Rape and little boys

Maia’s post about a friend’s little boy and this conversation between her and the friend has created a lot of reactions. Insolent Prick has provided an excellent response to the strange fear that your baby might become a rapist. However, first let’s get a flavour of the kind of thinking in this different “world view”:
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“we didn't know whether it was worse to raise a girl and be afraid that when she grew up she'd be raped, or a boy and be afriad that when he grew up he might rape someone.”
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Now we know that it is more likely that a girl will be raped than a boy, and more likely that a man will be convicted of a violent crime than a woman. This is a world where boys are not victims and girls are never violent, but let’s just pause for a moment to figure out where they are coming from.
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Imagine being that little boy or indeed a little girl around such adults, and taking in the message that “I am innately capable of hurting people” or “I am innately capable of being a victim”. Now both are true. Feminists who haven’t lost the plot completely acknowledge that all initiation of violence against people of any sex or age is wrong. Funnily enough, that’s what libertarians and objectivists think too. However, what thinking causes one to “fear” the victimhood of your daughter or the “latent violence” of your son?
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Psychosis. Transferring your own issues onto the child.
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Your children will become whoever they are due to many reasons. Your parenting will be the dominant influence, their genes will play an important part too. Their peers and other family members will influence them for better and for worse, and the older they get, the more responsible they are for their own behaviour. Adults are fully responsible, and the world doesn’t make them do things – assuming their brains are physically fully functional, adults decide whether they rape, beat up their kids or abandon them.

Take this “Right now he's amazing and beautiful.” The baby boy is amazing and beautiful because he is totally dependent, totally helpless and barely an individual. Imagine telling him in 13 years time that he “once was amazing and beautiful”, now he has an erection and thinks about girls all the time – better watch out, he might rape. Maybe, just maybe, if he is brought up respecting other people, their bodies and their property, he wont even think about using force to get his own way.
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After all, if you thought this, wouldn’t you simply not breed and turn yourself in for therapy about how scary the world is:
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“I'm so scared of what this world will turn him into. That's one of the things that the US soldeirs who have raped Iraqi women makes me think about. How our world in general, and the army more than anything, makes men into monsters. At the moment we can protect him from all that. I can sing him songs of hopes and struggle and there ain't nothing can harm him. But that only works so long.”
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Time for a reality check. The “world” doesn’t make anyone into anything. People become victims and people choose how they react to that. Who made Rachealle Namana or Tania Witika the evil abusive women they are? Well feminists might say they were abused too - much like how many male sexual abusers were also abused. How can that possibly excuse it?

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However, remember in a philosophical environment where you surround yourself with female victims and talk about the vile men who abused you, you can find the world a bit skewed. You probably don’t associate with female offenders and male victims. You may not even associate with women who have not been abused or men who don't abuse - after all you probably can't trust any man who says he has never raped, because so many get away with it (which is true, some men rape and get away with it, but many don't rape).
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It is a little as if someone was badly assaulted by a young Maori male, and suddenly fears all young Maori males (which is a natural instinctual, albeit irrational reaction).
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Now I don’t think Maia is a man hater “all men are rapists” feminist, and it is too easy to dismiss someone for such views. I read her posts to test my mind, and find she blames capitalism for all that is bad in the world, but has no alternative. It is like blaming planet earth for having tectonic plates that cause earthquakes and volcanoes, but not suggesting somewhere better to live.

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I don’t minimise rape, anymore than I minimise any form of severe violence. It is unconscionably evil, no matter who perpetrates it. It is revolting that in the not so distant past the Police wouldn’t believe the victims, and today the Police, depending where you are can either be helpful or make things worse. However, there are many many men who abhor rape, and abhor violence against women, children and men. You don’t need to have a vagina to feel that way. Men are as likely to be attacked in the street as women, because idiotic drunk louts are more likely to get aggro towards other men than women, for no reason at all. Most men have encountered them, but they are often so drunk they can be ignored or knocked over easily enough if they attack.
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The solution to rape, sexcrimes and violence is a culture that values being human, and what is great about being human. It respects people’s bodies and their property, and enjoys the joy that is life. It abhors the use of force as the tool of the barbarian, and instills the use of the mind as the driver of the heart and hands as being what is great about being human. It is not a culture of fear, but one of confidence and believe in oneself. It is not a culture of victimhood, but of strength – strength in mind and body. It is a culture that is benevolent towards those you love and towards your fellow human being. It is the kindness of strangers, not the guilt of unchosen obligation. It is a culture of honesty, friendship, good will and acknowledgment of excellence, effort and being creative.
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You wont find that culture in Islam or Christianity either.

Small local government will take some hard work

PC has blogged about the Nomorerates.com campaign, and I agree with him. It isn’t a campaign I can wholeheartedly support.
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The only good side is that it promotes restraint in council spending. Something that was going to get worse with councils getting the “power of general competence”, a major change in local government legislation that came about with the Local Government Act 2001 – a Labour/Alliance/Greens concoction. You see before then, all local authorities could only do what legislation empowered them to do, specifically. Regional councils were essentially restricted to emissions under the RMA, public transport contracting and water catchment/pest control – now they can do what they want, subject to “consultation”. Consultation means that they ask you regularly, but you don’t have the time to tell them to “fuck off”. Instead the little lefty lobby groups who claim to represent “the community” agree to any expansion of activities as long as it never involves user pays – because they want to use it for nothing.
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There were warnings at the time. The Business Roundtable through the Local Government Forum said:
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“The proposals contained in the Bill place unwarranted faith in the efficacy of democratic processes at the local level. The activities that councils may engage in should be tightly circumscribed and enumerated in the new act. The deliberate specification of limited powers is a vital constraint on local government. A power of general competence is inconsistent with New Zealand's longstanding constitutional arrangements and the common law, and is a threat to personal and economic freedom.”
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Libertarianz also opposed the Bill. Many of you voted Labour, Alliance or Green, and voted most of them back in again in 2002 and 2005. Many of you voted for councillors and Mayors who are growing their councils. So what are you complaining about?
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The nomorerates.com campaign is supporting Rodney Hide's Rating Cap Bill which is a useful first step, but there needs to be more. Even that Bill wont be supported by the government, which has its local government footsoldiers happily pillaging your pockets for more money every year. Local government is where petty fascists go when they can't get elected to central government.
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However, I am wary of the campaign. For starters this press release seems to claim that user pays for water and sewerage is unfair, because it isn't eligible for a low income rebate.

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Why should you pay for water or sewerage or rubbish collection through tax, instead of the services you use? Why aren’t environmentalists, like the Greens, supporting user pays for waste disposal, such as rubbish and sewerage, and user pays for using reticulated water? Why should you be forced to pay for libraries or swimming pools you don’t use?
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The problem of local government profligacy requires two approaches.
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First, confront local authorities. Prepare submissions opposing their big spending plans and support candidates at the next local body elections who want council to do less. Good luck finding candidates, although Libertarianz did stand a handful of candidates last time. Remember, the left gets enthusiastic (ick) about local government, and the conservative right is often not much better - so it is time to ask candidates what they will CUT from council spending. They will look at you bewildered - since most moaning minnies who go to local government meetings have their hands out for more money, not wanting their own money back.
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Second, change the Local Government Act 2002. I don’t mean tinker with it, I mean constrain local government. This means voting for parties that will cut the size of local authorities, get them out of business and out of social welfare, get them out of providing services that nobody is willing to pay for, and make them start charging user pays for those that people want - then sell them.

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Libertarianz Leader Bernard Darnton announced a first step along that path last year with the party's local government policy:

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"A Libertarianz government would permanently cap all Council rates; require Councils to implement user pays where possible; and divest all activities that can either be provided or maintained by private organisations and individuals. Libertarianz would also scrap the RMA and regional councils"

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That would cut everyone's rates bill by a long margin. Yes, you might have to pay for what you use instead, but do you use everything council provides? And, if you do, why should everyone else pay for you?

The Free Radical - bigger, better, revamped

PC, Julian Pistorius and Trevor Loudon have all said this, but it is worth repeating.
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The Free Radical - New Zealand's only consistently pro small government, libertarian and objectivist publication has been revamped, expanded and improved. The latest edition is now out, so subscribe to a hard copy or pay only US$6 for a downloadable PDF version. A subscription is less than what you pay every year to NaZis on Air to feed you statist nationalist nonsense on TVNZ, Radio NZ and Maori TV and radio.
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All those who are sick of Nanny State and big government, give it a go, you wont regret it.

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?