Fool's Paradise

 Normal Rules Don't Apply

The public square in New Zealand is a nasty place, where all kinds of germs fester.  Hang around in it long enough and you will find yourself sick, very sick.

Most people who have worked their way through adult life and ended their working careers with most debt paid off and able to afford a roof over their heads has had to watch their pennies very, very carefully throughout.  Spending plans have been strictly controlled for decades.  Credit cards have been rarely used.  Lifestyle plans have been rigorously cut back.  Hard work, self-control and thrift have marked their lives.

In the public square, none of these things applies.  The vast gulf between personal financial discipline and public square financial management makes the Pacific Ocean look like a puddle.  In the public square the only recognised virtue is spend, spend, spend.  Not one's own money, but the money of others.  And when public authorities run out of other people's money, they start pillaging the money of those not yet working, including those not yet born.  They go into debt.  Not small amounts mind.  But billions of billions of dollars (which are big bikkies for such a very small country).

The Commentariat has only one response to this madness.
  It consistently and persistently demands more of the same.  Take just one manifestation of this immoral habit.  A local blogger has had the chutzpah to record successive demands for increased government spending since the last public budget in May.  He reports that since May, demands by Chatterers, media figures, pressure groups, and politicians for increased government spending amount to an extra $8.4 billion.  And that's a mere five months' worth of reckless promises and demands.  Since the government is barely able to pay its way with its current spending commitments (instead, racking up $100 bn in national public debt), the only way another $8.4 billion could be lumped on top is by more borrowing still.

If the community as a whole had any moral fibre it would excoriate those who make such new spending demands.  It would require, instead, that if spending on additional or new projects is to occur, cuts must be made elsewhere.  It would insist that when people, pressure groups, talking heads, and populists make demands for public spending on their fancies and idols, they be required to identify what cuts in spending would be made elsewhere.  If the public media had any moral fibre it would inquisitorially lead the charge.  Instead, the can is kicked down the road once more.  After all, it will end up someone else's problem.  Why should we worry?

Rigorous conversations  about spending and debt are normal in the private sector.  Why are they rarely held in the public square?  The answer is that the people of New Zealand have come to believe that government is somehow magical, a miracle worker, a waver of a monetary wand, a creator ex-nihilo--out of nothing.  The sad truth is that the people of New Zealand idolise the State.  They worship it, adore it, supplicate it, pray to it, plead with it, and bow down before it.  To all intents and purposes, Government is our god.

This national moral and spiritual degradation has a minatory aspect to it.  The Living God will not share His glory with another.  He brings a ruination down upon all idols.  Whilst He graciously allows much time to realise our folly and repent, unfortunately our hearts are so bent to evil we take this as an opportunity to double down.  The destruction of our idol is thereby made more certain, more final.

The majority of folk maintain a basic prudence when it comes to their personal lives.  But these same people have come to believe that things are very different in the magical public square.  Normal rules do not apply.  That is a sure sign that most people are devotees of the State as their god.