Christian politics NZ - the triumph of commonsense

MMP brought with it high expectations from the Christian Heritage Party. It saw a chance to hold a government to account according to Biblical principles - you know, reversing the Enlightenment concept of separation of church and state - as it believed it could easily rally 5% of voters to stand behind "traditional values". Meanwhile another group had a similar idea, backed by the homophobic advocate of strong censorship laws, ex. National MP Graeme Lee. The Christian Democrats and the Christian Heritage Party were competing at the soft and hard end of Christian politics, but even when they came together as the Christian Coalition in 1996, 5% couldn't be reached.

Brian Tamaki promised great things for his flock - the flock that sadly or stupidly, depending on your point of view, present tithes to keep him and his comrades in a style very few of his flock would be accustomed to. It certainly shouldn't be banned, but there is something immoral about spreading judgment among the ignorant, and convincing them to pay him to live a lavish lifestyle, while condemning those who don't to hell. Tamaki's promises that the Destiny NZ party would enter Parliament in 2005 and be in government in 2008 were either a marketing exercise or the voice of the truly deluded. No one looking relatively objectively at NZ politics can see fundamentalist Christian politics having much of a market.

The best a Christian party has done in NZ was when Peter Dunne's centrist (middle muddle ground as Bob Jones once called it) United Party, which had been languishing at 0.9% merged with the happy clappy Christian Democrats (once led by a charismatic young preacher, of whom it has been said fell from grace following allegations of conduct that is all too often laid at the feet of high profile Christian politicians, although nothing like Graham Capill). Dunne becoming the media darling in 2002 saw his party hold the balance of power then, and now - and we have the Families Commission. However, with United Future halving its vote in 2005, and Dunne distancing himself from the Christian dimension, AND Gordon Copeland slipping away, it would look like United Future will be a party of Dunne only in 2008 - which of course, is a triumph of commonsense. Dunne after all is a man with more intelligence than he has shown, with a political career of highlights such as creating the useless Families Commission, appealing to homophobes by not debating civil unions, but saying they are a proxy for gay marriage (without saying whether he thought that was bad or not, but implying that it was), and campaigning for a cargo cult highway with a billion dollar cost that the funding system he supported in Cabinet has constantly rejected.

The relaunch of Destiny as PC has pointed out, has to make you laugh.

What the new party will do is continue to attract a small number of voters who, in all probability, would either have voted National or stayed home. However, Brian Tamaki's time will come.

I believe fundamentalist pre-enlightenment Christian politics are a potential disaster for humanity, fortunately in New Zealand (as in the UK), the appetite for going back to witch hunts, jailing heretics and abolishing free speech on Christian grounds, is not high. What good that some churches offer their members in setting some rational moral rules around treating others, and instilling some discipline and respect is not seen in Christian politicians - the likes of Tamaki have no respect for those of other religions or no religion - they are the wannabe Taliban of New Zealand.

Over 95% of New Zealand voters reject this, now if only the US could follow...

National socialist Party again - John Keycescu

I see the Dominion Post reporting that on Cindo Kiro's Stalinist plan to track all NZ children, that
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"The proposal calls for a database to track the development of New Zealand children, which Mr Key would not oppose. "You have to balance the intrusion of privacy over the need to try to get a resolution to an issue that is of quite great concern. In this case the issue warrants that." "
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Kim John Key, John Keycescu, Mao Key John.
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What a fucking waste a vote for National is then - want a reason to join Libertarianz? Don't want your family tracked by the state and Cindy Kiro's social worker mates? Well go on go here.
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Yes I know Family First is against it, but they'll track your internet use and burn books.

Media useless in protecting our freedoms - Big Sister Kiro

So finally the mainstream press reports on Cindy Kiro's Orwellian plan to save "our" children, collectivising families under a Big Brother state which spies on every family, all those which are happy, healthy and fairly well balanced, to capture the small number which are dysfunctional, abusive and negligent.

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I reported on this atrocious proposal in October LAST YEAR. It's not NEWs, it's just that the standards of journalism in NZ are often shockingly low.

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and what's the headline in the Dominion Post? "$5m-a-year to save our our children" (sic). I don't care if it is $5 million, $50 million, $5 billion or $50 - THAT isn't the story Keri Welham.

The headline should be "Shades of Orwell in plan to cut child abuse" or the like.

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Think about it, all "caregivers" (not parents, no we must have a euphemism that places everyone on the same footing) must nominate a Nazi/Stasi agent - I don't use the term lightly - because it is someone to essentially spy on their parenting, or face being reported to the authorities. In other words, it doesn't matter how good a parent you really are, you must nominate some busybody to intrude.

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It will allegedly save five children a year - I don't doubt that a strategy of targeting the perpetrators - the scalpel rather than the sledgehammer - could easily achieve much of the same. However, we could easily reduce crime by having a Police state, squads could march around the streets, detaining people without charges, threatening, going into the houses of suspicious people - after all, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear - expect THAT phrase from anyone wanting to interfere with your privacy.

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I recall the tale of one victim of Ceaucescu's Romania that what people didn't have in those abominations of Stalinism was privacy - your job, your home, your day to day life, you couldn't get on with your life without the state intruding into everything - requiring you to report, go to meetings, to prove that you were not to be a suspect. It is the world of the Police State, and Cindy Kiro - not a fool by an stretch of the imagination - is either bereft of any understanding of philosophy and history, or is herself a Stalinist who sees the states involvement in people's lives as positive and embracing, not the gloved fist with the authority to give, take and regulate what you do. Nazi Germany is alien to her, perhaps the history of totalitarian societies was not part of her education, perhaps the experience of the world is not seen as important as understanding the Tangata Whenua. Who knows? All I know is that this proposal should be resisted at all counts.

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Kiro should be given a strongly worded "f... off" by any parents who love and care for their children. She wants to take away the privacy of your family for the sake of an underclass of virtually useless people who are at best parents in absentia, at worst undiscovered criminal abusers. Her strategy to deal with child abuse is about as sensible as putting tv cameras in all homes to spy on people who might do illegal things, with the right of the Police to randomly switch them on to catch you doing something "wrong".

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and if you want an answer as to how to stop the vermin who damage, torture and kill children? Start by prohibiting those convicted of serious violent and sexual offences (I mean grievous assault and rape, not just a punch in a pub or the 16yo boy with the 15yo consenting girl) from being able to live in the same home as a child. This includes prohibiting any men or women with such convictions from having custody of their own children. In addition, how about denying those who have abused children the right to any state welfare whatsoever.

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So go on Rodney Hide, John Key - say something...

Death

Dead – what a word, how final, empty and completely awful. I never understood people who said death is a part of life. It is like saying war is a part of peace, or bankruptcy is a part of property ownership. It is cold comfort that it is, currently, inevitable. I say currently because I don’t doubt that as long as humanity proceeds on a path whereby science and reason can continue to make significant advances, that the onset of death will continue to be delayed. One need only look at comparisons in life expectancy. In 1800 in London it was 28, today living to your 60s is the norm, and averages now tend to lie in the late 70s and early 80s.

I don’t think there is anything beautiful or wonderful about death, the only comfort I ever think there can be is when it is the alternative to excruciating agony. Those who consciously choose euthanasia for themselves are to be respected in that light. Beyond that though, death of those you love is a loss, a waste. It isn’t a “fact of life” or anything beyond what must be accepted, it is a cruel devastating removal of someone that is valued and loved.

The loss is noticed because you can’t talk to the person anymore, can’t hear their thoughts, share laughter, stories and experiences. That is irreplaceable because people are individuals, and the pain is only real because you have loved and lost.

You can avoid grief rather easily, be a hermit. You’ll never get close to anyone, never enjoy who they are, their mind and their sense of life, and you’ll never attend a funeral. However I don’t want that, and I value what time I’ve had with those who I have lost recently. That time is precious, and so easily wasted and frittered away on nonsense.

One point is to value memories, and to have memories to value you have to create them, live them and as you get older you can share them, smile and look back upon all those years.

Eventually technology will allow more transplants, the growth of replacement components for the body, and may even allow consciousness to remain forever intact. The desirability of this will be the subject of much debate, who wants to be conscious without a body, and who wants to be forever patched up in old age. This sets aside the typical debates about the sustainability of perpetual life and breeding. However, as lives extend it will continue to become more interesting, until, of course, I am dead.

I don’t have religion for comfort, as easy as it would be and in some moments I did wonder if those I lost could hear and see me. However, I don’t feel they are in a better place, there are no place, they are no more, as romantic as alternatives may seem (and frankly as pleasant as that seems at first). The most recent loss has also hit me about my own mortality, dying at 56 of a blood clot to the brain from a varicose vein, with cancer also spreading. She was a fit, slim, non-smoker.

I’ll do what I can to delay it all, but it is only when a parent dies young that the truth of ones own mortality is clear. Realism strikes hard, and I have to live, frittering away time is over. It is not a time to be reckless, but a time to embrace life and those who you love – for some of them will die before you, and then your time will come, and if in the moments beforehand you can reflect, then reflect upon what you had – and remember every day from now until then is all you have.

Carpe Diem has never felt so true.

It's not the fault of the child torturer because

structural issues have made them do it.

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Consider why most people who survived the Killing Fields, or the Holocaust, or the Cultural Revolution didn't, perhaps the revolutionary experience of being part of a new society that had nothing to do with evil capitalism meant the trauma of their family, friends and neighbours being executed helped.

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I wonder in a world of feminist post-modernist jurisprudence whether rapists could claim that they are so broken by the structural issues of society that it makes them rape women? "Sorry I raped that woman judge, I've been unemployed for three years, can't afford a Nintendo Wii, my favourite food and don't have a girlfriend to beat up to resolve my structural disadvantage because of capitalism - will you join me in revolution against these capitalist scum, or lock me up like the capitalism scum you are because I want to rape women like we proletariat are raped by the capitalist exploiters?"

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You see my problem is that I am part of this "It's part of a bigger project to blame people in poverty for making bad choices on an individual level"

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I'm so damned stupid, poor people don't make bad choices - they were put there. When you look at their lifestyles most of them work just as hard as everyone else, and they are just as intelligent and skilled, none of them did anything stupid or self destructive, and they are all supportive of one another in bettering themselves. I'm astounded at how brilliant they are at breeding without having the means to support themselves and the kids, abusing substances, gambling and other habits that aren't THEIR choices. They are legally insane or forced to do those things, or maybe another species. Self-destructiveness is never your fault is it? It is "society's".

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By and large most people are dealt a hand in life in terms of opportunities, some have far more than others and waste them (a man was recently in a major UK paper for having been a millionaire a couple of years ago and is now homeless living off charity), other have next to nothing and make something of them. Those who choose to evade this fact are either stupid or simply beholden to an angry agenda of violence, like most Marxist Leninists.

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but you've seriously lost touch with the real world when you think that people torture children for "structural reasons", and those who believe that will only be challenged to rethink if it happens to their children. Explaining child abuse as anything beyond something the abusers are responsible for is the last bastion of the lunatic. You can understand why it happens, but it does not mean it is not a choice. Only the insane do not choose, and perhaps only they don't believe you can choose.

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Notice John Minto (the man who couldn't give a flying fuck about his mate Mugabe halving life expectancy in Zimbabwe or his mate Kim Jong Il's gulags in North Korea) is part of this "blame capitalism for torturing kids" brigade. He doesn't look at other times of economic hardship or other cultures and see kids being tortured because the family is poor. Chris Trotter even more disgustingly says WE pay a toll for our comfortable lives somehow linking those of us who don't abuse our kids being to blame for those who do. The culture and philosophy of Marxists has always been to play the card of historical inevitability, as if our lives are not ours to control, but we are cogs in wheels being manipulated. It is a complete disconnect from reality.

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Go on Chris, go to the poverty stricken communities you care about, go rescue this kids, go give a damn - or maybe you can ask why so many low income families would never ever abuse their kids, and why you would excuse them if they did, but not richer families?

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New Zealand has the lowest unemployment rate in over 30 years, but until the likes of Minto, Trotter and Maia see blood spilt in wealthy homes they wont be happy - whereas deep down I wonder if they are glad when the see the blood spilt by the poor, because it allows them to blame anyone but them for it.