Libertarianz in 2011

Libertarianz members are having their annual conference this weekend.   I've been a member of the party for 14 years, so it is hardly surprising that I have supported it every election since.   However,  as I get old it raises some fairly fundamental issues about my participation in politics and my desire to change the terms of the political debate in New Zealand, and change New Zealand public policy.

The first time I was ever able to vote was 1990.  I voted Labour.  Why?  Because for months beforehand I watched National oppose the privatisation of Telecom, with Jim Anderton.  Because for the years before I watched Roger Douglas transform the economy, largely in a rational and extraordinarily courageous manner - for little he did was popular or for short term gain or popularity.  I was less than comfortable with the new bureaucracies for "Women's Affairs", "Youth Affairs", the reintroduction of compulsory unionism, and the new leftwing racism and subjectivist mysticism seen in the creation of the Treaty of Waitangi industry, but I grew up under Rob Muldoon.  I saw National as the party not of free markets, but of kneejerk resistance to change.

Yet in 1993 I voted National, for I saw the same courage in Ruth Richardson.  I despised National's embrace of an authoritarian feminist agenda for censorship, the sellout on education and Jim Bolger's ridiculous embrace of electoral reform, but the big political push at the time was from the authoritarian thieves of the Alliance, and the bottom feeder Winston Peters and his personality cult of followers.   Of course, Bolger sacrificed Richardson on the altar of pragmatism.

In 1996 I voted ACT, because I hoped that following Roger Douglas's first act, there could be hope of a National-ACT coalition implementing further reforms, especially exposing the health and education sectors to competition, and choice.  However, ACT was profoundly disappointing.  From talking of abolishing income tax, to flat tax, to lower tax.  More fundamentally, I had moved on philosophically.  I had read Hayek some years before, but had now read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and became an objectivist.

My philosophical position became clear.  I had long been an atheist, but as an objectivist I had a rational grounding for not only believing in small government, but also an ethical basis for capitalism and for life.   I joined Libertarianz.

Of course it isn't very hard to become disheartened belonging to a small political party that has not come close to being elected.  However, there has been influence, with terms like Nanny State being used more and more, and political discourse starting to talk about government not being the solution to everything, but it would be fair to say it hasn't met expectations.

The alternatives have not been promising either.  ACT under first Richard Prebble and then Rodney Hide, was all very well talking about economic freedom, but personal freedom was uncomfortable.  Simple libertarian points like questioning the war on drugs or censorship were not where ACT could go - for it had more than a few fundamentally conservative backers.

Of course there was also Don Brash and the National Party in 2005, campaigning in part to end the leftwing racism that had the state privilege Maori above others, regardless of their need and personal position.  However, that campaign was ruined by the mainstream of National, which like Bolger in 1996, prostitute it all to try to win elections, and which is conservative in the small "c" sense.  As in do as little as possible to change.

So the issue has been and remain simple.

Do I remain pure and honest and principled, and continue to put my full New Zealand effort into Libertarianz, or do I compromise and put efforts into ACT, or even National to influence those that do have entrees into actual political power?  Are they in conflict?

This election, libertarians nearly faced an obvious answer.   Rodney Hide's performance in ACT has been roundly disappointing.  He's been little different from a National Minister, with his great performance being in largely implementing Labour's local government policy.   The only crowning success will be Roger Douglas abolishing the compulsory membership of the University branches of the Labour and Green Parties known as student unions.

Don Brash led ACT looks like it could be different.  Despite the blunderings of some who are incapable of being truly racially colourblind AND wise to how others can portray it,  it may be different.

As I get older, I get impatient, and I want change to happen sooner rather than later.  I have priorities for change which are focused around education, reform of the welfare state and protection of property rights, as well as a fundamental shift of the criminal justice system away from victimless crimes, but being focused on deterrence and protection of the public from the violence of others.

I also want a cultural change, a philosophical change that embraces the celebration of creativity, producers, innovators, science and reason.  One that embraces self-esteem and personal responsibility.  One that resists the post-modernist cultural meme that everything is ok, that all cultures are equal, that no values are more important than others.  One that celebrates life, that treats the inviolability of the bodies and property of others as sacrosanct, that embraces honesty, good will and benevolence in human relations.  Not the nihilist claims over the property of others, demand for rights that are actually demands on other people to be forced to surrender their bodies and property.  Most of all rejection of the racism, sexism and collectivist bigotry of the left, as well as of the far-right. 

In politics, I am keeping an open mind.  Beyond that, there must be other means and other ways to change the terms of debate.  However, my hope is that Libertarianz knows it is more than a party, but as a touchstone for those who believe government should only exist to protect people from the initiation of force by others, whether internal or external to a country - and that it is a monumental job to change a culture where it is considered absolutely normal for government to initiate force, and there is a preponderance of political parties who embrace MORE state violence.  The Greens, for example, are a party that positively embraces ever more state violence, in the warm, smiling shrouds of "fairness and equality".  

So I wish Libertarianz well.  It is the party I am most likely to vote for in 2011.  Yet I am keeping an open mind.  I would not be unhappy if there was a National-ACT coalition that saw substantive changes in education policy alone, to break the back of the dominant state sector, or which torn up the RMA in favour of private property rights or another major step towards more freedom.  However, I am yet to be convinced that there is enough substance for me to positively support ACT.  

Even if I did, it does not mean Libertarianz does not have a role.  However, it does have to be more clever about its messages and it needs to remember that the mass media only understands easy concepts.   For me, it is less government, more freedom.  It is about consistently believing that government shouldn't spend other people's money taken by force to give to others.  It is about believing laws should only exist to protect people's bodies and property from force or fraud, and that human relations should always be voluntary.

Left has the most to lose from the riots

Whilst leftwing commentators and the Green Party in New Zealand feel safe blaming the riots in the UK on “neo-liberalism”, UK Labour politicians have tried to be more careful. Whilst Ken Livingstone came out on automatic saying it was about spending cuts, Harriet Harman was cornered into saying she condemned it all, “but” and Ed Miliband more wisely has simply condemned the violence, with there being “no excuse” for it. This, of course, goes against his political instincts, for the bog standard Marxist/socialist point of view is that riots are related to class and race. Labour politicians wished they could parrot a “told you so” view that would say “this is inevitable”, much like the NZ Marxists have, but they can’t do so without alienating the vast majority of voters, including their own supporters.

For a start, few believe there has been such a massive turnaround in economic or social conditions in the just over one year since the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition took over. All to easy for Conservatives to say “you were in power for 13 years, what did you do about it”. A reasonable point for reasonable people. Now the true Marxist would claim Blair and Brown were the Tories in slow-mode, but when so many Labour MPs and candidates came from that era, it doesn’t wash well either. Ken Livingstone being the clear example of one who figured he could get away with it.

Secondly, the victims of the rioting are mostly people in Labour voting areas, who are either small business owners, their staff, or people whose homes have been destroyed or trashed. They live in the more dangerous, crime ridden, poorer parts of town, but they didn’t riot. In fact they hate crime as much as anyone, because they are more likely to be victims of it. You see, despite the identity politics of the left, the poor/dispossessed (if they ever did possess) attack their own, they rarely go elsewhere, and the majority of them do have morals, don’t steal, don’t vandalise. They have aspirations for themselves and their families like anyone else, which is why when anyone achieves it, they would tend to leave the rest behind and move to a nicer part of town.

Thirdly, whilst calling someone racist or making people even fear being accused of being racist has been their stock in trade in debate for decades, again so many victims are of racial minorities. South Asian Muslim or Sikh voters aren’t going to tolerate the claim that Afro-Caribbeans find it hard in British society, when they just get on with working or owning businesses, and ensure their kids get a good education. There are more than a few Afro-Caribbeans disgusted by this behaviour as well. The “race consciousness” that once tied is awfully frayed when people turn on their own.

Fourthly, many people have found it rather hard during the recession. Those who have had pay cuts, lost jobs, found it harder to make ends meet don’t tolerate the notion that when people are poor, they become criminals. Most people have self-discipline, and don’t have the “class consciousness” that the left so disgustingly implies those in poverty as having. In short, the racial and wealth stereotypes are as appalling inaccurate for the left as are the more banal ones on the far-right.

Finally, most want criminals to be punished and kept out of harm’s way. It is natural, human benevolence to feel pity and sorrow for those who have lost everything to deliberate vandalism, left and arson, and anger at those who did so to get luxury goods, or pieces of tat, or just to have a good time. It is immoral, and that sense of outrage and distress is what keeps civilisation together. People want a hard line against those who commit crimes, they don’t accept excuses because most people work hard for what they have and would do all they could to defend their families. They regard the rioters to be the enemy of all they have, and they’d be right.

The answers the left will offer will also fail to inspire. Of all the talk about poverty and compassion, and addressing the causes of crime, they have two answers:

- Give poor people more money (in one form or another) for doing nothing;

- Hire more bureaucrats to help poor people.

The bribery with welfare has already been tried, and Labour knows with the country nearly bankrupt, it can’t promise more money with any credibility (even Labour would have halved the budget deficit, albeit by simply cutting the growth of spending and increasing taxes). However, the far left (read, Green Party of England and Wales)will argue for more money for better housing, better state schools and more benefits so people don’t feel “desperate”, or in their own words “creating employment and training opportunities, advice, youth centres, and community services”. “Creating jobs” by taking money from those who actually create jobs by generating wealth, and building more youth centres and state services.  It isn't about producing anything, it is about using the wealth of others, taken by force, to keep people busy.

The language always used is the royal “we” by making everyone responsible. You’re not responsible for yourself, your family, your kids, your business alone, but for everyone else, including the feckless, the “breed without consequences” mob and those who are “alienated” – those same kids who bully your kids. You are responsible for them. This justifies this sort of statement:

we need to create a society where youth are not so extremely alienated in the first place

Not the parents, not the state schools who they are put through like widgets, but “we”, which means “give us more of your money so we can spend it”.

The thing is that taxpayers don’t want to do that. Even setting aside my libertarian hat, the majority view is not to increase taxes or welfare benefits. The far left couldn’t care less of course, because it will just keep saying “if you want this to stop, you need to pay more”, but democracy (which they putatively respect) says people don’t want that. They don’t vote for it. The British Labour Party tried selling that to voters in 1983, 1987 and 1992 and they didn’t say yes.

The UK is a liberal democracy. Most people believe people should get a fair go, that people shouldn’t be homeless, but also that if they wreck that home or make their neighbours’ lives a hell, they should lose the home they are given. Most people believe kids should all get an education, but if they waste it, or wreck the education of others, they shouldn’t be there. Most people believe people should work for a living, but if they are idle on welfare, don’t bother and then attack those who do work, they should lose their benefits.

Even if the public did vote for spectacular increases in taxes and welfare, it would be incapable of delivering. As thousands of entrepreneurs either arranged their affairs to avoid tax, or simply left, the purported revenue would not appear. In addition, the membership of the EU would guarantee growth in welfare tourism, ensuring the UK faced a sovereign debt crisis due to declining tax revenue and increasing welfare claims. Of course true socialists would leave the EU to put up trade barriers, so would chase away more businesses that don’t want to be excluded from their markets. Ultimately, the spiral of decline and stagnation would see the flight of more of the brightest and wealthiest, which could only be stopped by either reversing policies, or making it difficult to leave with ones’ money and assets. The latter would ensure the UK was abandoned even more rapidly as it would look more like east Berlin, where a wall was built explicitly to keep people from leaving.

In short, most people believe in people having opportunities, but if they ignore them, abuse them, or at worst turn on the people who took advantage of them to work hard to earn a living, they want little mercy. They don’t want their taxes spent on criminals, and don’t want them getting endless chances, following numerous offences for stealing, vandalism or assault. They want their homes, businesses and families safe, and don’t want to pay more taxes for people who aren’t grateful for what they get from others, and who will act parasitically towards them.

The answers so many on the left offer involve taking more money from employers, from people who strive for themselves and their families, and giving it to people who expect to be handed money, homes and jobs with no obligation, or paying for more people to be “employed” by the government in pseudo-jobs that don’t need doing anyway.

Add these carefully shrouded demands to throw money at potential rioters to the hand-wringing slogans of “racism” and “poverty causes crime”, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the vast majority. Most taxpayers are not rich, by definition the majority of them are around the average in income and wealth, they consider vandalism and theft to be wrong, especially when the victims of that are people who are themselves not wealthy, or who have clearly strived to make something of their lives from little. They don’t think the way to solve the problems of immoral behaviour is to pay people to not be bad. In fact they are far more likely to demand that they no longer pay people who are!

It is why the British Labour Party has, by and large, been avoiding talking about anything other than the need for a tough approach to law and order.

The organised thieves

Whilst most UK media attention has been paid to the underclass and not so underclass of amoral parasites who turned on their fellow citizens, the most organised thieves of all - governments, have been trying to evade reality in Europe some more.

The sovereign debt crisis of Ireland was purely due to the foolish 100% guarantee of Irish banks given by the previous Irish government (trying to outdo the £85,000 limit in the UK) - it eliminated risk for banks, transferring it onto taxpayers.  It had a property bubble fueled by easy low interest credit in Euros, driven by the buoyant German economy, which bust.  Now Irish taxpayers are paying for bank guarantees made by politicians on their behalf.  Irish politicians promised to steal from taxpayers to support the profligacy of banks.

The sovereign debt crisis of Greece is pure state socialist profligacy.  A generation and a half of continuous budget deficits, fiddled accounts and lies about the national budgets, mass tax evasion, a welfare state that rewarded people for non-jobs and to retire in their 50s.  It was only extended when Greece joined the Euro, as budget deficits were "cheap" with low interest credit.  In addition, Greece was propped up by years of subsidies from the EU to its poorest members, of which Greece no longer largely qualifies since the accession of the former Soviet satellite states. Now Greek residents are learning to pay tax and learning that the socialist state has run out of cash.  Greek politicians promised to steal from future taxpayers to pay for the "jobs" and benefits of many of the current ones.

The sovereign debt crisis of Portugal is similar to Greece, without the fiddled accounts, with a bit less debt, but a smaller GDP to bear it.   Again a long period of cheap credit and Portugal enjoyed much EU largesse before the EU turned to funding infrastructure in the former communist bloc countries.  Portuguese politicians promised to steal from future taxpayers to pay for the lthe "jobs" and benefits of many of the current ones.

Spain's sovereign debt crisis has some parallels with Portugal, but was also exacerbated by a property bubble ala Ireland, where the economy was propped up by massive private borrowing for property, which went into construction.  Now Spain has a crisis of lower tax revenue and an overly generous state sector and welfare state.  Spanish politicians were hoping to keep stealing from future taxpayers and current property speculators and construction companies to pay for the the "jobs" and benefits of many of the current ones.

Italy's sovereign debt crisis is government led, as Italians have tended to be wary of credit, but Italian governments been profligate about buying votes with government jobs and social services.  Decades of short coalition governments that have favoured special interests now see Italy with sovereign debt of over 118% of GDP.  Italian governments have long promised to steal from future taxpayers to pay for the the "jobs" and benefits of many of the current ones.

Cyprus's sovereign debt crisis is less about government spending and more about fear of bailing out banks that loaned to the Greek government, and the slow in GDP due to losing half of its electricity generation capacity due to an explosion.  Cyprus's government has promised to steal from current and future taxpayers to pay for the profligacy of banks who loaned to another profligate government.

Belgium is small, but it too has sovereign debt of around 100% of GDP.   It too has had a generous welfare state, but has run more sedate budget deficits, although it saved itself from a crisis a decade ago by running surpluses for eight years, getting public debt below 100% of GDP.  It is now facing a similar crisis, but its overspending has been trimmed.  Still it too promised to steal from future taxpayers to pay for the job and benefits of current ones.

Now there is France.  It has public debt of over 80% of GDP, but has run budget deficits consistently for decades.  The trick has been to run deficits smaller than growth of GDP in some years, which has simply meant that the debt burden has been pushed out again and again.  Now it faces risks around its banks, which the French government is fully expected to bail out (large businesses in France often never really go bankrupt) banks that loaned to the profligate countries named above.

So the ban on short selling, is France's way of trying to stop the reality of the risk of French debt being devalued.  France can continue to borrow from the children and grandchildren of future taxpayers only if France's economy grows faster than the rate of borrowing.

You see governments throughout the Western world have been engaging in theft, on a grand scale, from future taxpayers.

Now as a libertarian I see all taxation as theft, because if private individuals or governments acted as government did, they would be treated as criminals.

However, even if you accept the absurd democratic-socialist model of government, that people vote for governments that institute taxes, and so somehow consent to it (essentially the majority impose their will on all), then this fails to apply to governments running budget deficits for current spending.

For when governments borrow, they are borrowing from future taxpayers.  Whilst many are current taxpayers, in 10-15-20 years time, some of those will be dead, and most current children will be taxpayers, and some as yet unborn ones will be.   None of them voted to pay the taxes to pay the debts of people who wanted unfunded pensions, who wanted subsidised businesses, who wanted unfunded healthcare.

It is intergenerational theft, and it can most easily be seen in the PAYGO pensions and health care systems in place in the USA, UK and yes, New Zealand.  Ponzi schemes that pay people on current pensions and health users (most of whom are elderly) out of the taxes of currently trading businesses and individuals.  By no stretch of the imagine are the benefits these people are getting paid for by them, for their taxes paid for the last lot, and there aren't enough new taxpayers to pay for this insecure intergenerational mandatory deal that statist politicians bribed people with.

So whilst there is righteous anger and disgust at the actions of looters, vandals and others who have demonstrated they are little more than parasites and destructive to humanity and life, there also should be anger at the political classes, who have continued to peddle their borrow and hope mentality, with their regular advance auction of stolen goods, so they get power.

It is true whether the party concerned is called Republican, Democrat, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, National, Greens or Maori Party.   All are guilty, all gain power and seek to borrow from people who don't have a vote, who have no choice but to pay for what current politicians want to spend money on.

The Tea Party in the US has, in part, represented resistance to this profligacy, and whilst it has attracted a colourful range of characters, it has also attracted approbium and abuse for wanting to end this mortgaging of childrens' futures.  In the UK, only think tanks and lobby groups represent that attitude, and in New Zealand perhaps only now ACT, and of course Libertarianz.

Don't believe me?  Simply ask your next politician why your children and grandchildren should be forced to pay back debts so that people who currently live off the state, get benefits from the state or get their businesses supported by the state, don't have to pay for it themselves?

NZ Herald disgraces itself

As if to prove my long held view that finding proper journalists in New Zealand is quite difficult, Graham Baker of the NZ Herald comes along and spins absolute nonsense about the criminal violence that beset England since Saturday, and which has thankfully largely dissipated. It has dissipated in part because of the enormous increase in Police presence, but also the rain. You see people who “can’t be arsed” turning up for a job interview, or getting out of bed before 11am, or working are incredibly resistant to getting wet and cold. For that reason alone I hope it rains every night through the next few days and especially the weekend.

Baker is the NZ Herald’s news editor and is from the UK. Maybe he left because he couldn’t earn a living writing for the Morning Star, for I suspect the Guardian is not left wing enough for him, nor is Ed Miliband.

A journalist is meant to report on events, investigate and provide insights into the news. Baker didn’t do that, he interviewed his laptop. In this age when anyone can read for free most major UK serious papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, the Independent and the Guardian, as well as the numerous tabloids, why would one even bother reading the NZ Herald for news about the UK, when it puts out an article that could have come from the Marxist-Leninist (pro-USSR) Morning Star. The NZ Herald may a well have reprinted this, to help keep the ailing Morning Star from collapsing.

So what did he say? Consider it a rant worthy of Matt McCarten, and indeed it was embraced by my good buddy Russel Norman.

Baker claimed:

British politicians have espoused neo-liberal dogma for the best part of 30 years. A dogma based on consumerism and selfish individualism over shared responsibility.

Really Graham? Find a single speech by the current PM, Deputy PM, or indeed the past four PMs which has exemplified what you have claimed. Did the welfare state get dismantled, because I’ve watched it grow to the point where people on above average incomes get benefits for breeding, where people get up to £400 a week in housing benefit to have a four bedroom home (after the cuts!), and where pregnant teenagers are handed a free flat by councils. Yes, I’ve noticed health spending go through the roof in the world’s most centrally planned health service. I’ve noticed a top marginal tax rate of effectively 42% (now 52%). Most tax collected is on people in the top third of income earnings, but don’t let facts get in the way of your neo-Marxist dogma.

He goes on, expecting that a one year old government might have worked wonders...

Cameron's nebulous ideal of "Big Society" - that communities are stronger than the government in sorting problems out - has yetto prove of worth. (sic)

So government is the solution Graham. No shared responsibility in that, and funnily enough I thought the large numbers of people who turned out to clean up the town centres that had been vandalised might actually prove communities ARE stronger, but you ignored that, doesn’t fit your neo-Marxist love of “government can sort problems out”. 

Then he makes the riots a cause and effect of the recession...

in a time of austerity and a global recession lasting years, when people see their opportunities narrowing, services cut and the disappearance of the things they have for decades been told to expect, this is what happens

Most people have seen opportunities narrow for now, but spending cuts are largely just a reduction in the growth of spending. The government is spending more this year than last year. However, what’s this “things they have for decades been told to expect”? How many decades do teenagers expect things? Yet so what? Shared responsibility which Graham embraces doesn’t mean not having any of your own? This actually isn’t what happens Graham – all of Eastern Europe had its economies turned upside down, with mass layoffs and expectations of free social services and guaranteed jobs abolished when the mass of the population overthrew the dictatorships the Morning Star had lauded as examples. 

He asks plaintively (of a place he left to find a future)...

Where does one find a future? There are 400-odd unemployed people for every job advertised in Tottenham, many of those part-time shop or cleaning work for minimum wage.

Funnily enough Graham, London is bigger than Tottenham and one can catch a bus anywhere for £1.20 each way. How about the tens of thousands of immigrants from far poorer countries who come with next to nothing and set up small businesses, working seven days a week to scratch out a living? Of course they are displaying “selfish individualism” and so are part of the problem, right Graham? Is concern about your future a reason to mow down three young men on a footpath, or beat up a young man till his jaw is broken, or indeed just set fire to a store to watch it burn?

Then comes a mistake or a deliberate misrepresentation...

It now costs about $24,000 a year just to study at university in England.

No Graham. That’s complete nonsense. You have misrepresented it in three ways. First, the figure you quote is false. The MAXIMUM a university can charge is £9,000. That’s NZ$17,900 at today’s exchange rates, but far better to put it over NZ$20k, good for your “story” right? Secondly, it is a maximum. Quite a few charge less than that. Most importantly, nobody has to cough up that amount upfront. Student loans are available to cover the entire tuition fee that do not have to be repaid until the graduate starts earning above the average wage, and then only in increments. Guess the full story doesn’t fit your agenda does it Graham?

He then refers to someone the Guardian talked to who said:

“University fees have gone up, education costs money. And there's no jobs. This is them sending out a message."

One point ably made by Allister Heath of City AM is that a significant number of those rioting probably could never have got into university because they would have performed so badly at school. The three reasons this happens tend to be negligent parents, poor quality schools and the corrosive culture of criminality that pervades many areas. Free university education doesn’t address this issues in Scotland, so why would it in England?

However, then he talks about circumstances as if they are all about luck. 

My generation was lucky. University was affordable, social mobility was a reality, and just over a decade ago I entered an economy that worked. The situation young people find themselves in today is the very antithesis of the word "lucky".

Well actually many young people are “lucky”, many work damned hard to do well at school, go to university, or find employment and make a life for themselves. Most of them don’t vandalise and steal. Graham might have reflected that decades of overspending by governments and promising unaffordable pensions for older generations have proven to be unsustainable, but we don't get anything about solutions from him.

Does he have a solution? No, of course not, in fact almost none of the leftwing commentators do, all they do is blame past politicians. He says:

It is no irony that a country which has pursued consumerism and social nihilism has been blighted by people who - when it all goes wrong - believe in and respect nothing except consumer goods.

Did it suddenly go wrong? No. The social nihilism Graham damns is actually because of the breakdown of families, and the embrace of moral relativism and post-modern theories of power and identity politics that teach and disseminate the view that nothing is ever your fault. They claim everything is stacked against Afro-Caribbean youth because of “racism”, and everything is stacked against those on low incomes because of the view that wealthier people are just “lucky”, and that it has nothing to do with hard work and discipline. In fact the word discipline has been eschewed as “self expression” has been embraced. It is an embrace of a perverse individualism that demands the right to do whatever they like, whatever they consequences, and demand what they want, and to complain if you don’t give it to them. This corrosive culture has been catalysed by a subculture of gangsterism, embracing the “music” and attitudes that celebrate violence, misogyny and expectations that education and hard work are for fools, and that easy money is what matters. This isn’t about capitalism or even individualism, it is parasitism.

What really happened Graham is that a handful of people decided to take on the Police in Tottenham Hale, and the Police were overwhelmed and outnumbered. This was seen by criminal gangsters and the underclass of feral youth (the ones that parents and teachers are scared to discipline for fear the kids will call Social Services, and who will complain about their rights whenever anyone tells them off for breaking laws or being obnoxious) as a weakness, and so they networked loosely and went out on a spree. They were laughing, joking and boasting about what they did. They weren’t on a political demonstration, they weren’t complaining about racism (most of the rioters up North were white), they weren’t looting for food or essentials, indeed many times they didn’t even loot, but just destroyed. Not that far removed from the Sex Pistol’s in “Anarchy in the UK”, which was written in the 1970s, before Graham’s “neo liberal” revolution.

Graham doesn’t have an answer. Maybe because he doesn’t know it, or because if he said he wanted taxes to go up, and more to be spent on welfare, education and state subsidised jobs, his economic illiteracy should show.

So I urge those who think this sort of journalism is not worthy for New Zealand to give up buying or subscribing to the NZ Herald.  If this is what passes as professional journalism in that newspaper, then it's worthless.  A mixture of half truths, complete falsehoods, and agit-prop dressed up as analysis, without any answers.  You'll get more sense from the centre-left Independent.

UPDATE:  Seems the Greens have swallowed it all hook, line and sinker, and continue to be barren in their answers.

Russel Norman shows the mindlessness of the far-left (UPDATED)

I'm not a fan of Russel Norman.  He's a prick.

He might be a co-leader of the Green Party, but he quickly resorts to personal abuse and name calling when debating.  He plays the man, not the ball.  I've engaged with a few Green MPs and most are more dignified than he is.

See we have a history...

I questioned his view on cellphone towers, based on some knowledge about EMR issues, and he aligned me with ACT and called me CaptivityScott and DungeonScott.

Then he says I am "far right" for saying it was offensive on the day that dead bodies were being found in Brisbane after severe floods to say that Queensland is a major contributor to climate change, as if they were reaping what they sowed.   Because you see, Norman can't actually believe people who want less government aren't somehow Nazis.

His latest effort is to copy Ken Livingstone (not copied by UK Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband) in saying on Twitter:

London riots show costs of inequality and poverty can present with more immediacy than slowly increasing public health bills

Bullshit.  Especially vile since you wont see Russel Norman coming to London to talk to those who wrecked havoc and stole, you especially wont see him talking to the owners of businesses whose lives and families are ruined.  One couple came from Sri Lanka with nothing, and now have their livelihood destroyed.  What's poverty Russel? How can hundreds of thousands of migrants from far poorer backgrounds who come with nothing create livings for themselves, whereas thousands of kids who have been handed education and homes on a plate, who in some cases are given a basic living for doing nothing, be seen as underprivileged?

The gangs who roamed around London used Blackberries, that great symbol of poverty, to organise.  Many had cars to drive around in, which given nearly half of Londoners don't have cars (given the density of public transport) means they are hardly in poverty.  Most weren't seeking food, they went for designer clothes, widescreen TVs, or in many cases just wanted to vandalise.  How else does it explain the breaking in to a baby clothing shop (in Ealing), and just strewing the contents of the shop around?  These aren't mothers desperately needing stuff for their kids, they are thugs who just want to destroy.

However, Russel Norman can't understand that.  He is as out of touch with the underclasses as he is with the laws of physics and economics (think he lives in a housing estate?).  He can't believe people can be evil and destructive for no reason.  He can't believe that people can be given the full blame for their actions, because his "world view" is coloured by Marxist structuralist identity politics that automatically labels people as either empowered or oppressed according to race or class background.  The Sri Lankan couple with a shop are petty bourgeois, the black youth gang are "disadvantaged", the young (Malaysian student) boy robbed while he was injured might have more "power" because of his background. 

It is collectivist groupthink - it categorises people as winners or losers by stereotypes.  It is racism of the left, which is more sophisticated if not less insidious and destructive than racism of the right.

A more sophisticated view has come from the Editor of the Independent, not my favourite newspaper as it tends to be the mouthpiece of the Liberal Democrat left, but still take this:

We know enough about these riots and those perpetrating them to know what they are not. This is not a political protest. The rioters have no agenda. It is not centrally directed. The goal is acquisitive looting or brainless destruction. The original riot in Tottenham on Saturday seems to have been sparked by a community's sense of grievance against the police. But what happened in Woolwich, Toxteth and Bristol on Monday night is clearly not an anti-police protest. Much of it is copycat rioting. Criminal gangs and antisocial youths have seized on an opportunity to run amok, knowing that the police cannot be everywhere at once.

Nor is this a response to public-sector austerity. Reports of the Government's cuts might have added to the air of desperation in many poor communities. But the fact is that most cuts have not been implemented yet. This is not a riot driven by new media either. BlackBerrys and Twitter – neither of which existed during the inner-city civil disturbances of the 1980s – have doubtless played a role in fanning the flames. But new media is hardly a sufficient explanation for this antisocial spasm. This is also not a race riot, in the manner of Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth or Broadwater Farm in the 1980s, either. The rioters of 2011 are racially mixed. And there is no overwhelming collective grievance against the police for racial harassment as there was three decades ago.

So the mindless claims, parroted by other leftwing bloggers like Tumeke and Kiwipolitico, are just that:

-  It isn't politically driven;

-  It isn't anti-Police per se;

-  It isn't a response to spending cuts;

-  It can't be blamed on social media;

-  It isn't racially driven.

It is "acquisitive looting and brainless destruction", it isn't desperation from poverty, it isn't a desire to "express themselves" (has it ever been less difficult to publish, record or broadcast?).

It is more disturbing:

many of these jobless and under-educated youths simply do not feel that they belong to a community. They have formed parallel groupings instead, defined by a shocking lack of morality and an immunity from shame. It is this criminal, marginalised and sometimes mentally disturbed underclass that Britain has seen in action in recent days.

They are, in part, a result of absent parents, especially fathers, who have been allowed for decades to breed and flee, with little financial consequences, leaving hoards of boys being raised without male role models, until they find the next best thing. The get recruited by tough gangsters who demand obedience, who deal in violence, theft and the black economy, but in the lawless environment of housing estates offer some security, the easy spoils of thieving, status and as a result access to the girls who cling on for their father figures, trading the one currency girls always have in.

It has been the damning failure of a massive social experiment, a belief that only with more money, more "youf centas", council workers, housing benefits, dumbed-down education that treats them as incapable of achieving, a softly softly approach to law and order for those who don't bother and infest these communities with their poisonous embrace of violence, but most of all the constant excuses from the illiberal left that "it isn't your fault" that you did things you shouldn't, that somehow these lost people can be saved.  It would be quasi-Christian, except Christians believe in punishment.  This philosophy, interwoven with the envy-ridden simplicity of Marxist belief that claim people succeed only through "luck" or by inheriting from people who are considered to have "stolen" from society, is now both philosophically and empirically bankrupt.

It is time to break up the housing estates that condemn kids from poor families to live in high density housing (good for public transport and the environment!) surrounded by gang culture.  It is time to cease paying people to breed.  It is time to cease handing out welfare to convicted violent criminals.  It is time to set education free of the state mass production system that claims one size fits all and which condemns kids of poor families to no choice.  It is time to promote a culture of celebrating entrepreneurship, hard work and trading, whilst not state subsidising a culture of violence, attitude laden demands for "respect" and unalloyed misogyny. 

Meanwhile, Russel Norman thinks he is qualified to point finger at a foreign country, score political points that are at the expense of hundreds of victims, and proclaim effectively that if only taxes took more money for these rioters, they wouldn't riot. He ignores the small business owners whose livelihoods are ruined, and those of the people they employed.  People who despite poverty, make a go of their lives, even with the taxes and regulation Russel thinks makes what they do "good for society", for let's not forget that if any such businesses do very well, he will want to smash them down to size or pillage more for the people who would destroy them.  Always second, third, fourth chances to those who demand it all for nothing, always more and more taxes and demands for those who ask for nothing, but build for themselves.

He isn't interested in poverty, he is interested in point scoring, in state control and intervention and in using state power to take from some to give to others.   For if he cared about poverty, he'd worry about the businesses that keep these communities alive, that provide goods and services, and hire people and create wealth for them.  No, he cares about those who if left to their own devices, would turn everyone to dust, and after taking all they could, would starve to death because nobody productive would be left.

In fact, his philosophy of not letting the perpetrator take responsibility for his or her actions and ignoring the victim of their crimes has been a resounding failure.  It is not a time to bribe the uncivilised and destructive with money taken from the civilised and creating.

UPDATE: You'll do worse than read Allister Heath's editorial today..read it all but for part of what he says:

The cause of the riots is the looters; opportunistic, greedy, arrogant and amoral young criminals who believe that they have the right to steal, burn and destroy other people’s property. There were no extenuating circumstances, no excuses. The context was two-fold: first, decades of failed social, educational, family and microeconomic policies, which means that a large chunk of the UK has become alienated from mainstream society, culturally impoverished, bereft of role models, permanently workless and trapped and dependent on welfare or the shadow economy. For this the establishment and the dominant politically correct ideology are to blame: they deemed it acceptable to permanently chuck welfare money at sink estates, claiming victory over material poverty, regardless of the wider consequences, in return for acquiring a clean conscience. The second was a failure of policing and criminal justice, exacerbated by an ultra-soft reaction to riots over the past year involving attacks on banks, shops, the Tory party HQ and so on, as well as an official policy to shut prisons and reduce sentences. Criminals need to fear the possibility and consequence of arrest; if they do not, they suddenly realise that the emperor has no clothes.

he disposes of the arguments around it being political

the state will spend 50.1 per cent of GDP this year; state spending has still been rising by 2 per cent year on year in cash terms. It has never been as high as it is today – in fact, it is squeezing out private sector growth and hence reducing opportunities and jobs. Many of the vandals were school children not yet in the labour market; unemployment is a tragedy that must be fought but 9, 10 or 14 year olds can’t be pillaging because of it. Equally tragically, most of the older rioters would never have any hope of going to university, regardless of cost, such is their educational poverty.