Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Luddite Zealots

Here comes yet another confrontation between the law-abiding and Greenpeace.  West of Taranaki a Greenpeace flotilla is attempting to stop a deep-sea drilling rig commencing exploratory drilling for oil.  As things stand, Greenpeace is currently (and proudly) breaking the law.  This from the NZ Herald:

The scene is set for a skirmish off the North Island's west coast this morning as protest vessels hold fast to Anadarko oil drilling ship the Noble Bob Douglas. Anadarko had intended to begin drilling 185km off the coast of Raglan on Thursday or Friday but has been shadowed by a flotilla of six protest vessels. One, the Vega, remains within the 500m exclusion zone. Among those on board the 11.5m ketch are Greenpeace NZ chief executive Bunny McDiarmid and former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

This confrontation is a bit more interesting this time around, however.
 The NZ Government recently passed a law requiring that protestors on the open sea remain 500 metres away from those going about their lawful business.  Greenpeace has always believed it has a divine right to ignore such laws through appeal to a higher law which it alone codifies and promulgates.  Now, either Greenpeace has to keep the mundane law of the land, or the NZ government authorities need to enforce it.  

The gauntlet has been thrown down.  The next move is the government's to make.  Either it will enforce the law, or it will not.  If the latter, the recently passed law will be exposed as a government propaganda stunt: a mere "suggestion" more than anything else.  Which it is to be, is the government's to make clear now.

One wonders whether a law against "hooliganism"is on our statute books.  If not, maybe we need to take a leaf out of Russia's law book, so that Greenpeace members who lawlessly  force their views and opinions upon others, who engage in stand over tactics and theft, could face up to seven years in prison.

Imagine a world where our neighbour had a gas guzzling, carbon spewing monstrosity of a vehicle and, out of our commitment to a particular "higher law", we take  a sledgehammer to the offending automobile and wreck it.  How could anyone object?  We are saving the planet.  We are saving the lives of generations of fauna to come.  We would also be lawless zealots, but that's a minor distraction.

The open question to the zealots in Greenpeace is this: Why would our actions be morally, ethically, and legally wrong?  If Greenpeace would not endorse our actions and support us, whilst engaged in exactly the same kind of reasoning and activity to defend their lawbreaking on the high seas, they would expose their hypocrisy and moral vacuity.  But we knew that all along anyway.  Greenpeace staffers have always regarded themselves as a cut above the average guy, higher moral beings.

Several centuries ago the Luddites were driven by fear and ignorance.  Our modern Luddites are no different.  Both groups were, and remain, lawless.  When the Russians arrested and charged Greenpeace “activists”  with hooliganism as they attempted to storm an Arctic drilling rig two months ago, it was right on the money.  Now the shoe is on our foot to demonstrate just how seriously we in New Zealand take property rights and respect the rule of law, or whether the fanaticism of luddite zealots will have the day.