The Nonsense Liquor Law That Made Mrs H and I Drink Too Much for Lunch.

Driving to the Mahau Sound this Thursday we stopped at a café in Middle-Of-Nowhere, South Island, to refresh ourselves over a meal and bottle of wine. Mrs H and I always order a bottle of wine when we lunch out, given the rip-off it is buying by the glass, plus, well, we like wine, and a couple of glasses leaves me within the limit – I've always assumed – for driving.

This day, however, we didn’t feel like drinking the whole bottle, and thought it would be a good idea to take it away with us to finish somewhere along the Kaikoura coast later in the afternoon while Daisy dog, who doesn’t travel well, stretched her legs by running around barking randomly at stuff.

But it was not to be. Imagine us listening incredulously as the café owner said she would not give us the screw top back, as we could not take the remains of the bottle, a quarter left, given the café didn’t have an off-licence.

You don't know someone intimately for twenty two years without knowing when a sense of foreboding is warranted.

Mrs H calmly took in a big breath, explained how we were adults, we’d bought that wine - and obviously to have with our meal - so please use some sense: surely the laws around off-licencing were only to stop underage teenage ninja mutants binge drinking in inner cities, and look, with a gesture of her hand to the only other patrons, a ninety year old couple who’d limped in from a funeral finishing up in the old stone church over the road, there were no teenagers in this joint. Indeed there were no teenagers in this town, the last had left with a joint in hand sometime in the 1960’s for the communes around Nelson. It was simply a place to retire and pleasantly, ultimately, expire.

But the café owner was adamant, and I guess I can’t blame her for that; it was her business at stake if she lost her licence. So, did we relent and do the sensible though stupid thing necessitated by the laws upon laws upon laws of the land and leave the wine there to be thrown down the sink?

Did we heck.

As when you sometimes lose the will to live, who knows why we sometimes do the stupid things we do: perhaps on this day we’d become too depressed on listening to David Cunliffe being interviewed over the radio-machine while we'd been driving through Christchurch on the various, nefarious ways he would be relieving us of our income and effort from 2014.

Mr and Mrs Bloody-Minded never letting good sense get in the way of a principle did not leave. Or at least, Mrs Bloody-Minded motioning to bar seating by the window said sit there husband of mine, we’re drinking this bloody wine which we’ve paid for. And we did, watching the departing funeral goers, hair pieces fluttering in the wind, from atop our high chairs of righteous indignation.

The unintended consequence of forcing rules designed for underage misfits in urban areas onto middle aged ornery folk from the country, is that laws designed to promote sensible drinking ironically made responsible taxpayers like us drink more than we wished, and possibly more than we should’ve.

Think about that while I put an unrelated challenge to Mr Cunliffe. I’ll email you a bottle of Noilly Prat vermouth, David, if in your next speech or interview that you intend to use the word collective, as you did that morning, you use Borg instead, to state your politick more correctly.

In the meantime I raise to you the first of many martinis in the Mahau, congratulating you for the leadership win yesterday, while wishing for your political failure next year. Nothing personal, just that the economic policies you believe in are unethical and when applied to our country will be our funeral. But then as Robert Heinlein said – hattip to economist Paul Walker from Anti-Dismal – trying to educate a politician in economic policy is like teaching a pig to sing: it wastes time and annoys the pig. Which might be a nice segway into a next post: pork barrel politics.

Of Espresso; Nuts; Prostrate Cancer; Grammar; Labour Leadership – The Three Boring Men & Quotas Again.

Please excuse me for being prescient.

On this post I offered to drop almost all principles I hold, and to vote for Maryan Street if she had a tilt at the Labour Party leadership, and so could guarantee the passage of her End of Life Choice bill. I meant it.

On this post, given not Maryan nor any other woman Labour MP stepped into the sandpit with her hand up, I posted the below regarding the call by Labour women for a gender quota  one month earlier:

I am also disappointed that after wanting gender quotas just last month, not one Labour woman MP has tried to contest the leadership away from this dreadful man [David Cunliffe], and save us from him. Apparently Labour women do expect to be given by quota what they don’t have the gumption to contest when they have equal footing. There’s plenty of capable women Labour MPs, why aren’t any of you contesting? You know you’ll be getting this shameful hypocrisy pointed out to you when at some stage in the future you’re furthering the coercive state by legislating gender quotas on the private sector, because we know that’s the agenda.

My prescience comes in when we now look at what’s happened: with no woman MP contesting, the labour leadership contest has turned into a boring showcase of manliness, barely a policy to be seen, other than one uncosted goose-step to the Left after the other into the shock and awe tax surveillance state this party will be taking us 2014:

Watching the rugby at a pub. Going fishing. Beer and BBQ. In appearances at least, the Labour contest is a manliness competition.
— Philip Matthews (@secondzeit) September 3, 2013

He's right.

Grant Robertson is interviewed by Seven Sharp at the pub on his love of rugby.

On the same show, following night, David Cunliffe has moved from scaring the horses to scaring the fish, filmed outcast on a reef somewhere, rod in hand.

And Shane, threatening a no show on Seven Sharp tonight for reasons I'm not au fait with, well, giving him the due of being himself – and I do like him for that - he’s just stayed being the bloke we all know he is. Albeit on Q&A, Sunday, I gained a lot of respect for his economic conservatism, at least as compared to Chavez Cunliffe, with his choreographed smile dancing around his face in some mad dervish with his hands, and Living Wage Grant Robertson who has become invisible somehow. But unfortunately it’s evident from his lexicon that Shane is a racing man, and can't lose his racy stripes:

I get the feeling SJ is bagging feminists in a (weak) effort to prove his masculinity. Come on Jonesy. You're better than that. That's weak.
— Morgan Godfery (@MorganGodfery) September 2, 2013

So, in protest, I’m devoting this blog to issues of manliness. My purpose is to be as boring as watching these three statist men trying to out-bid each other for our affections, and thus serve as punishment for the Labour women expecting representation on a plate served up by the coercive state, rather than fight for it even when they had an equal opportunity.

Indeed, leaving politics aside, manliness issues are timely on this blog. I’ve made as many posts against the barbarity of hunting and the various other incidents of sickening animal cruelty that too many (mainly) men in New Zealand have perpetrated, as I have made posts against statists and the politics of big state slavery; so my bloke cred is no doubt running on low to stuffed for those many readers who happen on this site not truly understanding that I am a liberal. Indeed, the only manly thing I’ve done lately is not go to a doctor, which I've not done so I can stay as uninformed about my health as these three Labour men are about economics or the philosophy of individualism that once shone so brightly upon a free West. For I’ve spent the last two months with this dull pain in my groin area, low down, sitting there like a weight that had got me hypochondring, as you do, on if I might have prostrate cancer or something equally dreadful. For dreadful it would be given I’m a prude, I was brought up that way, so I’m not going to no doctor until some bright spark invents a test for prostrate cancer I can do with my trousers on and preferably alone. Though I’m happy to report this time I think I've beaten it off on my own resources.

I had tagged the peak of this pain to about mid-morning, then plateauing to a level some notches below that for the duration, though ameliorated by the pleasant anesthesia of the six o'clock martini. Given the timing, as an experiment Monday morning just gone, instead of for breakfast drinking double shot short blacks until my vision began to blur, normally six, I had a cup of green tea. The pain went, weight lifted, and has not been back again. And it was that quick. So I’ve either found the cure for prostrate cancer, or perhaps just good sense: either way, the best thing is now I know what the discomfort was, it's not that bad, I can put up with it, so I can ditch the green muck and go back to espresso.

Because I'm going to live only this once.

Talking about nuts, while writing I’m watching on Seven Sharp the three contenders standing suited in a paddock … is it? Yes, a paddock, perhaps a park, under a cabbage tree, sadly trying to express their individual identities, as men must, through the colourful ties noosed around their necks.

Sorry, nuts, as in cashews – I’ve drifted off topic. I’ll end this nonsense with a manly tip.

Every real bloke will understand the pantry raid. We get hungry, men, thus have to graze, often. My grass of choice, given the real stuff is illegal in this kindy of a country, is cashew nuts. Despite we share the cooking duties, for some reason the pantry, together with the weekly expeditions to keep it stocked, are solely the domain of Mrs H. I do lawns, vege gardening, vacuuming - I'm quick because I don't bother going under things - and wheelie bins. Because Mrs H was taught if you save the pennies - Mrs H is English – the pounds will look after themselves via the magic of compounding, cashew use outside of cooking, given they're expensive, can be a source of contention. So, of course, being like a good martini, one part clever to two parts stupid, I have devised various means of stealth. This manly tip concerns how to defer a day of judgement within a marriage or the rainbow of relationships.

The photo below shows how a man without wile would approach such pilfering.

Note how the offender has eaten half the cashews on the top shelf, and he will be found out as soon as his significant other enters the pantry. Here’s what you do:

Note how I’ve tipped the remaining cashews up one end so that when you put it back in the shelf the container looks to be full.

If you follow this tip you can put the absence of nuts off right up until that time those nuts are needed for the curry being cooked for friends coming over in just one hour and it’s too late to get to the supermarket to replace them. Admittedly this then becomes a bit of an unholy mess, maritally, but we’re men, that’s how we swing.

Conveniently, containers looking like they are full of substance, but otherwise empty, returns me full circle to the contest for the Labour Party leadership. A fellow blogger has suggested to me that perhaps none of the women MPs felt up to the task of nannying the nation this time around? Two answers: there are many able Labour women quite up to the task, though secondly, if we take this question at face value, and assume that were the case, then a gender quota in leadership would have put a woman into a position of power she was on her own terms not comfortable with, and thus possibly not capable of. Think about it.

Which reminds me, finally. In the Q&A mentioned that played on TV 3 this Sunday, both Nathan Guy, and then Harvard educated David Cunliffe, used the word‘learnings, instead of the correct lessons. What is going on here? Learnings is used by people who want to patronise someone: it’s used to look-down on the people or person it is employed against, to put them down, as if they were a ‘little simple’ of mind. So why would two politicians use it on national TV in reference to people they want to vote for them?

The only answer is, they must be stupid. Or simple of mind. Whatever, stop speaking like that, please; leave it to the hate sites, not the Fortress of Legislation.

Right, noting I’ve not worn a tie since at least 2002, not even to a funeral, I've got this sore shoulder thing happening so I’m off to worry about that for a bit.

Gerry Brownlee; IRD Raids; Freedom of the Press - 100% Pure Surveillance State.

On the back of yesterday’s finding that no government official is to be punished for GCSB’s illegal spying activities, why am I wholly unsurprised that Gerry Brownlee, doing his damnedest to earn himself a nic of Brownshirt, doesn’t understand the nature, nor the need, of a free press:

Cabinet Minister Gerry Brownlee has questioned why political reporters' phone, email and swipe card records should be protected when they frequently publish classified information or the private records of others.

There are reasoned debates, and pretty basic ones, as to why this is, Gerry, but I prefer to let my readers experience the truth in the way novelists would do: show not tell.

In case Gerry suspects my veracity given the supposedly extreme nature of this blog, by which I mean I believe in the blasphemy of an individual’s freedom from himself, the below was published just two days ago by a reputable, conservative firm that runs continuing education courses in taxation for the legal and accounting professions. When reading the below powers of IRD to raid YOU ask yourself are these powers those that would exist in a free society, or that authoritarian one which existed behind the Iron Curtain. The extract is long, but if you want to understand the central theme of this blog, written from behind the Kiwi IRon Drape, and more importantly, the nature of the surveillance state you live in, you will find this fascinating.

The Commissioner has recently published an Operational Statement (OS 13/01) on the Commissioners search and seizure powers under section 16 of the Tax Administration Act 1994. OS 13/01 seeks to provide practical guidance to IRD officers and taxpayers when the Commissioner invokes these powers.

That the Commissioner has immense powers under section 16 is beyond debate. The Commissioner can search any property at any time, and may remove and retain any and all documents and records the Commissioner considers may be relevant to any tax issues. Where however such search is to take place at a dwelling, the Commissioner is required to obtain a District Court warrant beforehand. In practise the Commissioner will obtain such a warrant without notice to the taxpayer concerned, and so without the taxpayer having an opportunity to present their case to the Court considering the issue of the warrant.

The scale of the Commissioner’s search and seizure powers presumably makes the Police Commissioner’s eyes water with envy. In addition, the Commissioner effectively answers to no one, save for the Courts where a taxpayer has sufficient financial resources and is sufficiently brave to challenge the Commissioner.      

Taxpayers have few rights when being raided, and these are effectively restricted to claims of privilege or non-disclosure in respect of documents seized. It is imperative that taxpayers who are being raided obtain the services of a tax solicitor to represent them when the IRD arrive. Usually a solicitor is able to agree a process applicable to the conduct of the raid with the IRD officers whereby the Commissioner’s rights are secured, as is the taxpayers’ privilege or non-disclosure rights.

In practise it is unclear exactly how wide the IRD's powers are, and so the presence of a tax solicitor can be useful to monitor events so as to ensure that the IRD officers carrying out the raid do not overstep their powers.  In our experience IRD officers generally do try to act in a professional manner, but it needs to be borne in mind that their objective is to advance the Commissioner’s interests, not the taxpayers.

Practical issues that we have been confronted with during IRD raids include;

·         IRD officers attempting to ‘detain’ or restrict the movement of staff and other persons present at the premises during the raid.

·         IRD officers seizing immigration documents and passports belonging to relatives of the taxpayer.

·         A locksmith engaged by the IRD who forcibly opened a combination lock leather briefcase with a hacksaw, (the combination of which the taxpayer had forgotten) after declaring that he had the ‘expertise’ to open the combination lock.

Note the telling use of the word brave, as in you would need to be brave in taking on the commissioner. This is the standard of life in all police-surveillance states where you are wise to be scared of those state officials who have the power of God over you: the tax state, as with all terror states, achieves its evil by invoking a prudent fear of itself. That said, and before getting to the beef of the free press, a question for Gerry:

Given ‘in practise it is unclear exactly how wide the IRD’s powers are’, and let’s face it, they are pretty much limitless, what point is there having a tax solicitor present ‘to monitor events to ensure that the IRD officers … do not overstep their powers?’  Just intellectual curiosity, though perhaps you might ask the invisible Minister McClay for a little more clarity to the tyranny.

But here’s the scary thing, speaking to the point. Government in New Zealand has assumed these incredible powers to surveil and raid its own citizens, not to protect us from the outside threats of dreary bearded beaded men, but to take the property and the freedoms of we who are forced to pay for our own enslavement 'inland'. The powers described above are 100% pure police state, because how else can you interpret them? And government has assumed these powers with a free press. Indeed - BREAKING NEWS - many in our MSM are brain-washed enough to have voted for this. Regardless, Gerry only knows where we would be without a free press. I don’t frankly understand how we ever got to this dark place we find ourselves groping around in, forcibly prostrated in front of the Fortress of Legislation in the Capital, our wallets and bank accounts held open to them.

Do you get it yet, Gerry?

Or to approach it via a quotation (hattip Café Hayek) from Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues that points out well the hypocrisy of the Left whom tried to own the debate against the GCSB spooks, while supporting the wholesale surveillance and plundering of myself by this department:

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 free press, Gerry, is required to report on just that abuse described, until at some stage enough of us hopefully wake up, and we take the free West back again from bullies like yourself. To keep iterating this, you have all the power, individuals have been left with none, so journalists are our canaries down the mine shaft, and must be protected as long as possible, for when their freedoms go, the tiny flame of freedom left us, will be blown out entirely.

Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath for the Western Spring. So let's change the topic: how are the compulsory property confiscations going in Christchurch then?

Postscript:

Yes, I'm gutted I didn't work a Gerry-rigged pun into the above.