Joyless bureaucrats regulating fun

Picture the scene. It is the sunny Kapiti Coast. Families have taken a break for the day or the weekend from their working week or school, to enjoy themselves. Some choose to go to the great family experience of the local miniature railway. The kids like the ride, it's good clean fun. Anzac Day after all is a day when, for the morning, shops are required to close to pay respects for those whose lives were lost at war. However, the work doesn't stop for the eager Labour Department bureaucrat. With the clipboard, cellphone and the eager enthusiasm of someone whose sole purpose is to stop people doing things, one was working that day - yes on Anzac Day - and found the Kapiti Miniature Railway operating, allegedly against the law!
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Half a dozen people were on one of these trains. Trains mind you that don't get a dollar of government subsidy, they are operated by volunteers, people ride it for the purpose of fun, but no... Mr Bureaucrat ordered the railway to shut down.
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Was it unsafe? No, there was no evidence that it was. Given the railway reportedly carries hundreds of people every weekend, the public seem to be satisfied. The joyless petty little man, who produces nothing, shut it down because "the club had not paid its registration under the Fairground and Amusement Devices Regulation Act".
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He couldn't wait could he? He couldn't hand the notice to the club President and threaten its closure. No, far more self satisfying to shut down an outfit run and funded by volunteers, and enjoyed by the public. Having got himself off in the only way such bureaucrats can, he can go home wipe himself off, and think about what a good little cog in the wheel of Nanny State he is.
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The Labour Department spokesman (somehow it's always petty little men who are inadequately endowed who seem most comfortable acting like former East German bureaucrats) said "Amusements are required to be registered and, as part of that, they have to be able to prove it can be operated safely."
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Of course the law does say that. Heaven help you engage in unregistered amusements!

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I can hear it now. "What if something happened"? Like what? The train derailed? Some kid ran in front of a train? A kid ran out onto the road? Yes that's what. The purpose of this law is to deal with fairground attractions, to avoid dodgy little men who make a living from driving around the country with rusty equipment throwing kids around with their dated rides (and frankly most look like they've been around since i was a kid). There may be better ways of doing this, but I wont go into it much here (think private property rights, rights to sue, strict liability for accidents attributable to equipment failure)

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Some of the greatest dangers today are in areas that the state doesn't get too involved in. Kids cross roads all the time, and they are unfenced and their activities are not supervised. Most accidents happen in the home, and there are no home safety inspectors checking if nothing will burn, hit you on the head, trip you up or the like. I don't doubt that poorly endowed Labour Department inspectors will have thought of the merits of this idea. Of course it doesn't help that ACC does away with civil liability for personal injury by accident, or even grant higher or lower premiums for bad or good behaviour.

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However nothing better exemplifies the joyless bullshit of Nanny State that this little man, on Anzac Day, shutting down a miniature railway while little kids are having fun. No MP betters represents him that Sue Kedgley - the high priestess of Nanny State.

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Of course Nanny State can't work without the vile little humourless onanists who haven't the ounce of humanity to let kids enjoy a miniature railway ride on a nice day. I bet he thought he was doing them good, I bet he thought the (largely) elderly men who proudly built and maintained the railway were themselves beneath him. Nothing like ruining a day for kids and the elderly is there?

Rainbow presents the London Mayoral debate

It's far more interesting than the real three.

Simple step to reduce traffic congestion #1

New Zealand, unlike the UK (and indeed most countries) prohibits taxis from using bus lanes. One reason for this has been because (unlike most countries) New Zealand's free market approach to taxis means there are more than most, and cheaper as a result.

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Nevertheless, wherever a bus lane operates significantly under capacity, then other public transport should be entitled to use it - that means taxis. Taxis don't compete with car usage. Most taxi users are either without ready access to a vehicle, without access to a car park, have no viable public transport alternative or are drunk! Allowing taxis to use bus lanes would save taxi users a fortune, and taxi drivers could undertake more trips, and by removing them from parallel lanes would help cut congestion more generally.

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Of course to do this would mean removing the ideological commitment to buses, which themselves need to carry eight passengers to be a better use of road space than a car, and twice as much as that to be more environmentally friendly. If local authorities were more committed to reducing congestion rather than simply encouraging use of public transport, then they might actually support this. Remember that almost all bus lanes in London allow taxi usage.

Anzac Day

As I write this, thousands of New Zealanders and shortly thereafter thousands of Australians will be attending the dawn services in both countries to remember Anzac Day. Writing from London it seems distant, but it is a chance to recall those who gave their lives against the forces of tyranny that threatened both countries and Western civilisation itself.

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The tragic loss of life in World War 1, a brutal war of empires, left a huge scar across the communities of both countries. The cry "never again" did see the end of such great wars of empire. Few can celebrate the "victory" that saw rivers of blood of young men dying for the sake of next to nothing, and the many thousands shot dead as traitors for conscientious objection, or those damaged by the trauma of war. It was the end of an era, and few could ever glorify what was destruction on a grand scale.

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World War 2 was perhaps the great war between good and evil (and two versions of evil). The Nazi dominated Axis in Europe, which sought to transform Europe into totalitarian tyrannies of militarism, racism and genocide was a despicable threat to so many of the freedoms we all take for granted. The signs of that era are largely invisible in today's Europe, with free movement of people, goods and services across borders that were once battlefields, common citizenship between countries that were hostile enemies, and free, open civilised liberal democracies. The price paid to destroy Nazism and its toxic allies in Italy, Hungary, Croatia and elsewhere was high - but who now would imagine how Europe would be had it failed. Whereas Japanese imperialism in Asia also sought to make Asia and Australasia an extension of the rising sun. The brutalism of the Japanese occupation of east Asia from Korea, coastal China, Indochina, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and Burma was rolled back by thousands upon thousands of brave men. Again, as with Germany. Who today can look at Japan and see the signs of what an aggressive brutal coloniser it once was. It too engaged in genocidal acts, and was repudiated at high cost, and at Hiroshima and Nagosaki the suffix of the war showed what might happen next time. New Zealand was spared Japanese occupation, and today Japan is a close friend and trading partner.

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In Korea, Stalin and Mao gave the nod for the totalitarian dictatorship of the North to invade and swallow the impoverished south. Again, bravery saw that occupation rolled back, almost obliterated and then for 2 tragic years lives lost as the stalemate went back and forth. South Korea today exists because of those who fought in Korea to save it - and one need only look at the bleakness of North Korea to see what they were saved from.

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As many have said before, war is one of the most horrible actions that anyone can live through. It is second only to living under brutal tyranny. Anzac Day does not celebrate war, or the need for military action, but it is a time for quiet reflection, acknowledgement of those who lost everything to fight for free Western civilisation in our parts of the world. The old adage that "if it weren't for them, we'd all be speaking Japanese/German" is only partly wrong, it's more likely many of us would have been dead or not even born.

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It is worth remembering that had the so-called "peace movement" had its way, the Nazis would have been appeased until when? The Japanese would have allowed independence like that they granted to Manchuria, I mean Manchukuo. It is worth also noting that North Korea only attacked the South, after the US had withdrawn its post World War 2 troop presence.

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The price for peace is defence, it is deterrence and the willingness to respond to aggression. It is only when belligerence is clearly beyond imagination that this can be rolled back, and western Europe is today an example of countries that could hardly imagine waging war on each other, though they need not go far to find those who will (the Balkans).

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Alastair Cooke's "Letter from America" once stated that the country with the highest per capita loss of combatants on foreign soil was New Zealand - and it is no surprise why. I'd be interested to know if this is still the case, as the USA has lost quite a few over the last decade or so.

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Nevertheless, take time today to remember those who lost it all for your freedom. They did more for peace than anyone who protests for it ever have.

Advice for Bailey Kurariki

You're so lucky, and hopefully you feel shame and remorse. If you had been living in a lot of other countries you'd either still be behind bars or dead.

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Abide by the conditions of your parole. Then you should spend the rest of your life making good of what you did. Find a way to communicate to Michael Choy's mother that you will tithe half of all of your earnings, for the rest of your life, to pay to compensate her and her family for what you did. You can keep enough to keep a roof over your head, food and clothe yourself. Paying half of what you earn to her and her family will be better value than paying a church. Meanwhile you should think about how you can help stop other kids committing the hienous crime you did.

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oh and if you reoffend, you should expect a long long prison sentence. You'll have blown your chance. Mercy is the prerogative of Western judicial systems, be grateful for it, it is time to start making recompense for the life of a peaceful man that you helped destroy. If the rest of your life is spent compensating the victim's family and teaching and supporting kids to avoid a life of crime, then your early release will not have been in vain.

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ADDENDUM: The NZ Herald reports he will have early release with an electronic tag and strict monitoring.