Blog description.

Accentuating the Liberal in Classical Liberal: Advocating Ascendency of the Individual & a Politick & Literature to Fight the Rise & Rise of the Tax Surveillance State. 'Illigitum non carborundum'.

Liberty and freedom are two proud words that have been executed from the political lexicon: they were frog marched and stood before a wall of blank minds, then forcibly blindfolded, and shot, with the whimpering staccato of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ resounding over and over. And not only did this atrocity go unreported by journalists in the mainstream media, they were in the firing squad.

The premise of this blog is simple: the Soviets thought they had equality, and welfare from cradle to grave, until the illusory free lunch of redistribution took its inevitable course, and cost them everything they had. First to go was their privacy, after that their freedom, then on being ground down to an equality of poverty only, for many of them their lives as they tried to escape a life behind the Iron Curtain. In the state-enforced common good, was found only slavery to the prison of each other's mind; instead of the caring state, they had imposed the surveillance state to keep them in line. So why are we accumulating a national debt to build the slave state again in the West? Where is the contrarian, uncomfortable literature to put the state experiment finally to rest?

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Monday, July 2, 2012

TVNZ 7: Freedom has a Price.


I’m going to take a big breath and say it: I liked TVNZ Channel 7. I understand from what I have read about the ratings, and despite what the save campaign say, on some of their programming it may have only been me watching. But it was possibly some of the best programming, for me, outside the Food Channel. Emily Perkin’s ‘The Good Word’ show about all things bookish was one of my favourite spots of the week on our TV.

And let’s get this whole sordid confessional over.

During the day when I’m working I am normally streaming Concert Program or BBC3 – currently listening to the Early Music Show as I pen this. I listen to a lots of the arts related slots, especially books and writing, on BBC4; I listen to a lot of Kim Hill’s interviews via podcast; and in a nauseous orgy of state broadcasting I’ve started listening to National Program’s Checkpoint at 5.00pm over Larry Williams on ZB, and I even – face palming, ashamedly looking through the frost chapped cracks in my fingers - have been known to listen to Jim Mora for an hour or two.

Woe is me. Woeful am I. Losing TVNZ 7 hurts.

But this said, I do not support state broadcasting. Why? Read every other post on this blog, that’s why. Freedom is a package deal: I can’t just pick those parts of the big state I like, and ignore the rest and the fact the whole edifice is based on a theft enforced by the police state powers of tax enforcement, and thus the truncating of liberty. And yes, persecuting rich pricks, more than they already are, so I can watch The Good Word, is immoral. So instead of philosophising on the last rites for TVNZ 7, I would like to point to something that has been missed in the debate – that is, why is commercial TV so awful? Because there’s a connection.

I suggest it’s because after so many decades of Gramsci in our state school system, and the dumbing down that has occurred, there’s a nihilism – as in gaggle - of unemployable youth being churned out, barely able to speak intelligibly anymore, and commercial TV, to survive, has to generate its revenues off the scary menace their minds have become: thus, as this generation would txt, our welfare mentality, reality TV has become ‘a bit shit’. The crap that is commercial television, merely represents our age of crap that has been begot of the welfare state, which has replaced the creative, free individual, and his pursuit of happiness, with the collective ascendency of a coke swilling, binge drinking moronacy of barfing idiots. And as I’ve explained, already, I don’t believe this is fixable anymore, as the philosophical rot is seventy years deep.


The only question left from this is why not, then, grab onto that which is good, as in uplifting for the secular soul, anymore, no matter it may be served up on taxpayer money. Why not turn a blind eye to the persecution of the rich pricks, who are most likely uncouth businessmen who wouldn’t know Shakespeare from Shakespeare’s Sister anyway? Right?

Well I once posed the following question to Lindsay Perigo on his SOLO site; what if lack of regulation, say, of fisheries, led to fisheries being depleted, possibly wiped out? His answer was that men acting in their self-interest would probably not do this, but it was possible, yes; freedom has a price. And he’s right. For me, the price is no TVNZ 7; I have not participated in any protest online or off. As much as I love that channel, I would rather have my freedom, than be reading Shakespeare in a Gulag, even if I say this from the depressing vantage point of knowing I will never be a free man.


PS: Mr Dotcom, yes, I saw you on the funeral march: quite apart from all the ironies involved, what Sky channel was TVNZ 7 on? …. Yeah, I thought so.

22 comments:

  1. Losing TVNZ 7 hurts.

    Not as much as losing your welfare benefit because you smoked a joint last Friday, but, yeah, the principle's the same. As you rightly say, freedom is a package deal. Or, in the words of JFK, "Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free."

    Anyway, Mark, my condolences. As for me, I'm just glad that the constant bombardment on Facebook to save TVNZ 7 will now let up.

    7 down. 1, 2? Go!

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  2. I've had to abandon Facebook: I ended up with an unholy combination of family, friends and clients, and, really, never the twain shall meet between those groups. Haven't been back to my page in months :)

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  3. Well I once posed the following question to Lindsay Perigo on his SOLO site; what if lack of regulation, say, of fisheries, led to fisheries being depleted, possibly wiped out? His answer was that men acting in their self-interest would probably not do this, but it was possible, yes; freedom has a price.

    Linz's answer was disingenous. He's heard of the tragedy of the commons. So have you, and you know exactly what would happen. Sans "regulation", the fisheries would be wiped out in short order.

    But we don't need regulation. We need privatisation. And (I'm 100% sure you'll agree with me on this, at least) we need fish!

    Unfortunately for you, ocean fish are not the products of men's minds. But they're scarce. Scarcity, not production, is the basis of property rights. I win this one. :-)

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  4. The issue of property rights aside, you've missed the point, which is that freedom has a price.

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  5. Hi Mark, I never comment here as usually I simply agree with everything you've written. This time though... well, no this time. I still do. I merely have a question.

    If, as you posit and I often find myself thinking, that this situation is unfixable, then what are those of us who think of ourselves as classical liberals to do?

    My own answer is to continue living as I would if we lived in a free world. Where restricted, I grumble and work around it. I find myself constantly angry, and ranting at my poor friends, who would rather I just shut up and enjoyed my life as my brothers keeper at the point of the government gun. This isn't a good way to be.

    What works for you?

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    Replies
    1. My two cents: Resist the erosion of our freedoms where;

      - It affects us personally
      - Where we know what to do and how to do it
      - Encourage others to do the same

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  6. Greig. Well, I'm doing your third paragraph, + a blog + a novel :)

    What else can we do? One individual against the state (or IRD): you'll just get squashed, and if you have a family, it would be a pointless protest to the point of being irresponsible.

    I do spend as much time as I can in wineries. And that's not just being facile.

    I've come to it all we can do is get the ideas behind classical liberalism out as much as we are each individually able to. Because anybody coming out of the state school system will be hearing such ideas for the very first time: that's the real problem in our society today.

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  7. I agree. I'm continually told by all and sundry that my ideas are simplistic and could never work. They say it like a litany. That can only be the result of being taught not to think, and yet, these are all smart (and quite wonderful) people. It often gets me questioning whether I'm completely wrong. What stops me is that I've made the journey from left to right, and back again, and finally to here. They've never shifted their views a jot. It's that thought that keeps me confident that I'm on the right track.

    I hear you on the wineries. I started a commercial brewing operation instead! ;)

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  8. Oh, that Greig. You're the only one with his head screwed on right :)

    Remind me what brand of beer you brew(to buy)?

    And those 'intelligent' people are wrong. If you can break through the 'litany' what they believe falls down quickly ... and that's when things usually start getting a bit fraught.

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  9. Oh you'll love the name of our brewing company:
    http://www.brewaucracy.co.nz

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  10. Mmm. Bean counter ... how have I missed that on the shelves?

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  11. Ah, we don't bottle sadly. Too small, and too much demand for kegs. We'll be fixing this eventually, but 400L doesn't go far. If you're in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Rototrua, or Christchurch, there will be some Bean Counter on a tap near you within a month or so - in time for Beervana anyway. But this is turning into an ad! ;)

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  12. Greig - rest assured, you're on the right track. And "Brewaucracy - Beer with Authority" - that's classy and classic. :-)

    Mark - freedom isn't free, I agree. But the price tag is not kamado-grilled fish.

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  13. Greig: beer ads here fine by me.

    Richard ... I'm going to have to look into your first post tonight when I get more time; I don't think I'm quite with it. The Kamado Komodo has been going crackingly, lately, though.

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  14. But I like fish!

    I do not want them to die and I have no faith that fisherman will act in their own best interests.

    Save the Flake! Regulate! (repeat)

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  15. Glad to see you've made it here Damien. As I said, the price of freedom might be no fish. We remain on opposite sides of the IRon Drape on this one.

    (... though there'll always be farmed fish. Trust me).

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  16. Yes, I have given this some thought.

    If the fish had an owner they would not be farmed to extinction. The solution is simple, they need an owner.

    It does really matter who, but if there is an owner the market can work. If there is no owner you get the tragedy of the commons.

    Getting the fish an owner may require some impure statist intervention, but all property, historically, has been acquired by with some impure statist intervention.

    Once done you van have fish and freedom!

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  17. Happy to be here. I keep getting into trouble at the other place!

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  18. Well it can be a harsh place on muddlers.

    Coincidentally with all this talk of fish, I'm teaching myself fly casting on the lawn for this coming season, so there better be some trout left.

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  19. Good luck. I find I lack the Zen to be a good fisherman.

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