It's one thing to be generous...

but another to use coercion to foist a guilt trip on people to be so.

That is one idea floated by the Con-Dem coalition government in the UK.

The idea? Require all cash withdrawals from ATMs and all EFT-POS transactions to offer people an option of "donating" some money to charity.   Of course that would be managed collectively so that "charity" isn't specified.   Some companies already do this as part of their business, but the government is talking about making it mandatory.

What nerve.

The effect is to imply  "you're buying something, you can't do that and not also give money for something else".  It imposes a duty on people to spend a second or two to say no to giving their own money to some charity they haven't had time to even judge the merits of, as if it doesn't matter, it's a charity, charities are good.  This is nonsense of course.   People may object to charities run by specific religions, or they may object to causes that are seen to be more political than philanthropic, or quite simply people want their own money to be used for their own purposes.

Objectivists regard benevolence as being human, natural and a part of life.  People do give of their time, money and possessions to others because they find value in doing so.  At the most basic level it happens most frequently with family and friends, but many give of themselves to strangers and causes, and do so because it gives them joy to support whatever cause it is that they like.  It is not a sacrifice to give time or money for the value of providing support for something you agree with, and to help those you wish to help.

However, the Conservative Party (and dare I say quite a few small "c" conservatives) believe charity is not just about that, but an obligation.  It is as if your very existence and the fact you have or earn money means you are morally obliged to give some to others.  That you owe other people something and that you are somehow immoral if you don't give.   This guilt for your existence and guilt for success is at the bottom of this approach, and even setting aside the burden of tax in the UK (which is over 50% for me if VAT is included), nobody should feel guilty for not giving their money away.  It is, after all, their money.

So to hell with enforced charitable giving.   One point usefully noted by the BBC on TV was that people in the UK are more generous charitable givers than the French and Germans (both known to have more generous welfare states), but less than the US (which has lower taxes and less welfare).  The lesson to the Conservatives or anyone wanting people to be more benevolent, is that when the state takes more, people are less inclined to give.  Even more important, the last thing taxpayers want is to be hectored by those who live off their money, to be charitable.

Although it wouldn't go wrong for politicians to tell anyone who wants the government to spend more on pet ideas that they should spend their own money on it first and then engage in some fundraising, instead of wanting the state to force others to pay.

Farewell Dennis Dutton

I didn't always agree with Dennis Dutton (such as his strong belief in compulsorily funded state radio), but beyond that he was a strong advocate for reason and science.

He passed away today (28 December) of cancer (thank you Homepaddock for the news).  He debunked many paranormal fraudsters, had an open mind about climate change and supported science and evidence over mysticism and the new age snake oil merchants.  He will be sadly missed.

His websites here, here and here.  No doubt more will be written about him elsewhere in a few more days.

Top 10 wishes for UK politics - 2011

For the sake of the new year, I thought it was time to have some wishlists.  The first is for my adopted home, and the birthplace of my parents.  So what of the UK in 2011?  2010 was dominated by recession, the ongoing hatred of politicians for their noses being in the public trough, election of the first coalition government in the UK for generations, protests by posh and middle class students as they were told to be weaned off the state tit and the ongoing climate of supposed austerity as the newly elected government decides the state should grow more slowly than Gordon Brown had promised.

So what for 2011? Well with five year Parliamentary terms the typical assumption is that governments have long periods to implement policies and see results, but with the coalition it is harder as the Liberal Democrats face the usual problem of being the minor party in any coalition - taking all the blame and little of the credit.

My top ten from lowest to highest priority:

10.  The Green Party of England and Wales remains irrelevant nationally and does poorly in local elections.  This little mob of pro-violence Marxists may start to get the level of scrutiny it deserves as the UK, beset with recession, stops tolerating those who believe in more spending, more taxes and less freedom.

9.  Alternative Vote system is selected in the 2011 Electoral System referendum and electoral boundaries are adjusted to have similar populations.  Why?  I've always supported the idea that local MPs should be supported by at least a majority of those who vote, so that MPs are representative of their constituents.  I'm not fussed as to what parties benefit from this, as it is likely to be better for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, what matters is that it means people can make a first choice that they believe in.   Secondary to this is that electoral boundaries are redrawn to have roughly even populations in each constituency.  The status quo is a gerrymander that benefits Labour, because it creates small "community based" constituencies that happen to favour Labour dominated areas.   It is time for the UK's political system to become at least based on majority voting in equivalent constituencies.

8. Scotland rejects the SNP in the 2011 elections.  The Scottish National Party is a party of posing socialists who once sold the merits of following the models of Iceland and Ireland, and now pretend the ills of Scotland can be blamed on Westminster.  As much as I'd like Scotland to be cast adrift and for those who believe in Scottish nationalism to be able to test their socialist credentials in real life (as if Scotland isn't already a testament to that abject failure), I'd much rather for Scots to get the picture and boot out these pretenders from the Scottish Parliament.  Let the SNP lose, comprehensively, preferably into third place or worse.  I don't care who beats the SNP, but the fatuous emptiness of the "Scotland is better off independent" deserves to be beaten into submission, and the posing economic fraud of Alex Salmond to be consigned to history.

7. The devolved administrations have funding and their roles restructured so that they do not get more money per head than England, and have their own taxation powers to make up the difference.  The economies of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are so dominated by state spending that they have bigger public sector economies than Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany before the fall of their one party states.   It is time the voters in those administrations stopped being subsidised by English voters, and for the taxes collected locally to be all they have to spend.   They would still be subsidised in effect for defence and foreign affairs, but for any new spending, the taxes would rise.  Meanwhile, if Scotland wants to grant free university education, which the EU requires must be offered to other Member States, it should also be forced to offer it to students across the UK as well.  Time for those parts of the UK that think government is always the solution to pay the price.

6. The Labour Party is seen as having been part of the problem, and Ed Miliband as "Wallace" from Wallace and Gromit.  Labour for many years pretended government overspending, and forever extending credit was about abolishing boom and bust.  It pretended that anytime there was a problem, the state could be the solution.  Everytime a serious horrible crime was committed, it passed a new law clamping down on freedoms and the innocent.  It has perpetuated the cruel and specious lie that the NHS is some sacred model of healthcare that is the envy of the world, when it is anything but.  It has continued to support a culture of putting much of the country in dependency on government.  It deserves to be blamed for being the philosophical source of the ongoing economic and social erosion of Britain.  Ed Miliband only looks like going back to the 1980s, having been so soundly endorsed by Neil Kinnock (who couldn't even beat John Major).  Labour doesn't have solutions and deserves to be reminded of how much it contributed to today's problems.

5. UKIP goes beyond EU bashing to being a party of consistently less government . It might be too much to ask for, but UKIP is right about the EU and needs to be seen as being more of a party of less government as well as opposing the EU.  It has many members who believe in less regulation, less tax and less government spending, and the only philosophically consistent reason to oppose EU membership that isn't autarkic is laissez-faire capitalism.  I don't expect UKIP to be libertarian, but I do want it to fill the gap the Conservative Party has left behind, of welcoming a smaller state.

4. The coalition government stands firm on spending cuts, and goes further.  It hasn't been easy for politicians to say no to lobby groups, and in the last few weeks it has already kowtowed to a handful of authors who want taxpayers to keep paying for free books for families.   The coalition should cut spending further, abandon the ridiculous HS2 high speed rail boondoggle, and make it clear that it has a goal of starting to cut Britain's public debt by the time of the next election.  Less spending shouldn't be sold as pain, but as a long term investment in shifting from compulsion to the voluntary sector, as well as being to start reversing decades of borrowing.

3. The coalition remains intact, but the Liberal Democrats split into two for the next election.  The Liberal Party has a mostly honourable past as a party of less government and individual freedom.  This has been diluted and corrupted by the Social Democrat breakaway from the then far-left Marxist Labour Party.  Labour may remain leftwing, but it isn't the Soviet-appeasing mob of the early 1980s.  The Liberal Democrats should divide into the Liberals, with the rest either returning to Labour or having a go at being Social Democrats again.   The coalition can remain intact, but it is time this chameleon party had a divorce.

2. The obsession with the UK sacrificing its economy for climate change (whilst far bigger economies continually grow emissions with little concern) ceases in government.  The UK has been riding this bandwagon for years, with massive subsidies for renewable energy, unprofitable railways and quasi-religious obsession for recycling and prohibiting airport expansion.  Meanwhile, Russia, China, India, the Middle East and even half of Europe do next to nothing, whilst their economies grow.  The UK shouldn't be sacrificing itself for some moral highground based on at least questionable science and nonsense economics.   Let people pursue energy efficiency and less pollution on their own merits, as much of the British public isn't convinced that it should pay the price whilst those from other countries can do as they please.

1. The British media to regularly invite advocates of less government to participate in debates.  The British media is diverse, but rarely are those who advocate less government spending, less regulation and lower taxes asked to debate on public issues (or comment in newspapers).  It is a lot to expect the predominantly statist UK public to be libertarians, but the media should at the very least start exposing people to views that reject the "government should do this" perspective.  The trade unions, business lobbies and the major political parties all tend to support government doing more.   It would be fresh if someone asked all of them why people need to be forced to do good.

Helen Clark the hypocrite

As one of the world's very high income untaxed international civil servant parasites, Helen Clark thinks she has some moral authority to comment about New Zealand politics.

So she is back to her tired old tribal politics of saying the Wikileaks cables showed the US "disrespected" New Zealand's so-called "independent" foreign policy according to the NZ Herald.  Of course it paints a whole series of assumptions, such as the idea that a foreign policy that was sold as maintaining an alliance with the US (just without anything nuclear) is more independent than choosing to welcome all of the ships and weapons of your allies.   However, the key point Clark is upset about is that US diplomats, privately, were less than impressed by the policy - which Clark was a cheerleader of as she and other leftists in the Labour caucus in the mid 1980s, pushed David Lange to accepting.

Clark herself has long been anti-American, having picked coffee for the "peace-loving" Sandinistas (not that the other side was worth supporting) and having frequently held the US government in contempt publicly (and who knows how often in private).   If her private communications were to be leaked much no doubt would be discovered, although it is no secret that she was no friend of US foreign policy.

Moreover, was it not disrespectful how Clark encouraged the Lange government to act towards the US? How the US was prepared to send a non-nuclear powered ship, that no rational individual could believe would ever carry nuclear weapons (USS Buchanan), but Clark like a clamouring harpie along with her coterie of baying Marxists demanded Lange refuse access to it because of the "neither confirm nor deny" policy that applied to all ships.   In other words, Clark was instrumental in telling the US, in the midst of the Cold War (which Clark no doubt thought NZ should be "neutral" in), to go to hell.

On top of that, as a former Prime Minister she isn't keeping her mouth shut, as is the conventional protocol, when there is an existing, elected Prime Minister that replaced her.

Who is the disrespectful one?  

Let's not forget, Helen Clark is one of the lords of poverty, she sups from the cornucopiae of loot from rich countries under the pretence that she is somehow necessary to the advancement of people in the poorer countries.  Helen Clark having never had any poverty as a child, and on US$0.5 million tax free, plus accommodation allowance and first class air travel, she will remain more remote from poverty than she ever has been.  Meanwhile, she has spent tax money on criticising UNDP's critics, and runs an organisation that has been criticised for not keeping proper accounts and in the midst of the recent attacks by North Korea on South Korea, sought to increase its budget.   You see UNDP has been paying its North Korean government approved staff in the country in foreign currency directly, not that Clark cares as she lives off the pig's back.   Experience has shown me how utterly lazy, unproductive and vastly overpaid the UN bureaucracy is, how little work people there do compared to the private sector (or even public sector elsewhere) and how generous pay and conditions are.

Helen Clark doesn't have moral authority to talk about "respect" from the US, when she gave the US precious little respect politically in much of her career, and in private as Prime Minister.  Today she lives like a grand Lady of Poverty, enjoying a privileged lifestyle whilst having responsibility for billions of dollars of other people's money (a good part from the US) ostensibly to provide relief from poverty.   She is one of the biggest parasites on the face of the earth, having spent her whole life living off of the back of others and doing little more than telling others what to do.   She wont answer questions about the openness and accountability of UNDP in her own job to Radio NZ.

You don't learn much about respect from paying attention to Helen Clark

Christmas/Saturnalia no time to feel guilty

Most of my views about this time of year have been ably written by Peter Cresswell here, here, here and here, and for me it is a day to smile, to spend with people whose company I like (particularly for those of us with family far away or without family) and to enjoy life.  That means food, drink, music, conversation and all kinds of fun.   In the Northern Hemisphere it is particularly enjoyable given the snow, the cold and how well hot food, mulled wine and all of the other traditional foods go together with this season - as it is, essentially, a celebration of the winter solstice, shared with Christians who use it to celebrate the birth of the man for whom their religion is central.

It is a time for joy to be shared with children in particular and despite the groans and moans of naysayers, a time to give and receive gifts (and for many to enjoy the pleasures of shopping and earning a living from those who do).

Some will remind us all that there are billions for whom this is another day of work or struggle, under conditions of conflict, crime and poverty.  I was reminded when in a shop the nauseating song of Do They Know It's Christmas (2004 version) was blaring over the speakers.  Yet it is not a time to feel guilty for your existence, for your relative prosperity.  It is not your fault that many are worse off than you, just as it is not the fault of those better off that you don't have their wealth.   Nor it is your obligation to make life better for others.   The comments today from the Archbishop of Canterbury that effectively criticise the British government's cuts in public spending are just peddling guilt trips as he is critical the "rich" are not bearing their "fair share" of public spending cuts.  This utter nonsense ignores that those on higher incomes pay by far the greatest share of tax and don't take their "fair share" of public spending either.   Christmas should not be a time to be hectored by the socialist leader of a church entirely based on the proclamation of a hereditary monarch about "privilege".

Still beyond that, those who choose, celebrate how they can.  For many it is just another day, some are celebrating a birth, others including probably the family of Joanna Yeates will forever associate it with the loss of a loved one.   

For you, I wish you a Merry Christmas, superlative Saturnalia, Happy Hannukah, or simply a day of joy.