[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 ….

Anarchism (Or) Libertarianism Cannot be Reconciled with Socialism. (Or Each Other, But Ignore That For Now.)

Some time ago on Twitter I made the statement that anarchism and socialism are opposites and cannot be reconciled. Since then I’ve noted it tweeted by Left Anarchists as some type of ‘in joke’ amongst themselves, however, over time, no Left Libertarian, nor Left Anarchist, when I’ve challenged them, has been able to succinctly reconcile the two: the last time one did try I received a contradictory mish-mash of nonsense that held no understanding of economics, or philosophy.

So, I can do little normal blog posting until the new year, my day job is too busy, thus I’m opening this post up to the implied challenge. Here is the definition of socialism by the Free Dictionary:

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

In comments I invite any Left Anarchist or Left Libertarian to reconcile anarchism or libertarianism with these definitions of socialism. It needs to get directly to the heart of the matter, and I’m not interested in links to the whole Internet. The reconciliation will need to importantly contact the above definitions particularly around the following words used:

‘Owned collectively’

‘Centralised government’

‘Plans and controls economy’

‘Dictatorship of the proletariat’

That is, for me, classical liberalism, libertarianism, et al, are founded, as they must be, in individualism, and the non-initiation of force principle, before all else: that was the West’s true inheritance from the Enlightenment. So reconcile the freedom that arises from the civilising acknowledgement of the absolute sanctity of the life of a single human being going about their business, forcing themselves on no other, to the force necessarily connoted with collectivism on which socialism is based, where that individual's volition must be sacrificed to the mob, be that via centralised ownership or the state (which are the same).

Perhaps by this means I may finally understand -albeit, I doubt it - the ludicrous sight of those fools wearing anonymous masks conducting street protests, and more often than not, riots, to destroy the single economic system consistent with freedom: laissez faire capitalism.

Go …

Political Subversion in a Wine Glass. Scarlett Johansson and the Context of Joy.

I raise my glass to those who enjoy life, acknowledging the ludicrous fact that glass heft up in the air is now a subversive act ...

Alcohol seems to be the theme here currently. On the back of this silly policing of New Zealand’s off-licencing regulation last month, and Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway’s wowser drink-drive bill of this month, comes nothing short of the death of the wine industry in France. Not by some disease in the vines, but via a disease called the joyless socialist mind, that has grown like a virus through their judiciary.

When will we wake up to the fact the statist do-gooder monsters of this piece, in seeking to destroy the joie de vivre of life itself, are pure evil? When even enjoying a glass of wine on camera is politically subversive, and this in France, once considered the home of wine, how over-regulated must our lives be in the West circa 2013? Even the Soviets were left alone to their vodka.

Moet & Chandon recently ran this series of photographs of Scarlett Johansson with their charming product in French glossy magazine Paris Match.Those pictures have now cost them a fine of thirty thousand pounds. This new French farce the product of their meddling socialist government, as interpreted by their meddling French judiciary. Just as the New Zealand judiciary have killed individual freedom in our tax courts, so have the French finally squeezed the last pips from life in that country. Quoting The Times:

“… wine drinking is being viewed by Gallic judges as an offence to common decency whose adverts should be censored.

Courts are interpreting French law as meaning that it is illegal to publish adverts of people enjoying wine.

Professionals are urging President Francois Hollonde [of 75% income tax infamy] to review what they say are crazy health and safety regulations.

…

Paris Match, the glossy magazine, also fell foul of the law when it ran an article about Scarlett Johansson taken by Moet & Chandon as part of an advertising campaign. The magazine was ordered to pay thirty thousand pounds in damages after a court ruled that the photos “show a famous young actress … with a flattering commentary that clearly goes beyond the authorised terms”.

The court said it was illegal to associate alcohol with a “festive context”.

The Free West didn’t end with a bang, it ended with that last sentence. There’s an offence to common decency here alright: but it’s sitting on the high-chairs where French judges arrogantly perch themselves. I have nothing but contempt for them.

I can’t post the photographs of Scarlett here for reasons of copyright, but I can post the Youtube of the photo shoot itself. And the worse thing is, not only would French judges censor this, I suspect so would that radically stupid branch of feminism which features here from time to time, because as will be the subject of my next post, a feminist professor of law in England has just crossed the line known as the rule of law into pure evil. Next time.

In the meantime I raise my glass to those who enjoy life, acknowledging the ludicrous fact that glass heft up in the air is now a subversive act. Albeit there can be no form of political protest I’m better suited for; indeed, I’ve been practising for years. Take it away Scarlett, to the Western Spring …

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?