Progress

Fairness Ethic Has Its Good Points

The New Zealand government is starting to crack down on some beneficiaries who have their cake and want to eat it too.  The hapless left describes this as "beneficiary bashing".  But the measures are showing up as well supported by the electorate.  This is because New Zealanders don't like "unfairness".  It's a cultural value which has ill-served the nation of often, but at times it proves helpful. 

The first group being targeted by the government is student loan beneficiaries who refuse (or wilfully neglect) to repay their loans.  The worst offenders are those who have gone overseas for extended periods and have declined to repay their loans.  They have effectively skipped town.  The government announced recently that the worst offenders--the hardened recidivists--risk arrest when they return (even temporarily) to New Zealand.  This means they are effectively exiled from their home country. 

It is reported that this has prompted a flurry of activity on the part of some of the overseas negligent payers to start to make appropriate "arrangements" and commence repayments.  It is also reported that a majority of the electorate in New Zealand supports the move.

Letter From NZ (About Addicts and Coroners)

Taking Responsibility

Several weeks ago, around Christmas we chastised Sir Bob Jones, a columnist in the NZ Herald for his less-than-salutary take upon compensation for David Bain.. Yesterday, however, Sir Bob redeemed himself with a stirling piece on molly-coddling, nannying, addictions, and coroners.

The Buck Stops . . . With Me

Taking Responsibility

Shifting blame on to others is intrinsic to our fallen human condition.  Right from the beginning, immediately after the Fall, Adam, our father blamed his wife and God ("The woman you gave to me, she gave me the fruit . . ."); Eve, our mother blamed the Serpent  ("The serpent deceived me and I ate").  Just about everything that is wrong with human society can be traced back to these fateful events, attitudes, and words. 

It is not very often we read or hear of someone who takes full responsibility for his actions and what devolved from them.  It is so rare, it's refreshing.  But more than that, it opens up the possibility of moving on. 

Dion Batt has brain damage resulting from a motorcycle crash which occurred as a result of him fleeing from police pursuit.

Mixed Messages

 Inebriation and Rape

The New Zealand police are saying that far too many young women are being raped whilst so intoxicated that they cannot recall who, what, when, or how.  These cases, whilst on the balance of probabilities  genuine, are very difficult to prosecute successfully.  This, from the NZ Herald:

Police are having to shelve sexual assault complaints because witnesses are too drunk to remember the details.  In Waikato alone, up to five complaints of sexual assaults are recorded each week, usually from women aged between 16 and 30, but many can not be acted on because of the high intoxication of people involved.

The problem also exists at another of the country's busiest police stations, Auckland Central.
Police cannot take a case to court without clear evidence.  But some complainants were so drunk that officers' investigations - costly in police time and resources - were left in in limbo.  "Sometimes it is so bad that they can't remember anything, nothing at all about the sexual assault," Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Greene of Hamilton told the Weekend Herald.  "But they know they have been assaulted. It's also rare that someone walks in here and it's not genuine."

What are the lessons?  The first is to recognise the limitations of police, state, and judicial powers.

The Omniscient Bureaucratic Plan

Government As Papa

We are all familiar with the inevitable stupidity, wastefulness, inanity and bizarre outcomes when life is ordered by government bureaus, laying down regulation upon regulation.

God's created world is fearfully and wonderfully complex.  Nuclear physicists are only now beginning to realise just how complex.  Human beings, unique as the image bearers of God Himself upon the planet, are likewise subtle, complex, variegated, diverse, and complex.  Consequently, a bureaucratic plan setting out to order human actions is doomed before it starts.  Its outcomes and results are inevitably bizarre and would be laughable if they were not also sinister.

Here is just one example: