My First Blog on Race Politics/Relations in New Zealand, & that Speech of Jamie Whyte's … Well, Maybe.

[I may soon be publishing a post that starts with this.]

 

… The Left echo chamber of Twitter is growing firmly into the opinion white men should not proffer their opinions, with this perversely being the opinion particularly of the lefty white men giving their opinion on white men having opinions on Twitter. I'm sick of that type of childishness, so here I am for the first time posting my thoughts on racial politics and race relations in New Zealand, a discussion until this point I’ve deliberately stayed out of – and for the reasons written on, below, not because of the opinion against the giving of opinions by the opinionated lefty white men on Twitter.

 

Be warned, this post is the worst written, biggest (9,000+ words), most rambling, at times incoherent, self-centred post I’ve ever published, and is in main part a frustrating failure, yet, because personally seminal I’m putting it up for general ridicule. You will read how I started out riding the ethereal wings of epiphany, before crashing back to an earth as hard as reason, unable to get to the point I wanted, despite struggling over and over, trying to reconcile via goodwill, contradictions that could not be reconciled. In the final analysis, I couldn’t get over myself, although ironically the political notion I started out with remained, because it came from that set of principles I do understand: freedom.

 

So, in a post so conflicted it reflects the subject perfectly, to all sides of the race debate, prepare to be, pending your disposition, challenged – I hope - or offended – if you must. The following was written over a two week period, and is put up, in defeat, almost unedited.

 

[Roughly mid-way through that post I write this:]

 

“I have by this point, while thinking I am following a logical argument, somehow ended up within the internecine machinations of another argument altogether. … [Snip.] ...  Let me reiterate (for myself) that the reason for Maori self-determination is an end unto itself: whether Maori want it because they believe it will better the outcomes for Maori is irrelevant if considered the aim is to live defined by their own ‘culture’ as the indigenous people of New Zealand. This was the discovered knowledge I started so optimistically from. I’ve become derailed throughout this piece, and more than once, by that whole welfare motif again – bloody Marxism. I don’t seem able to think myself out of that because the debate over Maori self-determination as appropriated by the Left politick in New Zealand, constantly resets the race debate back to a solution based one founded in socialism: redistribution. … [Snip.]

 

Indeed, two great disservices have been dealt to Maori by the Marxists. First they captured the debate on ‘things-Maori’ and monetised it to the welfare tax surveillance state in a way that not only alienated classical libs like myself, but blinded us – as absurd as that seems in after-thought, and certainly as it would seem to Maori - to the truth of Maori self-determination – that is, it is a worthy end in itself if that is what Maori want. Secondly, the Marxists inveigled in via the generational destruction of a child’s mind in the state school system, the socialist state which by its very nature cannot allow Maori self-determination any more than it can allow my own, individual self-determination. My blog essentially has the single governing theme: self-determination as opposed to living as a plaything of the state.

 

[Ultimately, this is one of the at least three conclusions I end with.]

 

The irony is that for Maori to achieve self-determination we will all need a Western Spring to reclaim classical liberalism and the minarchist free society in which choices are available. That said, noting the legitimacy of the Treaty, and with the contradictory meanderings through my feelings (if not thoughts) regarding tangata whenua, toward the opinion Maori politics, and certainly the concept of identity, is not as simple or similar as classical libs would like to think, I wish Jamie had not played the race card this election. Yes, I realise tactically it might get him the percentage he needs in that dirty game called politics, but I would rather have a classical liberal party to vote for that was not actively out there cynically pushing the buttons of the red-necks – let the Conservatives and NZ First do that.

 

[Not sure when or whether this post will go up; you can read Life Behind the IRon Drape and won't be much the wiser about my life, certainly my wife – which would be a quick way to strife - nor my family, but this post necessitated just a slight bit more than that, so I'm weighing and wondering if I am exercising the required good judgement to let it go live in that vicious place known as the political blogosphere. Stay tuned, though it may be a week or two more …

 

For now, I’ll end my teaser post pondering this interesting piece questioning why none of America’s most prominent libertarian writers or commentators have yet written on the shooting of innocent teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, USA – the town now virtually under martial law after rioting – for the crime only of walking to his grandmother’s house, when that shooting and the increasing militarisation of the US police hits on so many libertarian themes regarding the out-of-control state. Which has me thinking about the libertarian writings of the time (or not) in New Zealand on the Tuhoe raids, for which police just this week have apologised. Might be more than 9,000 words. And yes, in this paragraph I’ve just confused issues of ethnicity and identity, the subjects of the debate on Maori self-determination, with another quite different topic, skin colour and racism, but that confusion itself speaks to one strand of my thought in the (maybe) coming post. And no, I didn't just say libertarians are racist ... this stuff is complicated.]