Niqab, Islam and civilisation

Now as a libertarian I hold that individuals have the absolute right to decide what clothes they were on their own property or in conditions where there are no prescribed limits by the relevant property owner. This means that Muslim women have the right to wear the niqab which completely covers their face. The state should not limit that, except when it interferes with the state undertaking its legitimate duty (e.g. law and order, in identifying suspects to a crime).
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However it does not mean that there is a right to wear it on any elses property, including at work, school or in a shop that is not yours. As a property owner I have every right to establish a dress code, and dress codes are common in workplaces, bars and aeroplanes among others.
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So the current debate in the UK about the niqab should not be about having that choice – and few would deny that. It should be about what that choice means, which is not a matter for the state but a matter for society and culture. In other words, it is about declaring that the niqab is, as the Ayn Rand Institute states, “a demeaning, barbaric article of clothing that inculcates shame in women, depriving them of individuality and femininity."
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Some feminists say it is wrong to tell women what they should or should not wear. Well it is wrong if you only tell women (not men) or advocate that the state should say. Freedom includes the choice to cover up, but the whole basis of the niqab is that women should be ashamed of their bodies and faces, and not only should they cover those parts of the body that men (remember lesbians and homosexuals are non persons in Islamic culture) typically find attractive, but faces – one of the key indicators of human identity.
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Does it mean that one should harass women who wear the niqab? No. People have the right to wear what they wish without feeling threatened, but others also have the right to prohibit people wearing them on their property or to express disquiet and their own discomfort with women who would rather remain anonymous in public.
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Let’s not forget what in Islam promotes the niqab. It is a misogynistic, homophobic, shame ridden view of humanity that depicts women as only having identity in relation to their husbands, sons and fathers. Women's success in Islam is only if they can hide their femininity, as if they will be judged as sex objects first and minds and hearts second. Feminists may sympathise with this, but it is more than that. It is the vapid notion that if a man sees a women's face, he will get an erection and be unable to control his "natural urges" and is distracted, and this is wrong. What utter nonsense. What an insult to women to say that the solution is for THEM to cover up, as if they are titillating prostitutes "asking for it" and what an insult to men to say they are judge knuckle dragging cavemen, who rape any women they find attractive. This is a culture that has seen over 4000 people executed in Iran for homosexual acts since the Islamic revolution. It is even allowed to beat women for sexual misconduct as long as no mark is left on them.
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How can feminists in the West even start to defend this barbarity, this stone age backwardness that sees violence towards women as acceptable? If it were being promoted by Destiny NZ or the Catholic Church it would be considered intolerable. So why is it not intolerable when promoted in Kabul, Tehran, Riyadh or London?
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Now there are scholars of Islam who reject the niqab and rightly so, and this may form the basis of a modernist critique of Islam in the same way as Christianity went through the Enlightenment. All I can say is speed the day! If Muslims were, by and large, modernists that accepted Islam on a personal level, but respected individual freedom, choice, personal and property rights of others then we would be light years ahead of where we are today – because there would be no Islamic governments.
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The only way to confront the barbarism of Islamists is to do as the Ayn Rand Institute states which is to point out the superiority of Western civilisation. Its advice to Britons is:
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“They must understand that what made the West great is individualism, reason, the pursuit of happiness--and that this is objectively superior to the tribalism, superstition, and earthly deprivation that many Muslims seek to live out and bring to Europe. Britons must reject the insidious idea of multiculturalism, which holds that all cultures are of equal value. Cultures are not of equal value: prosperity is superior to poverty, happiness is superior to misery, freedom is superior to slavery, and a visible face is superior to a slit revealing two anonymous eyes."

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Islam can continue to survive under Western civilisation, if it is merely a set of religious beliefs to guide people's own private lives, not a diktat upon non-believers or an excuse for violence.

NZ left and the passion for power (part two)

Labour’s belief it was entitled to power had been shaken by National. A combination of major PR disasters had weakened Labour’s popularity. Clark’s arrogance as Prime Minister was seen in the “speeding convoy” incident, where many voters saw it was “ok” for the PM to be in a police convoy speeding to get to a rugby match, or that the PM “did not notice” the speeds she was going at. For voters who were only too aware of what speed cameras mean to them, it seemed the “popular and competent” PM thought she was above them and as someone who never drove and got speed camera ticket or needed to even care, it showed that she didn’t understand the point.

The belief in their inheritance to power was waivering. However, by far Labour’s biggest blunder was to underestimate the momentum of a number of messages about government waste, government surpluses and too much taxation. Every year, Dr Cullen got accolades for doing nothing and generating massive surpluses. Now every year he spent those on a combination of debt repayment, the super fund and capex on government owned infrastructure – and every year the demands of Ministers to pour more into their portfolios increased. However, as incomes rose so did people’s marginal tax rate. It became increasingly clear to the 35% plus of voters who were in the 33% tax rate that they were not rich, but paying a great deal for a system that had a lot of slack in it. Ongoing publicity about government waste, coupled with concern that core government activities, like police and roads were being neglected. Now the truth was that the police and roads were doing better than ever before in terms of funding, but what the public saw were blunders and ever growing traffic congestion.

With six years in government, Labour found it hard to respond to concerns about publicly funded services – blaming the past government doesn’t wash with a public that gave you two chances before. Moreso, saying tax cuts were for the rich didn’t wash with many either – especially when National, instead of weasel words, actually came out with a policy and a website, that enabled voters to check what they would get. Meanwhile, Dr Cullen’s budget, hyped up as being Labour’s chance to cut taxes did nothing of the sort. The “Working for Families” package which had already been announced was seen by many as a complicated bureaucrat system of getting tax refunds and an extension of welfare – whereas tax cuts meant government got less of your money. Labour added in abolishing interest on student loans while students study, to secure student votes from the Greens (and it largely worked), but now this smacked of electioneering. The budget did include tax cuts, a paltry increase in the thresholds for each income tax rate that would mean little in the pocket. The public were not impressed – and National’s poll ratings increased again.

Labour’s jibes about tax cuts being mainly for the rich only washed with beneficiaries and its core supporters, not the floating middle class who were evenly divided between those who supported Labour for pumping money into health and education, and those who saw Labour as wasteful and wanting some of the surplus back in their pockets.

So facing an electorate that believed in “one law for all” and tax cuts, it might have been all over had it not been for National’s own goals which Labour exploited extensively. For the slick campaigning billboards and clear messages, talking about “mainstream” New Zealanders made more voters uncomfortable than comfortable. It appealed to conservative country folk, but not sophisticated liberal urban New Zealand. However, Labour’s disgusting witchhunt of a minority religious group because of its political views would be the turning point.

The Exclusive Brethren informed the National Party that it sought its victory and while its members did not vote, they would fund a leaflet campaign slamming a government that included the Greens, with appropriate colours indicating a National victory was preferred.

While the CTU and its affiliated unions used extensive resources to distribute Labour electioneering propaganda, Labour smelt a rat and a target in the Exclusive Brethren. Ignoring any liberal tradition of defending the rights of religious minorities to do as they wish with their own money, it was time to declare war and the Exclusive Brethren were to be public enemy number one. Had it been Muslims or Hindus Labour might have felt less comfortable, but a very small religion that shuts itself off from the rest of the community was sufficiently “weird” for floating voters that Labour could get mileage raising doubts about National-Brethren links, although it was never clear what the effect on the public would be. Meanwhile, Labour had no hesitation in using the trade union movement to campaign on its behalf.

Nevertheless, Brash’s initial denial and confession about knowing of the Brethren’s interest in supporting National’s election cost National. It was a flip flop and sufficient voters were unimpressed and less willing to back a party supported by, as Labour put it, a weird group, that it probably cost National the election.

After essentially calling National voters racist, rich and greedy, now it had a perfect scapegoat “how much influence do the exclusive Brethren REALLY have?”, implying some dodgy weird group controlling the strings of the National Party. Labour knew how much this was nonsense, and at best the Brethren campaigning was seen as a positive additional contribution, but no more. A group that doesn’t vote or join the party has little sway. However, Labour milked it for its “weird” factor and succeeded.

Labour meanwhile worked hard, behind the scenes, to target votes of those who were its core. The message was clear – “you don’t want National do you?”. In South and West Auckland fear was spread, in Porirua, in Christchurch, Maori and Pacific Island voters were being told that National, the rich white man’s party, might win if they don’t vote.

The overall feeling on the side of the left was that, while non-Maori provincial New Zealand had abandoned Labour in large numbers, Labour would pull through with Maori (excluding the Maori seats themselves which were a tough race), Pacific Island and the low income beneficiacy/working class mobilised in the main centres, plus Wellington bureaucrats. Teachers, nurses, students and the unionised workforce could be taken for granted as largely not voting National, but the key was not how they voted but whether they voted – getting turnout up was what won Labour the election. National, on the other hand had rural and provincial non-Maori New Zealand, businesspeople and middle class families tired of the status quo.


To bolster its message, Labour used its pledge card – a key plank of its election campaign literature, promising what the next three years would bring. However this would be funded from the Prime Minister’s office. Whether this was simply accepted practice and nobody thought about it, or whether Labour thought that it was moral for taxpayers to fund Labour’s manifesto distribution is unclear, what is clear is that it was not seen as strange that the government should pay for its own electioneering.

So when the issue was raised in the Bernard Darnton court case and increasingly the media, Labour went through denial that there was a problem, to denial that it would pay it back to ultimately accepting that the whole affair had damaged it. There is little point going over that saga, because there are few better examples of the attitude and arrogance the left has towards democracy than seen by Chris Trotter and his patronising attitude towards those who voted National in the 1970s and early 1980s. In polar opposite to Labour, which assumes it is entitled to the votes of everyone who isn’t rich,

As with all conservative parties, National divides the community into those who "own" and those who "work". The "political nation" - people whose opinions and actions actually influence the National Party - is made up exclusively of "owners" or in McCormick's splendid shorthand, "farmers and businessmen".
Those who "work" - the rest of us, who must hire out our skills and muscle-power in order to pay the rent - simply don't count.“
Trotter, with his Das Kapital in one hand, thinks he knows how National Party members work. He thinks they divide the community like Marx, Lenin and, in fact, the Labour Party does. This is sheer nonsense. In fact, while from a libertarian view it would be desirable to consider producers separate from parasites (those who steal, defraud and seek the state to steal and defraud on their half), National doesn’t aspire to this.
However, remember that Trotter thinks that those who “work” are not farmers or businessmen (he uses the word “businessmen” deliberately, Trotter sees National as sexist) – farmers and businesspeople in his world sit on the chair with feet up on the desk smoking cigars while the “workers” grind away. There is no work in management, marketing, seeking investment, taking risks with your own property or establishing a new business – Trotter and his ilk despise the wealth creators with a vengeance, worshipping instead the institutions of state which are not tainted with “profit” – as if “workers” don’t receive wages that represent a profit over the time and effort they dedicate to their jobs.
Take it one step further. Remember that “workers” in the Labour Party sense are unionised – a non-unionised worker is, at best, someone to feel sorry for, at worst a “scab”. A “scab” is that repulsive term for a worker who values a job more than a unionised worker – someone who would rather work than strike, someone who is exercising his free will. The amount of unreported union based bullying is difficult to quantify, but the anecdotal reports of those who dared “rock the boat” is frightening.
Trotter’s view of those who have other opinions about the role of politics and sport is telling as well:

“The real scandal, of course, is so many New Zealanders keep forgetting to remember their rights and responsibilities as democratically empowered citizens. Like those hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who saw nothing wrong with welcoming apartheid to New Zealand in 1976 and 1981. “
You see Trotter and the left saw the Springbok tours as an official endorsement of apartheid – you know, like sports teams going to events in the communist bloc (oops remember that imprisoning and executing political prisoners in the eastern bloc wasn’t as bad as apartheid – you see, Chris turned a blind eye to the atrocities of Marxism-Leninism). So if you supported the state not intervening, then you were clearly a racist who happily supported apartheid. More disturbingly though, is that Trotter thinks so many of you “forget to remember your rights and responsibilities”. Your responsibilities!! You owe the left something – your vote.

Furthermore, you see, the right doesn’t like democracy. Ah this explains the times National wins elections:

“Conservatives detest democracy, because it establishes a new "political nation" based not on ownership, but citizenship; a nation which can, by acting through its sovereign parliament, impose restrictions on the rights of "farmers and businessmen".”
Ahh so you see, restrictions on the rights of farmers and businessmen are ok, but clearly not on the rights of “workers”.

Funny how the party of “farmers and businessmen” can command 39% of the vote in 2005 and over 40% in 1990 and before.

So you see, there is, deep down in the psyche of many on the left a dislike for democracy – when it goes against them. It is not because they actually represent a majority of citizens. They don’t. It is because they believe (with a smidgeon of good reason) that they are the “progressive” force for social change. The reason Maori, women, gay people and others have equal rights is because of the left. The left believes it is liberal, and inclusive of all views. However it is far from that, but neither is National. You see the problem with the National Party is that while Labour believes it is the majority, National believes it is born to rule.

The party of the people is losing the people

Labour - the party that believes it has the right to power in a democracy (because it represents the people) has dropped further in the latest poll, to 36%. This is now below where Labour was when it won in 1999, while National is on 49%.
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If that isn't a resounding lack of confidence in the government I don't know what is. With that, National could govern alone and probably also get ACT for a coalition partner.
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Don't worry though, it is still a long time till an election. United Future and NZ First don't want to half their number of seats either, so will continue to prop this government up - hopefully the people of Ohariu-Belmont will punish Dunne at the next election for his continued backing of a government that bought it way to power.

End Post Office subsidies

The Tories and the Daily Telegraph have tiresomely embarked on a campaign opposing large scale rural post office closures. Of the 6000 rural post offices, apparently 800 have less than 16 customers a week with per transaction subsidies of £16 each! It costs £150 million a year to subsidise them. For the Tories and the Daily Telegraph, bastions of the free market, to argue for special subsidies to prop up these inefficient enterprises is a nonsense. By contrast, Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times says "stop wailing for the post office".

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The answer is simple. The Royal Mail only just lost its statutory monopoly at the beginning of this year (NZ Post lost its monopoly in 1998), it should be privatised and the closed post offices sold to whoever wants to provide a service or use the building for something else more valuable. Postal services are not special, they can be offered by private stores which sell stamps and other means of paying bills are available to people - such as direct credit, cheques, internet payments and don't tell me the elderly will find it hard. After all, New Zealand survived with one-third of post offices closing in 1988. It survived and flourished, as society shifted from state run post offices being the front of the state - to a range of different outlets for postal services, banking, bill payment, motor vehicle licensing and the like.

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So I say to the whingers and moaners in rural UK - you have a denser postal network than NZ - you get your agricultural sector subsidised heavily by the EU - stop asking for others to be forced to pay for services you use. Calls for post offices being the hub of the local community are bollocks. In the UK, pubs, shops and churches have been, and none of them are subsidised. Why should YOUR community be subsidised?

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So sell off the Royal Mail - reduce UK government debt and by the way, it would be nice if National committed itself to selling off NZ Post too.

Secular state/secular society

One of the great advantages of the UK over the US is that is can discuss secularism far more easily, without the shrill voices of evangelical conservatism drowning it out. The Sunday Times in London has its editorial today merely raising the question "Time for a Secular State" calling for debate on whether the last vestiges of state involvement in religion should be scrapped, and I agree they should - as they have been in the US (although that has been under threat for a while). The editorial asks:

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Should we carry go on, hoping the curiosity of an established church — to which the majority is attached, but only very loosely — can continue to co-exist with other religions, whose followers are more committed? Or is it time to move to the American or French models with their formal separation of church and state?

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Indeed, I would say speed the day to separate church and state. The Sunday Times has a long feature on this matter. Religious freedom means the state is blind about what religion people believe in, or whether they do at all. In fact one of the healthiest discussion now is to consider whether religion has any validity at all. Minette Marin in the Sunday Times argues that there should be no religious schools. She says:

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"It should be possible to agree that for various reasons, many of which are politically embarrassing, the time of state-funded faith schools is past. Faith is no better a criterion for attending or running a state school than race. No new ones should be created; the old ones should gradually lose their religious identity as many have done already and as they probably will do naturally. Religious indoctrination and observance don’t belong in state schools, in a multifaith society, not any more"

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Absolutely, it is outrageous that the state should have anything to do with education whatsoever, certainly not religious based education. However, in a free society parents should have the right to send their children to a religious school, if one exists - and pay for it themselves. Any more than that, and you have the state engaging in parenting. Although Richard Dawkins argues that giving children religious education is as bad as political education - that saying a child is Catholic or Muslim is as bad as saying they are socialist, conservative or indeed libertarian before they are old and mature enough to decide for themselves. Imagine how much religion would exist if children were kept from religion until their teens? Then if given lessons on each religion and atheism, were allowed to choose which one made the most sense for them.

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I would argue that it is wrong to indoctrinate children about religion, but that it isn't a state matter. Parents indoctrinate children about all sorts of things, and as long as there isn't neglect and physical/sexual abuse, the state should err on the side of non-intervention. The state is not a better parent, it is a protector of last resort.

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Nevertheless it is encouraging that Dawkins latest book The God Delusion is a best seller in the UK. If only our friends from the Middle East got a chance to read such a book or even be allowed to debate the non-existence of ghosts!