Bush tells China before he goes there

Yes President Bush laid it into China, appropriately and respectfully, before his visit for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. However, the media has been largely quiet about it - no doubt because they almost all hate him and couldn't possibly cheer him for saying something that, if the UN Secretary General or Helen Clark had said it, they'd all cheer.

Bush said "we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs"

Indeed. and...

"The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings"

Who could disagree at all? Helen Clark wont say it though, she doesn't want to upset China.

CNN reports China's dictatorship predictably saying "We firmly oppose any statements or deeds which use human rights, religion and other issues to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries"

Yes, it is of course like saying that you can't complain to your neighbour if he is beating up his wife and kids, as it is an "internal affair". It is not an internal affair when people are being murdered for their opinions.

So Bush has done well, he has noted China's progress and welcomes close relations with China - that's more than the loud protestors on the left who were amazingly quiet when China went through its most murderous and brutal period of recent history, under Mao in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The Olympics hopefully will be a glorious event, for the athletes. Some may bravely make a statement of protest against the authoritarian nationalist spectacle the Chinese Communist Party is trying to portray to the world, but regardless it will be a noteworthy event. China has come a long way, but it doesn't mean we should ignore what more it needs to do to become a civilised member of the world community.

If it's good enough for Fiji

Both Idiot Savant and David Farrar have blogged about the proposed charter for Fiji, which essentially forms the basis for a new constitution. One of the key elements is replacing racially divided seats with a one person, one vote system.

So you might ask why Idiot Savant defends the Maori seats, and David Farrar will be voting for a party that will also retain them? After all, they both consider this to be a step forward for Fiji.

Why is Fiji special?

Cindy Kiro's got her hand in your wallet

Yes, further proving the uselessness of the Commissioner for Children role, Dr Cindy Kiro having advocated Stasi like monitoring of all of New Zealand's children, because a small number of parents abuse them, she is now showing her true Marxist colours in calling for the state to take more of your money to give to parents who shouldn't be having children in the first place.

The NZ Herald reports her poverty plan and it is stark in its adoption of the tired old solutions of "gimme more money", and nothing imaginative about incentivising better behaviour among delinquent parents. What does she want?

- To make you pay for other people's children to have MORE pre-school and after-school care. Nice, subsidise more breeding. After all, you MIGHT have thought about the cost of that before you had a child?

- She wants solo parents to be able to earn more before losing the benefit, which of itself may not be a bad idea, but then having an income tax free threshold would help this too (but lower taxes don't figure in the big Nanny State world of Cindy Kiro)

- To make you pay for HIGHER benefits, HIGHER accommodation subsidies, because again you're responsible for other people breeding.

- To abolish penalties for not naming childrens' dad/s, because YOU can pay for that deadbeat's kids, don't let the state go to the effort of making him responsible. What were you thinking you lazy, rich, heartless pig?

Cindy Kiro has nationalised all of the children in New Zealand in her mind, so it's only fair to her to make everyone pay for everyone else's children. Never mind thousands of families see a good third or so of their income go in taxes to pay for deadbeats who breed with little concern about where the next dollar is coming from or the condition the kids will grow up in. It's HER responsibility, as the big sister of the nation to embrace these children by leaving them with their irresponsible parents and get more money pilfered from single people and families that look after themselves.

It's socialism and it is the problem, not the solution.

On top of that how utterly despicable is it for her to use the election to push an avowedly political platform, a leftwing platform that you can be sure the Greens will largely embrace, as will the Maori Party, Labour will selectively embrace and endorse but say some is too expensive, and it puts the Nats and ACT on the back foot to argue against a public servant.

If the Nats can't put their foot down and abolish this clearly quasi-political role, then they aren't worth spitting on. However John Key has said nothing about this control freak in the past, so...

The dire social underclass

I forget to read Dr Michael Bassett's incisive columns as often as I should. Around a month ago he wrote about the underclass in New Zealand and what sustains it.

He tells some stark truths that are far too uncomfortable for policy makers:

"The criminals share several things in common. They are almost all from families where there is one parent on welfare, too many kids from several fathers in the household, inadequate supervision, easy prey from relatives or de factos, and access to alcohol and drugs. Far too many are Maori. The kids exist because they carry an entitlement to a benefit stamped on their brows, and the parent doesn’t care about their welfare for which the taxpayers give them money."

and

"Domestic violence rises on the days of the week when there is enough money to purchase drugs and alcohol, while for the rest of the week hard luck stories emerge about people resorting to food parcels and there being no lunches at school. The Child Poverty Action Group gives us a sermon about poverty and argues for more money for the parents, which sensible people have long-since worked out would go on more alcohol and drugs."

Contrast him to Dr Cindy Kiro who DOES play the "give them more of other people's money" card. The whole article is worth a read. He leaves one of his most damning lines for the media:

"Before going home to their trendy pads in Ponsonby and Herne Bay, the media treat this social crisis like soft porn – titillating details of one tragedy after another. There’s no proper analysis of the cause of the problems. No brains engaged."

How can anyone on the left seriously believe that throwing money at the problem is the solution? How can they ignore the absolute poverty of responsibility, role models, attention, love and aspiration endemic in far too many parts of the country? They have nothing to do with money - as much of the world is poor, but has stable family units, responsible and dedicated parents and esteem to grow onwards and upwards - this was seen in the Great Depression.

It is about ethics, culture and philosophy - and the philosophy of "it's everyone else's fault", "capitalism makes everything unfair so I'm angry and torture my kids", "everyone else owes me a fair life", is bankrupt.

It's about time those who peddle this are confronted, exposed and policy change radically - they've had their chance, and it has failed, miserably.

The Greens rate the Nats!

Yes well after my scoring of the Nat’s 10 point blueprint, the Greens have done the same and, curiously enough, have taken the opposite tack from me on most issues. The Greens don’t take John Key on his very moderate words, they exaggerate them so that the Nats appear to be better than I think they are. So, just for fun, I thought I’d review the review of the Green Party. Why? Because the review says more about the Greens than they may think.

1. An ongoing programme of tax cuts. I thought that this was positive but vague, but no – the Greens have a different way of looking at it. They see taxes as “being whether the government is spending enough to achieve its democratic mandate and the tax is not too onerous for the people paying it”. Which on the face of it seems ok, doesn’t it? Well, it could be “enough” or “too much”, but the Greens rarely seem concerned about too much spending, unless it is roads. The issue of tax is more curious. What does “too onerous” mean? Clearly “onerous” is ok, and more importantly the idea that the people consuming government provided services pay for it is completely off the radar. It’s pure socialism – government spends money and then it squeezes it from those it can get to pay, whether or not it is “onerous”, whether or not you actually use the services provided by the state.

2. Bring discipline to Government spending, and 3. Rein in excessive growth in the public service

Now why would you ever disagree with the government spending money prudently and why would you not want a value statement like “excessive growth”? Quite simple, you want more government, more state. The Greens are priceless on this though:

Surely these two are very hard to reconcile with a promise not to cut government spending. Bureaucrats are not evil, faceless, money suckers. On the whole they are put there because they achieve good things efficiently.

In the world of the socialist, cutting government spending is “wrong”. However saying bureaucrats are not evil, faceless, money suckers is missing the point. Evil is a strong word, but I believe some are – some like Cindy Kiro who earns a significant salary and is seeking to nationalise children with some Orwellian monitoring system. Money suckers is very true, because after all what are many bureaucrats producing?

This “achieve good things efficiently” cuts to the heart of the difference between socialists and liberals. Why are they good? How is it efficient? If it were good why must people be forced to pay for it? If it is efficient, why has commercialisation and privatisation resulted in enormous cost savings to carry out the same tasks in many sectors? Since when has big government been more efficient than small government, except when it restricts freedom?

4. Launch an attack on gangs and the P trade they support. Now I appreciate the concern of the Greens there that the “war on drugs” is unlikely to be successful, but there needs to be an appreciation that there are genuine concerns about drugs and criminal gangs. Gangs are not just another form of whanau as some make themselves out to be, but similarly the Nats only have tired old failed solutions.

5. Introduce a bill to reform the Resource Management Act The Greens will oppose this naturally, since this is a key plank in their policy to stop development as much as is possible, regardless of private property rights. The Greens will scaremonger about this, even though it will see little useful happen.

6. Invite the private sector back to the table. A welcome move of course, but the Greens want to frighten you by asking whether this is about health, education or conservation. Who cares? Why is the private sector “bad” and the beloved state sector “good”? Again it is socialist ideology, big government is about doing “good things efficiently”, no doubt the private sector is “bad things done inefficiently”??

7. Raise education standards. I thought this was bland and meaningless from the Nats, but the Greens have concocted a bizarre plot “John Key means that he will test primary school kids more often so that the failures can be re-identified and then, umm… well moved aside I guess” Yes, there is some grand neo-liberal plot to kick the less bright out of school, it is against the grand socialist plot to reward the less bright with pass marks, guaranteed minimum incomes, guaranteed university places and jobs to do “good things efficiently”.

8. Grow the amount of superannuation paid to senior citizens each week. Well the Greens love this, more state money being spent on people. Never mind that it discourages people for saving for themselves, hell tax them more and we can give more to, their parents and grandparents! No, the Greens ask for MORE money to be found from the money tree to pay to “struggling beneficiaries”.

Socialism = where you get the money you need without having to do anything for it, because we take it off those who did.

9. Repeal the Electoral Finance Act. Bleh, Greens want their “citizen’s assembly” a nice proxy for an event which busy people who own or run businesses wont have the time to participate in because they are earning money to pay the onerous taxes the Greens approve of, but the beneficiaries and others who shouldn’t be expected to work hard for a living can do so, and skew the result. Nice.

10. Hold a binding referendum on MMP. Yes the Greens are bound to oppose this, hardly a surprise for any small party.

So there you have it – the Greens want more government spending, think taxation should be onerous (not “too” onerous though), think that improving education standards is a dastardly plot and that bureaucrats do “good things efficiently”. It would be fair to say Labour is a rather watered down version of that.

Now if only we could have an election based on two opposing views of the role of the state.