Why the Family Party is just so wrong

From a press release:

"Family Party Candidate for Northland, Melanie Taylor, is concerned over The Edge FM competition being held nationwide at 4.30pm today.

The station is encouraging girls to publicly kiss for about 20 seconds, with one girl/girl couple winning a trip to Melbourne to see Katy Perry, singer of the hit song "I kissed a girl and I liked it."

This follows this report in the Press about the contest.

Shouldn't the Family Party care about actions where people really get hurt?

No it shows itself to be oppressed, shame filled and judgmental.

Some simple points:

1. It is not a crime for two girls to kiss in New Zealand, never had been. It is not sex. It is not dirty, it is an expression of affection and love.

2. Most men (especially when you exclude gay men) and quite a few women like it. If you don't, then look away.

3. Why do you think it is acceptable for young children to be smacked in public but not for young women to kiss in public?

4. Many families believe that kissing is acceptable and positive, just because you teach that it is shameful and that children should grow up feeling shame about their bodies, doesn't mean the rest of us should buy into this abusive philosophy.

Leave peaceful people alone, let women snog in public and get concerned about something that hurts people you busybody ayatallohs!

Nats do little to ease ETS burden

So the Nats, according to the NZ Herald, will introduce a "forestry offset scheme to reduce the costs of changing land use from forestry to other purposes". So this effective attack on private property rights is barely changed at all.

The Nats will "put the fishing industry on the same level as other trade-exposed industries, and "grandparent" it for 90 per cent of 2005 emissions" except it wont be on the same level as the competitors in other countries.

The Nats will "allow small and medium-sized businesses to get involved in the scheme. Lower, or potentially remove, the 50,000 tonne threshold an emitter must meet in order to be eligible" which does beg the question as to the extent that such businesses could benefit from this, at all.

The Nats will "write a 50 per cent reduction of 1990 emissions by 2050 into the legislation as an objective". To what end? How will this benefit anyone in New Zealand?

Nick Smith has long been one of the most statist, anti-freedom National MPs. He is one of the key reasons the Nats wont seriously confront the RMA. It's about time he joined the Green Party and stopped infecting the Nats with his worship of the climate change religion. The bottom line is NZ does not need to damage its economy over this.

Daniel Radcliffe and the older woman

Well really, it's good publicity and good for him, it is reported in Details magazine. He chose someone older (saying it might freak some people out, so surely at least mid 20s) to lose his virginity to, not one of the UK's hundreds of thousands of easy young strumpets.

EFA has chilling effect on election campaign

According to the NZ Herald, Dr. Helena Catt, head of the Electoral Commission, has said in a speech that the Electoral Finance Act "has had a chilling effect on the extent and type of participation in political and campaign activity." This is due to the uncertainty surrounding the regime, and the difficulty in interpreting the legislation.

None of that is a surprise.

As we approach the final two months before the general election it should send chills down the spines of all New Zealanders, except those who want Labour to win no matter what. It should also tell National that it should repeal the Act in full. It is time for elections to be events of volunteers choosing to fund political parties and campaigns as they see fit, and the unabashed envy of the left (and its derogatory attitude that its supporters can have their votes bought by advertising, when it buys their votes with future taxes) should be consigned to history.

At the end of the election, it is up to an individual to choose to vote - and nobody cares less that so much of the mainstream media is biased towards statism.

Nats want government spending to increase

The story in the Press is that the Nats slam the 8% p.a. spending increases by government under Labour. This, of course, begs the question as to how much government spending can be cut without commensurate reductions in the services taxpayers consume.

Imagine if National had stayed in power in 1999 and remained in 2002 and 2005, continuing the same policies it had then. Government spending would be substantially lower than today. However National clearly believes it got it wrong in 1999, and Bill English now says:

"It will be a big challenge if we are the government to slow the rate of growth. You can't actually pull back the absolute amount of government spending"

Why Bill? Ruth Richardson did. Is everything the state does right? If so, why are you not a member of the Labour Party, since you're willing to accept its programme?

Bill English is saying is there would be "restraint" but no cap on government expenditure.

That's right. No cap. National is willing for spending to grow faster than inflation, for the state to grow except, I may surmise, it might be a 7% increase not 8%.

Great win that would be right?

National is truly being Labour lite. A watered down vision of a growing state, a state which grows faster than GDP, faster than inflation. Why would anyone on the side of smaller government be supporting this?