London Met Police investigated again for brutality

The BBC reports two incidents recorded on video of the London Metropolitan Police lashing out at G20 protestors. In one incident, a woman slapped in the face, then whacked by a baton on her legs. Another shows a policeman using the edge of his shield to hit protestors.

Now I'm no supporter of the protestors at all, I despise their violence and vandalism. However, it is core to the state that the Police behave with restraint. It plays into the hands of protestors to do otherwise, and is frankly criminal.

The job is difficult, intensely so. They have to put up with abuse, and have to protect people and their property, as well as allowing angry people to protest verbally. However, they also have to ensure they do not initiate force - they exist to use force to protect themselves and others, and their property. Having this privileged use of force, police must always be under scrutiny, and those who go beyond the reasonable use of force in protecting the rights of others, should be held accountable and removed.

Be glad NZ avoided the Human Rights Council

Why? Because New Zealand would never have the gravitas or the courage to confront the barely mitigated evil contained within it.

Peter Singer in The Guardian writes about how the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that considers defamation of religion a human rights violation. This resolution was sponsored by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia, governments that completely reject the concept of individual rights, promoted this vile non-binding resolution.

UN Watch describes it as "an Orwellian text that distorts the meaning of human rights, free speech, and religious freedom, and marks a giant step backwards for liberty and democracy worldwide."

Quite.

Germany bravely spoke against it saying it "rejected the concept of "defamation of religion" as not valid in a human rights context, because human rights belonged to individuals, not to institutions or religions."

Which is of course the key point.

Now assuming the US sits on the Human Rights Council, it should use that role to stamp on the morally wanting states who want to treat rights as subservient to the state, or religion. However, don't blame me if I think that a US Administration with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is hardly going to be a strong fervent supporter of individual rights.

Individuals have a freedom of religion, and a freedom to believe in no religion, and no state should interfere with that free choice. Sadly, most of the Muslim world retains laws on apostasy (Muslims changing religion or becoming atheists).

However, it is the UN that puts all governments on a level playing field - treating New Zealand, Iran, the United States, North Korea, Germany and Turkmenistan as each having equally valid points of view.

New Zealand is best standing to one side from the debates between those who have some respect for individual rights, and the murdering, torturing, thieving bullies that sadly govern the majority of the world's population.

Free pools aren't free

John Walker is worried the megacity will see the end of Manukau's own little pork project, which is to take money from ratepayers to provide free access to baths pools in Manukau.

The NZ Herald reports "Since 1974, Manukau City Council has provided free public access to all pools, putting up to $7 million of ratepayers' money towards running the facilities each year."

It isn't providing anything - it is taking money from those who don't swim to subsidise those who do. Children wont lose access if their parents bother paying for it, instead of expecting everyone else to provide something to nothing.

The usual excuse is given that if you don't give kids something to do, they'll be criminals - which isn't a reason to blackmail ratepayers. "it's giving them something to do - take it away and they're on the streets, bored and [with] nothing to do - leading to trouble." says Walker.

I'm sorry, when I was bored as a kid, i didn't go round robbing people, or beating people up or vandalising buildings. Providing free pools because kids are feral is a copout out of ensuring that they have some respect for others, and get over "being bored". If the poor bubbas of Manukau can't cope with being bored now, then wait till have to work (or have to do stuff while on welfare).

Of course John Walker and other supporters could raise funds themselves to help pay for children from low income families to have access to the pools. However, that would require convincing people to pay for others, and why should you do that when you can force them to pay for what you want?

USA and North Korea celebrate 15 April

For Americans some are protesting it as Boston Tea Party day, a day to protest taxes, as it is the day for the final lodging of tax returns for the Federal government. A tax code that is mind numbingly complex, give the likes of lawyers and H & R Block completely unproductive jobs helping people avoid the heavy hand of the US Federal Government pursuing its number one goal - taking money off of US citizens to pay for its activities. NOTHING the US Federal Government does is pursued with such relentless threats and assuming guilt (with you having to prove innocence) like it pursues tax.

CNN reported "CNBC personality Rick Santelli went off on Obama's policies live on air. "The government is promoting bad behavior," he said, his voice loud. He asked why Obama would make Americans who pay their bills subsidize the mortgages of "losers." Santelli said he wanted a tea party to happen in Chicago, to stand up and angrily demand "No more.""

The Ayn Rand Institute explains more clearly what the problem is:

"Today, thousands of Americans are joining modern day tea parties, named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. They are protesting a government that, in the wake of today's financial crisis, is rapidly strangling their freedom, with endless bailouts, mounting regulations, reckless spending, and the promise of a crippling tax burden. Correctly sensing that the American system is being discarded, they seek to battle this trend by taking to the streets to register their outrage.

But today's statist onslaught is the result of a deeply entrenched set of ideas about the proper purpose of government. Virtually everyone today believes that unrestricted capitalism is immoral and dangerous, and that the government's role is to actively intervene in the economy in order to achieve the "public good." So long as these ideas remain unchallenged, and no positive alternative is offered, no protest will be able to change the country's course."

That is why a moral defence of capitalism is essential.

Don't expect the man who has engaged in the biggest exercise of fiscal child abuse in world history to do much substantively about it, he is part of the problem. President Obama is promising a simpler tax code according to the Wall Street Journal:

"It will take time to undo the damage of years of carve-outs and loopholes," Obama said. "But I want every American to know that we will rewrite the tax code so that it puts your interests over any special interest."

However, his record in combatting the special interests of his party is so far nil.

SO what about North Korea? Well 15 April is the birthday of President Kim Il Sung. Yes he has been dead since 1994, making North Korea the world's first necrocracy according to Christopher Hitchens. It's a public holiday in North Korea.

Just thought it was a curious parallel.

What Maori can do about representation

Read Blair Mulholland's latest post. It's pretty much on the ball.

Unlike the racist victim promoters in the Green Party and the Maori Party he says:

"No need to worry about rednecks like Harawira and Hawke, you have a right to vote and stand and be elected for the new Council just like everybody else. All you need to do is put it into action and stand!

Good luck in 2010. I hope to see some of you on the hustings, and some of you at the table when it is all over."

A hikoi or protest will deliver nothing in comparison.