An Irony of Sorts

The Green Party has elected Metiria Turei as their number two -the lesser of two evils, as her rival was Sue Bradford, of Anti-Smacking Bill fame. In response, Tariana Turia, the Maori Party leader, has called the election of a Maori women to the post "a political coup".

Meanwhile, in Porirua, a suburb close to where I live filled with state housing and mongrel mob members on what could've been the prime suburb of New Zealand, we have an arena named after local Maori murderer Te Rauparaha, and no one raises an eyebrow.

Perhaps the real coup would be deliberately naming a new town or infrastructure (an arena, maybe) after, say, William Gladstone. Maori chiefs can do no wrong, surely?

Warning: Following Dreams "Irresponsible"

With the full support of her parents, 15 year old Aussie Jessica Watson has a goal: to become the youngest person ever to individually circumnavigate the globe. However, her biggest challenge isn't lofty waves, strong winds and faulty equipment -it's Australian "family groups".

John Morrissey, of the Australian Family Association, has deemed the planned voyage too risky, saying:

"I've been teaching 15 year-old girls for 42 years and I'd be amazed if any of them could cope with something like that."

Similarly, from Bill Muehlenberg, of the Family Council of Victoria, says:

"...I think it sounds fairly irresponsible to allow this kind of thing to happen certainly at this young age."

Of course, a solo circumnavigation of the world presents certain dangers -of which I'm sure Jessica Watson is fully aware of, and prepared to deal with. Unlike most teenagers these days, here is a teenager who is motivated, has a purpose and a goal, and she intends to reach her goal. She represents the pinnacle of what being a teenager should be about: finding one's own wings and goals, and reaching for the stars -building up self esteem so critical at this point in life.

Instead, we have bureaucrats who don't know a single thing about Jessica telling her it's too dangerous. How dare she be motivated and willing to accomplish a goal! After all, in our politically correct world, we're always on about "letting the little people have a go". How's that supposed to help when people need to be assured of themselves and their goals, ideas and dreams?

I am fully behind her attempt to be the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe individually. Ultimately, her only true barrier to completing her voyage is if she doesn't have 100% confidence in her own ability to attain her goal.

A Foolish Mistake Repeats

On his big tour of Europe Barack Obama has landed in Prague, touting much the same message as the anti-nuclear protests in the 1980s did. You know, the refusal to allow a nuclear submarine into port that got us kicked out of ANZUS.

Now, I'm all for disarmament -when Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea also disarm! The fact of the matter is that America (and the European nations with a-bombs) has the right to defend itself against foreign aggressors, and that does mean the possession of nuclear bombs, if necessary (which it is). The sorry state of Western powers means that defense of non-aggressive and non-totalitarian nations rests almost entirely on US action.

I'm sick of the claim that America is an Empire -if that were so, immediately after the fall of Iraq in 2005 the nation would've been annexed by the US, and any form of self-governance banned. Instead, we saw that the Americans had no strategy after the fall of Saddam, and left Iraq in a state of anarchy for two years before peace could be restored by the troop surge. Similarly, when countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iran display an interest in the complete annihilation of Israel -the Middle East's only western democracy- they are only victims, somehow, of Western Civilisation.

That is absurd. Obama, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into.

PC Gone Mad

Truly appalling. Gordon Brown is called names! It's an offense to everything good and decent!

This is the Britain of today, in which political correctness permeates from every corner of society, especially politics. In the article, Lord Foulkes (god knows how he got that title) says about Clarkson's comment:

"He has insulted Gordon Brown three times over: accusing him of being a liar, having a go at him for having a physical handicap, and for his nationality.

"It is an absolute outrage of the worst kind.

"Disabled people will be up in arms about it, Scottish people will be angry and it should concern all of us that the prime minister has been accused of lying."

There is a common phrase for people espousing views like this: pull your head in. Or, more accurately: grow up.

School's Out

As of today, the school year has ended for High Schools and Colleges all over the country, with Primaries and Intermediates finishing now or next week. Some kids will be out around the towns and cities, but most of them will be at home.

Just today, an article appeared in the Dominion Post warning that New Zealand's "She'll be right" attitude (what attitude? it died out years ago when, mysteriously, crime was on the rise) is to blame for fatal accidents where youths are the victims. However, would it be better to condemn those kids to a life of fear of the outside world?

While it is true that parents can take a worthy role in the education of their children about the outside world, a child must learn about it for himself. Children, more so than the rest of us, have an intrinsic desire to explore and learn about the world around them, and to have fun doing so. Education through experience best helps a child to learn about the world around them. How does preventing them from experiencing the outside world help their development?

Once again, the politically-correct cotton-wool culture of modern day New Zealand is at work, trying to protect their child -and intervening in the lives of other people's children- from the culture of self-loathing and hopelessness that they created, by changing New Zealand culture from one of self-reliance to complete reliance on others.

Perhaps removing politically correct cotton-wool culture from every facet of a child's life may help us rebuild that culture and allow our children to discover the world around them, and to build their own ideas of right and wrong, rather than having those ideas forced down their throats by a politically-correct clique.

Nia Glassie: My Verdict

Libertarian Sus outlines the three main reasons for the continuing murders and abuse of children, such as Nia Glassie, in New Zealand:

"1. loser dads to bugger off and leave Mum with the kids, knowing that the poor old taxpayer - again - picks the tab, and

2. loser blokes to move in with single-Mum-with-kids-on-DPB, to be fed and screwed on demand, and

3. young women to screw anything with no personal regard for future consequences, ending up with children they really don't want, who are treated accordingly."

It's interesting how this coincides with Chris Trotter's new goals for social democracy, outlined on Friday:

"Labour has to understand that its state houses, and the welfare state that built them, was just the first, not the last, stage and crowning achievement of the socialist journey. Social democracy must never be about maintaining vast swaths of the population in perpetual electoral peonage.

State houses, along with our public health and education services, must be regarded as launching-pads for heroes, not stables for Labour's donkey-vote."

In effect, social democracy ought to be so bad that it's good, by getting people who once relied on the state for every whim to try to escape as far away as possible from the state houses in which they grew up!

Also of note, is the typical leftist groups who go around say that "it is our problem", without first addressing the root causes of the problem in the culture of complete and total dependency, and then expecting us to be spies on our neighbours to solve the prolem. Any culture which resorts to the expectation that people spying on their neighbours keeps those neighbours from doing terrible things is well over the edge.

The Last Tragedy Of Shakespeare

It could read like a Shakespearean tragedy: using the excuse of their students' personal weaknesses, bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education are trying to remove Shakespeare, arguably the finest mind ever in literature, entirely from the national curriculum. Amidst fears that his works are too removed from the mind of the average High School student to understand, Shakespeare could be scrapped.

Perhaps these bureaucrats should consider the reasons why students in New Zealand are so out-performed in other countries. After years of politically-correct, post modern "teaching" strategies implemented by both Labour and National Governments, students, parents and teachers in this country have been left with the short end of the stick. What we are seeing today is a population so dumbed down that many lack basic skills and knowledge, with many ending up on the welfare state. Indeed, the reason why many students "don't get" Shakespeare has been through the curriculum introduced by the same "education officials" now proposing this measure.

This latest proposal to remove Shakespeare, and letting a student who studies a blog as a piece of English literature obtain the same marks as a student who studies Shakespeare's incredible works, is simply the next piece in the puzzle. Shakespeare's works are the best pieces of literature around, and are still very relevant in today's world.

Teachers in schools are smart enough to know this. Said one, "I am genuinely upset that the amount of literature students are required to study is being reduced and replaced with ambiguous standards which seem to water down the work students are required to do."

Said another, "All the challenge and in-depth analysis and skills required at each level are being modified, and in my opinion, made easier. "Is the implication that we should not dare to challenge students, or heaven forbid, ask them to engage with texts that really speak to the human condition in a superbly crafted form? Dumbing down again."

Yet "education officials" who have no idea of how a child's mind works dictate what gets learnt.

Politically-correct, big government dictatorial thinking at work again. Appealing to the lowest common denominator, and not challenging students to think beyond the box of government mandated thinking -the concepts of "sustainability", "equality", or in my English class, "altruism". It is taught much the same in countries such as Britain and the United States -with similar results. The most intelligent students come from countries where they are required to know the facts, instead of writing essays with criteria such as "describe an important scene in [whatever's being studied] and explain why it's important."

In a freer world, schools would be entirely free to teach whatever they want, with the choices of parents and teacher deciding what ought to be taught. As an interim measure, save us from yet more entrenchment of political correctness at school -save Shakespeare.

Don't tell me ...!

According to the latest 3 News poll, yet another term for the corrupt, socialist Labour government currently ruling the country is looking ever-more likely.

National hadn't changed its place since the last poll, polling at 45%, and Labour went down to 37.5% -however, the real problem is the rise of the Greens, who polled at above 8%. So, given that National has a coalition with ACT and United Future (providing both parties stay in parliament), Labour and the Greens have between them only one less seat, but given the extra three "overhang" seats, neither coalition will be able to rule.

Therefore, the Maori Party chooses who will be the next Prime Minister. And although they've said that they could work with National and form the next government, they could more or less goes anywhere.

Which, in effect, means that New Zealand government for the next few years will go to whoever promises the most handouts to Maori, and all the PC stupidity that comes with modern policy surrounding race, regardless of who wins the next election.

Which, in effect, really peeves me off. MMP for you -the most power goes to the small third parties who make up for numbers with, perhaps, only one or two MPs!

Stop Mollycoddling Our Children!

So says one British Early Childhood expert, Tim Gill, who's in the country at the moment, and he's becoming increasingly worried about the state of NZ children. He says:

"If we're constantly telling kids you can't do that, it's too dangerous or you can't talk to strangers or everybody out there is trying to get you, well then it's no surprise that kids are increasingly growing up anxious and afraid", he said.

And he's right. Like their counterparts in Britain, Kiwi kids are growing up being told what they can and can not do, which is damages their self-esteem and causes them to be reckless, and not think about what they're doing. This can be seen in the rising rates of youth crime and teenage suicide around the country, and indeed, around the world.

Back before political correctness got a stranglehold on public opinion, most children were left free at a young age to discover the world. They knew the risks involved, and developed out of their own experiences, not at the discretion of their parents.

Similarly, we did not have the problems facing young people back then as we have today. Many proponents of the welfare state would put this down to increased government welfare spending then (although that's hardly the case; in 1960, government spending as a percentage of GDP was at 27.7%, and 50% in 1990. It would be even more now.*) After all, welfare isn't a great concern if you spend almost the entire day playing games in the back yard!
Also, welfare wasn't something you were "entitled" to. If you could work, you worked, and it was as simple as that.

Instead, as Tim Gill says, it is the mollycoddling of today's society which is preventing them from enjoying life to the full, and political correctness, with its talk of "rights" and "entitlements" is behind that mollycoddling.

*Free Radical #73, page 3.

The Price We Pay

Every day, we hear socialists expounding the benefits of the welfare state, and paternalistic governmental policies. When asked about the expanding social problems within modern New Zealand society, the answer is something along the lines of "more welfare ... more spending ... more intervention in people's lives. Of course, Roger Douglas is always to blame.

The price we pay for letting socialists get away with expanding the government to a size in which it is so concerned with what's happening in the lives of productive, good people that it largely ignores the true problems of the welfare state, is, in the case of one Aucklander, murder.

However, it is not merely big government which is to blame here -the underlying cause of big government is, and why it intervenes in the lives of productive people in order to give money to criminals (this isn't the first case).

The underlying factor, behind the government's size and the sanction of criminals, is political correctness, fueled by the moral equivalency of modern philosophical and political thought. It's the idea that the murderer is the true victim of an "oppressive society", and that the man who was murdered deserved it (considering, after all, that he's a businessman; one of the most hated professions by socialists). If he gets stabbed or shot, moral equivalency says: "so what?"

And it's precisely because of political correctness (and its predecessors) that we have a big, intrusive government in the first place, and that the government considers wealth an object of restribution -on the basis of need- which:

a) destroys the self-esteem of welfare recipients;
b) provides no economic incentive to produce wealth; and
c) sends out the impression that the "need" of welfare recipients must come before the production of wealth, and as thus the people who produce wealth are viewed with suspicion.

The entire premise of the welfare state is based on the irrational thought that wealth isn't created; it just simply lands in the hands of certain people through luck, or "greed". It pays no attention to the fact that material resources, in the ground, by themselves, mean nothing.

Only man, through the use of his mind, can determine the proper use of resources -through the market's laws of supply and demand. Only man can put a value on a certain resource; and apply his mind in order to make the largest number of uses a resource can have, a reality.

Socialism and political correctness ignores this. The moral standard, according to both, is "need" -not man's life and happiness. Until we finally wake up to this, and realise what a philosophical scam socialism is, the victim count will rise.

And the Difference Between the Candidates is...?

Paul McKeever, a Canadian SOLOist, has an outstanding article about the two US Presidential Candidates. I particularly like this snippet:

"McCain condemned the “me-first, country-second crowd”. He said he intends to honour the Stanley family for their sacrifice of their son. He told a touching tale of how he used to to do things “for [his] own pleasure; [his] own pride”, and how he “…didn’t think there was a cause more important than” himself. He explained that, thereafter, he discovered “the limits of [his] selfish independence”, learned that “no man can always stand alone”, and found that “nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself”. In short: it is right to sacrifice others, it is right to sacrifice oneself, and sacrifice will make you happy. Shorter still: dying makes one happiest of all.

Obama carved a path in the opposite direction, not referring to “sacrifice” at all. Instead, he explained, the “promise of America” is “the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.” Obama explained that that promise “…has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west…”.

The difference is astounding. Whereas McCain says it’s right to sacrifice of oneself, Obama says it is right to move where you will be kept by others."

Truly revealing.

However, I'm going for McCain in this one. Although, like his Democrat counterpart, he pays lip service to altruism, he:

a) wants to lower taxes in general; whereas Obama is all for raising taxes across the board (disgustingly, to the applause of many of his supporters), and the redistribution of wealth.

b) wants to continue fighting the War on Terror, which is, at best, something Obama is trying to avoid (even though McCain and Palin seem to be justifying the War on Terror as "God's plan" -sounds similar to jihad?)

With candidates like these two, I can see why most Americans don't vote.

"Political Correctness is Destroying New Zealand"

Political Correctness is destroying New Zealand. So says Sir Brian Lochore, former Kiwi Rugby Legend and Coach of the 1987 All Blacks team who won the Rugby World Cup -so far the only time New Zealand has won the Cup.

"Our society is trying to turn fathers into male mothers. You ain't," he said to an audience of over 1000 fathers at a breakfast hosted by the group 'Parents Inc'. "We are living in a PC world which is destroying us, where you actually can't put the hard word on people when they have digressed and committed bad blunders."

He went to say, "the one thing I believe is important in life is respect. They respected authority, they respected teachers, I respected the teachers. We lack a great deal of respect for authority nowadays, there's always someone protesting.

"Respect and role models are very important in life. You as a father, with the aid of your partner - I can't say 'wife' these days, PC. You are the one who sets the ground rules. And don't ever tell me that the kids don't want to know where the line is. They do."

Graham Henry and the New Zealand Left, take heed: this was the man who coached the AB's to rugby glory. How? By doing the hard yards, having proper rules, and by everybody taking responsibility for their actions. Not blaming them on someone else, such as in today's world.

Referendum At Last

With 310,000 signatures calling for a referendum on Anti-Smacking Legislation, it looks like there's a possibility that the fascist law banning parents from smacking their children might be finally overturned. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

The fact is, in New Zealand, there are still far too many people who believe that the state should care for them from cradle to grave, and that it is necessary and right to take money from the productive to give to the unproductive. There will always be people who think that the government has every right to intervene in their lives -and everyone else's, too. One such person is Sue Bradford, the drafter of the Anti-Smacking Legislation.

Question for you, Sue: how many children has your law prosecuting good parents managed to save?

The answer looks like the letter O.

More Links for your Enjoyment

At last, rock-solid proof that voting Labour really is dangerous for your health. Instead of lining the pockets of ad agencies, simply surfing YouTube could've done the trick for other political parties campaign advertising.

Also a delightfully politically-incorrect video on social etiquette that might annoy some feminists.

Student Stupidity

The recent challenge put out to students at Auckland University granting $3,700 to any student who makes a successful citizen's arrest of Condoleezza Rice during her recent visit to New Zealand represents no more than stupidity on behalf of David Do, the President of the typical leftist student group Auckland University Students' Association.

The prize money was offered to any citizen who could arrest Rice for, according to the President of the Students' Association, "overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq".

Left-wing students in New Zealand have had a long history of idiotic anti-US demonstrations. First, it was against American occupation in Vietnam -but never mind the North Vietnamese. Then it was against American nuclear submarines in NZ waters -submarines that have NEVER presented any threat to New Zealanders. Now, it is against the American occupation in Iraq.

But do any of these students recognize that the increased US presence in Iraq since the troop surge has actually led to a huge decrease in violence in Iraq? Have they considered that very little violence in Iraq is actually committed by fundamentalist Muslims -not Americans? Have they considered the effects of radical Islamism on Iraq?

The answer, as always, is no. Instead, they run a smear campaign against America -which is actually doing something right. Unfortunately for the socialist students, it's a bad cover of their true campaign against capitalism, individual rights and Western Civilisation.

The Real Issue Here

Recently, a big feeding frenzy has occurred around the New Zealand blogosphere and especially on SOLO and Not PC over Elijah Lineberry's take on the Ministry of Education's $54,000 "Maori Potential" badges, with bloggers of all political leanings either calling him a racist or telling the complainers to grow up. Elijah's badges have been put into pictures by Whaleoil.

But before we go on yelling about Elijah, what could be more demeaning to a Maori person than a phrase such as "Realising Maori Potential -Wassup!", which appeared on one of the actual badges. It's also interesting that none of the badges have one Maori word on them (except "Maori", believe it or not.) The badges are simply worn to make students feel better about themselves, and to make teachers feel that they're actually teaching their students properly.

Elijah, meanwhile, is simply telling it as it is. Crime rates, unemployment, child abuse, etc are appallingly high amongst Maori and in predominantly Maori communities. Yes, Elijah's way of putting it was blunt -and probably not something the Libertarianz Party should officially endorse. But the actions of those who scream "racist!" whenever the badges are mentioned are even more immature- because, in effect, they are denying the problems that Maori are facing today (thanks, primarily to their own actions, which are what Elijah's badges are all about), on the grounds of "racism". How dare you point out that more Maori are in jail, per capita, than Europeans!

Not that the Left would want the problems to go away -it's areas like South Auckland and Porirua that provide most of their support. And if you look at any of Labour's recent economic moves and policy, they hate productivity -because productivity is contrary to Labour's socialist philosophy, and unproductive slobs always looking for an extra buck out of the government are a major source of Labour votes.

Good on you Elijah -you're actually telling it as it is. And accepting the problem is the first part of solving the problem. No, not all Maori are child abusers and unemployed -far from it. But the statistics speak for themselves.

Another Assault on Kiwi Education

Another Assault on Kiwi Education is on its way with Labour's recent legislative maneuver to raise the legal school leaving age to 18, unless the student attends Polytech or University. In response, 15 High School Principals on Auckland's North Shore have said that, should the act pass, they will deliberately violate it.

It is not hard to understand why. Why would a school principal want to keep students who have already expressed an intention to leave school -usually to go into the workforce- and who would simply cause violence if they were kept back? Why would a school want to waste money on the hiring of new teachers, adjusting wages to compensate for the extra stress put on already-existing teachers, extra school teaching material, and new classrooms for students who don't want to learn?

On top of that, keeping students in school prevents them from getting productive jobs out in the workforce, where they could truly be productive. Jobs and apprenticeships also provide the best education for more hands-on students looking for a career in the trades -which can provide an excellent source of income, but the current Labour Government believes that education can only be done in big, monotonous buildings, at little desks, subject to whatever the teachers says. It's this failure to differentiate between schooling and education where Labour fails miserably. What it all comes down to, is more resources required from a less productive economy.

As thus, the responsibility falls onto the parents and taxpayers to pay for the extra students, who don't to be there, and get no value out of the education system. Parents and taxpayers are getting more for less -and the strain on schools could jeopardise their own child(ren)'s education.

The same deluded principle has also been applied to Universities. For various reasons, the Left has taught New Zealand that everyone has a right to go to University. As a result, more people have come out of the University system with degrees which are worth nothing to an employer, thanks to everyone else having one. More money is being used to fund students who go and produce less, on the whole, and who would be more successful in the trades -where New Zealand has a major deficit.

However, University is hardly compulsory -whereas this current proposal will make school attendance compulsory.

In the end, all this stupid proposal boils down to is election-buying, and trying to pretend that education under Labour has not been pitiful. As proof, John Key is also supporting the proposal. Now try to argue that it ISN'T election buying!

The Right to Protest?

Recently in Social Studies, my class has been assigned a book called "How Many Lightbulbs does It Take to Change a Planet: 95 Ways to Save Planet Earth". The Idea is that we would chose one of the 95 different topics on all manners of leftist ideas about climate change, take notes and do a PowerPoint presentation about it.

One of the ideas in the book is "Protect the Right to Protest". Alright, but this is what the left, through its self-anointed moral supremacy over climate change, has been stifling. If you speak up against the IPCC, the climate change "consensus" or Al Gore, you are thrown out of the climate change debate in days, if not hours. Suddenly, you have all these environmental "scientists" pouncing on you, saying that you're wrong and giving no particular reason, only data that has been spewed up a million times. For proof, look at what happened to the Great Global Warming Swindle -and that's one of the nicer examples.

The right to protest hasn't been stifled directly in the political arena -indeed, it's the politcal arena that the left wants to avoid over opposition to climate change. The left, in all its talk of "tolerance" and "cultural/political/economic diversity", has to maintain a clean, public image of what it is, and what it stands for. To its credit, it has been pretty successful. You're unlikely to see quotes like this on the front cover of a newspaper:

"We have wished... for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us back into the stone age..."

or that:

"You think Hiroshima was bad, let me tell you mister, Hiroshima wasn't bad enough!"*

Admittedly, those two quotes were said a while ago. But if you were to tell any random earth-hugger on the street about those quotes, they'd just shake their head and call you a nutter. There are many more quotes like the two above, but you'd be lucky to find anyone who knows about them.

Consider this fact: the environmental movement has successfully manufactured their ideology around a natural, scientific phenomenon: human-induced climate change. To most people within and supportive of the environmental movement, it's not about the control or the end of industry, it isn't about human quality of life -it's about global warming, or climate change. These people see scientific climate change as a primary -they don't consider anything else in the ideology as a possible primary. For them, it's alright to sacrifice human industry, technology, wealth, comfort, etc to Gaia -because climate change is a primary. Even if that did nothing to the climate, it's still the primary.

It's that idea that has left possible unbiased environmentalists completely open to bombardment by the environmental movement and its theories on climate change.

Also, as it is supposedly based on scientific fact, the supposed primary of climate change is seen as an absolute -for instance, man's mind is an absolute (although his using it is not), reality is an absolute. This is how the environmental movement has made the scientists who are skeptical of climate change seem absolutely crazy. Climate change is neither a primary nor an absolute, but the marketability of it as such has been used to devastating effect.

So, the right to protest against envirofascists? Surely, it exists in the political realm. But the rather simple idea of climate change has been manipulated so much in the philosophical realm that it's crazy to challenge the idea of anthropogenic global warming. To outsiders, you're protesting against an absolute (no matter how many studies say otherwise). The environmental movement keeps its credibility by making climate change its primary -not the end of industry and commerce, and relegating productive man back into the slums.

And as I've said many times before, isn't the idea of us all pitching in to make a collective effort for the good of the planet and future generations just lovely? Perhaps not for us selfish Objectivists, or anyone else who can look behind all the environmental rhetoric, but for the common Joe New Zealander, who has already been brought up with such principles during NZ's socialist era, they sound great. After all, we will all die if we don't -climate change, according to what Joe's heard so many times before, is an absolute.

The only thing getting in the way -productive, selfish man. The man who produces instead of sacrifices himself for the "common good". Sounds like a certain book!

But this is even worse. If you think sacrifice on the altar of the "need" of other people was bad, this is sacrifice on the altar of the environment -the truly unthinking.

Luckily, as Libertarians, we have the chance to hit at (or to protest at) where it hurts. The left for decades, long before the environmental movement arrived, has been going on about the need "tolerance" and "diversity" -which developed into the ideal of "protecting the right to protest". These principles developed as a way to get leftist rhetoric into the classrooms and onto the TV screens, but they have tripped up over themselves. After all, at school, you're not going to get a flogging anymore for expressing an opinion -the teachers have to grin and bear it, at worst. After all, it is in the name of "tolerance" and "diversity" -and when opinions can be put to people so bluntly, no leftist will try to stop you.

So it's on this different set of ideals -originally enlightened ideals from the enlightenment, before having a post-modern spin put on them- that we need to protest to combat leftist ideals. Ironically, what were, and still are some of the most attractive ideals of the left can be used against them. Not just in environmentalism, but everywhere.

*Both quotes from The Free Radical no. 73, page 27.

ACT for America

Some of you who look at my Libertarian and Objectivist links from time to time may have seen a link called "ACT for America". ACT for America is an American organization dedicated to fighting for American values, security and freedom against radical, militant Islamism, which has been increasingly entrenched in American society, since before 9/11. It is founded by America's answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brigitte Gabriel.

Brigitte Gabriel was born in Lebanon in 1965 and immigrated to America after the Lebanese Civil War. After immigrating to America, she founded the American Congress for Truth, dedicated to repudiating lies and propaganda about Israel and America's role in the fight against radical Islamism, constantly thrown about in the media.

Gabriel has first hand experience of the violence of radical Islamism in Lebanon. She says:

"I was born in Lebanon and raised as a Christian. When the Lebanese Civil War broke out, our family and our Maronite community came under vicious attack by Islamic extremists. They promised to destroy us, and today the country is nearly all Islamic.

I was nearly killed by a mortar. Our home was destroyed. We lived in a bomb shelter for seven years. Most of my childhood friends were killed. That's how I know about this fight."

On the site, she doesn't just target radical Islamism, she also targets political correctness, which is the philosophy which allows radical Islamism in the West, unabated. She says, quite frankly:

"Political correctness will literally kill us."

She also talks about why radical Islamists are out to destroy the West and its values, how they go out it, and what will the outcome will be if it isn't stopped. She stands up for Western values, and makes it very clear what her organization is about:

"...to be a collective voice for the democratic values of Western Civilization, such as the celebration of life and liberty, as opposed to the authoritarian values of Islamofascism, such as the celebration of death, terror and tyranny."

Brigitte doesn't just oppose Islamism on practical grounds, she opposes it on moral grounds. She doesn't oppose it simply because of terrorist acts, she opposes it because of its hatred towards Western civilisation and values, and its philosophy based on death.

Brigitte Gabriel and her organisation(s) enable America to have what Europe and the UK didn't: a clear and principled voice against radical Islamism.

ACT for America-before it's too late!

Cancer Society Logic

The Cancer Society is once again having its routine blabbles over the sale of tobacco and cigarettes in supermarkets, claiming that sale should be out of the public's view and that it is "incomprehensible" that public sale is permitted in supermarkets.

But, as usual, something escaped their minds. What is the substance(s) most discreetly sold in New Zealand, and all over the world?

The answer to that would be: illegal drugs. After all, NO ONE sells illegal drugs in supermarkets and if you want to buy them, you usually have to meet a secret contact somewhere in a dark alley, where sky-high prices are the norm.

There's no market (or government) protection of the industry and those in it in the illegal drugs trade. If you have to rob someone at knifepoint or gunpoint in order to pay for the drugs, so be it. If you get murdered after the transaction, your loss.

Maybe the Cancer Society should consider the effects of making drugs illegal, and driving them underground. Unfortunately, logic escapes such organizations, who are more often than not out to increase their own power base.