The immorality of executing drug dealers

BZP has commented on the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, for the crime of trading in a banned substance. Yes I know that doing this through Singapore is a risk, and you take the risk when you do it - but I agree with BZP that what is particularly vile is Marc Alexander - former United Future MP, and one of the more sensible ones - agreeing with the view that drug dealing is like mass murder.

It isn't. Most people who take drugs are not addicts, they are people choosing to ingest a substance for their own pleasure. Most drug users do so occasionally for a certain period of their lives, and then drift away from it. Some are addicts, as there are alcoholics, addicts to gambling, porn and food. Those people need to help themselves, but just because they exist is not a reason to criminalise all of the others. Criminalisation also means that the quality and price go down and up respectively - many drug related health problems are related to the impurity of the drug.

However, for people like Marc Alexander a drug dealer - someone selling to a willing buyer - is no different to an executioner, someone applying force against another individual.

The Economist magazine some years ago stated, in essence, that drug use may not be smart or even safe, but that it is no reason to ban it.

Abolish Auckland City Council

Rodney Hide has announced he is resubmitting his private member’s bill on capping council rates increases to the rate of inflation, after reporting that Auckland City Council will be increasing rates by 55-196% over the next ten years.

Of course this was going to happen for three reasons:

1. Local government is full of petty bureaucrats and inexorably works to increase its size and influence. It is cancerous, it doesn’t seek to shrink.
2. Labour (and the then Alliance) and the Greens voted in 2001 to give local government a power of general (in)competence. This means that councils can get into whatever activity they wish, as long as they consult “the community”. Since most of “the community” spends its time working and living, and can’t be bothered responding to these consultation processes, most things councils do get rubber stamped. Council were set off the legal leash with the Local Government Act 2002.
3. The lefty council elected last year by Aucklanders is even more enamoured by more interference and more council spending – so Aucklanders made things even worse.

So there you have it – until local government is slashed to the bone, or better still, abolished it will grow and grow, like a tumour. Rodney’s Bill ought to be supported by the Nats and United Future (since United Future campaigned on abolishing GST on rates), so we should let NZ First argue in favour of growing local authority rates. You might ask National Party member and Auckland City Councillor Aaron Bhatnagar what he thinks - after all, Auckland City Council simply grew SLOWER under the Banks/CRN council that got voted out in 2004.

If Libertarianz were in Parliament, it would support the Bill too, although would be working on amendments to at least cap rates for ten years, if not slash them.

The truth is that rates shouldn’t be capped at inflation, councils need trimming, so they should have rates capped indefinitely, and prohibited from entering into any new activities and required to privatise (by whatever means) any businesses they operate.

User pays should apply to all services that can be charged that way practicably, and what is left to councils should be the remaining “public good” activities that are most difficult to shift to the private sector.

Within three years, Auckland City Council could have sold or given away shares in all businesses it is involved in, and sold all surplus property. Subsidies would have been abolished. User pays could apply wherever it could be practically implemented.

Within six years, Auckland City Council could have given to the voluntary sector all of its social activities, such as community centres and pools and parks. Activities unable to be operated by user pays would be transferred to the voluntary sector, or adjacent private property owners (e.g. trusts for footpaths).

Within nine years, the remaining planning functions of Auckland City Council could have been abolished, as property rights were granted in a wider range of factors (airspace, noise, pollution). Roads would be held by either body corporates for local streets or a company for major arterials - and the relevant owner would charge for road use.

See, Auckland City Council could be abolished within ten years.

and kneesocks would be compulsory for all women 18-35

Greens opposing more state violence?

Well, just to be fair to them, it appears the Greens have dropped the gun in one case – the regulation of dietary supplements. Now I suspect this is largely because of a warm fuzzy feeling the Greens have towards so-called natural remedies, you know all those extracts of plants, bugs and whatsoever that are vastly overpriced, and tend to do anything short of promise better sleep, fitness, sexual performance. The Greens don’t tend to like the pharmaceutical sector (all that science and cold hard analysis using chemicals), but like anyone who can take a lemon and make a cold and flu tablet out of it – forgetting that all substances are chemicals and just because it is natural, doesn’t mean it is good for you. Uranium, arsenic and lead are all very natural and pure.

Sue Kedgley is right, regulating dietary supplements through a proposed Trans-Tasman Therapeutics Goods Agency is not in New Zealand’s interests. It would be a highly bureaucratic system with huge compliance costs. A better approach would be to return to the right to sue (tort law not Kedgley) and opening ACC up to competition, so that producers of dietary supplements that sell products that are negligently harmful can be held to account.

Unfortunately, Sue having dropped the gun for the big bureaucracy, is still holding a baton when she says that “we can begin work on a sensible, New Zealand-based scheme to improve the regulation of dietary supplements”. Imagine there’s no regulation, it’s easy if you try, no bureaucrats or authorities, above us only sky.

Green Party promoting more state violence - Example 2

As the next part of my series into how the Greens are pro-violence. There is Sue Bradford’s private member’s bill to compel employers to pay 16 and 17yos the adult minimum wage.

Now the concept of a legal minimum wage in itself is state interference in the actions of individuals. If a person is willing to work for less than the minimum wage, why should an employer be required – under threat of state violence – to pay that person more? This is Nanny State in action once again.

The Green’s argument is that “age discrimination is arbitrary, inequitable and unjustifiable under the principle of equal pay for work of equal value”. Well if only it were as simple as that.

The “value” the Greens are putting on work is arbitrary, inequitable and unjustifiable. Who else, other than the employer and employee can decide what the value is in performing a certain task? The value may be $20 a hour or $1. The employer determine whether the task generates enough wealth to make that worthwhile, and how easy it is to get others to perform the task – unskilled jobs pay little because a lot of people are unskilled. The employee decides whether the time and effort cost in the job is worth the money that is offered for it.

None of this involves force. Now some would argue that you are “forced” to work otherwise you starve, which of course is not “force” it is reality. Human beings will die unless they undertake tasks to find food, or trade value for food. It has nothing to do with force – the world does not owe anyone a living.

16 and 17yos typically face no risk whatsoever of starving or not being able to survive without a job. For them, employment is about gaining some valuable early experience in the workforce (which is a good way to get a CV started) and then to have some surplus money to pay for entertainment, clothes and other lifestyle accessories. Most live off the back of their parents for housing, food, utilities etc.

To say that a 16yo should be paid the same as an 18yo for the same job ignores so many factors that the state has no right to question. The fundamental factor is this- the employer created the job and is offering money (the employer’s money) for performing a duty, often on the employer’s property. The employee can accept or reject this. It is not for Sue Bradford or anyone to interfere in this. Exploitation? Well assuming the 16yo entered into the contract wilfully, it is not exploitation – the contract can be ended, it is not slavery and it is not compulsory. Whereas the creepy concept of equal work for equal pay (assuming some great oracle can determine what equal work means) socialises jobs, makes employment an intimate matter of the state whereby bureaucrats determine what value is put on what people produce.

The argument that "High school students are often required to work long hours in evenings and weekends to support their families, who are themselves often facing the same wage issues." put forward by Young Greens Spokesperson George Darroch is bollocks. "Often required?" since when? Just another socialist unsubstantiated assertion.

The minimum wage for 16 and 17yos should not be increased, it should be abolished. If 16 and 17yos want to work they can choose whether to take a particular job or not – take the experience and the pay, or do something else. The argument that such wages do not reflect the cost of living is irrelevant - the employer doesn't set that, and these jobs are more often than not part time supplements. Should part time employment be banned because it doesn't reflect the cost of living? The claim that 1 in 5 children live in poverty has little to do with lower wages for young people - the people to blame for that poverty are, by and large, the parents who produced the children and did not take steps to ensure they would be looked after.

Nobody owes them a living.

ACT and National should vote against this Bill, as it is not only immoral, but will effectively ban many jobs that exist right now. Many jobs for 16 and 17yos exist only because the employer cannot justify paying them more for the tasks these inexperienced people bring to their jobs. The jobs are valuable short term work experience, which can move onto better pay in the future. The Greens want to destroy these jobs, although they THINK they are simply going to raise the wages in those jobs. The formula is simple- if the jobs do not generate wealth for a business at the adult minimum wage, the jobs will go. If the person doing the job is likely to leave and he or she would be hard to replace, then the employer will pay more to retain that employee. There is no such thing as a right to a job

and why is this an example of state violence? It is using the threat of injunction (with fines or imprisonment to back it up) to prohibit employment contracts below a certain price. There is nothing peaceful about that!

Goodbye London Routemaster

Well everyone, after an awful week after going to Munich for a day, and then getting a virus that had me stuck in bed till yesterday – I am back and enough is getting me angry or excited to start posting regularly again.

In London, the big news last week was the demise of the much loved Routemaster double deck buses. These buses replaced the trolley buses in London from the 1950s, and are one of the symbols of the city. Mayor Ken Livingstone who when elected said you had to be a “ghastly dehumanised moron” to want to get rid of the Routemaster. Well he did it – the remaining Routemasters have been withdrawn from scheduled service, though some retain for tourist routes.

Funnily it was a Labour Transport Secretary in 1967, the leftie nutcase Barbara Castle, who sounded the end to the production of Routemasters by nationalising bus services and subsidising the purchase of rear-engined buses.

Now I’m not one to say the public should subsidise an adequated mode of transport. If private bus companies can run more efficient modern buses, that are cheaper to maintain and operate than the Routemaster then so be it. However, this is not what has happened here. Instead the Mayor mandated the ending of the Routemaster, and he did it because the disability lobby have cried about how inaccessible the Routemaster buses are to people in wheelchairs. The fact that most tube stations are completely inaccessible, and that a subsidised maxi-taxi service for the wheelchair bound does not concern these “human rights activists”. To them, there is a right of everyone to use private property, and if they can’t fit, then make it happen.

"Those who defend the Routemaster should have a long hard think about the impact of their views," said Bert Massie, chairman of the Disability Rights Commission. "Wanting to hang onto a vehicle that many people can't use is based on the principle of segregation - in effect you cut off a large number of people from using one form of transport."

There have been the odd murmurings that Air NZ is breaching the Human Rights Act with its upgraded Boeing 747s, because people in wheelchairs cannot access the new Premium Economy Class cabin which is only located upstairs. The next nonsense will be rental cars with chauffeurs for the blind because “they have the right to independent travel” anything else would be “apartheid” or “segregation”.

I'm sorry, you don't have a right to any product or service - you have the right to offer to purchase a service, if the seller agrees, but you cannot dictate that someone must provide a service for you - regardless

On top of the disability argument (which holds less water with a survey that claimed 81% of disabled people wanted Routemasters retained), is the safety one. People get killed or injured falling off of the back of buses. Well tough! I am all for more stupid people getting killed from being stupid – it removes their chance to breed, and claim more from the rest of us. Every time some idiot walks or drives in front of a train at a level crossing, there are whinges and whines for “something to be done about it”. Something was done, human beings were equipped with brains – when you approach a level crossing, use your brain, if you don’t then you die – if you don’t have enough incentive to stop and look, then why the hell should we all be forced to pay for your incompetence?

So the Routemasters are gone, partly due to a politically correct obsession with people in wheelchairs, partly because of an obsession by the left to wrap people in cotton wool in case they hurt themselves, but also because they are old and not very fuel efficient. If Transport for London abandoned subsidising buses and let the private companies operate the routes and buses they wanted, then we’d know whether Routemasters should be retained. I’ve ridden on them a couple of times, and while they are quaint, by and large they have rough hard suspension and are not that comfortable – but then I don’t find riding by bus to be much fun most of the time for the same reason most public transport isn't much fun - there are lots of other people sharing your space and air!