Blog description.
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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Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Bloody Jamie Oliver Cashing In On Food Wowserism.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Having to Break People Away from the ‘Choice Habit.’ #Obamacare #TaxState
Friday, July 20, 2012
Headlines 2012 and 2022: Choice = Freedom. The Tryanny of Each Other.
Gang members, a grandmother and beneficiaries were all arrested in the country's largest cannabis bust which resulted in the seizure of drugs with a potential worth of $130 million.
More than 2500 people were arrested in the six-month crackdown, which has made a massive dent in New Zealand's cannabis supply, police said.
As well as arresting 2573 people, police also confiscated 280 kilograms of plant material, estimated at $5.6m, and destroyed more than 130,385 plants and seedlings with a potential street value (at maturity) of up to $130m.
Following 2009's Operation Lime, which targeted businesses and individuals selling cannabis-growing equipment, the latest raids were dubbed Operation National, which was the largest operation of its kind, Detective Inspector Paul Berry said.
Police targeted drug dealers working out of houses. The crackdown was complemented by Operation Kelly, which used aircraft to spot cannabis crops during the growing season.
When they raided homes police found multi-million dollar operations, including one which was allegedly run by a Wellington grandmother …
Every gang in the country was involved, including the Mongrel Mob, Head Hunters and Rebels, Berry said.
"This is bread and butter for the gangs. This is how they make their money."
Police also found 248 children, who would have watched their parents grow drugs and sell them at the door, Berry said.
Many of those children had been referred to CYFs.
They seized 14 properties, worth a total of $4.6m, eight cars, a boat, and cash and bonds worth more than $1m, some of which was seized under the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act.
Supermarket owners, a grandmother and dairy owners were all arrested in the country's largest soft drink bust which resulted in the seizure of soft drinks with a black market potential worth $130 million.
More than 2500 people were arrested in the six-month crackdown, which has made a massive dent in New Zealand's soft drink supply, police said.
As well as arresting 2573 people, police also confiscated 280 kilograms of fat laden hamburger meat, estimated at $5.6m, and destroyed more than 130,385 packs of cigarettes with a potential street value (in the schools) of up to $130m.
Following 2009's Operation Squash-Choice, which targeted businesses and individuals selling soft drink selling equipment, such as shelves and refrigerators, the latest raids were dubbed Operation No-Choice, which was the largest operation of its kind, Detective Inspector Paul Berry said.
Police targeted soft drink dealers working out of houses. The crackdown was complemented by Operation Orwell, which used children to spot soft drink in their homes and dob in their parents.
When they raided homes police found multi-million dollar operations, including one which was allegedly run by a Wellington grandmother …
Every corner dairy in the country was involved, including On The Spot Dairies, and 4-Square supperettes, Berry said.
"This is bread and butter for the capitalists. This is how they make their money."
Police also found 248 children, who would have watched their parents selling soft-drink, and drunk it themselves, Berry said.
Many of those children had been referred to CYFs.
They seized 14 properties, worth a total of $4.6m, eight cars, a boat, and cash and bonds worth more than $1m, some of which was seized under the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act.
Monday, July 2, 2012
TVNZ 7: Freedom has a Price.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Don't Blow Smoke in Nanny State's Face
A 60-year-old Motueka man was fined $6000 in the Auckland District Court today for the unlawful manufacture of tobacco.
The man was growing enough tobacco to sell. Which raises a question: what's more important for a society, that an individual is left the volition to exercise the choice to grow tobacco that other individuals have the choice to buy for their own pleasure, or, that a government holds a suffocating mandate to punish those choices that lead to bad health outcomes, or, just 'stuff' it doesn't like?
We've been here before.
Again, it's a moral question. It's freedom of choice versus the coercive state that can punish us for our own good, or the perceived common good of others - or at least the good as voted by a tyranny of the majority. Yes, sometimes the choices we make may harm us: freedom has to include the freedom to die stupidly. That is much better than the alternative: the thug state that steals our volition, and with that, our lives. The war being waged by the state against choice, is the war being waged against freedom, and the state is winning.
And, of course, this man's real crime: no doubt he wasn't giving his pound of effort to IRD on the sales.
UPDATE:
My comment posted to the NBR thread linked above:
"... In the battle between freedom of choice to live our lives as we would want, and the thug state that exists to tell us how to live those lives according to its want, I have to draw the nasty conclusion on who has won.
As for these 'tirelessly working customs officers', evident of the harm done through the new found glory they believe themselves to have received from that lowest common denominator of Monday night reality TV, a Harry S. Truman quotation would seem appropriate:
"Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship ..."

