Golly, Let’s Talk About Flags This Election. #Let'sNot.

Valerie chose to kill herself before the disease robbed her of all dignity. She wanted to take an overdose and die in her husband's arms.


But they discovered that the law forbade this. If he held his wife of 48 years while she lay dying he could go to prison for assisting suicide. So Valerie insisted that he let her do it alone. When he agreed, she said she'd do it the next day.


Joe Bennett, Press (29/1/14).

  

Stumbling out of work induced hibernation  to put one more post up before April.
 

A friend died 3 weeks ago, cancer, not nice circumstances, & no, there is not perfect pain relief with morphine, far from it. Another 1/2
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) January 29, 2014

 

@MarkHubbard33 ... friend currently dying, refusing treatment 4 her cancer. Imagine if an election was fought on important issues like (2/3)
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) January 29, 2014

@MarkHubbard33 ... #euthanasia & medicinal #cannabis, rather than banning FaceBook for not paying enough tax @MaryanStreetMP @DavidClarkNZ
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) January 29, 2014

If I’d had more characters that last tweet would’ve read ‘at the very least’ medicinal cannabis, given we’re also not grown up enough in this kindy of a country to discuss a civilised legalisation of same. No, we are children, so this election year let’s talk about changing flags and euthanising the economy, and with it our freedom, through the theft of taxation. Plus let’s not forget bribe birthing babies into dependency on the welfare state because our politicians, Left and Right, state theocrats all, are only capable anymore of emoting out legislation not thinking about consequences, hence, causes. And despite the cynical arrogance of the Left on Twitter asking if you would babysit a week for Labour’s new bribe of $60 per child, when you add this on top of Working for Families welfare for the middle class, it will indeed offer a viable income proposition for too many. Welfare begets welfare. I’ve not one skerrick of respect left anymore for the larceny and lolly scramble with my money that happens in the Fortress of Legislation at the hands of those wowsers who tax and tax and tax so they can run every aspect of my life. It’s certainly not what Charles Upham, VC and Bar, was fighting for; our lost legacy of liberty.

 

Forget the flags. If you’ve got a bit of time for the important matters of living, dying and basic freedoms we are denied by immoral busy-body monsters and cruel Christ fantasist mystics and their pathological cult of suffer little children, you won’t regret reading Joe Bennett’s wonderful, infuriating ‘my dear friend’s lonely death.’

 

Though if you want to know my contribution to the great flag debate:

 

A black flag with tax auditor & fascist salute would be apt as symbol of death of classical liberalism and the free society in New Zealand.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) January 29, 2014

Oh, and as bad as is New Zealand MP David Clark's threat to ban FaceBook for not paying enough tax, they legislated a gagging law in England this week: it’s called a lobbying law, but Brits already know it was a gagging law as its first victims have been political parody accounts on Twitter.

Yesterday the government’s gagging law was passed by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – marking yet another nail in the coffin for freedom of speech in Britain.


And as if to celebrate the occasion, three parody accounts that were critical of coalition policies closed down on Twitter – at least one after complaints were made from government officials.

In this year’s election in New Zealand with the Libertarianz Party having deregistered, there is only the choice of Big Nanny State Leftists who support the tax surveillance state, or Big Nanny State Right wing conservatives who support the tax surveillance state. There is no choice between parties when all parties demand an individual is sacrificed to society, none that understand society only exists for individuals. With no choice to vote for a free, classical liberal, voluntary society, I will almost certainly not be voting in 2014.

 

[Reality Edition.] Thinking Not Feeling; Fall of France & US; Rape Culture and Identity Politics - Intermission.

The economic woes of Europe and the US are in no way solved, they’re growing, for reality hasn’t finished with socialism yet: not by a long way. 

On September 6, 2012, I penned a blog on how our freedom was being daily suffocated under that socialist fallacy of feeling about issues, rather than thinking them through. Good to see one of the world’s great thinkers agrees:

Talking about feeling on issues rather than thinking them through, New Zealand’s previous Revenue Minister, Peter Dunne, has again highlighted the contradiction of those statists residing in the Fortress of Legislation - and those who support the system they have come to represent - whom have destroyed the Free West. After Christmas Peter posted a link to, of all things, Edward Snowden’s Christmas message about the onslaught of the Western surveillance state. I can never let this double-standard, especially from a former Minister of Taking and the tax surveillance state, go unchallenged.

Important for everybody "@LePoint: VIDÉO. Edward Snowden : "La vie privée est importante" http://t.co/kiuCVt14Af”
— Peter Dunne (@PeterDunneMP) December 26, 2013

@PeterDunneMP Our privacy is more important than threat of terrorism, (true), but we r 2 have no privacy from our own tax state - explain?
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) December 26, 2013

Of course there was to be no answer. But just as this ex-minister is determined to try and live in the delusion of contradiction, President Hollande of France is determined to show the world the destruction wrought by that Left delusion of feeling a country can live on theft of an individual’s hard-gained earnings, in order a socialist elite can feel good about itself. With that country’s national debt now on 93.4% of GDP, not only are the wowser socialists deliberately destroying their wine industry, but the entire economy. France is on the brink, again, and will most likely fall, again, as those who could save it, the wealth creators, are thinking logically, and prudently escaping with their families and loved ones from the vicious tax surveillance state that Hollande has forced on them:

Since the arrival of Socialist President François Hollande in 2012, income tax and social security contributions in France have skyrocketed. The top tax rate is 75 percent, and a great many pay in excess of 70 percent.

As a result, there has been a frantic bolt for the border by the very people who create economic growth - business leaders, innovators, creative thinkers, and top executives. They are all leaving France to develop their talents elsewhere.

And it's a tragedy for such a historically rich country. As they say, the problem with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur. Where is the Richard Branson of France? Where is the Bill Gates?

"Do you see that man in the corner? I'm going to kill him. He's ruined my life!"

This angry outburst came from a lawyer friend who is leaving France to move to Britain to escape the 70 percent tax he pays. He says he is working like a dog for nothing - to hand out money to the profligate state. The man he was pointing to, in a swanky Japanese restaurant in the Sixth Arrondissement, is Pierre Moscovici, the much-loathed minister of finance. Moscovici was looking very happy with himself. Does he realize Rome is burning?

 

The economic woes of Europe and the US are in no way solved, they’re growing, for reality hasn’t finished with socialism yet: not by a long way. This is further proven by the US’s jobs-to-population ratio stuck at the lowest levels in a generation, despite a US$878 billion fiat money stimulus, that forms no part of a laissez faire capitalism.

Reality, as the saying goes, is a harsh mistress. Although that’s probably sexist, if deconstructed, isn’t it?

Coincidentally, I'm currently working on a piece about rape culture feminism; an -ism based on identity rather than individualism. My thinking has changed on this, from an initial unthinking feeling of a rape culture as correct, as given to me by the media, to a questioning of the underlying assumptions of a rape culture premise based on distorted, and distorting, views of human relations. Readers of this blog will know from my posts over the latter part of 2013, this topic has become increasingly important to me, as it should be to all of us who dream of the free, civilised society. For this is the further inveigling of neo-Marxist brutishness into the lives of individuals: radio announcers Willie Jackson and John Tamihere were silenced by a rape culture seeking not dialectic, but vengeance. I will show it is quite possible these two men were fired from their show for merely doing their jobs - running a talkback show: talking to callers; questioning callers; bringing items of public interest up for debate. But rape culture feminism, in a move pregnant with symbolism, found them guilty in the questioning, so went for the boycott in a campaign instigated and run by white male Marxist Giovanni Tiso. Indeed the instance of a white male strutting in with his righteous indignation to rescue the little women is so full of irony it's hilarious, at least, if it were not so serious. And what Tiso did was serious, because he shut down not only Willie and JT's radio show, but diverted all the properly directed energy there had been in the debate surrounding the horrible Roast Busters, and the violence of rape in our society, to two radio jocks who were paid to be controversial, and there the energy from a useful discussion was dissipated entirely. I've not even heard of the Roast Busters since. What a waste that deflection was. Nothing is ever gained by silencing. Nothing. That point is quite possibly the only point on which I agree with Chomsky:

I will also show, thereby, in this piece I'm still writing, quoting almost wholly two feminists who believe in reason and individualism, how neo-Marxist rape culture feminism has become a feminism seeking only the oppression of an insidious Left-centric conformity which wants forever to stomp on the face of an individual human being, and to do that sadly via the ruthless mechanism of the state - the latter especially regarding the enforced gender quotas, in public and private office, which form part of this agenda, and are possibly only one election away in New Zealand. And as Willie and JT found out, when dissent is made an example of against conformity, the tactic is always initially to sully the reputations of those deemed to be drunk on their privilege, a tactic from which even the Law Review Girls were not immune. Just as for the sin of a single tweet into her timeline, on Twitter - social media - and on a matter not even regarding gender politics, the anonymous Thorny proceeded to write an entire blog on how drunk on privilege I must be, with the clear inference I'm a misogynist. And that ludicrous, slanderous post is still up. I'm calling bullshit to this. Further case in point, a sadly typical tweet by such an identity mired feminism on Twitter:

‘Men attention seeking’ is the catch cry shrilled by this feminism at those who would reason against it, seemingly ignorant this was the very tactic of Edwardian men against the suffragettes - diminishing their reality by calling them attention seekers. These neo-Marxist feminists have become what they despise. Albeit in the face of such a tweet as this, all I can say - meeting matronising with patronising - is stop drawing attention to white men, then, dear. You've scored an own goal, just like Tiso did. More importantly, as I have to mansplain it to you, stop feeling about men so childishly as mere identity – the stereotypical generic male invented by a rape culture feminism – because we men, unsurprisingly like you women, if you care to think about it, are all complex individuals, damn near all of us, not rapists. And understand how rape culture feminism, even this tweet, thus forces society into a confrontational paradigm between the genders. What is gained by that? My piece will show there's a constructive alternative that can set us all, women and men, each race, each religion, free to pursue our happiness - classical liberal individualism; because the opposite of sexism is individualism, just as the opposite of racism is individualism. An individualism, poignantly as regards this debate, that shows gender, race and belief stereotypes for what they are: stereotypes.

Compare that identity-bound tweet above telling generic white men to butt out, thus bringing stereotyped white men front and centre into the very frame the tweeter wants them removed from, to this tweet, informed by an adult individualism of a woman who is thinking, and who is simply, gloriously, herself:

I'm a grown woman. I can do whatever I want. #lifeofamuslimfeminist #Beyonce
— Aysha Syed (@ayshaspace) January 11, 2014

Unfortunately, however, I will not be able to finish my piece until April. Just as with socialism, reality exacts its price on us all. At the beginning of this financial year through boredom and burnout I took my eye too long off the reality of my workflow. Consequently - because under an individualistic ethic there are consequences - I am now having to work twelve and thirteen hour days until the last client’s work is completed. Other than the odd tweet – (follow me on Twitter) – there will be no further blog posts until that time. I won’t even have time, most likely, to answer to comments that you are free to post in the meantime. That said I'll end this post where I began, Mr Sowell. 

Another of my hobbyhorse topics has always been the doublespeak around the notion of fairness. From my post Taxing Language - Fair: What Do You Mean Please?

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.

And so, Sowell to that wrecker of a country, President Hollande:

Catch you in April. In the meantime, I'm afraid I have to call intermission ….

Book Review: Wake, by Elizabeth Knox.

Confession: this is not a book review. Writing a review requires more time and concentration than I can currently muster with my work commitments, and a review done awfully is irresponsible. But Wake gave me joy over the Christmas to New Year break, and fortunately I can sum up why by simply quoting a single, small extract that encapsulates everything I loved about the book: its overarching concept, skilful storytelling, characters, and even - despite its subject matter - humour. (I get the feeling in the opening scenes the author was having some deal of fun in the writing.)

You can easily enough Google a full synopsis of Wake, so by way of context, I only need explain how after a mass hysteria has overtaken the town of Kahukura, and with it the brutal death of most its inhabitants, the surviving fourteen characters of Wake are trapped from the outside world by a mysterious no-go zone. In the section I've chosen below, Dan is talking to fellow survivor, policewoman Theresa, about why the authorities outside the zone won’t immediately respond to their attempt at communication by Morse code, after the survivors have finally gained news of the outside world via messages in plastic milk bottles that have drifted to them through the no-go. For my (over 70%) US readership, note the Wahine disaster referred to is the New Zealand maritime disaster on 10 April, 1968, in which the ferry Wahine sank during a storm with the loss of fifty one lives, as would-be rescuers watched helplessly from the shore.

As with all book recommendations appearing on my blog, I apologise to the author for appearing on my blog. That said, my readers will understand an important truth, or two, being covered so ably here.

[Dan’s] back was to the light and Theresa couldn’t read his face. He said, ‘Look, it’s good that you’re so staunch. And I know that you, more than anyone else here, can imagine how the authorities are going to go about handling something like this. But don’t you think they’re being extra harsh?’

He took a deep breath and went on. ‘Either things don’t work the way I think they do, or – well, like, in the Wahine disaster, they always talk about how people broke the police cordon to jump into the waves and haul the lifeboats out of the surf at Eastbourne beach. Ordinary people, with stacks of blankets, and thermoses full of soup. Everyone soaking wet and cold, and doing their best. Wahine wasn’t that long ago. We aren’t that different. New Zealand isn’t that different. How come this disaster has been taken out of the hands of the ordinary people who just turn up to help?’

‘There are the bottles.’

‘That’s mostly Oscar’s mum and dad and some bloke who can’t bear to think we don’t know what bloggers are saying about us.’

As a blogger, I’m laughing out loud – largely at my own expense – typing out that final sentence. Only the best fiction explains how we live as succinctly as this. And don't be fooled by a plot synopsis either: there's a lot of serious content going on in this novel, particularly regarding the tough and oftentimes cruel decisions we have to make in so many spheres of living; from the moral judgements, and trade-offs, required in conservation, to the heart of it - the responsibility of authority, and what justifies the sacrifice of an innocent individual human life. I'm philosophically uncomfortable with where Knox leads me, but then, that in itself is the importance of reading and literature: to get you to that point of difference, or not, understanding how you got there, and who you are because of it.

But this isn't a review, and I don't want to risk spoilers. 

In summary, as with all of Knox’s work, Wake is exceptional storytelling delivered through enduring characters: a very good read.  And the novel is yet further proof of the exceptional range that Knox is capable of from my favourite of her works, the ‘realist’ Glamour and the Sea, to the glorious fallen angel Xas of The Vintner’s Luck, whom I think is one of the best realised characters in New Zealand literature, and strangely the most human, while not forgetting also that novel’s equally worthy follow-up, The Angel’s Cut. Especially when Knox's young adult fiction is considered alongside these adult offerings - and Wake is adult fiction - I can’t think of another New Zealand writer who can so deftly change their spots.


Footnote:

Wake comes from the stable of Victoria University Press which had a stunning 2013: Wake, Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries (2013 Man Booker winner and a fine book), plus a fascinating novel for a New Zealand publishing house, John Sinclair's The Phoenix Song; a novel which starts in Mao's revolutionary China, and ends in New Zealand. I read it earlier this year when distracted by too much of life and earning an income, so hope to read again in order I can review at a future date. But for those who enjoy thinking about political content, you need to put The Phoenix Song on your list.

Related Posts:

New Zealand Literary Rambles I

Literary Rambles II - CK Stead, Diana Neutze, Rachel Joyce.

LiteraryShambles III - Eleanor Catton.

Book Review: Jennie Erdal – The Missing Shade of Blue. Deconstructing Hume.

Books in Passing: Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin. The snitch, surveillance society.

Reading by Capitalism: Kindle Versus the Femme Fatale iPad.