McCarten a ranting fool

For some time Matt McCarten has had a profile in New Zealand politics, because he has been able to express himself rather well.   For he has not been much of a success story, having been President of the New Labour Party then the now virtually defunct Alliance Party.   Bear in mind the Alliance peaked in vote in 1993, when first past the post made it a safe protest vote at 18%, 1996 saw it drop to just over 10% and when it was almost certain to get into power in 1999 it dropped to just under 8%.   After losing its personality cult leader of Jim Anderton, McCarten's Alliance fell out of Parliament in 2002.  Quite why he still has a column in the NZ Herald remains a mystery, and the Herald should think very carefully about whether he still deserves it after his latest rant.  For rant is all it can be described as, being as devoid of fact and pithy analysis as many talkback callers.

We start with a headline that tells us that McCarten basically doesn't believe in liberal democracy.  Quite something for a man who has had such high level involvement in a party that sought power and was part of a coalition government for one term.  The "idiots rule" at poll booths.  Unlike Matt, who knows better.   Not that many of us who comment in politics don't sometimes wonder why people vote as they do, but for him to suggest that voters are stupid implies he is better than they are, and should make their decisions for them.   I guess given his political heritage that may not be all that surprising.

Of course he doesn't mean New Zealand voters (yet) but rather Americans.  Nothing like bashing a whole nationality of people, particularly Americans.  I mean had he said Indians, or Chinese, or Kenyans or Samoans or... but he wouldn't would he?  It's ok to bash people according to their nationality because in Matt's world white Americans have power, and can be insulted and denigrated.   Not that he would tolerate anyone saying people of his nationality are stupid with "naivete and proud ignorance" (sic).

Then he has his own vision of the Bush years "Two years ago the Republicans, led by that boofhead, George Bush the younger, idiotically ran their own form of Rogernomics: giving the rich huge tax refunds; slashing public services".  Matt did you actually follow US public policy over that period or just fit it into your binary left-right framework that fits New Zealand rather well, but doesn't fit the US?  Where do punitive tariffs on steel imports fit into Rogernomics, where does bailing out banks, where does expanding state education ("No Child Left Behind" was a bipartisan initiative with that known "Republican" Ted Kennedy), where does increasing state spending and deficits fit into Rogernomics Matt?  Yes there was a tax cut, which applied from middle to upper incomes, but slashing public services?  No. Any privatisations? No, even though USPS, Amtrak and the FAA are all easy targets.  

No, you see Matt is dumbing down US politics so you can understand it, except it's so dumb he's wrong.  It is why the Tea Party opposed so many Republican nominations for the mid term elections and why the Tea Party has specifically rejected the past politics of both main parties.   Such details confuse Matt, he obviously forgot Rob Muldoon was one of New Zealand's most socialist Prime Ministers, because he opposed him at the time.

Matt ignores that "going to war against two countries" was in part retaliation for 9/11.   Of course he would rather the US sit back, take 9/11, feel guilty and let the Taliban be emboldened and maintain their totalitarian rule in Afghanistan without interruption.   He would deny it, but that is precisely the implication of his statement.

He continues to be wilfully blind on Obama "."He used his majority in both houses of Congress to get an economic stimulus to save greedy capitalists from themselves and then introduced a health system to cover just about everyone who got sick".  Actually Matt, the Bush Administration was playing big spend ups and bailouts first, but you were ignoring things at the time.  The "health system" is compulsory health insurance, which you opposed when it was actually Roger Douglas's policy for New Zealand in a slightly different form.   Too complex I know, just blank it all out Matt.

"Obama also saved millions of skilled jobs by nationalising the car industry" Steady on Matt, keep a tissue handy.  Your economic illiteracy only gets you excited by seeing money taken off of millions of people somehow "saving jobs" by going to a few thousand.

"The liberals and progressives have been sidelined to a large degree. In New Zealand, the power of corporations and wealthy individuals in United States politics seems extraordinary" Yes you noticed how rich all those Tea Party supporters and American voters are.  Oh that's right, they didn't decide things really did they?  The US media was completely against Obama from the start, not that you'd notice this on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NPR, PBS, New York Times or the LA Times etc, but Matt doesn't bother consuming much foreign news, obviously.

"Can you imagine a corporation in this country being able to spend as much money as they liked to get a policy they want adopted, or unlimited funds to get a favourite candidate elected?"  You mean like the campaign for electoral reform?  Oh you mean spending their own money as much as they liked - their own money.   However, you think it isn't their money do you?  You think anyone with money must have taken it from someone somehow.   Bit of envy is it, or just disbelief as to how free people actually function on a grand scale?

"the calibre of the "teabag party" Republican candidates are just plain scary. Many of their serious contenders oppose abortion openly, even in cases of child rape or incest on the basis that it is "God's plan". One of them opposed masturbation. Others argued that if they didn't get elected their supporters would take up arms to overthrow the country ."

Many? Really Matt?  Or is that just your own spin again? Yes that's right.  One opposed masturbation once yes, but it wasn't her policy platform, and your party had Alamein Kopu - one of Parliament's greatest non-entities, and screaming Pam Corkery, an enormous intellect there.   Maybe had you quoted the Tea Party website which had only three policies you might have had some substance there: fiscal responsibility, smaller government and lower taxes.   Hard to paint that as hysterical madness isn't it?

"Attendees at their rallies carried assault weapons" How many Matt? Do a handful at hundreds of rallies count at significant?  Does this not happen with Democrats? 

"The leader of the Congress Republicans campaigned actively for a candidate who dressed in Nazi regalia,"  Yes as a joke Matt, and your Sandra Lee once compared what happened to Maori as a Holocaust.  Given Obama's past links to far-left radicals and a pastor who blamed the US for 9/11 and made numerous anti-semitic remarks, you might want to look in your own ideological backyard.  

Then, finally, Matt sees this as advice for Phil Goff!  "Working people need a party with specific visionary policies. Merely being a more pastel version of the other party won't get you elected next year, Phil."

Why not? It worked for John Key, he was Labour lite par excellence.  Your party had a vision, and it didn't get close to the 5% threshold once it lost its "great leader" Jim Anderton.  

The message Matt didn't get from this is that many Americans became scared at vast overspending by government of THEIR money (Matt doesn't understand that taxpayers think their money is theirs!) and borrowing ever more that will have to be paid off.  He didn't get that maybe a lot of Americans WANT more of their money back, and don't like ever growing government doing more for them.

You see Matt, while you and your ideological compadres were thinking the USSR was simply an alternative way of looking at things, and it was best to be neutral in the Cold War, Americans by and large did not.

It would help if you took down the hammer and sickle in your brain and opened your eyes.  You're more prejudiced than most Republicans, you're more stupid than many of them too because you can't even engage in basic research or read sufficiently widely to figure out what was going on in the US.

US voters rejected Obama because he was elected on a vapid bubble of hype, empty slogans of "change" and "can we fix it, yes we can".   There was nothing behind this but the hype of believing one man could make people's lives better.   That bubble has been burst, and Americans fear being pushed into second place by an Administration that keeps spending far more money than it gets in taxes.

Sadly, because you can't think beyond your ranting leftwing cage, you spout out empty nonsense which has at best a few grains of truth in it.

ACC - Another reason to hate Nick Smith's politics

The NZ Herald reports:

"he poured cold water on speculation that workplace accident insurance might be opened up to full competition from private insurers after an ACC "stocktake" completed in June by a group led by former Labour Party Finance Minister David Caygill. Its report has not been made public.

Dr Smith said opening the business to competition would be "a very major decision and, consistent with the John Key pragmatism and cautiousness, we are not in any hurry".

Could you be more of a spineless hypocrite if you tried?

You VOTED FOR opening the workplace accident insurance market up to competition when National was last in government.  You VOTED AGAINST returning it to a statutory monopoly, and now you are in charge of it you have the testicular fortitude of a mouse.

What has changed Nick? The rest of the developed world has open markets for accident insurance, for both workplace and motor vehicles.  New Zealand once led the world in reform, deregulation and opening state monopolies up to competition.   

You've shown you're little better than the Jim Andertons, Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Winston Peters, scared that without nanny state running everything, people will make the wrong decisions.

Just join Labour and be done with it, you'd be happier there.

Greens think smokers are just so stupid and pathetic

Nothing shows the Green Party up for the authoritarian control freaks they are than this press release with this statement:

We need to get smokes out of our homes and out of our shops,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said. 

So blatantly collectivist, so blatantly uninterested in personal responsibility, choice and property rights.  

Who is this "we" Metiria?  Why do I have to do anything as a non-smoker?  Why should I have anything to do with what other adults do in their homes and their shops?

What are "our homes" and "our shops"?  They are NOT your homes or shops.  YOUR homes and shops are the ones you own, not everyone elses.  Property rights still exist in New Zealand.  It is not some grand socialist uber-state where everyone is responsible for everyone else.  

"Too often the focus is on punishing smokers and not controlling the industry that profits from the drug"  Oh and the Greens want smokers to have the right to smoke on their own property or to allow smoking on their own property, including restaurants and bars?  No. The Greens like punishing smokers too.

She has taken upon herself the role of Big Mother, given that Cindy "Stalin" Kiro no longer has he position:

"Mrs Turei said her main focus was on caring for New Zealand’s babies and children.

“This means giving our wahine, our mothers, all the support they need to quit and to stay smoke free."

New Zealand's babies and children?  They don't belong to the state, or the nation or country or whatever collective entity you want to ascribe to them.  They belong to their parents and guardians.  NOT you.  They are not "our wahine, our mothers".   After all, over 90% don't even vote for you.  

Feel free to give them support Metiria.  Through your own efforts and money.   However, you should stop treating smokers as stupid, pathetic and incompetent children who need you to protect them from their own actions.  How patronising and disgusting it is to think of yourself as better placed to make their decisions for them.

The only people who can get tobacco out of their homes and shops are the people who own them.  Feel free to try to convince them, but get the hell out of the way if they tell you where to go.   Yet the problem with the Greens is that they don't believe in peace, they don't believe in non-violence.  They warmly embrace the violence of Nanny State taking people's money, telling them what to do in their shops, and treating them like children.

I say this as someone who personally loathes tobacco, hates the smell of it and who has seen people I love suffer the consequences of smoking.   However, as much as I would not shed a tear if tobacco became a thing of the past, I find far more threatening the finger wagging patronising petty fascism behind the Greens treating people like they are children.

It makes one want to light up.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile the Netherlands has taken a step towards freedom according to the Daily Telegraph.  The new coalition government, which includes the Party for Freedom (the much maligned party of Geert Wilders who is more a libertarian than anything else despite the braindead media thinking he is aligned to neo-fascists) has abolished the smoking ban for owner-operator pubs.  In other words pubs with no staff.  It is a small step, but it shouldn't be debated.  It is simple.  It is private property.  If you own a pub, then you can decided if you or your patrons smoke there.   It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.  If you don't like it, don't go there.

Want growth? Get a spatial plan

Yes that's what the Green/ACT government thinks.

The headline is "Spatial Plan will ensure economic growth for Auckland".

The main space I can find is between the ears of the press secretaries of Nick Smith and Rodney Hide that have let such empty nonsense escape their offices.  It plunges new shallows of vapidity, reaches new epic heights of failure and demonstrates once again that this government is devoid of philosophical challenge to the leftwing, planning obsessed arrogance of the past.

The press release is so empty that you could drive a train through it, and it shows once and for all that Nick Smith, the Green Party member in Cabinet, is driving policy.

There is more substance between an electron and the nucleus of an atom than this piece of pontificating waffle

"One of the most important roles of the Auckland Council will be to articulate the 20-30 year vision for Auckland through the spatial plan"

Really?  What happens if it doesn't happen? Will there not be economic growth?  Indeed when has ANY local government successfully forecast economic activity by sector, location and the like ever?  Did the local government plans of 20 years ago talk about the internet and online economy?  Of course not.  Did the local government plans of 40 years ago talk about an economy driven by services and tourism from China and India?  Hardly.  So why is it important?  

Take this piece of Sir Humphreyism.. "Cabinet agreed the spatial plan is the key vehicle for developing an integrated approach to managing Auckland’s urban growth."

Why manage it?  Why must there be an integrated approach? Who told you this (the Ministry for the Environment Smart Growth control freaks no doubt)?  

Oh the faith... "The spatial plan will illustrate how Auckland will develop in the future. It will show where and when growth will occur in transport, housing, energy, water, recreation, education and health infrastructure and services"

Will it Nick? Will it, bollocks!  Unless you live in an authoritarian nanny state where you stifle the private sector growing anything that is not in zee plan.  How do you know Auckland will develop like that, and most of all, how do you know it is right?

Oh and he knows what Aucklanders like "Aucklanders will be looking to see that the spatial plan sets out their aspirations for their city – all those that are affordable and feasible – and which supports efficient and effective resource allocation"

No they wont, they will be looking to see how best to live their own lives peacefully, with their family and friends, minding their own business.  Most of them are not busybodies who want to tell other people where to live, how to move and what businesses they should run and where. 

Imagine Auckland without a spatial plan.  It isn't hard. 

Auckland hasn't had one up till now.  However, you voted for National or ACT to make sure there was one didn't you?

The US votes for something different

The Democrats are about to get their nose bloodied, Obama will no longer be able to defer to Congress to write his legislation for him.   He wont be able to increase spending again.  He wont be able to increase taxes.   In other words, he wont be able to spend his way out of trouble.

Yet they wont get it.   

"Though it has been typically misrepresented by the liberal media as a rattlers’ nest of gun-toting fruitcakes who want to ban masturbation and abortion, it is, of course, nothing of the kind. It is – whatever the increasingly redundant Moonbat may claim – a genuine grass roots movement inspired by the one great political cause truly worth fighting and dying for: the cause of liberty. " says James Delingpole in the Daily Telegraph.

The Tea Party is a libertarian inspired movement, which has the backing of more than a few conservatives.   Yes there are some wingnuts, but the Democrats are not without their share of the same. 

Toby Harnden in the Daily Telegraph has written what he thinks will be the top 10 excuses for losing.

1.   Opponents (or enemies) don't believe in science or facts.  They are stupid.

2.   Democrats have been gutless and haven't defended their "amazing achievements" well enough.

3.   Democrats did the right thing, even though it is unpopular (oh yes, really hard decisions to spend more money they didn't have).

4.   It's history, you always lose somewhat after 2 years.  Nothing new.

5.   Democrats were too moderate, not enough change.   Not enough government.

6.   Democrats have communicated badly.  It's about marketing.

7.   Evil big business and foreign (remember these are people who name others as racist) money is feeding the enemy.  They aren't real Americans looking after real Americans.

8.   Racism.  Why else would you oppose a Black President? 

9.   The media is to blame, especially evil Fox News.   It does a lousy job.  It didn't give Obama an easy run at all did it?

10. It's Bush again.  Yes all that small government rhetoric, so common wasn't it?

Obama is desperate to increase turnout by his core of youth, Latino and Black voters, but he isn't inspiring.   Instead of preaching hope, he is preaching fear, based on at best misunderstanding, at worst lies.   Harnden says of Obama "at its core, his message is one of promoting what Margaret Thatcher called the "nanny state" at home and Wilsonian internationalism abroad.  The problem last time was that Obama DID express hope and seemed to embody something different, but what wasn't clear to many was what it meant - it didn't mean an end to pork barreling, it meant more spending, more taxes and no limits on what government was prepared to do.   This has scared people, they fear the world's biggest economy is being hamstrung by being the world's biggest debtor nation, and that free enterprise and free markets aren't important anymore.

The Tea Party is saying to hell with you all, but has managed to inspire enough Republicans to its cause.  

What will happen?  Well Congress wont be quite the same again.  It wont be a matter of Republican majorities back to their old ways, but it also wont be a Congress ready to compromise.   

Indeed, objectivist Harry Binswanger reckons that Republicans should be favoured across the board because the Tea Party has already taken over the political initiative in the party.   In other words, the Republicans will not be in a position to resist the energy and determination of the Tea Party.

It will mean gridlock, as a leftwing President faces a libertarian/conservative House, and a hung Senate.  

It has inspired much comment, as James Delingpole's article shows with over 1000 comments, many from disgruntled British Marxists who want to treat Americans as either stupid or having been duped. 

He describes elegantly the problem:

"in the last 80 or more years – and not just in the US but throughout the Western world – government has forgotten its purpose. It has now grown so arrogant and swollen as to believe its job is to shape and improve and generally interfere with our lives. And it’s not. Government’s job is to act as our humble servant."

He even mentions New Zealand as among one of the countries maintaining this philosophy:

"Wherever you go, even if it’s somewhere run by a notionally “conservative” administration, the malaise you will encounter is much the same: a system of governance predicated on the notion that the state’s function is not merely to uphold property rights, maintain equality before the law and defend borders, but perpetually to meddle with its citizens’ lives in order supposedly to make their existence more fair, more safe, more eco-friendly, more healthy. And always the result is the same: more taxation, more regulation, less freedom. Less “fairness” too, of course."

Exactly! You can see it in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK, the National-ACT-Maori-Dunne coalition in NZ, and you could see it in the former Howard administration in Australia.  Meet your new boss, same as the old boss, bossing you about, just with a different bitter taste.

Government has been growing barely checked, but as he says:

"With Hitler and Stalin it was easy: the enemy was plain in view. Today’s encroaching tyranny is an of altogether more subtle, slippery variety. It takes the form of the steady “engrenage” – ratcheting – of EU legislation; of the stealthy removal of property rights and personal liberty under the UN’s Agenda 21; of the eco-legislation created by democratically unaccountable bodies like America’s Environmental Protection Agency".

The future starts tomorrow, in the USA.  For Obama will have been stopped in his tracks, and the next step is to carefully find the right Presidential candidate (it is not Palin by any stretch), and for the Tea Party to push on.   For all the next two years will mean is stasis, not progress, so the Tea Party needs to maintain momentum at the local, state and federal levels.

It angers and distresses the left, they will pull out all the stops to portray it as a war against the poor, or driven by rich who are painted like how Stalin described the Kulaks, or the left's old fashioned xenophobia will come out.   They will seek to scare minorities that it is racist or sexist, frighten the poor and the elderly, claim environmental armageddon, and want to not offend anyone (except those who disagree).   Because when you give people back their own money, take away the laws that tell them what to do, give them back their property rights, and make free choice and persuasion the tools protected by government - not regulation, tax and spending - then those who don't like people's choices and do like other people's money will get upset.

Because the future wont be about the initiation of force, but about the power of argument, of convincing individuals to act differently, to spend their money differently.  

Now that is an audacity of hope.