Home Schooling, Christchurch Rebuild, and that Tyrant's Call - The Common Good

Stupid me, I just assumed it as axiomatic home-schooling your children would be a right in every Western country. It still is in New Zealand, thankfully, indeed, I have a sister who has home-schooled her two well-adjusted boys through all the age groups to polytechnic; and one of those boys would have definitely fallen through the cracks of a state school system which could not have provided him the time he required, which his mother could.

But of course I was wrong on my initial assumption: it’s not axiomatic at all. This is a topic at the centre of this blug. I was gobsmacked to read the below story via Fairfax this morning.

 A German family who say they were persecuted for home-schooling their children have failed in a last-ditch bid to stay in New Zealand. 

The Schoeneich family's second attempt to gain refugee status, this time on humanitarian grounds, has failed and they now face deportation. 

Home schooling is illegal in Germany and the family claims they would face fines, loss of custody and possible imprisonment if they returned

(Snip)

After fighting with education officials in Germany - including receiving more than $6000 in fines - the family came to New Zealand in 2008 on temporary visas.

If you are not free to educate your own children, then what freedoms do you really have? What type of society do we have when the state takes over the parenting to this extent? Although the principle here is deeper, and attaches as ever into the huge tentacles of the Western surveillance state. Noting first that I’m an atheist (humanist), on principle I am in full agreement with the Schoeneichs’ reasons for wanting to home school:

The parents, Andrea and Gerno, decide to home-school their children on religious grounds, believing the German state education was socialist and conflicted with their strong Christian beliefs.

(Snip)

Home Schooling New Zealand principal Todd Roughton said he felt for the Schoeneichs, who should be able to control their children's education. "They are being denied by the state." 

Home Schooling New Zealand provides support for parents teaching about 750 New Zealand children at home a Christian "world view". 

Roughton said state schools - in New Zealand and Europe - imposed a world view that was morally abhorrent for many Christian families. "If we were obliged to put our kids in a state school, we would leave the country too." 

Why would countries criminalise home-schooling? Because the Western surveillance state now demands it is the alpha and omega in the lives of every individual; the state will bend the minds of the young to its state-centric view of the slave state, regardless of what parents think, regardless when parents know better for their own children: the individual is being exterminated by the state, again, and ‘this time’ the state has largely won. Classical liberalism as the founding ethic of a free West, is not only lost, it is commonly reviled from the front of the classroom. I only need to copy the pertinent part of my by-line above:

When was the last time you heard even a lone voice from the Fortress of Legislation in Wellingrad use either of the words liberty or freedom? I haven't heard those words for at least twenty years. If this is the free West, doesn't that strike you as odd? The West was built on a classical liberalism that has been subverted and defeated by Antonio Gramsci standing at the head of our classrooms, and he won because he caught the hearts of the children, and was able to make the first imprint before they were capable of critical thinking. That was why Comrade Antonio, founder of the Italian Communist Party, said the free West would not be beaten by the gun, but slowly stamping the minds of the impressionable young. The enemies of the free society didn't need AK 47's, just 'enough' progressive teachers in a state school system to preach the Big Brother State in everything.

And how did the state win? It was so successful this time because it appealed to a human’s better nature: the common good, a doublespeak ethic it imprints onto the minds of the young. Emoting over thinking, again. I’ve had another demonstration just yesterday of the muddled thinking coming from our state schooled minds that ludicrously derides individualism as selfishness now, and preaches the state in all things to pursue the common good, by sacrificing the individual’s pursuit of happiness to it:

Tweeter (regarding the current situation with the Christchurch earthquake rebuild):

"“Remember that this is for the greater good of the city.” No comfort to those of us being screwed by the Government"

My initial reply:

Hey, you're turning libertarian :) Every tyranny in history justified itself on common good. Only individuals have rights.

Tweeter’s reply:

ha! If I believed it were for the common good, then I might have more time for it

The Tweeter seems completely oblivious to the contradiction between their first post and the last. I asked her to define ‘the common good’ for me, but received no reply. For the record, as I said in my tweet, the common good has been the battle cry of almost every tyrant throughout history. The common good has been so important, apparently, that hundreds of millions of individuals over the twentieth century had to be exterminated or killed by the state for it. Rights cannot attach to a collective, when you try to, you open the gates to tyranny and atrocity. That same common good is currently being used in Christchurch to usurp private property rights on a breath-taking scale. Just as the common good is used as the excuse to steal the property and effort of productive individuals while making those individuals victims to a department of state with literally the powers of the true Orwellian police state. To be meaningful, and cause no harm through the force of state, rights can and must only attach to individuals. A society must only base itself on protecting the smallest minority: the rights and property of an individual (and especially from the abuse of state). But now I’m talking about a free and peaceful world so far from the one we have, it’s depressing, so I wish my readers a Merry Christmas, thank you for reading, and though I oft times wonder why I do this, I hope you catch my blug again in the New Year (albeit, posts will be spartan through to the end of March).

Footnote:

There is also a secondary issue of immigration in this story: the libertarian view on that is as long as the Schoeneichs’ sign up to not using the welfare state, and they do not seek to force their views, etc, on others, then they are welcome to stay in New Zealand, as is anybody on this basis.

I Demand Higher Prices You Immoral Capitalists.

Imagine a rent-a-crowd protestor outside a supermarket with this on his placard:

We demand to pay more for our staple dietary requirements. Raise your prices!

I think we are agreed that would be mind-numbingly stupid. However, that’s what 'ethical consumers' are protesting for in their planned boycott of Amazon, Google, Starbucks, et al. Tax is a cost to business: a protest to raise taxes paid, is a protest to raise the price a consumer pays. 

I put it to you the ‘Ethical Consumer’ is not so much ethical, as just plain bat-shit stupid, and for some reason during a recession has decided to declare war on the struggling consumer. Socialism … it’s really silly, and it’s hurting good, honest working people. If you want to even the playing field for local small and medium sized businesses, lower their tax rates to what the Googles' of the world are paying here: then we would all benefit. But for that to happen, irresponsible governments which spend like free men can't, need to get their spending under control (or even stop borrowing would be a start).

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Fairness is Higher Prices.

Related Posts:

Amazon is our hero, not the villain in the piece.

Bernard Hickey’s latest outage, sorry, outrage.

Labour’s David Clark declares war on the consumer.

David Bain: A Judiciary and Politick That Have Lost Their Way, Entirely. We All Lose, Judith.

I didn’t follow the David Bain case that closely, so I have no opinion on whether he is guilty, or not, of the murder of his family; nor on whether he should receive compensation (other than logically, if he has been acquitted, thus imprisoned falsely, then there should of course be some sort of restitution made, whether - and here’s the point - the Minister believes he’s guilty or not). The point of this post is to say that in every tax post I’ve made this month (and on this blug) I have been demonstrating how, through our taxing legislation, and in other important areas of law, such as the case of Mark Hotchin’s treatment, (like him or hate him, his life has been frozen for two years this month without charge, and the clock is still ticking), government has overthrown the rule of law in New Zealand, meaning we are no longer a free, Western nation: our politicians and government departments regularly operate above the rule of law, IRD relies on it as its raison d'etre, in a dreadful pragmatism that disrespects every soldier who died fighting rampant statism in WW II and then the Cold War, and in a manner every free man in New Zealand should be appalled at, and out on the streets marching against. We have been so badly let down: there is nothing more important, nothing, than a country losing its way to this extent.

For the problem is it’s not just the politicians. This is so serious because our historical protection from the abuse of the power of Parliament, the judiciary, is as bereft of philosophy as the hive mind in the Fortress of Legislation. As I say in my by-line above, Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Italian Communist Party, said the free West wouldn’t be beaten with the gun, but by converting the minds of the young to the slavery of statism, and if you look at his army in our teaching stock, he was right. Members of the New Zealand judiciary have come through a state school system that implicitly, thus comprehensively, preaches the state in everything and never mentions the proud traditions of individualism and self-rule the free West was built on, other than to despise such principles (because in the mind of generation air-head, individualism is now equated with ‘selfishness’). It is for this reason the vital classical liberal ethic in the tax jurisdiction that was once the 1935 Westminster Principle protecting the taxpayer from the abuse of an arbitrary state, has been completely destroyed in our courts over the last decade, and Mr Dunne has not only been happy to let that happen, he’s been complicit in it: chances are if you structured yourself in any way that meant you weren’t paying the maximum tax to the state, then that will now be considered tax avoidance under an expanded (to mean whatever the IRD says) Section BG 1 of the Income Tax Act, despite the wording of the taxing legislation might have made your structuring entirely legitimate, indeed, to have been considered by the law as made by the politicians of the time – and in this instance I’m not even, other than indirectly, referring to Penny and Hooper arrangements. The judiciary believes your wallet and your effort belongs to Wellingrad, for the great pogram of redistribution, and an IRD with the powers of God over us, is using retrospective enforcement to chain the individual to the prison of state in a manner unparalleled in our history. I will further explicate this in my next tax post, however, I see it again this morning via the media in Judith Collins treatment of David Bain’s compensation case.

Lindy Chamberlain’s lawyer, an ex-pat Kiwi, Stuart Tipple, says he’s ‘ashamed’ with our Minister of Justice’s behaviour over the independent Binnie report on David Bain. I’ve not read that report, nor do I intend to, but his words below regarding process and principle don’t surprise me in the least:

Mr Tipple said he had followed the Bain case closely. He was aghast at Ms Collins' criticism of the independent report written by retired Canadian judge Ian Binnie, while keeping its contents confidential.

 "I'm really disturbed there's not more legal people in New Zealand that are standing up and saying this is just not good enough. You're just making our whole judicial system a laughing stock.

"During that time representing Lindy Chamberlain, I used to think 'this wouldn't happen if I was in New Zealand' but ... in the Bain case I think he has been subjected to actually worse injustices than the Chamberlains."

He claimed that Collins' actions were "basically painting a picture that she believes he's guilty". "That's how she's viewing the Binnie report. She's actually not accepting the jury verdict - which is: You are not guilty David Bain, you are innocent.

"It's so inappropriate for a Minister of Justice. She should be accepting that the jury's verdict as binding.

"I just find her conduct on the whole matter appalling and I'm ashamed. Deeply ashamed."

The ‘legal people’ are not protesting, Mr Tipple, because they’ve not got a classical liberal clue about their profession anymore. Meaning Judith doesn’t realise that in a free country if she doesn’t like a judicial decision she can’t just overrule it like this without due process, and the judiciary having succumbed to statism see no need for the process of the rule of law anyway, so there is no longer a check on her power to do whatever she feels ‘to her mind’ is right. Which it might be, but that is no longer the point. Once the politick and the judiciary convert to the Theocracy of State as we have done, and the essential separation of these two powers are sewn together again after all the blood spilt to keep them apart from the historical fight against monarchy, there can be no free society, only some shade of state tyranny. But you think Bain guilty, thus couldn’t care? Well tomorrow it might be you, for unprotected by a brainwashed judiciary, and uneducated politicians going about the pragmatic business of extorting the productive to fund a massive state they’ve grown into the enemy of all of us, with these two groups whom have no historical understanding of the classical liberal tradition they should be working in anymore, there was always going to be only the one result: call it what you will, socialism, collectivism, or, more accurately, statism; regardless, the individual is turned into the tax and debt slave and plaything of irresponsible, profligate politicians, repeating the mistakes of history, having learned nothing from the twentieth century. This is way more than the laughing stock matter Mr Tipple suggests, and there will be no Western Spring in my lifetime. In fact from 2014, in New Zealand, it all starts going beyond desperate.


Update 1:

Here's an interesting piece from Reed, one of the three wise (? :) ) men of Eternal Vigilance: Just what are the flaws in Binnie's report? Is it Fisher's report that is flawed?

"From what I’ve read so far Fisher doesn’t demonstrate any flaws other than his own."

Related Posts From This Month:

The Mockery of Law: Tax Avoidance – The Immorality of Uncertainty.

Tax Avoidance and the Morality of Certainty: New Zealand and the UK.

Retrospective Enforcement & the Brutal March ofthe IR’s World-Wide.

Labour's David Clark Declares War on the Consumer.

Retrospective Tax Enforcement Again: IRD &Accommodation Allowances.

It’s Over: Mr Dunne Has Done Away with the Rule of Law.