Freedom of speech may have caused the Holocaust

Who said that?

A member of the House of Lords. A member of the British Labour Party.

Baroness Uddin said this on BBC Radio 4, when interviewed on the 5pm news on 16 October 2009. You can hear her say this at 38 minutes into the one hour programme, (perhaps only if you are located in the UK), until Friday 23 October (when week old programmes get removed).

What did she say?

"I think when we say that freedom of speech is important and I will support to the death the freedom to speak but we have to remember that maybe what gave rise to the mass genocide of the Jews in Germany was freedom to speak”

Baroness Uddin was lauded for being the first Muslim woman member of the House of Lords. She has already faced scandals of claiming for a second home in Kent, that she doesn't live in, while she lives in London, in a "housing association" home - in other words, public housing which exists for the poor, with rents a fraction of the private sector market rates. Prima facie there is evidence of her pilfering the public purse for her own benefit.

She is a new Labour pinup, her list of achievements are:
- Diploma of Social Work;
- Labour councillor in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;
- failed to gain candidate selection to stand for Parliament for the 1997 election.

So New Labour put her in Parliament anyway, in the House of Lords.

A woman who thinks freedom of speech is equated with Nazism.

Why is she not being pilloried by the British media, unless this wasn't picked up? (Notice the BBC didn't challenge her on this outrageous claim).

I'm gobsmacked.

(Hat Tip: Old Holborn who is righteously furious about this and far from speechless)

Manipulation of language

This post is NOT about the merits of deregulating and privatising ACC - you can take it for granted, I'd fully support full competition for all ACC coverage and privatising ACC itself. It is a debate about language used in politics, to manipulate public opinion. It is not a manipulation confined to those I am accusing in this post either.

In the debate about ACC, those on the left consistently refer to the policy of opening ACC up to competition as "privatisation".

Yet these are two very different things. A government owned entity can remain state owned and face private sector competition without it being privatised.

How? Let's take some of the major deregulations in recent years.

- Until 1982, trucks were banned from hauling freight further than 150km (with some exceptions), with rail having a monopoly. Was opening up long haul freight to competition the privatisation of New Zealand Railways?

- Until 1983, Air New Zealand had a statutory monopoly on domestic airline routes, in that competitors were only allowed by and large if Air New Zealand granted permission. Was the removal of this monopoly the privatisation of Air New Zealand?

- Until 1989, TVNZ had a monopoly on television broadcasting, and in 1991 the television market was fully opened to anyone who wished to purchase frequencies, satellite capacity or lay cable. Was this the privatisation of TVNZ?

- Until 1998, it was illegal for anyone other than NZ Post to deliver mail for less than 80c. Was opening up the postal market the privatisation of New Zealand Post?

So why talk about opening up the ACC market to competition as privatisation?

It's simple - it is the manipulation of language for political effect.

You see most people would not disagree with allowing competition. Prohibiting competition seems to be a bad thing, as it means a monopoly can take advantage of you, can underperform, and you have no choice. It doesn't even have to expect the threat of potential competition.

The left cannot attack ACC reform based on the word "competition", because most people will go "So what? I like competition, I don't like monopolies."

Privatisation is a bogey word. It brings up images of an "asset" being sold for less than it "might be worth", of control transferring to those horned devils called "foreigners" (spit) and it not "being our's anymore", even though people complained about it when it was.

So that is why they lie, explicitly, about the proposal. To have people think it is about selling ACC - which, sadly, would not happen in this term of the government, rather than opening it up to competition, which might.

So it should be challenged, repeatedly. NZ Post has NOT been privatised, neither has TVNZ, just because both are fully exposed to competition. Why should ACC be described as privatised if it is also subject to competition?

UPDATE: Both Frog Blog and the Standard repeat the lie, blatantly.

UPDATE 2: The Standard doesn't like being challenged. Take this nasty little remark about "learning my lesson".

Tennessee ouch

(WARNING - CONTENT BELOW AND THE LINK MAY SERIOUSLY OFFEND)

This article is already popular.

However it does beg some curious questions...

In Tennessee, bestiality was apparently legal until recently, the crime committed being trespass (quite right to prosecute for that), but this just makes me go "ow":

Tait was also identified in court papers four years ago as being part of a horse sex 'party' in Washington state that led to the death of a man from internal injuries

I don't think the horse was quite the victim, given this statement "there wasn't enough evidence to suggest animals had been injured".

BNP kiwis so what about communists?

The NZ Herald has used the leaked list of BNP members to call on New Zealanders belonging to the party to "explain themselves".

The BNP is odious, but quite why people should be contacted and harangued by a journalist is questionable. Any cursory look at white supremacist forums will find New Zealanders posting on them, and the same with communist forums, or indeed most political persuasions.

However, would the New Zealand Herald do the same if it found New Zealand members of the far-left RESPECT Coalition, led by the odious George Galloway (who misses the Soviet Union and has publicly approved of both Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad)?

Would it seek to find out if there are New Zealand members of the pro North Korean Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist?)

How about New Zealand's own Communist Workers' Party?

If not, why not? Isn't it the same issue Not PC pointed out here?

Do the Greens care what the public want?

No. The Greens want to use force.

Russel Norman is complaining that Foodstuffs will restore free plastic bags in the South Island because of "customer feedback".

Russel. Are you saying if people want a plastic bag, and a private company is prepared to pay to supply them, they shouldn't get it?

The only part of the issue regarding plastic bags is rubbish disposal. Privatise that, ensure people pay for rubbish collection and then that cost is internalised. Let's face it, New Zealand does not lack landfill space, but if recycling can be profitable then so be it.

However, the Greens want less plastic bags, and they'll make you pay the government (not the provider) for them, and the money will be used to....

Because, you see, you shouldn't want plastic bags - you're a bad person for wanting them - so you should be punished for doing so.

By contrast, in the UK, some supermarkets charges for them, some don't. Many people bring their own bags because they support less use of plastic bags.

How was this achieved?

Persuasion.

It would be nice if Russel Norman and the Green Party believed a little more in convincing people of the merits of their arguments, and accepting, that when some people disagree, it doesn't give a good reason to use force.