Intervention justified

Given Gaddafi's rants, proclamations and tortuous speech on TV a few hours ago, it is clear he is ready to spill as much blood as it takes to stay in power.

As such, it would be legitimate for others to come from outside, and shoot down any Libyan Air Force aircraft or helicopters that are firing at civilians, or to use force against his mercenaries to protect Libyans from the government they have.

The US wont of course, because Obama doesn't want to upset anyone and doesn't want to be thought of as George W.  Bush.  The rest of NATO wont either.  The regimes elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa are full of thugs and bullies who wouldn't dare.

So it should be possible for private citizens to step in and help support a revolution in Libya.  Of course, in New Zealand this isn't allowed because the last Labour Government, with full support of the Greens and United Future banned New Zealanders being paid mercenaries.  National opposed it, noting that Australia, UK and US are not signatories to the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.

Gaddafi says there will be house to house searches to find and kill all protestors, and he would rather die a martyr than surrender power.

Hopefully this can be arranged. Gaddafi came out from the cold only because the war on Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein scared him.   An ultimatum from a US President might just do the very same.

The Libyan Jamahiriya News Agency is his official mouthpiece, and the website has deleted all news reports.  Let's hope that means that more of his vile police state is falling around him.   For the sake of Libyans this needs to end quickly, and if Gaddafi's head is disconnected from his body, then it may be for the best - as long as his family's bank accounts and foreign assets can be frozen.

Thoughts to Christchurch

I was awoken to the news at around 2am GMT, with reports coming through my wifi radio on ABC News Radio, as very little was on the international TV news channels I can get.   The events do not need me to express the sadness and horror about the destruction, the death, the injuries and the devastation of Christchurch.

Like all, I can only hope that the death toll does not grow, that people are all accounted for, as all those who I know in Christchurch are.  With both air and rail links into Christchurch temporarily severed, the difficulties of getting in and out are exacerbated.  

The effects are immediate for those who have lost family and friends, and those badly injured, and have lost precious possessions.   Think also for the tens of thousands who are now wondering if they should rebuild and remain in this city.   It is easy to say hasty decisions shouldn't be made, but the effects of this will be deep for the entire country.   Those who think that reconstruction after this is beneficial for the economy are of course fools.

I note Air New Zealand is putting on special NZ$50 one way fares for all domestic flights to and from Christchurch from tomorrow through till Friday, with a special Boeing 747 flight to and from Auckland to operate to get large numbers in and out efficiently.   I hope those who need to return, and those who are visiting and need to return quickly can get to do so with as little pain as possible.   I hope also Air NZ ensures the 747 isn't filled with planespotters seeking to fly in flat beds in business class in the nose or upstairs for cheap - by blocking such seats from pre-selection by non-status frequent flyers.

So I have put a photo of the cathedral up, because this is the symbol of the city- but the city itself is its people, and may the coming days, weeks and months they find their hearts and minds able to rebuilt and live, whilst for now the battle is to find those missing, and to keep safe and secure those who remain.  Hopefully also the Police and public can have sufficient presence to avoid the scum of looters seeking to profit from the misery of others.

My best wishes and thoughts to them all.

PS:  Winner of the most inappropriate comment from a New Zealand politician goes to Catherine Delahunty with this tweet: 

greencatherine Catherine Delahunty

 

"A grim day with the horror earthquake and welfare report came out worse than I ever imagined"

Yes, the government's welfare report is equivalent to an earthquake that has killed dozens of people.  I may disagree with your colleagues, but they are mostly capable of some thought before saying such things.

At least it is better than blaming the victims for their disaster.

Too little too late Saif

I watched the footage on Libyan state TV last night of Muammar Gaddafi's favourite son - his "Kim Jong Il" - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi - calling for an end to protests, blaming them on drug addicts, criminals and foreign troublemakers.

He threatened to fight to the last man and the last bullet.  He said that Libya risked civil war, and without the sharing of its oil wealth, Libyans would starve and be homeless.  Easy to say when you're the groomed son of a dictator who has access to billions in funds taken from the "Libyan Arab Socialist Jamahariya".  He parties while his people have a per capita GDP closer to Mexico, whilst having an economy 95% reliant on oil.

He offered reform, a "national dialogue" and some opening up.  Had he done this a year ago, and there had been substantive progress, then maybe the pressure might have been released.  Maybe.  However, Libya has had one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world.  No private bodies or entities are permitted in Libya, without state authority.  Civil society, political parties, alternative media are all banned.  Even Egypt had a private sphere.

However, it is far too late now, and moreover his promise of reform was not done in any sense of seeking forgiveness, but with a bloody threat of death till the bitter end.

His father has long been proven to be a bloody vicious and unremittingly death worshipping thug, and the actions of some of the Libyan military and police have proven that, with reports of the air force gunning down civilians and two air force pilots defecting to Malta because they were ordered to shoot civilians. 

It is over, it is just a matter of time, but sadly a matter of bloodshed.  Actions there will continue to spooks the bullies in Bahrain, and across the Arab world.  I'm hoping Bashar Assad is next.

Botany by-election shows all that is wrong with NACT

The resignation of Pansy Wong for her corrupt misuse of taxpayers' money to pay for her husband to embark on a trip for his own business purposes was always right, but to hold a by-election a matter of months out from a General Election is quite absurd.  It was inappropriate for her to remain in Parliament, but remarkably wasteful to hold a by-election for such a short period.  A bit like Chris Laidlaw's hilarious winning of the 1992 Wellington Central by-election following Fran Wilde being elected Mayor of Wellington City, only to be turfed out in 1993 when Labour nearly won the General Election (but Pauline Gardiner won for the Nats in Wellington Central).

So a by-election it is, in a seat where Wong won around 56% of the vote in 2008, and National 61% of the party vote, it would appear that it is a sure thing for the National candidate Jami-Lee Ross (no, not a Vegas porn star).

This young man just about embodies the National Party in 2011.  Young, looks presentable (as a real estate agent), obsessed with running other people's lives and without a principle worth taping to a twig.   To him, contributing to his community means being a politician.  He has no background in business, either starting one or even working in one.  His whole adult life has spent deciding how to spend other people's money and how to regulate their lives.  

In the Press it was reported that his great achievement was this:

"The local athletics club really wanted a new athletics track and that was a big deal for them because they have got one of the best clubs in Auckland. So, together with my council colleagues, we built them an all weather athletics track."

What he should say is "together with my council colleagues, we co-opted some money forcibly taken from ratepayers to spend on the group that got my attention, and paid some people to build it for us".   Now he didn't build anything, didn't put his own money into it, but takes the credit for it.  How grateful people should be that he was there to choose the lobby group to benefit from money taken by force!

He thinks election is about the economy, crime and infrastructure, not that he expressed any ideas on any of it.  In fact his campaign website is bereft of anything of substance beyond a basic profile.   He is keen on there being a budget surplus, to be spent on the "services Kiwis expect and deserve", not to cut debt or taxes.

Of course he is following the script of National, say nothing, do little more and show no ambition for serious reform or change.  Maybe he has something more to offer, but a lifestyle politician is not someone who has learnt anything useful about the world - except a desire to tell people what to do.

You'd think ACT might take a chance by putting forward a candidate who embraces the old ACT policies of abolishing income tax, allowing people to buy private education and healthcare, set up their own superannuation accounts, and radical reform.  No, it chose Lyn Murphy, possibly its wettest candidate yet who puts herself to the left of Jami-Lee Ross.   She has championed a few environmental causes and to get some cables buried, achievements that rival those of Ross!  She is a senior lecturer in management, and a member of the Counties-Manukau DHB, an entity that ought to be abolished.  She is campaigning on cutting government waste, zero tolerance on burglaries and ending Maori separatism.  Lots new going on there then.

Such a complete waste.  ACT knows it has no chance of winning this seat, it could have stamped free market and small government principles and policies all over this by-election.   Given Kenneth Wang got a credible 15% of the electorate vote in 2008, you might have thought it could have chosen someone who believed in something.

No.  National showed itself to be the conservative party of do nothing that selects career politicians with no experience of business (or even private sector employment).  ACT showed itself to be devoid of principle and devoid of anything left in a brand that can't even stand up for Sir Roger Douglas when the Prime Minister criticises him.

Labour naturally is standing someone to soak up the "give me something for nothing vote", although it has fierce competition from National and ACT candidates with similar views.    Then the wacky dimension is rounded off with the pro-Intellectual Property theft Pirate Party, the Asian immigrant New Citizen Party, the Join Australia Party and the foaming at the mouth rabid leftwing nutcase conspiracy theorist Penny Bright (I know this from a single phone conversation I had with her).   Other independents are just having some fun I suspect.

The only candidate a libertarian or even a small government classical liberal (or anyone who actually believes in the principles of National or ACT) could endorse is Leo Biggs from the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.   Why?  He's the only candidate standing on a platform that actually explicitly endorses less government, in one area (although I suspect he personally has little else going for him, if all he does is vote on this issue, then it is something).

Standing back from this you can see the stark options for those who want less government in this year's general election.  In 2008, thousands voted National to oust Clark and bring an end to Helengrad, but Keynesia is Helengrad-lite, with more smiles and less principles.   Thousands voted ACT to give some backbone to a Key led government, and got a Minister for Local Government who adopted  and implemented most of Labour's local government policy, creating Australasia's largest local bureaucracy.  ACT voters elected Sir Roger Douglas, the man who did more than any politician in the last 30 years to stop the rot of New Zealand being the most socialist free-world economy, only to find ACT's leader wouldn't back him when he was telling the truth.   Now ACT is the party that brought you nothing.

Libertarianz on the other hand may not get anyone elected, but if 1-2% of voters who would have voted ACT or National tick Libertarianz, it will be a right shock to both parties.  Why?  Because it will deny them seats, show that there are quite a few New Zealanders who want less government, and may shock ACT in particular into actually reforming and becoming a proper party that advocates less government.   Given current polling nobody who would prefer to keep Labour out is likely to fear a change of government, but it would change politics and the political discourse in ACT and National.   It would show that there are enough people, who are not purist libertarians, who want governments committed to less tax, less government, one law for all and private property rights.   

If not, are you that enamoured by John Key after nine years of Helen Clark that you can't wait for another three years of it?

What Gaddafi thinks

Colonel Gaddafi is not a man who can readily be said to be a conventional dictator, except that many dictators expose themselves as being rambling ranters of peculiar philosophies.  His views are in what is his own rambling rant of incoherence, the Green Book (full text here).

What you see below are excerpts from it, most are good enough reason to relieve Libya from his rule!

He says of freedom of speech:

Democratically, private individuals should not be permitted to own any public means of publication or information. However, they have the right to express themselves by any means, even irrationally, to prove their insanity. Any journal issued by a professional sector, for example, is only a means of expression of that particular social group. It presents their own points of view and not that of the general public. This applies to all other corporate and private individuals in society.  The democratic press is that which is issued by a People's Committee, comprising all the groups of society. Only in this case, and not otherwise, will the press or any other information medium be democratic, expressing the viewpoints of the whole society, and representing all its groups.

It is basically a justification of a state monopoly media.  It justifies banning privately owned newspapers or other "means of information". Libya has shut down internet and mobile phone networks as it now proceeds to murder its citizens.

It gets more insane when he talks about economic matters:

"Wage-earners are but slaves to the masters who hire them. They are temporary slaves, and their slavery lasts as long as they work for wages from employers, be they individuals or the state. The workers' relationship to the owner or the productive establishment, and to their own interests, is similar under all prevailing conditions in the world today, regardless of whether ownership is right or left."

Nothing like totalitarians telling people they are slaves under alternative systems.

He doesn't think that people should own taxis or that anyone other than the state should own any transport operations:

In a socialist society, no person or authority has the right to own a means of transportation for the purpose of renting it, for this also means controlling the needs of others.

Don't think of living without a family because Gaddafi thinks you are worthless without one:

the individual without a family has no value or social life

On democracy and individual rights it is pretty clear as well:

Therefore, the only solution to the persistent problem of democracy is through The Third Universal Theory.

According to this theory, the democratic system is a cohesive structure whose foundations are firmly laid on Basic Popular Conferences and People's Committees which convene in a General People's Congress. This is absolutely the only form of genuine democratic society.

In summary, the era of the masses, which follows the age of the republics, excites the feelings and dazzles the eyes. But even though the vision of this era denotes genuine freedom of the masses and their happy emancipation from the bonds of external authoritarian structures, it warns also of the dangers of a period of chaos and demagoguery, and the threat of a return to the authority of the individual, the sect and party, instead of the authority of the people.

In other words there cannot be political parties, and "the authority of the individual" is a threat.  

 When he writes about women, his mental stability must be in question since he decides to embark on a lesson in biology:

According to gynaecologists, women menstruate every month or so, while men, being male, do not menstruate or suffer during the monthly period. A woman, being a female, is naturally subject to monthly bleeding. When a woman does not menstruate, she is pregnant. If she is pregnant, she becomes, due to pregnancy, less active for about a year, which means that all her natural activities are seriously reduced until she delivers her baby. When she delivers her baby or has a miscarriage, she suffers puerperium, a condition attendant on delivery or miscarriage. As man does not get pregnant, he is not liable to the conditions which women, being female, suffer. Afterwards a woman may breast-feed the baby she bore. Breast-feeding continues for about two years. Breastfeeding means that a woman is so inseparable from her baby that her activity is seriously reduced. She becomes directly responsible for another person whom she assists in his or her biological functions; without this assistance that person would die. The man, on the other hand, neither conceives nor breast-feeds. End of gynaecological statement!

Who knew??!!

However, in case you wondered whether he was just a rather odd tyrant, then consider he would ban adoption or fostering, so that such children can be reared by the state:

As for children who have neither family nor shelter, society is their guardian, and only for them, should society establish nurseries and related institutions. It is better for them to be taken care of by society rather than by individuals who are not their parents. 

Society indeed!

Master of tautology he is, with gems like:  "The living creature is a being who inevitably lives until it is dead." 

He wouldn't have liked Helen Clark:

The woman who rejects pregnancy, marriage, beautification and femininity for reasons of health abandons her natural role in life under these coercive conditions of ill health. The woman who rejects marriage, pregnancy or motherhood because of work abandons her natural role under similar coercive conditions. The woman who rejects marriage, pregnancy or maternity without any concrete cause abandons her natural role as a result of a coercive and morally deviant circumstances.  

He goes on about women being equal, although then says:   It is equally unjust and dictatorial for women to find themselves under the working conditions of men. 

Apparently, he thinks they should get easier conditions.

His view on race leave me speechless with its random nonsense:  

 In addition, the inevitable cycle of social history, which includes the Yellow people's domination of the world when it marched from Asia, and the White people's carrying out a wide-ranging colonialist movement covering all the continents of the world, is now giving way to the re-emergence of Black people.  Black people are now in a very backward social situation, but such backwardness works to bring about their numerical superiority because their low standard of living has shielded them from methods of birth control and family planning. Also, their old social traditions place no limit on marriages, leading to their accelerated growth. The population of other races has decreased because of birth control, restrictions on marriage, and constant occupation in work, unlike the Blacks, who tend to be less obsessive about work in a climate which is continuously hot.

 

Education seems peculiarly libertarian, unlike reality in Libya:

State-controlled and standardized education is, in fact, a forced stultification of the masses. All governments which set courses of education in terms of formal curricula and force people to learn those courses coerce their citizens. All methods of education prevailing in the world should be destroyed through a universal cultural revolution that frees the human mind from curricula of fanaticism which dictate a process of deliberate distortion of man's tastes, conceptual ability and mentality.  

He argues for free schools with the widest choice of learning.  Something Libya doesn't exactly have by any stretch of the imagination.

  

Funny for a police state to be based on:

"Ignorance will come to an end when everything is presented as it actually is and when knowledge about everything is available to each person in the manner that suits him or her."

Shutting down the internet and mobile phone networks is consistent with that apparently.

He thinks sport shouldn't have spectators only participants:

When the masses march and play sport in the centre of playing fields and open spaces, stadiums will be vacant and become redundant. This will take place when the masses become aware of the fact; that sport is a public activity which must be practised rather than watched. This is more reasonable as an alternative than the present costum of a helpless apathetic majority that merely watches.

Grandstands will disappear because no one will be there to occupy them. Those who are unable to perform the roles of heroism in life, who are ignorant of the events of history; who fall short of envisaging the future, and who are not serious enough in their own lives, are the trivial people who fill the seats of the theatres and cinemas to watch the events of life in order to learn their course. They are like pupils who occupy school desks because they are uneducated and also initially illiterate.

Nurse!! Nurse?? Get his pills!

Libya has no official opposition of any kind, Gaddafi is murdering protestors again and again.  Protestors have appeared, bravely, outside the Libyan Embassy in London (brave given how Libya once started shooting from its embassy some years ago, murdering a policewoman).  

Good luck to them, Gaddafi is the Arab ruler who has most exported murder and death of any of those currently in power.  He deserves at the very least, a bullet.