The Slouching Beast of Socialism in NZ: My Respects to Kathy & Eric Hertz.

You no longer have to go far in New Zealand to witness and understand how sick is that stunted welfare child born of the Left politick.

Two great individuals have tragically died this Easter weekend, two individuals whose combined efforts have done more to increase the standard of living of all of us, than the entire Labour/National cabinets have for decades. And they did this simply by providing competition to our major Telcos, to give cheaper, more diverse Telco services to all of us. Kathy Hertz, and her husband Eric, CEO of 2degrees.

I know nothing about this couple, other than what I have read since their plane went down on Friday, but I know enough to surmise the following:

To deliberately introduce them as Kathy and Eric, out of no disrespect to Eric, but to identify their marriage/partnership as the synergy integral to 2degrees: from my reading, it’s a similar marriage to my own – I operate under a company called Mark Hubbard Limited, merely because I am whom my clients deal with, however, take out Mrs H, and there would/will be no business. Ours is a 50/50 partnership, as I glean to be the Hertz’s.

To thank them for their efforts in creating 2degrees and turning it into a free market success; because I exist on telecommunications.

To note that everywhere Kathy and Eric have operated, they have put as much effort into their charitable activities as in their business activities, working with the disadvantaged and raising them up via voluntarism, (as opposed to the state’s malevolent method of clobbering the independent down to the dependence of the disadvantaged while creating the surveillance state to control them).

I don’t need to go on, just Google and read the eulogies. But here’s the point of this post; when you read the eulogies, remember the slouching beast growing ever stronger that would, and will, destroy everything good, every freedom. You can see that slouching beast in the comments to this NBR post on the the Hertz’s. On each comment to an NBR thread other readers have the option to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ a post. The first comment is from ‘JB’:

A great loss. Condolences to the family, friends and 2 degrees.

Number of likes, at time of posting this, 13, number of dislikes, 17.

If you can get yourself past the callousness and cruelty of those dislikes, think about just what they mean, because it takes your breath, and final hopes, away. Then look at the dislikes on the rest of the otherwise respectful comments. Including this one:

I had the absolute pleasure to host Eric and Kathy a few weeks back at the Tongariro Lodge and my step daughter and I were lucky enough to fly with Eric and Kathy around the central plateau in their plane. I feel richer for the experience of meeting 2 such wonderful and giving people. The world is a sadder place today. 

Graeme Smith
General Manager | Tongariro Lodge

At the time of my post, 4 likes, 3 dislikes.

The fifth comment to that thread sums it all up:

Really sad news. A great guy who made a real difference.
I cannot understand all the "dislikes" for this and other condolences. Words fail me.

2 likes, 6 – yes, 6 – dislikes.

Words fail me also. Whenever I glimpse the slouching beast, I am always left first speechless, then sickened, then angry. It’s the slouching beast most often that I’m trying to spear in my blog.

I would like to know from even one of the dislikers, let’s call you haters, what you are thinking - ‘we’ decent folk would like to know because once our freedom, lost now, depended on understanding you.

Some of this will no doubt be because Kathy and Eric  just happen to have been Americans, and the New Zealand Left have become strangely nationalistic, while identifying with the ethic of the slave prisons in China, rather than the sadly gone land of the free. But mainly it will be because Kathy and Eric were decent, upstanding, independent, compassionate, passionate – loads of that by the sounds of it – charitable, successful human beings who championed freedom and free lives in everything they did, even by not trying to do so. To the haters born of the Left politick, and remember they all have the vote, there is nothing worse, it would seem, than successful, decent people like these. The haters aren’t individuals; they’re the stench that rises from the cesspit created by socialism, bottom-feeders, their gills blocked with the poo of an ideology that has destroyed the West.

When will enough of us finally understand that the shining example of the Hertz's is not enough anymore; the disease has travelled too far into our minds, for it starts in the state classrooms. There is nothing in this society worth saving; it’s all gone, the slouching beast resides in the Fortress of Legislation in Wellingrad. It won, the Free West is lost.

Kathy and Eric I never knew you, but through the magic of markets you bettered my life, regardless: a heartfelt thank you. Condolences to the family.

To the editor of NBR, there are friends and family of the Hertz’s reading that thread, for pity’s sake, turn off the offensive like/dislike function, because really, what’s the point of it, in this context?