Are These the First Signs?
Third Term Arrogance From a First Term Government?
Tracy Watkins
Sunday Star Times
Finance Minister Grant Robertson's budget this week will loom over generations to come; it's no exaggeration to say it's the most important budget in decades. There will be intense debate about whether he has got it right; so it's unfortunate that as we head into budget week the government is exhibiting premature signs of the affliction known as third-termitis.
That was most evident in the emergence of a leaked memo this week in which ministers' offices were advised not to waste any time defending themselves to the media - not because they had anything much to hide but because (to paraphrase) people love us anyway, so why bother?
It's the assumption behind that advice that is so alarming; it speaks of supreme confidence at the moment that this government can do no wrong in the eyes of the public.
And to a point they're right; the backlash to any criticism of Jacinda Ardern or her Government in the current environment is a constant weight on the media's shoulders.
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Friday, 15 May 2020
Thursday, 7 March 2019
Classical Government Imprudence and Overreach
Unable to Leave Well Enough Alone
Well, well, well. The birds are truly coming home to roost. A divisive debate has begun to roil the Chattering Classes in New Zealand. The intent to introduce a capital gains tax is causing a few formerly extinct volcanoes to fire up again.
The responsibility for a plan to introduce a tax upon capital lies firmly at the feet of our inept Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. The Labour Party socialists had learnt their lesson--we thought. They had several times attempted to introduce this "envy tax" and been thumped. Then Ardern, campaigning to win the last general election, out of the blue, with zero consultation, decided to campaign for a capital gains tax once again.
Thus began the turmoil and troubles which have led us to where we are today. Mike Hosking details some of the milestones:
Well, well, well. The birds are truly coming home to roost. A divisive debate has begun to roil the Chattering Classes in New Zealand. The intent to introduce a capital gains tax is causing a few formerly extinct volcanoes to fire up again.
The responsibility for a plan to introduce a tax upon capital lies firmly at the feet of our inept Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. The Labour Party socialists had learnt their lesson--we thought. They had several times attempted to introduce this "envy tax" and been thumped. Then Ardern, campaigning to win the last general election, out of the blue, with zero consultation, decided to campaign for a capital gains tax once again.
Thus began the turmoil and troubles which have led us to where we are today. Mike Hosking details some of the milestones:
Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Requiem For Venezuela
The Liberal Left Forgets its Love for Venezuela
Liam Hehir
Stuff
In the first decade of the century, there was a concern that United States president George W Bush was leading America down an authoritarian path. One of those expressing worries was Hugo Chavez, the late president of Venezuela, who called the former US leader "Danger Bush Hitler".
Chavez criticised "internal repression inside the United States" and, in particular, "the Patriot Act, which is a repressive law against US citizens".
While Bush was the great bogeyman of the international media, Chavez was, in the general narrative, a bringer of light. The leader of a "Bolivarian Revolution" that aimed to bring socialism to Latin America, he was a flamboyant alternative to the staid third-way approach of countries like Denmark. For the first time since the collapse of the USSR, state socialism was romantic again.
Of course, Fidel Castro had retained a certain cachet among some. When he died in 2016, Labour MP Clare Curran tweeted that he was a "legend". But the Cuban dictatorship was stale and old. The Bolivarian Revolution was new and exciting.
Venezuela overflows with oil.
Liam Hehir
Stuff
In the first decade of the century, there was a concern that United States president George W Bush was leading America down an authoritarian path. One of those expressing worries was Hugo Chavez, the late president of Venezuela, who called the former US leader "Danger Bush Hitler".
Chavez criticised "internal repression inside the United States" and, in particular, "the Patriot Act, which is a repressive law against US citizens".
While Bush was the great bogeyman of the international media, Chavez was, in the general narrative, a bringer of light. The leader of a "Bolivarian Revolution" that aimed to bring socialism to Latin America, he was a flamboyant alternative to the staid third-way approach of countries like Denmark. For the first time since the collapse of the USSR, state socialism was romantic again.
Of course, Fidel Castro had retained a certain cachet among some. When he died in 2016, Labour MP Clare Curran tweeted that he was a "legend". But the Cuban dictatorship was stale and old. The Bolivarian Revolution was new and exciting.
Venezuela overflows with oil.
Monday, 14 January 2019
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
The Lord Jesus Christ vs Socialism
In Hell Where They Already Have It
Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog
INTRODUCTION:
The title comes from an old line of Ronald Reagan’s, where he said, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.”
Let that suffice for a rudimentary introduction, setting both tone and direction.
SO LAY THE AXE AT THE ROOT:
Socialism is, at root, not a math problem. It is an envy problem, with math splotches on the skin. Socialism is not an economics problem. It is an envy problem, with a symptomatic swelling of the economic lymph nodes. Socialism is not a political problem. It is an envy problem, with a few skirmishes over who has to pay for the political motorized wheel chair. Those subsidized wheelchairs are advertised, incidentally, on Fox News, bastion of opposition to government handouts.
Socialism is, at the heart, a disease of the heart. It is a spiritual problem.
As such, the problem cannot be solved in a math class, or a course in sound economics. The problem can be solved there in theory, on paper (“See? You cannot spend what you have not earned.” “Ooohhh . . .”). But solving the problem on paper is not the same thing as solving the problem.
Upton Sinclair, an outspoken socialist, at least understood the principle—or at least when it applied to others. He said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Isn’t that the way?
Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog
INTRODUCTION:
The title comes from an old line of Ronald Reagan’s, where he said, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.”
Let that suffice for a rudimentary introduction, setting both tone and direction.
SO LAY THE AXE AT THE ROOT:
Socialism is, at root, not a math problem. It is an envy problem, with math splotches on the skin. Socialism is not an economics problem. It is an envy problem, with a symptomatic swelling of the economic lymph nodes. Socialism is not a political problem. It is an envy problem, with a few skirmishes over who has to pay for the political motorized wheel chair. Those subsidized wheelchairs are advertised, incidentally, on Fox News, bastion of opposition to government handouts.
Socialism is, at the heart, a disease of the heart. It is a spiritual problem.
As such, the problem cannot be solved in a math class, or a course in sound economics. The problem can be solved there in theory, on paper (“See? You cannot spend what you have not earned.” “Ooohhh . . .”). But solving the problem on paper is not the same thing as solving the problem.
Upton Sinclair, an outspoken socialist, at least understood the principle—or at least when it applied to others. He said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Isn’t that the way?
Monday, 26 November 2018
Evil Incarnate and Personified
One's Own Facts
In the nineteen thirties famine raged in the Ukraine. It was entirely caused by Stalin. He insisted that Ukrainian officials deliver up a certain volume of food. When they failed to do so, he sent enforcers into the prime grain growing areas. Their job was to find out where the farmers (kulaks) were hiding food. Any grain or edible material found was removed by force; offenders were punished, even executed on the spot. Those left, starved.
Famine swept through the Ukraine. People began to eat other human beings. Eventually, even Stalin had to concede that his brutality was counter productive. He then embarked on a ruthless cover up of his crimes against his own people. He demanded that public records of births and deaths be altered to create a picture of population increase in Ukraine. In fact millions upon millions had died.
In 1937 the Soviet government ran a census to measure the population. But the results had to be kept secret because of the "deeper truth" known to Stalin and his cohorts--millions had died due to Stalin's ruthless incompetence. Somehow the census had to cover this up.
Saturday, 25 August 2018
A Revolution is What's Needed
The Uncommon Herd
Fabian Socialism (aka Totalitarian Communism by stealth) proceeds on the assumption that the state and its agencies know what's best for us.
Compulsory government schools, for example, exist because they are built on the assumption, the febrile assertion that the State and its bureaucracies know what ordinary parents don't. The state knows how to educate our children far, far better than we ever do or would. And that ruling assumption, dear reader, is why New Zealand's education standards are dropping, illiteracy is rising, and absenteeism from schools is rampant. Actually, in one sense, the state's claim to competence has a grain of ironic truth in it: the State knows how to educate to irrelevance and ignorance much more competently than, say Maori iwi in Rotorua, who have had the temerity to set up a Charter School for their children, only to have the Government forcibly shut it down.
Another example of "We Know What's Best For You" is the state broadcasting organs. If ever there were a state administration that is an absolute failure on just about every conceivable measure it is the state broadcasting agency--NZ On Air. As long as two people put their hands up to say they enjoyed a particular gummint programme, the statists swell with pride and claim the "public" has voted with their eyeballs, justifying the millions upon millions spent on puffed up cotton wool.
Broadcaster Mike Hoskings pokes the borax:
Fabian Socialism (aka Totalitarian Communism by stealth) proceeds on the assumption that the state and its agencies know what's best for us.
Compulsory government schools, for example, exist because they are built on the assumption, the febrile assertion that the State and its bureaucracies know what ordinary parents don't. The state knows how to educate our children far, far better than we ever do or would. And that ruling assumption, dear reader, is why New Zealand's education standards are dropping, illiteracy is rising, and absenteeism from schools is rampant. Actually, in one sense, the state's claim to competence has a grain of ironic truth in it: the State knows how to educate to irrelevance and ignorance much more competently than, say Maori iwi in Rotorua, who have had the temerity to set up a Charter School for their children, only to have the Government forcibly shut it down.
Another example of "We Know What's Best For You" is the state broadcasting organs. If ever there were a state administration that is an absolute failure on just about every conceivable measure it is the state broadcasting agency--NZ On Air. As long as two people put their hands up to say they enjoyed a particular gummint programme, the statists swell with pride and claim the "public" has voted with their eyeballs, justifying the millions upon millions spent on puffed up cotton wool.
Broadcaster Mike Hoskings pokes the borax:
Tuesday, 8 May 2018
Karl Marx--A Horseman of the Apocalypse
Titan of Terror
The left-wing acolytes who say Karl Marx can't be blamed for the millions slaughtered in his name are deluded - bloodshed was at the heart of his philosophy.
Karl Marx, founder of communism, was born in Germany 200 years ago today. His ideology was used by mass killers like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedong. Fans claim he's not responsible but his name is synonymous with death. Millions were killed by communist leaders across the world last century
By Dominic Sandbrook
Daily Mail
Two hundred years ago today, the most controversial thinker of the modern age was born in the German city of Trier.
When, on May 5, 1818, Heinrich and Henriette Marx welcomed their little boy into the world, they could never have imagined the utopian hopes and blood-soaked horrors that would become associated with his name.
Two centuries later, the very words 'Karl Marx' still carry an unmistakable charge. No modern intellectual, no economist or philosopher can match the combustible power of the rabbi's grandson who fled into poverty-stricken exile in leafy North London.
Most of the regimes based on Marx's ideas may have crumbled, yet his name remains synonymous with violent revolution, idealistic utopianism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It conjures up images of chanting crowds and glowering statues, collective farms and prison camps, tanks in Red Square and red flags over the Kremlin.
To his critics, Marx was a fanatic whose ideas inspired some of the cruellest regimes in history, from Stalin's Siberian gulags to the killing fields of Cambodia. Yet, to his admirers — who include the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who recently called him a 'great economist', and the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, who has named Das Kapital as his favourite book — he remains a visionary prophet whose ideas will, one day, lead mankind to a classless utopia.
The left-wing acolytes who say Karl Marx can't be blamed for the millions slaughtered in his name are deluded - bloodshed was at the heart of his philosophy.
Karl Marx, founder of communism, was born in Germany 200 years ago today. His ideology was used by mass killers like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedong. Fans claim he's not responsible but his name is synonymous with death. Millions were killed by communist leaders across the world last century
By Dominic Sandbrook
Daily Mail
Two hundred years ago today, the most controversial thinker of the modern age was born in the German city of Trier.
When, on May 5, 1818, Heinrich and Henriette Marx welcomed their little boy into the world, they could never have imagined the utopian hopes and blood-soaked horrors that would become associated with his name.
Two centuries later, the very words 'Karl Marx' still carry an unmistakable charge. No modern intellectual, no economist or philosopher can match the combustible power of the rabbi's grandson who fled into poverty-stricken exile in leafy North London.
Most of the regimes based on Marx's ideas may have crumbled, yet his name remains synonymous with violent revolution, idealistic utopianism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It conjures up images of chanting crowds and glowering statues, collective farms and prison camps, tanks in Red Square and red flags over the Kremlin.
To his critics, Marx was a fanatic whose ideas inspired some of the cruellest regimes in history, from Stalin's Siberian gulags to the killing fields of Cambodia. Yet, to his admirers — who include the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who recently called him a 'great economist', and the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, who has named Das Kapital as his favourite book — he remains a visionary prophet whose ideas will, one day, lead mankind to a classless utopia.
Tuesday, 27 February 2018
Hapless Hipkins at his Worst
NZ Herald Editorial Dices Hipkins Cloth Cap Socialism
Hipkins Offers no Good Reasons For Abolishing Charter Schools
Editorial
NZ Herald
Charter schools do not seem to be a problem. We have not heard or read complaints from parents whose children attend them, or from those who inspect them, teach in them or have anything to do with them. They were not an issue in an election campaign. So why has Education Minister Chris Hipkins moved so quickly to abolish them?
He calls them "ideological" but his stated reason sounds more ideological. "The Government's strong view is that there is no place for them in the New Zealand education system," he said.
Why? They do not interfere with state schools, they get public money that would have to be spent to educate the pupils anyway. They provide the national curriculum but do in slightly different ways that, they say, help some children who were not succeeding in conventional schools.
Hipkins Offers no Good Reasons For Abolishing Charter Schools
Editorial
NZ Herald
Charter schools do not seem to be a problem. We have not heard or read complaints from parents whose children attend them, or from those who inspect them, teach in them or have anything to do with them. They were not an issue in an election campaign. So why has Education Minister Chris Hipkins moved so quickly to abolish them?
He calls them "ideological" but his stated reason sounds more ideological. "The Government's strong view is that there is no place for them in the New Zealand education system," he said.
Why? They do not interfere with state schools, they get public money that would have to be spent to educate the pupils anyway. They provide the national curriculum but do in slightly different ways that, they say, help some children who were not succeeding in conventional schools.
Thursday, 12 January 2017
Apologists for Socialism Approach Insanity
Socialism Has Shattered Venezuela
Jeff Jacoby
The Globe
When the Cold War ended 25 years ago, the Soviet Union vanished into the ash heap of history. That left the West’s “useful idiots” — Lenin’s term for the ideologues and toadies who could always be relied on to justify or praise whatever Moscow did — in search of other socialist thugs to fawn over. Many found a new heartthrob in Hugo Chavez, the anti-Yanqui rabble-rouser who was elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and in short order had transformed the country from a successful social democracy into a grim and corrupt autocracy.
An avowed Marxist and protégé of Fidel Castro, Chavez gradually seized control of every lever of state power in Venezuela. The constitution was rewritten to strip the legislature and judiciary of their independence, authorize censorship of the press, and allow Chavez to legislate by decree. Before long, the government acquired a stranglehold over the economy, including the huge and profitable energy sector. (Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.)
The Useful Idiots Applauded
Jeff Jacoby
The Globe
When the Cold War ended 25 years ago, the Soviet Union vanished into the ash heap of history. That left the West’s “useful idiots” — Lenin’s term for the ideologues and toadies who could always be relied on to justify or praise whatever Moscow did — in search of other socialist thugs to fawn over. Many found a new heartthrob in Hugo Chavez, the anti-Yanqui rabble-rouser who was elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and in short order had transformed the country from a successful social democracy into a grim and corrupt autocracy.
An avowed Marxist and protégé of Fidel Castro, Chavez gradually seized control of every lever of state power in Venezuela. The constitution was rewritten to strip the legislature and judiciary of their independence, authorize censorship of the press, and allow Chavez to legislate by decree. Before long, the government acquired a stranglehold over the economy, including the huge and profitable energy sector. (Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.)
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
The Past and Future of Socialism
The Soviet Union 25 Years On
Prof Richard M. Ebeling
Breitbart News
December 24, 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the formal end of the Soviet Union as a political entity on the map of the world. A quarter of a century ago, the curtain was lowered on the 75-year experiment in “building socialism” in the country where it all began following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, led by Vladimir Lenin in November 1917.
Some historians have estimated that as many as 200 million people worldwide may have died as part of the 20th century dream of creating a collectivist “paradise on earth.” The attempt to establish a comprehensive socialist system in many parts of the world over the last 100 years has been one of the cruelest and most brutal episodes in human history. Making a new “better world” was taken to mean the extermination, liquidation, and mass murder of all those who the socialist revolutionary leaders declared to be “class enemies,” including the families and even the children of “enemies of the people.”
The evil of the Soviet system is that it was cruelty for a purpose. It has been calculated by Russian and Western historians who had limited access to the secret archives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the KGB (the Soviet secret police) in the 1990s that as many as 68 million innocent, unarmed men, women, and children may have been killed in Soviet Russia alone over those nearly 75 years of communist rule in the Soviet Union.
‘A Story of Crushing Tyranny and Oceans of Blood’
Prof Richard M. Ebeling
Breitbart News
December 24, 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the formal end of the Soviet Union as a political entity on the map of the world. A quarter of a century ago, the curtain was lowered on the 75-year experiment in “building socialism” in the country where it all began following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, led by Vladimir Lenin in November 1917.
Some historians have estimated that as many as 200 million people worldwide may have died as part of the 20th century dream of creating a collectivist “paradise on earth.” The attempt to establish a comprehensive socialist system in many parts of the world over the last 100 years has been one of the cruelest and most brutal episodes in human history. Making a new “better world” was taken to mean the extermination, liquidation, and mass murder of all those who the socialist revolutionary leaders declared to be “class enemies,” including the families and even the children of “enemies of the people.”
The Bloody Road to Making a New Socialist Man
The evil of the Soviet system is that it was cruelty for a purpose. It has been calculated by Russian and Western historians who had limited access to the secret archives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the KGB (the Soviet secret police) in the 1990s that as many as 68 million innocent, unarmed men, women, and children may have been killed in Soviet Russia alone over those nearly 75 years of communist rule in the Soviet Union.
Monday, 12 December 2016
Shades of Weimar and Zimbabwe
The Monetary Meltdown in Venezuela
Washington Post
Francisco Toro
Venezuela has run out of cash. Not metaphorically, mind you: The country literally doesn’t have enough cash to go around. Two weeks ago, facing an acute shortage of paper money, bank regulators capped cash withdrawals at 10,000 Venezuelan bolivars per day — about $5.25.
As I write this, following an almighty rout on the black market, those same 10,000 bolivars are worth less than half that much: $2.17. (By the time you read this, the real number’s likely lower.) Stop and think about that: How on earth can a country work when the most cash anyone there is allowed to withdraw from their bank account in a day is two bucks and change?
The problem is twofold.
There is, certainly, a serious macroeconomic problem underlying the bolivar’s collapse: an enormous, unmanageable fiscal deficit nobody in their right mind would finance. That has led an irresponsible government to create huge amounts of new money out of thin air to cover its spending needs. Economists have known for 100 years that “monetizing deficits” this way feeds runaway inflation. It’s a result no one — except for Venezuela’s central bankers and their ideological supporters — seriously questions anymore.
Dealing with this problem isn’t conceptually hard, but it’s politically dicey. The kinds of spending cuts and revenue increases you’d need to head off hyperinflation are challenging for unpopular governments to make.
But it’s the other aspect of the problem that we need to consider here: Even now, with the bolivar trading at 4,600 to the U.S. dollar, Venezuela’s highest-denomination bank note is still the lowly 100-bolivar bill. This summer, it was worth barely a dime. Now, following the latest collapse, the most valuable note in circulation is worth a little more than 2 U.S. cents.
Washington Post
Francisco Toro
 |
| People line up to withdraw money from an ATM in Caracas on Thursday. (Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images) |
The Inevitable Fruits of the Hugo Chavez's Regime
Venezuela has run out of cash. Not metaphorically, mind you: The country literally doesn’t have enough cash to go around. Two weeks ago, facing an acute shortage of paper money, bank regulators capped cash withdrawals at 10,000 Venezuelan bolivars per day — about $5.25.
As I write this, following an almighty rout on the black market, those same 10,000 bolivars are worth less than half that much: $2.17. (By the time you read this, the real number’s likely lower.) Stop and think about that: How on earth can a country work when the most cash anyone there is allowed to withdraw from their bank account in a day is two bucks and change?
The problem is twofold.
There is, certainly, a serious macroeconomic problem underlying the bolivar’s collapse: an enormous, unmanageable fiscal deficit nobody in their right mind would finance. That has led an irresponsible government to create huge amounts of new money out of thin air to cover its spending needs. Economists have known for 100 years that “monetizing deficits” this way feeds runaway inflation. It’s a result no one — except for Venezuela’s central bankers and their ideological supporters — seriously questions anymore.
Dealing with this problem isn’t conceptually hard, but it’s politically dicey. The kinds of spending cuts and revenue increases you’d need to head off hyperinflation are challenging for unpopular governments to make.
But it’s the other aspect of the problem that we need to consider here: Even now, with the bolivar trading at 4,600 to the U.S. dollar, Venezuela’s highest-denomination bank note is still the lowly 100-bolivar bill. This summer, it was worth barely a dime. Now, following the latest collapse, the most valuable note in circulation is worth a little more than 2 U.S. cents.
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Book Review: "Intended For Evil"
Unbroken Inside Cambodia’s Socialist Killing Fields
The Federalist
“Intended For Evil” isn’t your typical biography or memoir. It is something different—a work of narrative nonfiction that seeks to convey both the historical and theological import of one man’s life. It’s the story of Radha Manickam, and his journey through the horror and death of the Khmer Rouge prison camps in the late 1970s.
Les Sillars, a journalism professor at Patrick Henry College, spent over a year interviewing Manickam and detailing his account. The resulting work of narrative nonfiction is reminiscent of Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken” in scope and character—it’s a chilling story of suffering and survival—but it’s a shorter work, and focuses more closely on the protagonist’s Christian faith. Radha’s journey through Cambodia’s killing fields was guided by his belief in God, and his assurance that God had a plan for his life.
The question is not, ‘How could Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime be so evil?’ but, ‘Why are we all not more like the Khmer Rouge?’
Gracy OlmsteadThe Federalist
“Intended For Evil” isn’t your typical biography or memoir. It is something different—a work of narrative nonfiction that seeks to convey both the historical and theological import of one man’s life. It’s the story of Radha Manickam, and his journey through the horror and death of the Khmer Rouge prison camps in the late 1970s.
Les Sillars, a journalism professor at Patrick Henry College, spent over a year interviewing Manickam and detailing his account. The resulting work of narrative nonfiction is reminiscent of Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken” in scope and character—it’s a chilling story of suffering and survival—but it’s a shorter work, and focuses more closely on the protagonist’s Christian faith. Radha’s journey through Cambodia’s killing fields was guided by his belief in God, and his assurance that God had a plan for his life.
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
Androgynous Drones: Sweden's Inhumanity to Man, Part I
Forced Labour By Whip and Bribe
Sweden is a magnet for rape and rapists. Why? Because it is a society where the family has been systematically weakened and even destroyed by purposeful design. By intent, the State has replaced the family. All sorts of unintended, disastrous consequences have followed and will follow. One is that Sweden has the highest rate of rape in Europe--in fact, the highest rate of all Western nations.
Whilst the nation had toyed with the ideas of achieving a similar destruction of the family as was occurring in Soviet Russia, Sweden did not get serious until the 1960's. The objective was to create a truly Marxist society where both men and women were measured and treated primarily as economic entities, as units of labour. This meant that women needed to get out of the home and away from caring for children, and needed to be put to work in paid employment. This, in turn, could only be accomplished by policies which deconstructed the family. Angelo Codevilla takes up the story:
Sweden is a magnet for rape and rapists. Why? Because it is a society where the family has been systematically weakened and even destroyed by purposeful design. By intent, the State has replaced the family. All sorts of unintended, disastrous consequences have followed and will follow. One is that Sweden has the highest rate of rape in Europe--in fact, the highest rate of all Western nations.
Whilst the nation had toyed with the ideas of achieving a similar destruction of the family as was occurring in Soviet Russia, Sweden did not get serious until the 1960's. The objective was to create a truly Marxist society where both men and women were measured and treated primarily as economic entities, as units of labour. This meant that women needed to get out of the home and away from caring for children, and needed to be put to work in paid employment. This, in turn, could only be accomplished by policies which deconstructed the family. Angelo Codevilla takes up the story:
The centrepiece of the government's effort was to push and pull women out of the home into the labor market. The push came from Sweden's steeply progressive income tax.
Thursday, 14 July 2016
Update on Venezuela
Riots Draw Nigh
Venezuelans are storming supermarkets and attacking trucks as food supplies dwindle
By Joshua Partlow and Mariana Zuñiga
CARACAS, Venezuela — In the darkness the warehouse looks like any other, a metal-roofed hangar next to a clattering overpass, with homeless people sleeping nearby in the shadows.
But inside, workers quietly unload black plastic crates filled with merchandise so valuable that mobs have looted delivery vehicles, shot up the windshields of trucks and hurled a rock into one driver’s eye. Soldiers and police milling around the loading depots give this neighborhood the feel of a military garrison.
“It’s just cheese,” said Juan Urrea, a 29-year-old driver, as workers unloaded thousands of pounds of white Venezuelan queso from his delivery truck. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The fight for food has begun in Venezuela.
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Don't Cry for Me, Venezuela
No Toilet Paper or Repentance
The Atlantic has published a lengthy article on what is going down in Venezuela. The country is on its knees: it is figuratively bleeding from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. But it's half a world away. Why should we care?
In a general sense, we Christians care because this entire world belongs to the Lord, the Messiah Who has bought it all with His redemptive sacrifice and proved it by His resurrection from the dead. When we Christians speak of Christ the King, we do not speak figuratively. He literally is King of all kings.
Amongst many things, it pleases our King to illustrate vividly for all who care to look what happens when petty rebels take over a country and seek to rule by sin's wisdom. Such a country always enters into a self-inflicted judgement. Venezuela has become a proverb, a warning to all Unbelief and rebellion against the King of the whole earth: "if you walk in rebellion and Unbelief, you will eat its bitter fruit."
The people of Venezuela decided a couple of decades ago to elect a Strong Man, one Hugo Chavez. Hugo promised much, but all of it involved theft.
Friday, 6 May 2016
Strange Permutations
Wistful Lamentations and Broken Dreams
There is no place left in New Zealand for a Leftist political party any longer. There are a number of reasons. One (most ignored) explanation is that New Zealand is one of the most left-wing nations on the planet--up there with the Scandinavian trident. Therefore, it's hard to be a left-wing political party when the centre-right party is actually in the left out field. Socialism, without doctrines has won, and won handsomely in this country. That means socialism is the norm; the official Left, to differentiate itself, must necessarily be radical because there is no room left on the political spectrum for leftism per se. Leftism is right through the political spectrum.
Therefore, it is with a touch of mirth that we read the wistful lamentation of New Zealand's sole resident left-wing intellectual: Chris Trotter. He is a bitterly disappointed man.
There is no place left in New Zealand for a Leftist political party any longer. There are a number of reasons. One (most ignored) explanation is that New Zealand is one of the most left-wing nations on the planet--up there with the Scandinavian trident. Therefore, it's hard to be a left-wing political party when the centre-right party is actually in the left out field. Socialism, without doctrines has won, and won handsomely in this country. That means socialism is the norm; the official Left, to differentiate itself, must necessarily be radical because there is no room left on the political spectrum for leftism per se. Leftism is right through the political spectrum.
Therefore, it is with a touch of mirth that we read the wistful lamentation of New Zealand's sole resident left-wing intellectual: Chris Trotter. He is a bitterly disappointed man.
Monday, 18 April 2016
Pete Seeger Redux
When Will They Ever Learn . . .
The Hill
Judd Gregg
We have now been through more than half of the Democratic primaries to choose that party’s presidential nominee. In over forty percent of those contests, a socialist, Bernie Sanders, has been the winner. This is an exceptionally strong statement about where a significant percentage of the Democratic “base” is, and where the party is headed.
One has to wonder how the party of Kennedy, Truman and Roosevelt ended up here.
It is especially interesting that the primary drivers of this shift are college-age voters and their mentors on the left who teach them. In college town after college town, Sanders turns out huge crowds, chanting his name and exalting his causes: the redistribution of wealth and the destruction of those deemed to be undeserving of their economic success.
Remember, President Kennedy was the first supply-sider of the post-World War Two period, cutting tax rates dramatically. President Franklin D. Roosevelt bounced socialists, who were extremely active in Depression-era politics, from his administration. President Truman expressed outright dislike and disdain for the socialist movement with his usual bluntness. Now large segments of the Democratic Party are embracing with gusto the socialist creed as carried forth by Sanders — and at a less dramatic level by the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
The Hill
Judd Gregg
We have now been through more than half of the Democratic primaries to choose that party’s presidential nominee. In over forty percent of those contests, a socialist, Bernie Sanders, has been the winner. This is an exceptionally strong statement about where a significant percentage of the Democratic “base” is, and where the party is headed.
One has to wonder how the party of Kennedy, Truman and Roosevelt ended up here.
It is especially interesting that the primary drivers of this shift are college-age voters and their mentors on the left who teach them. In college town after college town, Sanders turns out huge crowds, chanting his name and exalting his causes: the redistribution of wealth and the destruction of those deemed to be undeserving of their economic success.
Remember, President Kennedy was the first supply-sider of the post-World War Two period, cutting tax rates dramatically. President Franklin D. Roosevelt bounced socialists, who were extremely active in Depression-era politics, from his administration. President Truman expressed outright dislike and disdain for the socialist movement with his usual bluntness. Now large segments of the Democratic Party are embracing with gusto the socialist creed as carried forth by Sanders — and at a less dramatic level by the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Friday, 1 April 2016
Labour's Follies
The Descendants of Karl Marx Are Alive, But Unwell
Leftist dogma asserts that private property is a form of theft. The only legitimate owner of everything is "the people", who are represented by the State. Ergo, the only legitimate owner of all property is the State. Any private property is temporarily lent by the State to the individual. The government owns all.
We have had enough collective experience over the past one hundred and fifty years or so to test this idea out. It has always ended up in grinding poverty for millions upon millions of people, coupled with exorbitant wealth and power held by the officers of the State. Ethically the idea of universal State ownership of all property is a direct assault on the Eighth Commandment--you shall not steal. An ideology of universal state title to all property is wicked to the core.
Most leftists are pragmatic realists--at least in the West. While believing in principle that the State owns all property, they are prepared to tolerate private property ownership for this or that--provided the State maintains the tyrannical power to step in at any time and expropriate private property for its own nefarious purposes. It's justification is that the wealth of the individual in reality belongs to the People (aka, the State).
It is this ideology which underlies the idea, currently being toyed with by the Labour Party in New Zealand, of a universal income for all adults.
Leftist dogma asserts that private property is a form of theft. The only legitimate owner of everything is "the people", who are represented by the State. Ergo, the only legitimate owner of all property is the State. Any private property is temporarily lent by the State to the individual. The government owns all.
We have had enough collective experience over the past one hundred and fifty years or so to test this idea out. It has always ended up in grinding poverty for millions upon millions of people, coupled with exorbitant wealth and power held by the officers of the State. Ethically the idea of universal State ownership of all property is a direct assault on the Eighth Commandment--you shall not steal. An ideology of universal state title to all property is wicked to the core.
Most leftists are pragmatic realists--at least in the West. While believing in principle that the State owns all property, they are prepared to tolerate private property ownership for this or that--provided the State maintains the tyrannical power to step in at any time and expropriate private property for its own nefarious purposes. It's justification is that the wealth of the individual in reality belongs to the People (aka, the State).
It is this ideology which underlies the idea, currently being toyed with by the Labour Party in New Zealand, of a universal income for all adults.
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
Never Let a Scotsmen Get Near a Penny
Sturgeon's Duplicity, Cameron's Complicity
The Scots are universally known for their parsimony. As the old chestnut has it, the Scots invented copper wire, as two sons of the Highlands fought over a penny. How they must be ruing the day they voted in Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party. Under her prudent stewardship, Scotland ran up a fiscal deficit of 15 billion pounds last year. This momentous achievement amounted to 9.7 percent of Scottish GDP, compared to the UK running up a deficit over the same period amounting to 4.9 percent of UK GDP.
Mind you, the size of the UK deficit is way, way too much. But Scotland's is reprehensible. It seems as though the Scottish National Party believe that money grows on trees. What's a few billion amongst friends, eh? In any event, someone else will pay for it.
This all arises out of an electoral con. During the referendum over whether Scotland should withdraw from the UK, Nicola Sturgeon and her party argued that there was indeed a free lunch that all Scotland could enjoy. It could enjoy, on the one hand, a huge expansion of government spending, and on the other, the sure confidence that someone else would pay for it. In this case the "someone else" was a vast exaggeration of the value of its oil deposits.
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