Vatican and homosexuality

CNN reports that the Vatican has issued its edict that state one the one hand that it “cannot admit to the seminary and to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture” but if “homosexual tendencies are only the expression of a transitory problem ... these must be clearly overcome at least three years prior to deaconate ordination”.

So men who want to become priests who are fantasising but trying not to (in other words having a sly wank about Father McGuire or his son, but not doing anything else about it and feeling really really guilty), can become priests if it is transitory.

Kind of amusing really. The Roman Catholic Church has, of course, always regarded homosexuality as a “problem”. Now setting aside the number of existing gay priests (let alone the pedophilic ones), this is really just another example of the oppression that religion imposes upon the individual – if you choose to follow it. The Bible is full of passages damning homosexuality – as well as passages damning the consumption of shellfish, men with long hair, women with short hair and growing two different crops side by side.

As a libertarian objectivist, I don’t believe in God and since church and state are effectively separate in NZ and the UK (the heir to the head of the Anglican Church went to the last Pope’s funeral after all!), it doesn’t matter. Religion is irrational and that include Roman Catholicism, although the church has a couple of redeeming qualities – it has inspired some of the most magnificent art in history, and it was one of the founders of schooling for the masses.

And there is never anything wrong with catholic girls…

Men, kids, planes, fear

There has been a lot of noise about this, including Green MP Keith Locke opposing it, discussion on an airline industry forum, opposition from the right on I Hate Socialism blog and from Wayne Mapp, and Cathy Odgers wishing she could be banned from sitting beside children on flights too, the Men's Coalition has called for the resignation of the Children's Commissioner, Dr Cindy Kiro, and David Farrar is very angry at this too.

The bottom line is that Qantas and Air New Zealand should be able to operate their businesses in whatever way they wish. The airlines could adopt a policy of seating people man-woman-man-woman, or putting all men in the front, women in the back, or segregating people by race if they wanted to, and the state should not intervene. The bottom line being, the airline owns the planes and should be able to do whatever it likes – Air NZ almost always upgrades me on request and gives me seating I request. It could tell me to get fucked and sit down the back if it wanted, but it doesn’t. The airlines are presumably acting in accordance with customer demands – and the rationality of them is not the first issue – the first issue is that if you want to send your child unaccompanied on a flight, then if you want the airline to sit a certain type of person beside your child, and the airline agrees – (and the person sitting beside has no problem with it) then it is not anyone else’s business.

This applies readily to Qantas – it is a private company. Air NZ while publicly listed, is majority state owned – and questions can be raised as to whether it should ever act in a way offensive to its shareholders (i.e. N.Z. residents). Well, as it is a commercial investment (and the government cannot intervene in the decisions of the board or management on such matters), it should act according to its commercial interests and it appears to be doing so. If Air NZ revoked this policy, it would probably lose some business to Qantas for unaccompanied children – but would be unlikely to gain business from men. Very few men would say they wont fly on an airline because there is no chance of sitting beside a child – except those you might not want to! The airlines are reacting to consumers.

However, this doesn't mean I like the policy.

So what about the reasoning behind this, that causes the airline to respond and people to fear men?

There has been a concerted picture painted of men in the last 25 years as being potential rapists and child molesters – and the statistics bear out the fact that most cases of child sexual abuse involve men - but also that most cases involve men in the same household as the child. So we are talking about a very tiny risk. The implications of this policy are that there is a social trend to fear men having contact with children. This is not because child abuse has increased, there is little evidence of that as children have been getting abused throughout history, and it is only in the last 20 years that the complaints of children have been listened to and given credence in court (although in some cases, the evidence gatherers have manipulated children to giving them the answers that they wanted, rather than the facts).

So parents and caregivers (funnily enough, the categories most likely to abuse) are terrified of the man next door, the teacher, the coach, the priest, Uncle X and now the man on the plane. What is next? The man on the bus? Will men be not permitted to be located next to children in any cases without another adult present? What does this do for men who like working with children (it is sad that this is always a lead up for a joke that says “not THAT way”)?

Speaking of buses, I would say the odds of a dodgy man sitting beside a child go up enormously for long distance bus and train trips - largely because the driver or crew are not keeping an eye on passengers most of the time, and because the trips are a lot longer (and the passengers dodgier - with the exception of foreign tourists, the only men who travel alone on long bus and train trips are those who can't afford to fly or drive, or aren't allowed! Last time I caught a bus out of necessity, it was backpackers, the poor and former convicts travelling).

As I grew up, I encountered adult men as Santa Claus, customers of my parents’ shop, relatives, neighbours, people on holiday, and only in a very few cases did my parents warn me of one or two. Despite the popular myth, in most cases dodgy pedophilic men are easy to identify – and half of the answer is not to wrap children in cotton wool, but to encourage them to look after themselves. If someone (man or woman – women do this too, in small numbers, but those that do almost always get away with it because nobody believes it happens) does anything that makes a child feel uncomfortable, they should stop – tell them no and that they will tell someone, or hit them. Far better for a child to know how to respond to this, especially girls who are a greater risk of having creeps hitting on them in their teens than boys are.

One of the other myths is to ignore teenage boys. Teenage boys engage in far more sexual contact with children than men do, because they have more access, have almost nothing else on their minds and are trusted. Something around a third of all those getting treated for being sexual abusers are teenagers – so fear them too.

In short, I think Keith Locke is right in his assessment of the issue, in that there needs to be an end to irrational fear of men - as it has caused men to drop out of early childhood education and reduce positive contact men have with children - but he is wrong to ask the Human Wrongs Commissariat to intervene, particularly against Qantas, as it is privately owned. I find it interesting, though, that the lefties who would demand blood if Air NZ segregated passengers by race or gender or sexuality (what if a frequent flyer said they don't want to sit beside dark skinned people?), has no problem with this discrimination, presumably because it applies to men. I wonder how such people would react if the airlines seated known Muslims in the back of the plane out of fear of terrorism (David Farrar mentioned this too coincidentally)? It would also be irrational - but because it applies to Muslims (who don't have power in the leftwing subjective fantasyworld where white straight men have all the power and never get abused). Dr Cindy Kiro (the Children's Commissioner) has supported what the airlines are doing - but then if it became illegal for men to be within 10 metres of children without a permit, she'd probably cheer it on as the great advocate for state intervention that she is.

It is unfortunate that people think their children are at risk on planes with men – this is so incredibly unlikely, and it is very sad that people fear their children being hurt at every corner by men. The odds are very very low that children will be molested by strangers. As with Cathy, I am happy to have NOBODY sitting beside me on a flight, although I’d rather a quiet child than someone 20 stone (like certain bureaucrats).

The real issue are the social attitudes that have been taught and promoted by those who have a gender based collectivist agenda - the type that claimed that 1 in 3 fathers molest their daughters (TVNZ ran a telethon based on this fiction in the 1980s) - the type that regard a man complimenting a woman on looking sexy as being abusive - the type that are the feminist Taliban of our world, that listen to Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin describing consensual heterosexual intercourse as effectively never being consensual!

However, the answer is over to you. It is up to the airlines what they do, and consumers. Once again, the Greens have shown their love for state violence to intervene - they want the state to use force against the airlines to stop this.

This is not the answer.

If you don't like this policy, try an airline that doesn't do it (Origin Pacific for example) or travel another way, or put up with it. As for me, as long as I get the seat I want and preferably have no one sitting beside me (unless they are interesting and hot), then I'm not too perturbed. However, I will tell any flight attendant who forces me to shift a previously allocated seat to get fucked - unless I don't like who I am sitting beside :)

This is not about the airlines, it is about a bigger social attitude that says that men having contact with children is risky - well on that basis, because 50% of men in prison are Maori, anyone having contact with Maori men is at a bigger risk of becoming a victim of a crime. If you want to change this, then it is up to men and women who aren't suspicious of men to reject it - as consumers. The airlines are reacting to consumers, simple as that.

Green Party Promoting More State Violence: Example 1

A few days ago I said I would post everything the Green Party states which claims to be the party of peace and non-violence, advocates state violence. Here is my first example.

Sue Kedgley's vituperative response to the government NOT forcing food producers to including country of origin labelling shows the Green Party's belief in using state violence against producers. This is my example number 1 of the Green Party belief in state violence.

She is full of angry nonsense in saying that by not forcing such labelling on food, the government is denying information for consumers. The opposite of compulsion isn't a ban Sue, even though those are the only two policies you ever seem to call for!

You see Sue food producers own what they produce. They sell what they produce to a willing buyer, who chooses whether or not to pay for it. If the buyer thinks the labelling is insufficient to make a choice, the buyer might not buy it, or could complain about it, which is a matter between the buyer and seller, not the government and not some little upstart jackbooted busybody like Sue Kedgley. There is no violence in letting buyers and sellers decide what to do.

If we adopted Sue's philosophy, then grandma selling her jars of jam at the local school fair would need a label or is that ok? What if many of her ingredients were bought in a recent holiday from the USA?

So why is this state violence? Simple. If the Greens had their way, there would be mandatory labelling of all food for the country of origin. Failure to do this would be an offence, and there would be a fine, so someone who produced something from their own effort would have force initiated against them because the Greens want a certain label on the item.

Not because of consumer pressure, not because the producer thinks it would increase sales, but because the state threatens you if you don't do it. That is state violence. I doesn't matter that Australia and the EU do it - it is still Green advocacy for state violence.

Child Poverty Inaction Group does nothing for poverty

I see the Human Wrongs Commissariat is saying that the leftwing lobby group Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) can take the government to court for “discriminating” against people who make their living from money earnt by others that the governments hands out to them for nothing after confiscating it from them – commonly called welfare. Lindsay Mitchell gives a good summary as to why this case is nonsense on Scoop.

CPAG is an utterly useless organisation. I doubt that any other organisation in New Zealand that claims concern about child poverty does so little for it. Why? CPAG has never ever houses, fed, clothed or provide any material assistance for a single child in poverty in New Zealand – or if it has, it doesn’t say so. You see according to its website CPAG exists to “promote better policies for children and young people, and to promote awareness of the causes and consequences of child poverty”

So how many kids has it saved from poverty? None. You see it “CPAG publishes reports, makes submissions and conducts small-scale research projects to achieve its goals.” Big fucking deal. I am sure the families in Cannons Creek, Kaikohe, Manukau and Sydenham are thrilled that the submissions are made while they struggle to make ends meet. Do they offer a spare room in their houses for the poor? Like hell they do! However they “care”.

CPAG doesn’t actually DO anything about poverty– it is largely a bunch of academics on salaries well above the average wage, who instead of running soup kitchens, providing emergency housing, providing clothing or food for children, sit on their arses and lobby government to “do” something, when they themselves do absolutely-fucking nothing. Yes, I am sure some members of CPAG do work in the welfare sector and do help, which I acknowledge, as these are individuals – but CPAG itself is not a charity, it is out to get more of your money, by force, so YOU can be forced to “care” through the state welfare system.

Caring isn’t it?

See CPAG sees beneficiaries as no different from anyone else. The productive people who work hard for their employers or own and operate their own businesses, using their time, effort and money to sustain themselves and their families, and then have between 20 and 40%+ of what they produce taken by the state for the Unproductive are no BETTER than those who receive money for nothing more than the fact they can breed and don’t have a job.

Beneficiaries are owed NOTHING by the rest of us. Many New Zealanders spend 1-2 days a week working entirely for the state, a lot of that money going to fund beneficiaries – while so many jobs go unfilled. You know the sickness beneficiaries who commit crimes? Yes them too. I know this will be seen as beneficiary bashing, but how many times do you hear beneficiaries being grateful that the rest of us pay for them to live? Sometimes yes, those who are on it short term, but long term parasites (that IS what they are) are not grateful.

I have an answer for CPAG as to why child poverty happens, so they can end their mindless research:

1. People breed without thinking about it. They fuck (I’m not being crude, this is the language most use) without contraception and don’t care what happens. They are unwilling to take on the responsibility of raising another human being, so force the rest of us to do so. This is not anyone else’s fault, it is THEIR fault. The mother and father should sustain the family or not have unprotected sex – and if that doesn’t work, adopt out the child. In this case the poverty exists because the parents were IRRESPONSIBLE.

2. Some people lose their jobs. This is a fact of free capitalist society, because jobs are created by entrepreneurs – these are rather special people who instead of waiting for other people to pay them, use their own minds, efforts and money to risk to create wealth. Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our civilisation, without them we’d all be poor (see North Korea, Burma et al). Entrepreneurs hire employees to performs tasks for them, and pay them in kind. Sometimes the business doesn’t need those employees, and they get given redundancy. Sometimes the employees don’t perform well, and they are terminated. If they have a family, then it is bad luck – and unfortunately in our society, few take out income insurance, because they believe the state will support them (i.e. productive taxpayers). If the economy is flourishing and the barriers to employing people are low, then anyone losing their job will find another.

3. Some people are stupid. They can’t hold down a job, wont work, are lazy, throw their money away on gambling, alcohol, drugs or whatever. These people will always exist and are typically irresponsible, and thoughtless. In the past these people used to be killed or left to die because of their stupidity, now they get welfare. They produce kids who are often as stupid as they are – people without books at home, who can barely function as independent human beings aren’t good parents.

4. Some people have bad luck. Whether it is accident, crime, natural disaster or other events, it leaves them destitute. This is life.

Poverty is not the fault of entrepreneurs, other employees or people able to look after their lives – it is, more often than not, either the result of a series of events or the fault of the person who is poor. The person best equipped to fix this is the person who is poor, and with charities, many do. CPAG isn’t a charity, it does nothing for the poor and I wish the government well in this ridiculous court case designed to boost welfare. Shame on the Greens and the Maori Party for supporting this pointless action.

and this is yet another reason to abolish another organisation of well paid unproductive parasites - the Human Rights Commission - a bunch of bureaucratic politically-correct busybodies, who pontificate about how others aren't being "fair" while they live off the back of everyone else. It is nice to see a Labour Government reaping the results of its support of that useless body.

Education in a dictatorship courtesy of Te Wananga!

Trevor Loudon has pointed out that this week Te Wananga o Aotearoa is hosting the 7th World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education. The opening address on Sunday was from the Education Minister of Cuba – Luis Gomez Gutierrez as listed on this pdf file.

Te Wananga is a private organisation and people in a free country can organise whatever they like- unlike people in Cuba. However, the lack of any journalists in New Zealand will see the presence of one of Castro’s cronies, a representative of a government that uses education a blatantly a tool of state indoctrination, go almost unnoticed.

I don’t doubt that Mana media and most of the other Maori media will report on Luis Gomez Gutierrez as if he is just another Education Minister – like one from Australia, Canada or Sweden. Well he is NOT.

Cuba uses education not to train and teach children how to be their best, but as a tool of indoctrination and state worship. It teaches one view of history, and there is not the slightest hint of alternative points of view able to be disseminated – after all this is a one-party state which imprisons and executes those it believes to be opposed to the regime. Luis Gomez Gutierrez is in power, not because he was elected, but because he was selected. If you produced a leaflet calling for his resignation, or undertook a conference in Havana inviting the Australian Education Minister, you would be thrown in prison at best, at worst tortured and executed for treason. Cuba calls free broadcasting directed towards it with views it doesn’t like as “aggression” – see its own propaganda organ here if you can stomach it.

Here is one sample of what you can get a sentence from 26 months to 28 years for in Cuba, according to Amnesty International:

- publishing articles or giving interviews, in US-funded or other media, said to be critical of economic, social or human rights matters in Cuba;
- communicating with international human rights organisations;
- having contact with entities or individuals viewed as hostile to Cuba's interests, including US officials in Cuba, or members of the Cuban exile community in the United States or Europe;
- being involved in groups which are not officially recognised by the Cuban authorities or which are accused of conducting counterrevolutionary activity, including among others: unofficial trade unions; professional associations such as doctors' and teachers’ associations; academic institutions; press associations or independent libraries.

Don't you dare be involved in a group setting up an independent library -Mr Gutierrez's goons wont be amused.

Human Rights Watch reported on the crackdown against independent journalists and writers in 2003 when dozens were rounded up, arrested and imprisoned - this was described as an "attack on civil society".

In fact, pointing out any of this in Cuba would see me imprisoned - but hey it's ok they aren't part of the evil American/Western/Colonial/Genocidal elite (nobody ever tell Te Wananga that the history of Spanish colonisation of the Americas was not about respecting the indigenous people - but that's all forgotten since it was 300-400 years ago).

However, to the organiser of this conference, this is ok – Cuba being a one-party state which allows little dissent, no free speech is ok – it is, after all, an “alternative world view” and the moral equivalance of the scum who believe in this is clear.

Before I see it, yes I know China is just as bad, and the government sucks up to it for economic reasons, and the same with Iran. There would be similar criticism about the Education Minister of the People's Republic of China.

Setting that to one side, people can promote indigenous education of any kind if they wish. I believe that people should be able to set up whatever schools they like, and children can be taught there – but it should be by choice, and not taxpayer funded. Private schools should be free from the state system where they can rise or fall – and if people have their tax money back they can choose whatever school they like. Maori schools can flourish, as long as there is competition between schools and ideas.

However, using the Cuban Education Minister to open a conference sends a signal that indigenous education is about indoctrination, compulsion and authoritarianism – and if there was anything that the right and left of Parliament should be opposing, it is the presence of a Minister from such a regime.

So, I look forward to hearing the Greens, Labour, Act, Maori Party, National, NZ First, United Future and Jim Anderton condemning it – I wont be holding my breath! And I wonder if your taxes are helping pay for it? They are almost certainly helping some people attend it.