Youth Parliament tells us a little about government

Can anyone tell me why observers came from a military dictatorship - Myanmar - to observe this rather peculiar activity? What could they learn that they could even talk about in Myanmar?

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Why is there a Ministry of Youth Development, and how did almost everyone I know cope, grow up to be happy, healthy, productive, non-criminal adults without our parents being forced to pay for it? Maybe because our parents gave a damn, didn't get paid to give a damn, and (by and large) got things right?

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What is positive about encouraging young people to think government can solve problems? Did anyone teach them that the fundamental question of government is between doing nothing and doing something, and almost everyone involved in this never asks the question "should the government back off?".

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Maybe the list of topics their "select committees" considered will enlighten one as to the politics of this exercise?

1. Are we the Pacific scrooge? Why have we not met the 0.7% target for ODA? Well, it COULD have said, should the government reduce aid in favour of tax cuts and letting the private sector assist foreign countries? So this is a leftwing proposition.

2. Has the student loan system created an unfair burden for a new generation of New Zealanders? Could have said, is it fair that the general public continues to be forced to pay over 75% of the cost of university education, whether they received such an education or not, and students only pay 25%, when the average university student typically goes on to earn above the average wage? So this AGAIN is a leftwing proposition.

3. How can we keep more young people in upper secondary school, including should there be a higher leaving age and/or a minimum achievement level for leaving school? Could have been, WHY should we keep more young people in upper secondary education, when there is a substrata of around 20% who are barely literate? How could the education system better deliver outcomes tailored towards the needs of students? Not so much leftwing, but assumes the proposition is a good one.

4.How can we prevent young people joining gangs and reduce violent offending? Could simply be, how can we reduce violent offending, the notion that you can prevent gang joining is almost absurd. Not really political, only the insane could argue against violent offending.

5. Is it fair to tax under 18 year olds at the same rate as over 18 year olds? Could have said, is taxation theft (but that would be seen as "right wing" and we can't have right wing propositions can we, although we have left wing ones). Arguably left wing, as it promotes progressive taxation to some degree.

6. New Zealand roads are the leading killer of young people, what can be done? Could be, New Zealand roads are the safest they have ever been on a per vehicle km basis, what responsibilities do young people have to be accountable for the accidents they cause. Slight statist bias (not left or right wing) and feeds the road toll obsession.

7. What should the focus of our youth justice system be? Finally a truly neutral question!

8 . Should New Zealand allow the therapeutic cloning of stem cells? Also a neutral question!

9.Should Party Pills (BZP) be illegal? Again, neutral.

10. Was the National Certificate in Educational Achievement a good idea? Banal, it could be more clever as to "what would be the best way for schools to recognise educational achievement"

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So all in all, the Youth Parliament had a somewhat leftwing, statist bias - why should you be surprised, it is organised by bureaucrats from a Ministry that didn't exist a few years ago (hear that John Key?)

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However, check out the list of questions bureaucracies sent in for select committes. All in all, you can say the following about them (my criteria was whether the questions assumed more government intervention or whether the government had a role in the issue concerned):

ACC: balanced

ALAC: Statist (assumes state should define role of alcohol for private citizens)

Children's Commissioner: Highly Statist

Creative New Zealand: Totally Statist

Department of Corrections: Somewhat Statist (but it is a core government function)

Department of Internal Affairs: Somewhat Statist

Department of Labour: Meaningless

Families Commission: Totally Statist

Health and Disability Commissioner: Highly Statist

Health Research Council of New Zealand: Balanced

Human Rights Commission (HRC): Totally Statist, leftwing and possibly racist (Why are "Asian Immigrants" a topic?)

Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH): Highly Statist and nationalistic

Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF): Somewhat statist, slightly leftwing

MED: Slightly statist.
Ministry of Health (MoH): Slightly statist
Ministry of Transport: Slightly statist
Ministry of Women’s Affairs: Totally statist

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise: Totally statist

SPARC: Totally statist

Te Puni Kokiri: Unclear

Transit New Zealand: Somewhat statist.

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The priorities of the Greens

Given my earlier post about Camp 22 in North Korea, I was heartened to see the Green Party is keen on protesting to foreign embassies.

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However, it is telling that the Green Party has not written to the North Korean embassy in Canberra (which also covers New Zealand) to protest the children imprisoned in Camp 22, working dawn to dusk and beyond hours of slavery (you'd think they'd care). No, it is to protest Australian federal government treatment of Aborigines, which includes forced immunisations (which I disagree with), compulsory health checks under threat of welfare cuts (which I agree with, if you are accepting other people's money they it should be conditional) and "market rents" (horrors!).

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When will the Greens start campaigning for political freedom in North Korea? Unlikely, given they link (bottom of page) to a website of one of New Zealand's "friends" of North Korea (who doesn't rock the boat by talking about difficult issues like child slavery). It would be nice if the left universally condemned this and called for action - but all they call for is nuclear disarmament and for China and the US to do the same (because you can North Korea to not keep any, given how transparent a society it is!!!).

Guilt merchants of the 21st century

Few things infuriate me more than musicians getting onto a political bandwagon that most of them know little about, with the primary goals of:

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  Assuaging their consciences for their self imposed guilt of being very wealthy;


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  Attention seeking, because it wouldn't look cool to not seem like you give a damn, raising sales of their albums as a result;


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  Telling people off for living their lives the way they choose, whilst themselves making token gestures in that direction.

Most of those doing this are either in the politically naive bracket (also known as stupid), or simply like telling others what to do. They believe that instead of simply being musicians, they have a duty to "change the world" through their messages.

It can't always be wrong. Music has a place in political dissent, when it is about fighting genuine oppression, as with totalitarian government and free speech. However, it is a fact of globalisation that it costs so little to produce music and distribute it, and audiences can be so large that musicians can make a fortune out of one album. Those musicians who performed at Live Earth are wealthy because of property rights, contracts, independent judiciaries and capitalism. They are not grateful for that. I can only assume they either feel (notice they feel more than think):

- Very lucky to be wealthy and successful (in which case if others are less lucky they might want to share their luck); or

- Know they've worked hard to be successful, but think they better support causes to encourage people to change behaviour to make the "world a better place.

Madonna's personal wealth is more than the GDP of about five countries - but for all of the socialist pontificating she's not going to give hardly any of it away. She's far too career obsessed to be a true socialist.

Most of the criticism of Live Earth has been because it was boring or the carbon footprint created by the concert. Frankly, I don't give a damn about either of those things. I didn't go, and the obsession with carbon footprints is becoming almost a religious crusade. I know someone who will give a telling off for flying instead of going by train.

The sort of guilt passed out by climate change evangelists is akin to a sort of Catholic/Protestant judgmentalism. The new sins are now:

- Flying;

- Driving;

- Leaving appliances on standby;

- Using incandescent lightbulbs;

- Not recycling all you can.

In the past you might have been pilloried for:

- Swearing;

- Having sex before marriage;

- Masturbating;

- Not going to church;

- Not standing up for elderly people on the bus;

- Getting divorced;

- Being single at age 25 for women (unless a nun), 45 for men (unless a cad or entertainer, because we all know, you know!);

- Criticising the Royal Family.

I don't know what element of humanity has this overwhelming need to judge others, to set rules and humiliate those who don't follow them. There are others of course, the obsession with judging people's lifestyle related to health is the other one. Smokers, people who eat "the wrong foods", people who don't exercise are all subject to the judgment machine.

Why isn't it a sin to tell others how to live their lives?

Getting personal

Bloody 'ell...

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Well it started with Maia having a bit of a rant about an employer who wouldn't allow a union to hold a meeting on the work premises. She said (sic) "Bosses are theiving parasite dogs, thieving and parasiting is how capitalism works. "

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Now setting aside that this is language that was used in Maoist China, the sort used when Red Guards were lynching people. Also setting aside the second half of that sentence, which is a simplistic view of capitalism. The first half of the sentence is vile bigotry. It is akin to saying "Black people are thieves, Jews are parasites, homosexuals are child molesters". Why? Because it assumes all managers are thieves and parasites. Charming really. Some on the left might say "you can't help your race, sex, sexuality, but you can avoid being a boss". Well yes, that's the excuse given by those defending what Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all the other bloodthirsty socialists did. By saying this, she's saying that plenty of people I know, including family and friends are (sic) "theiving parasite dogs". Now she has said she means "employers", which makes it ok apparently.

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Now Maia can be a Marxist as much as she likes (though she says she is not, which is a bit like saying the leader of the BNP isn't a Nazi or Rodney Hide isn't a libertarian or the ocean isn't made of water because there are other things floating in it), she's not a Marxist-Leninist (she hasn't read Lenin) she says, although she uses the language and says things like "Despite all these reservations, the Americans of the 1940s and 1950s I most admire were all in the Communist party." and then "There are two acceptable answer to the question 'Are you now or have you ever been?': 'Yes' or 'fuck off I'm not telling you'." liking Che Guevara the man who said he would have fired the Soviet missiles into the US from Cuba had they been under his control (so she likes a warmongerer, nuclear one no less!) and said Cuba should model itself on North Korea. It's her right to express her views supporting authoritarian politics. Occasionally I agree with her, like here, here, here and here. More often than not I disagree, but this isn't the point.

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Clint Heine and James both disagreed and said this. Now setting aside whether she is a bludger or not (I have no idea myself), clearly they were taking the piss out of her in a very intimate way, given they think she is nuts. Now I find her comment about bosses to be vile, and I find her almost complete insensitivity to the totalitarian nightmare of communism (and those who supported it) to be inexplicable, but one of her big issues is rape. Rightly so, rape is an abomination, as are all other forms of initiated violence. I am certain both Clint Heine and James agree - it's part of their politics. Some on the left will refuse to believe that, and that is more a reflection of their own bigotry than anything else. Maia has since said "" To talk of 'fixing' a woman with a sexual act and ignore her desires is to threaten rape. I'm aware that James, and Clint had no intention of taking any action, that discussion of sexual violence is just words to them. But the effect, and the intention, is to police women's behaviour, with threats about what will happen if we don't conform." I don't believe the intention IS to "police women's behaviour", I believe if a male had said something similar there could also have made a sexual reference, and there is no intention to use force.

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Unfortunately, for those imbibing on structuralist leftwing post-modernist politics, it is difficult to believe that there are people who do think that people should be left to do as they like, as long as they don't use violence or fraud against others. They believe the world is set up for men to run everything and to trivialise rape or encourage it. Funnily enough most men I know despise rape, because it IS violence, and the spinoff are women who fear men, and the extremists who apply bigotry to men as a result. The same bigotry they wouldn't tolerate towards women. There are rapists, men who want to commit rape or trivialise it - that's about as funny as trivialising murder or assault more generally.

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Notwithstanding that, given her sensitivity to rape, it wasn't clever and playing the ball instead of the woman isn't something I do unless someone directly advocates violence. She wasn't being threatened with rape - she was constructing that from insults, because she assumed that was where they were coming from. She assumed it was, it wasn't intended to be. My initial response was that it was, and i was wrong. Threatening violence to solve political problems is wrong, throwing insults her way in such an intimate manner is wrong as well - but let's not forget that some of Maia's heroes are advocates of violence too.

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In conclusion yes the two of them (Clint and James) were being childish, and didn't advance the core argument anywhere by taking the piss (in a way that was easily too intimate), but fueled the fires of others on the left and right. However, it doesn't excuse the McCarthyist nonsense in response (calling for a google bomb). Just because Maia chooses to be anonymous and Clint Heine doesn't does not mean that there should be a Maoist witchhunt. If she or others embark on this then frankly it shows how vindictive and abusive THEY are. I believe he did not threaten with violence, to be tried by a court of bloggers for doing so is almost as abusive and vile as anyone who DOES threaten with violence.

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By the way, if Maia, Idiot Savant and others on the left think it is only women who get threatened online they should open their eyes.

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I've had the following on mine:

".Hope some muslim brother blows you up in suicide bombing in London to thank you for your support of muslim cause. " as one example. I guess that's not important if you don't live in London, and think of war and terror as some far over event that is the fault of Bush and Blair - it's great comfort to those of us who daily know that we are considered legitimate targets. Initiating violence is wrong, and I have yet to see evidence that any on the libertarian "right" of the NZ blogosphere believe otherwise.

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There should be no political argument that one or several people initiating violence against other individuals is wrong - but then, there is.

Why Live Earth really is unimportant.

The international act of mutual onanism didn't interest me, in fact my girlfriend bought a car that day - because her access and mobility are more important than self righteous multi-millionaires (none of whom catch the tube) telling her what to do.

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I thought I'd draw your attention to something else. I mean, whether or not you take a flight, or keep the TV on standby is nothing compared to this. What this describes happens every single day, yesterday, today and tomorrow - and it is telling how few really give a damn...

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It's called Camp 22, it is about 500 or so square miles in size, or roughly the area of metropolitan greater Los Angeles. 50,000 people are held there. Men, women and children. Entire families, rounded up for the sin of not showing unwavering obedience to their government - this is North Korea.

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Former guard Ahn Myong-Chol has reported that between 1,500 and 2,000 died annually there of malnutrition - mostly children. He remembers:

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"One unforgettable image, there were two girls and they were trying to take out a piece of noodle from one polluted water pond where they put the garbage. And one guard kicked the kids into the small pond, and they drowned. The pond was very deep, and I felt really sad about that"

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“This is the detention center,” he said. “If someone goes inside this building, in three months he will be dead or disabled for life. In this corner they decided about the executions, who to execute and whether to make it public.

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"And I heard many times that eyeballs were taken out by beating. And I saw that by beating the person, the muscle was damaged and the bone was exposed, outside, and they put salt on the wounded part. At the beginning I was frightened when I witnessed it, but it was repeated again and again, so my feelings were paralyzed. "

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or how about this tale...

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"At that time the tunnel was passing near the pig pen of the camp, and about 500 political prisoners were participating and there was one female named Han Jin Duk, 26 years old. I was in charge of giving food to the pigs. And my supervisor, when he saw the woman, she was beautiful. And he raped her, and he was found by the watchman officer. And he was investigated. My superior, his rank was reduced and the woman was sent to the detention center And then I didn’t see her for one year.

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One day I was going to the place to load the coal, I met her. And I noticed she was exactly that woman, and I asked her, how you could survive. And she told me, that yes, I survived. But she showed me her body, and it was all burned by fire.

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After six months I met her at the corn storage in Kusan district and found her putting on a used tire on her knees because her legs were cut off. Because of a coal mine wagon ran over her knees. And all she could do now was separate the corn grains from the cob.

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The reason why she was forced to go to the prison is her father’s elder brother was purged at the Anbyon, Kanwhan Do province. She went when she was 5 years old. All of the family members were imprisoned. Her mother starved to death, and her brother also starved to death in the prison. I met her at age 26. So it means she was in the prison for 21 years. I think she no longer is in the world."

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You see, this is why I can't get too concerned about CO2 emissions. North Korea imprisons 5 year olds and enslaves them. New Zealand has diplomatic relations with this entity, even gives it aid. An academic has a website on North Korea, but doesn't mention human rights. I guess it is inconvenient to ask about a government imprisoning, enslaving, torturing and murdering children? Now that's an "Inconvenient Truth" isn't it? However, Al Gore doesn't rally for North Korean gulags to be closed.

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Shouldn't it be an international, unanimous campaign now to demand North Korea free all child political prisoners at the very least? Shouldn't Al Gore, Madonna, Bono prioritise this first? Shouldn't the so called peace movement, the so-called human rights activists and the so-called supporters of civil liberties be protesting outside North Korean embassies in Canberra, London, Paris, Stockholm and the like?

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and shouldn't the numerous New Zealand sycophants of this murderous nightmare of a tyranny be held to account?

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Have a look at Camp 22 on Google Earth, some high resolution images are here, and just think what matters.

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UPDATE: If you give a damn about men, women and children being imprisoned and enslaved because of an accusation of not being politically obedient then go here. Hat Tip to Julian for this video showing you starkly why this matters - it matters as much as apartheid mattered - it matters as much as the Holocaust matters. LINK (Liberty in North Korea) describes itself as:

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We are a non-profit, non-partisan, non-ethnic and non-religious group formed in pursuit of the following mission statement:
To educate the world about North Korea;
To advocate for human rights, political and religious freedom, and humanitarian aid for North Korea;
To protect the North Korean people where they can be reached;
To empower citizens of the world to take effective action and make a difference;
To bring together and support existing NGOs and other organizations working to achieve the same ends; and
To tell the world the truth.

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North Koreans are also unfree outside the country, LINK estimates that 12,000 are slave labourers in other countries, mainly Russia, Mongolia, but also Poland and even the Czech Republic.