The Force is Strong With This One

The New Model Socialist

Metiria Turei's sense of entitlement is infuriating and nauseating.  "You owe me, bigtime" seems to underlie much of her political persona.  Yet she, courtesy of the taxpayer's dime, is one of the most highly paid people in the country.

She cheated the taxpayer.  She broke the law.  But only because she thought she was entitled to do so. "I deserved to be treated better.  The cruel system was at fault.  More taxpayer's money should have been distributed to me."  It turns out that Turei's lawbreaking was not a "thing of the moment" so much as a deliberate, repeated policy.  As the Herald editorial writer put it:

Spread over three years however, Turei's lie of omission starts to look less like a one-off act of dishonesty and more like a systematic attempt to rort the system. Letter writers and talkback callers have voiced their anger over what they see as her sense of entitlement to public money - not helped by the fact that taxpayers are providing her with a huge salary today. [NZ Herald]

The deep sense of grievance and entitlement now risks her being hoist on her own petard, since she is now one of the rich and wealthy--courtesy of the taxpayer.

World View Wars

Offensive Questions

"White Privilege" is a construct--a concept to support a particular race-based ideology.  But is it just an imaginary construct to buttress a particular cause?  Is is just a cover, a pretext which allows the same-old, same-old Marxist and neo-Marxist narrative to be re-run on an endless loop?

The gentleman in the clip below asks a relevant question.  Don't all the "White Privilege" warriors speak up at once.



Ah, the politics of Guilt and Pity.  What an inexhaustible reservoir it has proved to be.  It has never failed to quicken the proletariat into a mindless, reflexive response.  Never.  And it has never failed to make the zealots feel so self-righteous whilst being manipulated.

As for the interlocutor in the clip--he is just a privileged oreo--coloured on the outside, white on the inside.  Traitor.  Neo-revisionist.  White Russian.  We could go on, but you know the drill.

[Hat Tip: Whaleoil]

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

A Lot More of the Old 

Money, Love, Desire - The Good of Affluence
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 05 February 2013

As I listen to cultural analysts bemoaning the current state of American consumerism, and comparing it (to a disadvantage) to unnamed halcyon days of yore, I am struck by an inability to see the largest and most obvious feature of the whole set-up.

The issue is not that Americans uniquely consume like nobody's business, but rather that they have the wherewithal to consume. They behave like people with discretionary wealth have always behaved -- only now there are way more of us. Every pathology that we now see is a pathology with a long track record . . . among those who have had the wealth to behave that way.

In short, the problem we have that is unique is that everybody is now rich. The old scriptural warnings to the wealthy to not set their hope on riches, but rather on God, were warnings which, when delivered, applied to a tiny sliver of the church. Now, in countless churches, the warnings apply to virtually everyone in the sanctuary.

Bitterness and Thwarted Hopes

Hell Hath No Fury . . . 

It's official.  Well, it's in the Guardian, so that makes it a grave matter, non?  It was only a few short months ago that Francois Hollande was elected President of France.  He came into the Champs-Elysees riding a big white horse, touting the biggest election victory for socialism in living memory.  He was going to turn Europe around.  He was going to tax the rich (70 percent at the margin).  He was going to stand up to Angela Merkel.  He was going to rein in France's soaring public debt.  He was . . . .  Now, it seems he was going . . .  always going to go down the tubes. 

Here is the Guardian's summary:

The World of Marxist Academia

Unmaking Decent Society

It's a terrible world--at least according to Tim Hazledine, Professor of Economics at Auckland University.  Tim has provided us with his peculiar version of festive cheer, declaiming systemic injustice in New Zealand society.  And what is this gross injustice?  It is deeply imbedded income inequality.  You know--same old, same old.  The rich are getting richer and the poorer are not keeping up. 

This egregious situation is a threat to what Hazledine nominates as the Decent Society (upper caps are his).  According to Hazledine the Decent Society appears to be one where there are no great disparities between the unseemly wealthy and the grinding poor.  It is a society where incomes cluster around the median.  "Unrestrained, short-sighted greed" is unmaking us all. 

Hazledine goes on to give an example of the very thing he is decrying.