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, April 1, 2013

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?

14 comments:

  1. Mark, a sensitive and sensible post.

    I have personally had the privilege to met many Americans who fit the profile of the Hertz; successful, generous, compassionate, kind hearted, yet there remains this mindless hostility to all things American in this country amongst a vocal minority of the population.

    I have also met many Americans who perhaps were not as wealthy, but were equally generous and compassionate.

    There are days when I feel the discouragement you have expressed in this column, but I'm reminded that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Let's celebrate the good where ever we find it, and it seems the Hertz were very much a part of that good.

    Brendan

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    Replies
    1. Just watched the Churchil biopic 'Into the Storm' ... there was a brilliant quotation from Churchill at the end of the war, awaiting the result of the election he was to lose to Labour: 'If they choose Labour, then everything we fought for is lost'.

      He was right. It just took a lot longer to kill freedom with the guns hidden under cloaks.

      Delete
  2. Excellent post Mark; you make your point with much clarity, without showing any disrespect towards a remarkable couple.

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    Replies
    1. Cheers for that Keeping Stock. ... Imagine a mind that can dislike a heartfelt condolence though. Chilling.

      Delete
  3. I don't for a moment believe that those dislikes are from 20+ different people. What would possibly motivate 20 different people, presumably acting independently from each other, to log on to the NBR website and do such a thing? It just doesn't make any sense. In situations such as these, most people if they have nothing nice to say, say nothing. They recognise and defer to the occasion whilst allowing others to express their condolences and respect without comment.

    In my opinion all the dislikes are probably from one or possibly two malcontents with a chip on their shoulder over some interaction they have had with the Hertzs'. Sick, obsessional, po-faced puppies, filled with hatred. Sadly there's plenty of them out there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For the reasons I've given, I think there are a lot of 'sick puppies'; also:

      This phenomenom happens across all threads.

      On the thread concerned, the dislikes have been happening progressively over time; they don't just happen all at once.

      Finally, you'll note you can't like or dislike a single post more than once, as the site tracks your computer's use of that function. Yes, you can no doubt get around that by turning cookies off and so forth, however, the weight of evidence still leads to the conclusion of multiples of haters.

      Thanks for commenting.

      Delete
  4. 'disliking' a tragic event is totally normal. thats all that is hapenning here in my opinion. nothing sinister.

    a 'like' can show support for a comment, but some people interpret it as support for the event itself.

    so if somebody posts "my dad has died" then if you 'like' that comment it might be seen that you are liking the fact that the person's dad has died, so by 'disliking' it you are showing that you dislike the fact that the father has died.

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    Replies
    1. You've way over-thought this. Those dislikes are pure, malevolent animosity; nothing else.

      Delete
    2. I've seen it happen plenty of times in other situations.

      It's not overthinking at all - its perfectly normal human behaviour.
      People don't get happy when somebody dies unless they have done some serously nasty stuff - child molesting, mass murder etc.


      I think you just don't understand that people view the like/dislike button in a different way to you. you view it as supporting the sentiment, others may view it as supporting the event. I 'dislike' the fact that eirc has died, so I express this by 'disliking' a comment that talks about it.

      Here is another example from a company I used to work at when one of the senior managers resigned. the article about his resignation talked about how great he was and generated a lot of 'likes' and 'dislikes'. some people who didn't like the manager 'liked' the article because he was leaving, or disliked it because it talked about how great he was. Still other people who did like him, 'liked' the article to show support for him, or 'disliked' because they didn't want him to stay.

      So what conclusion can you draw from this? Only that when a comment/aticle/status is posted that expresses a negative sentiment about an event (such as how sad it is that somebody has dies), looking at the likes/dislikes is not avery good way to calculate whether people support the sentiment ornot.

      Delete
    3. Seriously, in the context of this thread, you're writing from down the rabbit hole.

      Delete
    4. really?
      so why, then, if we have all these people who are Eric Hertz haters for someunknown reason, do we see absolutely zero comments that say anything to that effect. People can coomment anonymously on NBR so if they felt the way you say not only would they be 'disliking' but we would also expect to see some comments that mention these kind of things.

      Instead we only see comments by people sad to see him die.

      that supports my theory (that people are using the 'dislike' button to show they dislike his death) but does not support your theory that these are just a bunch of meanies who take pleasure in the death of a man.

      Delete
    5. You certainly have an OCD obsession with this. You do not see the slouching beast comment, because that's the nature of the beast: it's not evolved enough for language yet.

      Delete