Libertarianz principled on NOT spending your money

The law prevents political parties from spending their own money on broadcasting advertising, and forces you to pay for them to do so, that's whether or not you agree with any of them. The Electoral Commission has released how it will be spending your money to advertise political parties most of you probably wouldn't have given a cent to. The results are here.

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Libertarianz is refusing this year to take the money, on principle. It believes that you shouldn't be forced to pay for it to advertise to you, at all. However, clearly every other political party is content with its hand in your bank account taking your money to make ads for you to hear or watch, without your consent.

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Of course that leaves it at a disadvantage compared with all other political parties, but then again it was at a disadvantage anyway. You see Labour and National both get just over $3.2 million to spend on advertising to you. How democratic is that? How fair is that? Why should the two dominant parties both get substantial amounts of money to advertise to you?

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While I fundamentally oppose taxpayer funding of political party advertising, I happen to agree with Idiot Savant at No Right Turn that if the parties are not going to get equal funding, those that get less funding should at least be legally allowed to spend their own money up to the amount Labour and National have got. Why not? Why shouldn't at the very least, ACT, the Greens, Libertarianz, Maori Party or Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party spend as much of their own money as they like, up to the $3.1 million?

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Why are Labour and National so special? Where are the MMP advocates pushing for breaking this duopoly? Perhaps they fear ACT could raise the money more readily than parties on the left, though I'm not so sure - the Greens are good at fundraising. National says it is fair, well they would wouldn't they? Happily protecting the state enforced duopoly on broadcasting.

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So if you object to being forced to pay for political parties campaigning for your vote, only one party qualified for funding and refused to spend your money - Libertarianz.

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You should be able to choose whether you fund a political party - forcing you to do so is undemocratic and nothing to do with political freedom.

The blood spilt at Tiananmen

19 years ago it was, and I was 19 years old when it happened. I wrote much about it a couple of years ago, and that is all still valid.

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I visited the very place myself, and paused for a moment to remember. I was, after all, a university student at the time, and it could have been me gunned down, or arrested, for arguing for free speech. China has moved on in many ways since then, but it still keeps a tight rein on free speech. It has incorporated Hong Kong, a beautiful vibrant world city of trade, freedom, commerce and culture - look there China, spread what Hong Kong has to all of China. Look at Taiwan, it has much the same and thrives.

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So today spare a moment to remember the last moment some Chinese people stood up for the simple right of freedom of expression, when China looked like it might make the step of separating party and state - an essential prerequisite to fight corruption and establish rule of law. It's not anti-China, it's as pro-China as one can be - it believes the Chinese people can make choices to rule their own lives and express themselves, without fear of saying as they wish, and without fear of what they may say. Go on China, the USA and Japan can do it, South Korea can do it, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan can do it. The only people who should be afraid are those who fear criticism and cannot respond creditably. Even people in Hong Kong can march against what happened in Tiananmen Square.

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Meanwhile, China Radio International (the successor to Radio Beijing) wont be repeating this broadcast today. This was what was said, before freedom was snuffed out in the Chinese state media:

"Please remember June the Third, 1989. The most tragic event happened in the Chinese Capital, Beijing. Thousands of people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by fully-armed soldiers when they forced their way into city. Among the killed are our colleagues at Radio Beijing. The soldiers were riding on armored vehicles and used machine guns against thousands of local residents and students who tried to block their way. When the army conveys made the breakthrough, soldiers continued to spray their bullets indiscriminately at crowds in the street. Eyewitnesses saysome armored vehicles even crushed foot soldiers who hesitated in front ofthe resisting civilians. [The] Radio Beijing English Department deeply mourns those who died in the tragic incident and appeals to all its listeners to join our protest for the gross violation of human rights and the most barbarous suppression of the people.”

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China seems more open to debate nowadays, so I call you to go here, to China Radio International's website and ask why it doesn't discuss the events of 3 June 1989. Do so politely, there is a form in the bottom right hand corner. Sadly I expect it will go into this sort of denial, but go on - someone will be reading it.

CPAG - how chardonnay socialists fight poverty

It should be no surprise that I find the so called "Child Poverty Action Group" disgusting. The one thing it doesn't do is take action against child poverty, it doesn't spend a dollar on helping kids in poor families. No. It lobbies the state to take more money off of others by force.

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You see it doesn't actually want to alleviate child poverty directly. It says "The core objectives of the Child Poverty Action Group are: To promote better policies for children and young people; To promote awareness of the causes and consequences of child poverty"

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This is how it achieves its goals "CPAG publishes reports, makes submissions and conducts small-scale research projects to achieve its goals." Yep, don't look for breakfast kids, don't hope that CPAG might get you a new mattress, CPAG is "publishing a report" instead.

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Pricks. Not getting their clean little academic hands dirty actually helping people, they lobby for socialists answers - high minimum wages, compulsory taxpayer funded health and education and higher welfare benefits. You see they don't really care that people who are poor breeding isn't a good idea, they want you to pay for that. They don't promote birth control, they promote more welfare, other families and those wise enough to not breed paying for those who do. They milk stories of poverty, feeding off it for their agenda and doing absolutely fuck all themselves. Of those listed on the website, most will certainly be earning above average wages.

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According to the NZ Herald the court case they are taking claiming Labour's middle class welfare Working for Families is "discriminatory" because it doesn't spend even more compulsorily taken money to give welfare beneficiaries something for nothing. Think how much the court case is costing CPAG, and the state - think how that could have been spent on poverty, and you'll see how much CPAG really gives a damn. It's mainly costing you according to the NZ Herald:

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"Both sides of the legal argument are being financed by taxpayers - the action group's case through the Office of Human Rights Proceedings and the Government's defence through the Crown Law Office."

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Nice, so you - the taxpayers (oh it's the cost of civilisation) are forced to pay for a pack of socialists lobbying to make you pay more welfare benefits, and you're also forced to pay to defend against it. Too hard for CPAG to pay for advertising to run a charity to actually help the poor of course, they couldn't screw people who actually plan their lives, look after their own kids.

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It is one thing to give a damn about poverty and do something about it actively, like the Salvation Army actually does (regardless of any judgment of its religious agenda), but another to claim you are undertaking "action on poverty" and doing nothing but lobbying to make others pay money to help people through the state.

and that's not even dealing with the issue of welfarism as raised by No Minister. Theodore Dalrymple in his excellent book "Life at the Bottom" describes graphically the world view and culture of the "underclass" that traps so many in poverty, violence and an existence of spiritual depravation. By spirit I don't mean religion, but sense of life - sense of being and esteem. His book makes for sobering reading as someone who HAS been directly on the frontline of poverty. Comparing England's welfare state to Africa "nothing I saw... ever had the same devastating effect on the human personality as the undiscriminating welfare state. I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live that I see daily in England".

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CPAG offers nothing to combat that, but to feed it - make it worse, to perpetuate the culture of "not my fault, not my responsibility" and "it's my right" to something by making others pay for it. It is morally bankrupt in deed and philosophy.

Just one more chance

to keep Jeanette Fitzsimons out of Cabinet and away from implementing eco-faith based initiatives. She's long been the nice warm fuzzy face of the party, and although she means well, it is an enormous relief she hasn't had the reigns of power. I wont miss her for one moment.

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Given the Green Party belief that leadership should be shared by sex, it means fascist Sue Kedgley, racist Metiria Turei or serious fruitloop Catherine Delahunty (if the Green vote holds ups in the polls) will be the replacement. None will be as warm and fuzzy as Fitzsimons who was polite enough to keep quiet in debates (better to be thought of as foolish than prove it).

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However Jeanette isn't that warm and fuzzy, she has spread fear, irrationality and ignorance as part of her career. You only need look back at the history of her press releases,which goes back ten years. Furthermore she manufactures her own version of what others say or advocate. The mainstream media have let her get away with it for far too long.

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She has long opposed world trade, not getting her non-business like brain around the concept of comparative advantage. After all, she'd argue why ship aluminium from New Zealand to the USA to make into planes flown in New Zealand. She worships at the altar of rail, pouring other people's money down this obsession. Selectively quoting a report to say rail looks better than road, yet ignoring the parts of the report that say the marginal environmental costs of road and rail freight are similar. However, it is too easy for me to rip to shreds this complete nonsense, better to focus on the rest of the evidence.

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She's been substantially responsible for spreading the unscientific scaremongering about genetic engineering, calling it "anti-environment and anti-health", with no objective evidence to prove it. In fact much of the 2002 election campaign was based on fear spread by her and her colleagues that GE hadn't been proved safe, much like electricity, flying, fire and the wheel (all of which have killed thousands of course). In 1999 she proclaimed it was the last christmas to enjoy "potatoes you can trust", what nonsense. She said free trade with the USA would allow irradiated food into the country, because anything with the word "radiation" is bad. In fact I lost count of the bizarre GE press releases by her.

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She spreads the anti-nuclear scaremongering as well, opposing a shipment of nuclear fuel to Japan, saying it could be used for making bombs, which a power company is unlikely to be interested in. Yet she has not yet ever protested outside the Iranian embassy in Wellington against its failure to be fully transparent with the IAEA. Nuclear bad, though she hasn't told the Japanese or the French how their economies and environments will be destroyed by nuclear power, maybe because they haven't been.

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She treats the country as if land is owned by everyone, not property owners - she has little concept of property rights at all.

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She has supported wholeheartedly the confiscation of Telecom's property rights on grounds of "promoting competition", but completely opposed splitting the then dominant government electricity company ECNZ, because apparently it's ok for the government to control three-quarters of the country's electricity market.

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She claimed the Wellington Inner City Bypass would see heritage buildings destroyed (it didn't) and people would be forced from their homes (no private property was destroyed), and that a community was "fighting for its survival". Of course the community still exists and congestion has been eased.

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She makes the bizarre assertion that US foreign policy is a "programme of bombing the poor of the developing world in order to feed its oil habit". As if the US seeks to target poor civilians, and has attacked more than one major oil producer. Slanderous nonsense. She says "War is a violation of the UN Charter, unless a country is a proven aggressor" apparently Iran, Kuwait and their own Kurds and marsh Arabs didn't count for Jeanette.

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She digs the filthy dregs of lies further by saying Don Brash's call for the state to be racially neutral is some sort of sexist racist plot "Like the Victorian imperialists he’s emulating, Dr Brash’s vanilla vision is of a patriarchal, middle-class society where all women bake scones, all men are bankers – and the only brown faces are products of the tanning clinic". So vile. There being nothing about Brash which is sexist, there being nothing about decrying people of different careers and nothing about removing other races from society. She further said "National would deny what will soon be a quarter of our children the chance to grow up understanding and celebrating their own heritage". When did Don Brash or National say it would ban Maori culture, or engage in neo-Nazi policies? Doesn't matter, smear smear smear. She then said "he essentially wants Maori to be brown Pakeha", more utter lies. This illiberal identity politics based liar.

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She said "Ms Fitzsimons said Te Puni Kokiri, Te Mangai Paho and other Maori agencies set for the chopping block under National had done wonderful work in emboldening and supporting Maori New Zealanders" Yes, though mainly those working for them, Jeanette loves bureaucracies and spending taxpayers' money, because you see, that is about "support".

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She might get credit for sort of living the Green lifestyle to some extent, with an eco-friendly house, and she is into biking and public transport (although I don't think she always gets the train to and from Wellington). She has supported legalising possession of cannabis by adults for personal use, but has shown no interest in people being accountable for their health costs. However, overwhelmingly her political career has been one of simpering scaremongering, predominantly about GE, more recently spreading utter lies about what was once National party policy on having colourblind government, and perpetuating the nuclear"bad" nonsense, along with cheerleading on unilateral action on "climate change", with a dash of exagerrated anti-Americanism thrown in.

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If she was just silly, like she is on most issues, she could be laughed away. However she's not, she's a deliberate distorter and scaremongerer. She has led a fight against science and reason that, to its credit, Labour has partially resisted. It is like a dangerous dogmatic religion against genetic engineering, and that is her legacy. Meanwhile, her campaign against Don Brash, which was a vile distortion of what he DID say and what WAS his policy was the sort of filthy fictional politicking that she accused the Nats and Brethrens of applying to the Greens.

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Whichever party is dominant after the next election, let's hope the Greens are not part of that government. Labour almost certainly would need the Greens, National shouldn't - it should ignore the Greens, and it is about time the media turned its eyes on Jeanette Fitzsimons and what she really is about.

So what's Queen's Birthday about then?

No we all know it's not her real birthday, that's 21 April. It's meant to be the date of her coronation (and it is this year, 2 June).

Yet it isn't a public holiday in the UK. Ah the colonies.