20 years of sexual freedom

DPF and this story on Gaynz.com (hat tip No Right Turn). This doesn’t concern the Bible bashing Taliban of our day, but is horrendous, and shows how readily the Police were willing to clamp down on ANYONE the state deemed as “perverted”. If you wonder how fascism can come to pass, then look – because it existed, for gay people until 1986.
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I give a damn because no other Bill in recent times represents the most fundamental personal liberty that any adults should have. The right to consensual sexual interaction in peace. You see, the same people who still oppose homosexual law reform (one is doing time for molesting young girls and stood for Parliament several times), basically believe you do NOT own your body. They believe your body should be regulated by the state, by their churches and that it is moral to imprison people for doing what they want in their own bedrooms. What gives them ANY right to tell any other adult what to do? Nothing does. Interestingly, the law at the time had no prohibition against adult women engaging in sexual behaviour with each other, as the traditional view had been that having such a law would encourage women to experiment!!
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Homosexual law reform was the last great bastion of sexual liberation, and it required enormous courage. It isn’t just about sex (of all kinds) between men, it also legalised sodomy generally (between men and women as well).
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A number of individuals stand out at the time. Fran Wilde for having the courage to introduce the Bill in the first place. That is, in my opinion, her greatest political achievement, and no small one. George Gair, as the National MP with the casting vote. He had hesitation in supporting the Bill because it set the gay age of consent at 16, he preferred 18. However, he decided to vote yes on the final reading at 16 – that was something for a former National Cabinet Minister, one of the most liberal ones in a very old fashioned male dominated caucus.
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There were those who campaigned actively against the Bill. Graeme Lee National MP, who later went to the Christian Democrats, which is now part of United Future (Peter Dunne voted for the Bill). Geoff Braybrooke, Labour MP for Napier, campaigned loudly against it, as did fellow Labour MP Allan Wallbank, Norm Jones the Invercargill National MP. John Banks may choose to forget it now, but he was a loud campaigner against it as well. Those old dinosaurs are long gone from Parliament, but their bigotry was the centre of the battle between liberals and conservatives. Bigotry where the word sodomy would be thrown around like old southern baptist preachers harping on about "fornication".

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The Bill was passed broadly on Labour/National lines, with most Labour MPs supporting it and most National MPs opposing it. Labour’s Maori MPs opposed it, no doubt because the Ratana Church was conservative. Many National MPs who would have been thought of as being liberal, voted against it, such as Lockwood Smith, Doug Graham and Simon Upton - the courage of mice. Jim Bolger and Rob Muldoon voted against it. National MPs Katherine O'Regan and Ian Maclean voted for it.

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More notable was the campaigning by the Salvation Army, which collected signatures and petitions against the Bill. This burnt much goodwill that many gay and lesbian people had towards the Sallies, as they revealed themselves to not be the objectively kind people they always had been thought of as being. A Salvation Army that happily would see you imprisoned for sex with another man was hardly kind. (Hat Tip Maia for pointing out that the Sallies have apologised). The Catholic Church opposed it too. It is not true that this is because it retained an age of consent.
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Other notable New Zealanders including Sir Keith Hay and Sir Peter Tait, both opposed the Bill. Old fashioned fascists who forgot separation of church and state.
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So it is 20 years on. NZ is not full of boys bumming each other, catching HIV and the population is not in inexorable decline. The alleged communist plot (odd given how homosexuals faced enormous bigotry in the former Soviet bloc) behind the Bill failed, with the collapse of the communist bloc 3 years later. The “Coalition of Concerned Citizens” who outlined in incredibly graphic detail what homosexuals did (including fellatio!! Incredible!) moved onto Graham Capill and Brian Tamaki - and together got less than 1% of the vote in the last election. The National Party of today is predominantly liberal, and Labour is in coalition with a party that includes the remnants of the Christian Democrats, led by a former Labour MP who supported the Bill. How much times have changed.

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FreedomNZ on this

Maia here and here

Uroskin here

How Green is the market

Well high fuel prices have done something that the Greens can't achieve with their interventionist nanny statism - it has seen a shift to public transport.

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The Dominion Post reports that Intercity Coachlines has ordered four new double decker coaches to provide more capacity on its Wellington-Auckland coach service. The coaches will carry between 65 and 76 passengers, 30% more than standard coaches, while using 15% less fuel. It seems that demand for long distance coach services is rising because it is becoming more expensive to drive. So the more fuel efficient coaches are now cheap enough, compared to driving, to be more competitive for more people.

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This is great, and a gamble. After all, coaches have an efficient life of no more than 15 years, so it is a reasonable capital commitment by a private company to buy new larger coaches. On top of that, the coach bodies will be built by a Tauranga company - and there is no protectionism making it more expensive to import bus bodies.

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Don't forget Intercity was once government owned. It was the long distance part of the former Railways Road Services that the fourth Labour government privatised as part of its deal with SOE New Zealand Rail Ltd to wipe its $1 billion of restructuring debt which it had built up over the seven years since it had previously had its debt wiped. Railways Road Services used to have over $1 million in subsidies (in 1990 dollars) a year, now Intercity runs it as a commercial operation and business is growing.

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Now the Greens might complain that the trains aren't getting the same investment - well maybe people aren't catching trains in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile?

Bad Girls

So teenage girls are going on websites and showing off and meeting people for sex. Yes it has been going on since the internet has been around, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. It isn’t to me. I used to moderate an adult website chatroom, that chatroom would have, from time to time, teenagers under 18 accessing it. Sometimes adults would roleplay being younger, which is fine, as long as it is clear. Sometimes, there were boys and girls from puberty up gaining access. The messageboard associated with the website purged anyone who gave a birthday on registration that meant they were under 18 – so they just lied. You couldn’t tell until you caught them, and when there are thousands of people registering online and lying, you can’t do much about it other than be as vigilant as you can be. Search yahoo profiles and you're find them there too, pretending to be 18 or over.
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In other words – teenagers are interested in sex online, they look at it, chat about it and meet others for it. Most of those they meet are in their peer group, but no doubt some meet those much older than them. The question that needs asking is not how to block them from doing it, because if you can't control your net access then it is almost futile - but to ask why they do it in the first place.
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Check out this report:

The parents arrived home one night to find a boy in their house with their daughter.
"Then we started finding condoms lying around. We questioned her a bit further and it came out," the father said. He forced his daughter to show him the website, and he was horrified at what he found. She was acting like "something off Manchester Street". "The whole school is in on it, hooking up left, right and centre. They post messages like 'Fancy hooking up?' and they come around to the house when Mum and Dad are out to make whoopy," he said.
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Let’s get some reality here. So a girl has met a boy off a website (not a man) and they had sex, and his daughter can dress sexy. So this didn’t happen before the internet? Seriously, there is a whole flavour of Victorian prudishness here. It is one thing to protect your kids from predatory behaviour and rightfully so, another to be concerned that teenagers – horror of horrors- are attracted to each other.
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The internet is not dangerous. There is nothing sinister in itself about a communication network that allows people to access information, images and media from around the world about any topic. The worst the internet can do to you, if you do nothing, is to offend you or something can steal your image and defame and humiliate you. Assuming nobody takes advantage of you, the choice then is how you interact with it. With that come some simple rules that parents can apply to teenagers, like not giving out home addresses or phone numbers. Meeting people online accompanied in a public place. People meet others online daily, thousands, and thousands are no more at risk than meeting people in a bar, at a café, or at a mall. It is no MORE dangerous than anything else. The danger comes from meeting people, and that danger is universal, and part of life no less.
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Yes there are teenage chatrooms which some adults go to for preying on teenagers. Reputable ones monitor them, which is why some men get arrested for trying to meet underage girls online. You should find those that are monitored and encourage their use. The reputable ones monitor because it is in their interests to do so. However, there is little you can do if you darling daughter (few seem concerned about sons, but boys do it too) shows off her body online with a digital camera. If she owns one and posts images of herself, she is taking a risk – and should be warned. Often sites prohibit anyone under 18 posting adult images, but then there are plenty who lie about their age.
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The report also said:
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His daughter "was actually making the first moves".
"They are all talking about sex, who they had sex with or were going to have sex with," he said.
Police, schools and the Government needed to take steps to crack down on the sites before something "blew up".
"I don't think police have picked up on it, but it's obvious to me the websites are dangerous," the father said.

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Sorry “dad” to burst your bubble. Your image of your daughter as this white virginal pure possession of yours that doesn’t think about sex is as archaic as your attitude. Girls make the first moves nowadays as well. The websites are not dangerous – do you seriously think your young woman (not little girl anymore) is going to stop meeting others she may have sex with because the websites aren’t there? She seeks attention and approval, and your attempt to present her as a child corrupted by the big bad world is nonsense. You want to protect her - yes - but instead you've made the world forbidden fruit, which is only the more delicious because she wants to taste it.
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You see this is the great unspoken truth about the internet scaremongering. Some teenagers actively search out pornography and adult contact. In fact, most teenagers have probably seen internet pornography, much like earlier generations saw playboy etc. If your daughter or son is posting explicit or seductive pictures of her or his self it is because they are seeking attention – but it may be the least of your worries. Do you know what they are doing late on Friday night? Do you know about the parties they go to? Do you remember what you did at that age? Do you talk to your kids in an open, non-judgmental way about sexuality? Do you know what your daughter wears? Why is this a bigger concern than swarms of 13 and 14yos hanging around major inner city streets at midnight on Fridays? Why is sitting at home online a bigger risk than that?
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Answer those questions.
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There is another side as well. The internet allows teenagers who feel different to connect with others. Imagine being gay, lesbian or bisexual and wanting to find others in your town who are – not so easy, but many of the outraged probably think that it would be an illness to feel that way. Imagine also being shy or feeling uncomfortable with the opposite sex, the net provides a fairly secure way of communicating without confronting them head on. So it can be a good thing, a very good thing if otherwise suicidal lonely perhaps gay teenagers don’t feel alone. And sex? Well if they don’t get pregnant, don’t catch diseases and aren’t forced or made to feel guilty for it, then feel relieved. However, think more than that - your teens are responding to some basic instincts, that you respond to as well, and almost certainly did at that age. Find out the facts before exploding, and you might find you get honesty and respect, and you might also find out that things aren't half as bad as you think.

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Oh and the blogosphere has plenty of people whose websites might corrupt your teens. If you are not at work try:
http://naughtyopath.blogspot.com/

Pathetic

How much of a hero can you feel winning the World Cup through penalty shootouts? Honestly. Whether France or Italy had won, it was still ridiculous. Italy won out of luck, and because of a lousy refereeing decision against Australia several games ago.

Nice for it to remind me of why I don't bother with football. It is a game thoroughly infused by and large with melodramatic nobodies. Half of the game is focused on faking injuries sustained by the opposition. Unfortunately the ones with skills lose the plot when provoked.

So, England played mediocre, Brazil was arrogance without substance, France, Germany, Czech Republic were teams with skills that never quite made it, Australia was perhaps one of the best teams. Played pretty well, enjoyed themselves and did their best.

Fear

That is what terrorism is about. The murder is simply the means to that end. Today exactly one year after I have posted this, 3 bombs went off within 50 seconds of each other here in London. One each on two Circle line trains, going off between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, and another at Edgware Road. A third bomb went off on the Piccadilly line between Kings Cross and Russell Square. A fourth went off an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. 52 people were murdered, hundreds more injured, around 20 seriously. I catch Piccadilly regularly, as my alternate route to work. The location where the bus bomb went off is also the location of the bus route I sometimes catch as well, if the tube is closed. This morning I took the usual convenient tube route that was not bombed, but I still thought about it. It is one thing to live in New Zealand and watch the news, another to remember that every single day, London faces a terror threat. A real one. The million people who catch the tube every day, the other million who catch the buses (some the same people), those who work near major political, economic or social landmarks, like I do (right next door to one), think about that bag that lies there, the people who get on the tube and look nervous and Arab/South Asian. It is inevitable. It is about your life after all.
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I wasn’t here when the bombings happened, but I was here when the second lot of attempts happened. I work very close to a well known building that could maybe be a target, but damn them to hell. London has gone through worse.
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The blitz was perhaps the scariest time for this city, and 43,000 people were killed in Britain during it. During the first phase of the blitz, every night for three months, 200 German bombers bombed London. There are plenty of people alive who can remember that, and they didn’t run – they didn’t try to “understand the German point of view”, and didn’t apologise.

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They didn’t blame the victims, they fought back. Nazi Germany was defeated, unconditionally. Germany today bears little resemblance to the totalitarian war machine that it once was, it is now the fourth largest economy in the world (China recently nudged it out of third) and a force for peace and stability.
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London also suffered under IRA bombings through the 70s and 80s, although the casualties were low in number. Fear was the main driver. Fear removed rubbish bins from the tube, saw CCTV cameras installed and fear saw thousands avoid the tube one year ago after the bombs.
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Today London is defiant. The evil of the terrorists, who happily see the blood of hundreds of innocent people, of all political beliefs, faiths or no faith and nationality, is not winning in London. The city thrives, it thrives with one of the most diverse populations of any major city in the world. There are probably about 7,000 people in this city right now who supported the bombings and would commit more – that represents the proportion of adult Muslims who in the most conservative polls endorse the terror attacks. I simply wish they would leave, they are not welcome.
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However, perhaps the best statement I have seen comes from no other than Mayor Ken Livingstone. Livingstone was in Singapore at the time, at the International Olympic Committee meeting, following London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics:

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“Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life. I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail. In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”

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For one of Britain’s most renowned/notorious leftwing politicians, Livingstone has set an example. He was right, they will fail and they have. May they go hide in their pathetic little warrens of hate, or go where hatred is glorified and live in the dry dusty dirty heat of it all. Go live in your caves, form a little society of reason hating, anti-individualist primitives, enjoy the life of pre-civilisation – you add nothing to the modern world.

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I am slightly nervous I must admit, but I am not changing my habits to suit Al Qaeda, which released a video to Al Jazeera yesterday of one of the suicide bombers for the 7/7 attacks. Al Qaeda should be defeated, as Nazi Germany was – and nobody who believes in freedom or civilisation, across the political spectrum, should rest until the last member of Al Qaeda surrenders or is killed. The people of London, let alone New York, Madrid, Baghdad and elsewhere, deserve nothing less.

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They certainly don't deserve the excuses seen in the Guardian this morning.

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Faces and obituaries of the victims. BBC

Events of 7 July BBC

Grief, Fear, Hope The Times