Afraid
I don’t have time for a full post this morning, other than to say yes, re Nicky Hager’s
latest expose of New Zealand’s spying on our Pacific neighbours: it’s disgusting.
But, equally important is the fact the Left only use this for political expediency,
given privacy has no meaning to them: I’m tired of the hypocrisy on my Twitter
feed currently.
It's
weird how 'classical liberals' have tantrums about regulation
of tobacco companies but are fine with indiscriminate mass
surveillance
— Danyl Mclauchlan (@danylmc) March
4, 2015
@danylmc
Not this classical liberal. The 'weird' thing is the Left
hypocrisy over privacy, as it if mattered to them: http://t.co/4HiPcS1MhC
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) March
4, 2015
@danylmc
And where's the Left voice against the current weekly IRD warrant-less
raids on restaurant owners? https://t.co/ouOxBeiEAT
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) March
4, 2015
My
first link above was to an older
article where I pointed out the contradiction in the Left’s stance on GCSB;
quoting:
So given this comment, can I
assume [Left leaders] will have 'deep
concern' at our tax surveillance state which operates totally outside of
our privacy legislation and essentially gives IRD officers open slather on our lives? Because government
bureaucrats who can read our financial transactions and other essential
communications, who data mine NBR daily [as well
as social media, searching out thought-crimes], and whom are almost
unrestricted from doing so, including raiding business premises without need of
a warrant, can read our lives in far more detail than a Government
Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) officer can. That is, our politicians are
concerned with our privacy to the point of weakening the protection of Kiwis
from terrorism, but the total stripping of our privacy and right to be left
alone, (so long as we do no harm), in order our own government can plunder the private
property of its own citizens is fine? How and where did the concept of the
importance of privacy in a free society change? Perhaps [Left leaders] could
answer to that. What is the difference between an IRD officer being able to
read my life in order to take my income, and a GCSB officer being able to read
my life to protect me from Al Qaeda?
I've never understood the
(im)moral underpinning of the tax state in this regard.
At
the bottom of that piece I refer to New Zealand’s signing up to that American
imperialism known
as FATCA under which via an Intergovernmental Agreement between NZ and the
US we have agreed to use IRD’s abusive, police state ability to operate outside
of our privacy legislation in order to monitor American citizens for the US government, a spying exercise with no link to our own tax take. That
is corruption under any definition.
Currently
IRD are conducting routine raids on
the restaurant sector. In another earlier piece on the almost
unlimited powers of IRD in such raids – and I challenge any member of the
Left in a lather this morning to read that - I described how these raids are
conducted without warrant, they are timed at maximum inconvenience during the
periods of peak service (lunch-times), and the heavy handed nature of them
typically are scaring the bejesus out of restaurant owners and their
staff. IRD powers to raid, and what they can do on raid, are largely
uncontained by legislation: they have open slather.
And
then in the sometimes ruins of their business – I am assuming in some cases,
albeit that is beside the point – IRD then have, again, full police state powers of snooping, search and seizure, over weeks and months following to invade all aspects of those owners everyday lives, right down to the minutia.
But
you won’t see the redistribution cultists out marching on that one, because, to
end where I began, this morning’s Nicky Hager revelations – and more power to
Nicky – are for the Left, only about political expediency.
I’ll
end with
Deirdre McCloskey on the Left’s hypocrisy over privacy:
No left egalitarian has explained how such [taxes]
square with Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative: “So act as
to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other,
always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means.” Taxing Peter
to pay Paul is using Peter for Paul. It is corrupting. Modern governments have been encouraged to
think that any abuse of Peter is just fine, that Peter is a slave available for
any duty that the ruler has in mind. A little like non-modern governments.
The Conservative Right are willing to trade privacy in order
to protect Conservative values - which they call the War on Terror (at the moment). The Left are
prepared to trade privacy for redistribution, and toward that end, all immoral, dreadful means are justified. Meaning we Classical Liberals
are screwed, if Danyl cared to think about issues deeply, rather than always settling for these childish, shallow snipes at classical liberalism and libertarianism. The
West as that concept of freedom, of classical liberalism, died many years ago. We
are all living in the ruins of civilisation as we are marched to the next
iteration of the Gulags that will be built, and wars fought, by the Big Brother
states that are now ascendant.
Back to work for me so I can pay my taxes. To government employees I know read this site, click your fingers and snap those hands ‘I don’t want you raiding lil’ol me,’ so read my disclaimer at bottom please.
Back to work for me so I can pay my taxes. To government employees I know read this site, click your fingers and snap those hands ‘I don’t want you raiding lil’ol me,’ so read my disclaimer at bottom please.
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