in his court next week to claim “it is society’s fault that I…” (insert crime)? How can he disagree when he believes this is a perfectly credible defence to grant someone leniency?

After all, if this boy isn’t to blame for his actions, why should others be to blame for theirs? Is not every criminal a product of their experiences, influences and history? Can everyone with rotten parents, or who was bullied, or who saw a violent or sexually explicit film, image or read a story, or had no friends, or grieved their dead pet or whatever – now say they are not to blame, but society is?

Similarly, does it not mean that everyone who does well at school, who wins a sports match, starts up a very successful business, becomes wealthy, becomes popular, invents, creates or discovers something of note, is not actually responsible for that? Are not those who succeed therefore “because of society”? Should not everyone who does well then be made to share the fruits of their endeavours? Think how often you hear that trotted out by those on the left who fondly believe in increasing taxes for those on higher incomes, who say that successful people are only successful because of “everyone else”. That if the state hadn’t provided a hospital, school or roads, these people would have been “nothing”.  Even though the number of tall poppies that grow from this very same field are always few and far between.

Think what that means for how the state treats individuals. You’re not to blame when you do bad, and you’re not to get all the credit when you do good. It was all going to happen anyway, and we’re here to soften the punishment and to share the proceeds. Individual choice? Not so important now.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is at the core of so many of the political debates that are engaged in today.

Is the individual to be treated as a thinking, conscious, choosing human being, who whilst carrying a vast array of influences from family, peers, media, community, school, religion, business, can decide whether or not to act in a certain way, including whether or not to act with objectivity, reason, benevolence and respect for others? Or is the individual already pre-determined, with his ancestors, sex, race, religion, sexuality and class effectively programming him to think, act, succeed or fail in certain ways?

If the former, shouldn't people be free to live as they wish, as long as they respect the right of others to do so?  If the latter, is there any point to anything people do at all, unless it is a constant battle of power between those pre-determined to succeed and those pre-determined to fail, until everyone is ironed flat so we are all pre-determined to be in the same way?