Noise about poverty - do you do anything about it?

Several have blogged (DPF, about the Ministry of Social Development New Zealand Living Standards report, either saying that it is the fault of government for not taking more money from richer people and giving it to the poor, or because it takes too much from people already and many of the poor are irresponsible (or make "poor life choices" in PC speak).
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Well, for all the harping on about it, go through the following questions:
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1. Do you care about poor people in New Zealand? If no, then move on. If yes, then answer the next question.
2. What do you do, personally, to help people less well off than yourselves? Examples could be:
- Supporting family members who are needy;
- Supporting friends who are needy;
- Supporting neighbours who are needy;
- Participating in charities that actively help the needy;
- Giving to charities that actively help the needy;
- Donating money to the government to spend on welfare.
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In other words, shut the fuck up if your only answer is to whine and moan saying “it’s the government’s fault”.
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Whether or not the government takes more money from some people and hands it out to others, or lets people keep more of their own money, chances are you are not going to change that for around two or so years.
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So go do something now. Given that those on the left want more spent on welfare, why don’t they spend their spare change on giving the government more money to do just that? Maybe they think it is better to spend it on charities? Why would that be? Maybe they would rather spent it on themselves if they can’t make others care too? Maybe there is something in not helping those who wont help themselves?

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Oh and if it angers or upsets you that some people don't care, then convince them why they should. Put a case, on whatever moral basis, that others should do something. By the way, you might find that people who have already started businesses from scratch and employed people in the process have done far more than any welfare benefit could have.

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by the way, those on the left who think that the rest are exploiting the poor, might take a look at this post and the excellent letter to the editor attached to it. Some people, after all, hold off having children because they can't afford to have them - what a remarkable concept - personal responsibility, so capitalist and exploitative.

A question

If ACT's Vice President Trevor Loudon can publicly support Libertarianz Leader Bernard Darnton's court case against Labour, why can't Rodney Hide?

90 years of Hard Labour

Not PC and DPF have said much which I would want to say.

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However, I have two simple things to say about the Labour Party.

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On the one hand, if it never happened we would be better off. NZ's Parliament would have had liberals vs. conservatives, and the "tell you off" culture of modern statism might well have been less. Labour is not liberal. Question the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation and you're branded "racist" to shut down debate, instantly. Question the welfare state and you are branded as "hating the poor". Labour today is not interested in this - it is dominated by three lobbies all on the left: unions, gay/lesbian and Maori. Confront any of those at your peril. Stan Rodger, Richard Prebble and Dr Michael Bassett know this only too well.

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On the other hand, it has more of a sense about what it believes in than National. Labour can write a Manifesto about what it wants, and what it will and wont do. Some of it will be socially liberal, tiny bits economically liberal (e.g. trade), and some of it statist and interventionist, and proudly so. National still struggles, and when Don Brash tried last time, he was being battled by those who want to betray its principles.

20 years of sexual freedom

DPF and this story on Gaynz.com (hat tip No Right Turn). This doesn’t concern the Bible bashing Taliban of our day, but is horrendous, and shows how readily the Police were willing to clamp down on ANYONE the state deemed as “perverted”. If you wonder how fascism can come to pass, then look – because it existed, for gay people until 1986.
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I give a damn because no other Bill in recent times represents the most fundamental personal liberty that any adults should have. The right to consensual sexual interaction in peace. You see, the same people who still oppose homosexual law reform (one is doing time for molesting young girls and stood for Parliament several times), basically believe you do NOT own your body. They believe your body should be regulated by the state, by their churches and that it is moral to imprison people for doing what they want in their own bedrooms. What gives them ANY right to tell any other adult what to do? Nothing does. Interestingly, the law at the time had no prohibition against adult women engaging in sexual behaviour with each other, as the traditional view had been that having such a law would encourage women to experiment!!
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Homosexual law reform was the last great bastion of sexual liberation, and it required enormous courage. It isn’t just about sex (of all kinds) between men, it also legalised sodomy generally (between men and women as well).
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A number of individuals stand out at the time. Fran Wilde for having the courage to introduce the Bill in the first place. That is, in my opinion, her greatest political achievement, and no small one. George Gair, as the National MP with the casting vote. He had hesitation in supporting the Bill because it set the gay age of consent at 16, he preferred 18. However, he decided to vote yes on the final reading at 16 – that was something for a former National Cabinet Minister, one of the most liberal ones in a very old fashioned male dominated caucus.
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There were those who campaigned actively against the Bill. Graeme Lee National MP, who later went to the Christian Democrats, which is now part of United Future (Peter Dunne voted for the Bill). Geoff Braybrooke, Labour MP for Napier, campaigned loudly against it, as did fellow Labour MP Allan Wallbank, Norm Jones the Invercargill National MP. John Banks may choose to forget it now, but he was a loud campaigner against it as well. Those old dinosaurs are long gone from Parliament, but their bigotry was the centre of the battle between liberals and conservatives. Bigotry where the word sodomy would be thrown around like old southern baptist preachers harping on about "fornication".

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The Bill was passed broadly on Labour/National lines, with most Labour MPs supporting it and most National MPs opposing it. Labour’s Maori MPs opposed it, no doubt because the Ratana Church was conservative. Many National MPs who would have been thought of as being liberal, voted against it, such as Lockwood Smith, Doug Graham and Simon Upton - the courage of mice. Jim Bolger and Rob Muldoon voted against it. National MPs Katherine O'Regan and Ian Maclean voted for it.

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More notable was the campaigning by the Salvation Army, which collected signatures and petitions against the Bill. This burnt much goodwill that many gay and lesbian people had towards the Sallies, as they revealed themselves to not be the objectively kind people they always had been thought of as being. A Salvation Army that happily would see you imprisoned for sex with another man was hardly kind. (Hat Tip Maia for pointing out that the Sallies have apologised). The Catholic Church opposed it too. It is not true that this is because it retained an age of consent.
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Other notable New Zealanders including Sir Keith Hay and Sir Peter Tait, both opposed the Bill. Old fashioned fascists who forgot separation of church and state.
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So it is 20 years on. NZ is not full of boys bumming each other, catching HIV and the population is not in inexorable decline. The alleged communist plot (odd given how homosexuals faced enormous bigotry in the former Soviet bloc) behind the Bill failed, with the collapse of the communist bloc 3 years later. The “Coalition of Concerned Citizens” who outlined in incredibly graphic detail what homosexuals did (including fellatio!! Incredible!) moved onto Graham Capill and Brian Tamaki - and together got less than 1% of the vote in the last election. The National Party of today is predominantly liberal, and Labour is in coalition with a party that includes the remnants of the Christian Democrats, led by a former Labour MP who supported the Bill. How much times have changed.

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FreedomNZ on this

Maia here and here

Uroskin here

How Green is the market

Well high fuel prices have done something that the Greens can't achieve with their interventionist nanny statism - it has seen a shift to public transport.

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The Dominion Post reports that Intercity Coachlines has ordered four new double decker coaches to provide more capacity on its Wellington-Auckland coach service. The coaches will carry between 65 and 76 passengers, 30% more than standard coaches, while using 15% less fuel. It seems that demand for long distance coach services is rising because it is becoming more expensive to drive. So the more fuel efficient coaches are now cheap enough, compared to driving, to be more competitive for more people.

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This is great, and a gamble. After all, coaches have an efficient life of no more than 15 years, so it is a reasonable capital commitment by a private company to buy new larger coaches. On top of that, the coach bodies will be built by a Tauranga company - and there is no protectionism making it more expensive to import bus bodies.

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Don't forget Intercity was once government owned. It was the long distance part of the former Railways Road Services that the fourth Labour government privatised as part of its deal with SOE New Zealand Rail Ltd to wipe its $1 billion of restructuring debt which it had built up over the seven years since it had previously had its debt wiped. Railways Road Services used to have over $1 million in subsidies (in 1990 dollars) a year, now Intercity runs it as a commercial operation and business is growing.

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Now the Greens might complain that the trains aren't getting the same investment - well maybe people aren't catching trains in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile?