Of Students and Olympics …

I see the Student Association is upset that IRD is about to use ‘heavy handed’ tactics to bankrupt students who have moved to Australia and are deliberately defaulting on their loans. They shouldn’t be surprised, as heavy handed is the natural consequence of giving any government department the full powers of the police state to take a person’s property from them. You have no liberty, nor privacy, from IRD, because you have been voted into a prison of the tyranny of each other, where you are not so much your brother’s keeper, as your brother’s slave: best you learn that lesson now. Although in this case I disagree with the students. While a government using heavy handed tactics on its subjects (I use that word advisedly) is always repugnant, and we should’ve learned from the twentieth century to be kinder to each other, nevertheless, students loaned that money from the tax payer and the repayment of those loans must be honoured, just as it should for any loan taken out. It’s called the grown up world, and this side of the issue is not a question of tax.

So, in reference to the following quotation from the article concerned:

The president of the New Zealand Union of Students Associations, Pete Hodkinson, said the "extreme measures about to be taken to chase down New Zealand graduates who are gaining overseas experience are symptomatic of a Government that is prepared to treat graduates as if they were in the same category as tax-evading criminals or worse".

I’d like to change the focus, just a little, to get to the truth of the matter:

… the "extreme measures … taken to chase down New Zealand businesspeople who are going about their business peacefully via the voluntary transaction, are symptomatic of a Government that is prepared to treat free men, who have done no ill, as if they were in the same category as criminals or worse".

Prostrated in front of IRD you have fewer rights than an accused murderer or rapist, even the onus of proof is turned against the innocent taxpayer – stop and think how stunning that fact is - and from this brutal basis on which our society is founded, authorised and required by the Fortress of Legislation, there is little that is civilised about our social democracy. I mean it when I say we are closer to a Soviet styled semi-police state, than we are to a free and voluntary classical liberal society. You don’t have to stick your head up all that far to find this out, and don’t think you can weld your vote to free yourself: it means nothing.

And while on the free and voluntary classical liberal society, as much as I enjoyed watching the odd event in the Olympics, albeit the value to my life of the very odd event of grown men playing water polo was nil; does that justify a government extracting, by force, $90 million from the New Zealand taxpayer - many of them struggling - to fund ‘our’ Olympic effort? Of course not. Indeed, not even if we were just taxing the rich pricks for it. People should either fund their own sports activities or seek voluntarily given sponsorship, and if that means grown men might not be able to play water polo at the Olympics, then, that’s life, as it should be, in a free country. Such taxpayer funding is an abuse of the role of state: it’s always about the principle; this stuff is so easy. And as far as Olympic medals lifting the mood of a country, Paul Walker over at Anti-Dismal has a good little piece up on how the country’s mood might be better served by simply leaving the taxpayer their money.