Why Are We Doing This To Rawleigh's Products – Since 1889? And Scottish Children Owned By the State from August 2016. All Aboard the Retard Express …

The following is from a work in progress that has become stymied:

Ultimately the moral bankruptcy of statism is corrected, or at least ended, by the concomitant economic bankruptcy statism can never avoid once it has destroyed that expression and mechanism of peacefully coordinating the complex mesh of desires and needs of free men and women in a voluntary society: the free market. As statism snuffs out volition of the last individual, so is statism snuffed out. But what is missing in such an analysis is the only important level of economics - micro; the pain and loss of the millions of individuals whose lives are pissed against the wall of political, philosophical, and - with states as big as they have become – bureau-theological arrogance that is statism; of self-styled crusaders, know-alls and busy-bodies sitting on their baubles in the Fortress of Legislation who think they can make your life decisions better than you can, who think they can spend your income and wealth better than you can, and have legislated the totalitarian surveillance state to achieve exactly that end: it’s the tax and welfare state, its taxing arm wielding the full snooping, search and seizure powers of every secret police through history, and against which even the burden of proof is turned against the hapless taxpayer, while welfare addicts generation after generation in despondent dependency to it.

The current iteration of pain is now evident in Europe and set to stalk the world on a bust conceivably bigger than that from the central bank made bubbles of August 2008 bursting; that crisis itself which has justified for our political masters the final formation of the complete and integrated global tax surveillance state via FATCA and then GATCA, as we are coerced down the road to serfdom.

I’ll keep struggling with the piece, but note in the interim that New Zealand’s command economy – there’s no such thing as a mixed economy - continues at pace its vote via the emoting booth toward the brink: all the trappings of a vicious tax state are in place, from our state-aphantic Progressive judiciary destroying an individual’s last protection, last breathing space, from the tax-take, the Westminster Principle, allowing our MPs imprudent, undisciplined and largely unrestrained maws free access to the lolly shop of our wallets and bank accounts; to our complicity in that US surveillance program known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA); and our commitment to the global surveillance state via the Global Account Tax Compliance Act (GATCA).  Not to forget the growing impediments of doing business here due to the distortions of government forcing its bureaucracy into every transaction. Proof? Per my quotation above, always look at the micro level, at individuals and firms transacting with one another and then at how these voluntary transactions have been congested through regulation and taxing by government to the extent of an economy stumbling in incalculable ways. Take, for example, that grand old firm Rawleigh Healthcare Pty Ltd, providing - per their letterhead - Quality Healthcare Since 1889. Every Kiwi and Australian of a certain age will know of Rawleigh’s products; growing up on a farm our bathroom cabinet was never without a supply of Rawleigh’s Salve:

Yet despite I can find no single incidence of a Rawleigh product having killed one of its customers – I’ve Googled it - or harmed them in any way, over 126 years, and I, plus millions of families can personally attest the efficacy of their great products – (buy them!) – look at how near impossible our politicians and bureaucrats have made it for this firm to operate into the twenty first century. On November 1, 2012, Rawleigh’s sent this letter to its distributors (it’s long, so I’ve redacted parts):

Dear [Distributor]

Due to regulatory reasons, as of 1 November, 2012 Rawleigh Healthcare Limited in New Zealand is presently unable to supply the following medicinal products:

Antiseptic Cream, Antiseptic Salve, Medicated Ointment, Muscle Rub, Head Clear and Pain Ease Oil.

 Distributors can, however, still make these products available to their customers for their personal use by enabling them to order via mail order from our Australian office.

[Snip.]

In future, when you take an order for any of these products you will need to fill in a Tax Invoice form and get the customer to tick and sign it to authorise you, as their agent, to import the goods. [Snip.] All orders for medicinal items can be sent to our New Zealand Office but will be processed in Australia. You will therefore receive two invoices … [Snip.]

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and trust that this matter can be resolved as quickly as possible notwithstanding [snip] changes to the compliance regime in New Zealand and Australia. Once all issues that our Medsafe/TGA consultants are working on have been resolved, we hope to bring you ointment and salve in both large and small tins (as it used to be) along with other medicinals, to again be supplied from New Zealand …

As bad as that is, it then gets worse. On 23 January, 2013, Rawleigh was forced to send out the following to their distributors; I’ve redacted, again, and copied without need of further comment – though you can read the frustration from the Director penning this (my highlights):

Dear [Distributor]

In our letter to distributors of 1 November, we advised of the changes we were required to make while Medsafe goes through a process of relicencing our medicinal range. Continuing that rather tortuous process, we have recently been advised that the ‘current’ system is not sufficient to satisfy the definition of supplying ‘for customers personal use’ and that this needs to be further changed. The latest edict is that the supply of goods to customers needs to be direct from Rawleigh Healthcare Pty Ltd in Australia.

There’s a lot more, and I won’t go on to describe the contortions distributors have to now go through to sell Rawleigh product; to my knowledge the firm is still not 'through the process.' The Rawleigh distributor I know made a net profit of just over $45 last year.

That wasn't a typo: $45.

To the state-bound, regulation constipated morons residing in our Fortress of Legislation, this is Rawleigh, you dunderheads, ‘quality healthcare since 1889’! If they can't make it through the mess of laws and clip boards you've spawned, how many companies have been forced to fold or withdraw? In how many ways have my choices as a consumer been reduced? In how many ways have my costs been increased by sheer red tape?

In related news - the two stories related in blood by Nanny - the totalitarian face of evil - and who would have thought it showing its hairy arse in Braveheart’s country - the Scottish National (Socialist) Party, SNP, are enforcing law which will see a Named Bureaucrat to oversee the life of every single Scottish child  born from August 2016, and so is nationalising the children of that country, a move I half-seriously intimated in this earlier post, (see bottom third), though assumed it would be happening out of the United Police States of America first, or at least one of the socialist disasters of Europe proper. Brendan O’Neill sums the madness up well enough in Reason:

And then there's the authoritarian icing on the cake, if Scotland will forgive such an obesity-encouraging metaphor: the SNP's Children and Young People Act. This Act plans to assign a Named Person, a state-decreed guardian, to every  baby born in Scotland, in order to watch him or her from birth to the age of 18.

Due to come into force in August 2016, the Named Person initiative is truly dystopian. Once, it was only abandoned or orphaned children who became charges of the state; now, all Scottish children will effectively be wards of the state under a new, vast system of, in essence, shadow parenting. In an expression of alarming distrust in parents, and utter contempt for the idea of familial sovereignty and privacy, the state in Scotland wants to attach an official to every kid and to keep tabs on said kid's physical and moral wellbeing.

There'll be a state spy in every family. In Scotland, Big Brother is not only watching you (it was recently revealed that Scotland has 4,114 public-space CCTV cameras and "camera vans," which drive through towns filming the allegedly suspect populace); he's also watching your kids.

I’d hoped to see this realised only in fantasy form in some dystopian Hunger Games or whatever, but there it is: Scotland. Way too many fried Moro Bars, maybe, but it’s where the entire West is headed. As far as I’m concerned every family in Scotland is justified in armed rebellion to stop any child of theirs being forced into the Named Tyrant scheme to be brainwashed by the state in the ways of the state. There was a famous war for freedom, to which we all owe our current prosperity, fought over merely a 2% tax on tea. Look at what SNP are about to do in comparison.

Unfortunately the Free West is now the fantasy. I’ve said in my critique of our modern Progressive-centric literature that to write reality, now, an author would have to world build like fantasy writers once had to. We live in the ruins of a once great Western civilisation, its freedoms wrought by a classical liberalism evolving from the Enlightenment, but destroyed by the cultural Marxism and identity politics of Progressive monsters. (Not of Progressivism: individual people did this to us; ironically with the best of intentions, evil enslaver bastards.) And while they only win until the societal demolition that follows, remember the micro-level; the millions of lives to be ruined and minced into the machine of the surveillance state, again.

It’s my understanding that SNP will soon be introducing an Act forcing all businesspeople and wealth creators in Scotland to wear a little white and blue star on their suit jackets so, to quote in the vernacular, ‘th’baastards cannabe ardentified.’  Well that's no worse than the invasion of every Scottish childbearing family and home they plan from August 2016.

It’s arrogance, with ignorance (the bed fellow of arrogance), stupidity and hubris mixed in: lethal. Hand me the salve … Oh, silly me. All aboard the Retard Express, please, noting we are the retards for putting up with this; next stop Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Venezuela. Next stop the Gulag.

Mind the (goose) step.

Dad’s Funeral: My Speech.

Growing up with Dad and my family: the below is the speech I nervously - hate public speaking - gave to a packed Rowley Avenue Church Hall, Christchurch, all seats upstairs and downstairs full. I read off notes, so it’s not as spoken, exactly, but as near as I can reconstruct (including asides.) Fair to say this was the only secular part of the program.

Dad's death is an abrupt stop, then a pause to think about our family and the course of it through the years. More particularly, to take stock of that formative, private family history that Lieuwe, Paul, Henry and Pauline - the marriage imports - are party to by proxy only: it’s that history of the day to day of any family as it grows up, laughs at its own jokes, no matter how corny, of how its members scrap and stoush from time to time over the odd disagreement, the odd adolescent tantrum even, though in our case never to seriously fall out because the glue of mum and dad was strong. Indeed, because of this I have, or hope I do, a certain leeway to give a glimpse of the internal workings of this family Dad was patriarch over.

I started life by dodging a bullet which had been heading through time and lineage with my name on it: after four daughters Mum and Dad had no basis on which to expect a son, so the name picked out for me was going to be Elsbeth: I fear that was going to be a very different life. (Apologies to any Elsbeths' in the room: it's a great ... 19th early 20th century name.) As for we siblings, between the two book ends of Christine the eldest, and myself, youngest, there are, as you will all know, three sisters, Sheryl, Barbara and Philippa.

If recollection serves me correctly, neither Sheryl or Philippa proved to have major behavioural issues nor, therefore, to be particular parenting problems. Relatively calm seas. I’m not saying, Philippa, you were Miss Goody Two Shoes showing the rest of us up, … or perhaps I am :)

On the other hand, Christine …who will be relieved to know there’s not a lot I can disclose, other than hearsay. The thing is, I don’t remember growing up with Christine because of the age gap between us; we’ve gotten to know each other outside the family home, first when I stayed with her and Paul on their dairy farm in school holidays – and I still remember swearing, robustly, at the world on having to get up to milk those damned cows, Paul. Then more so latterly, we’ve become familiars and friends via the both of us being South Cantabrians. But fair to say, by all accounts Christine was a difficult one, cutting Mum and Dad’s parenting teeth early on the barbed wire wrapped rusk of teenage rebellion, through which Dad, who probably would have made a great UN Peacekeeper, yet must have negotiated the family as well as could be, because we're all here, aren't we. Sadly, what he and Mum couldn't have realised in those early days - proving not knowing our futures is a survival feature not a design fault - is via a different iteration on the well-trodden theme, more teenage rebellion was to be heading their way.

Barbara. Stoic, loner tendencies, head in a book Barbara, who, tomboyish, was far more useful helping Dad out on our poultry farm than I ever was; I came up with stoic only as I wrote this, a trait which definitely comes from Dad: stoic, steady, a certain no-nonsense unflappability, which, when I thought more on it, Philippa has too, in bucket loads, and you, Sheryl. (Christine? .... No, you didn't get that, I’m afraid, nor I.) But Barbara had her moments also, her difficult times, including those spent hiding out from the school bus at Greenpark, behind the sofa. We're not much for crowds, us Hubbard's, any of us, and what is a school but a crowd. Her logic was true, as was her choice, no doubt, to homeschool Ben and Josh.

Which leaves me. I guess all I can say is sorry, Dad, and reflect with due admiration on your prudent, casual management style. Dad's imperturbable temperament made it through my growing phases pretty much unscathed: the red hair, the dreadlocks, and the earrings all passed with only the odd wry smile, and no word of condemnation or judgement. Not outright anyway. I suspect he had an opinion, but wisely, against a teenager’s want, had the good sense simply not to bite, (unlike mum, aye). And then there were what I will euphemistically call the religious wars, fought Sunday after Sunday morning over our pet rams made into saveloys, and Watties tomato sauce, from which, regardless, the family again arrives intact to this day, Dad never angry with me, not really, always that even surface of his, wisely prepared to cede short term skirmishes, here and there, his eye to that peace necessary for strong familial bonds in the long run; all worked out pretty well I reckon, there's to be no Osage County after-funeral luncheon following this service – (that's a movie reference if you've not seen it, August: Osage County starring Meryl Streep: word for the wise, don’t watch it anytime close to a parent’s funeral.)

And so out of all that family history, thanks to Dad’s unflappability balancing mum’s sometimes flappability :) we had something that is perhaps rarer today, although, and it's linked, my sisters and their husbands have all provided it for their families: we had a loved childhood, and a stable home, despite the inevitable differences, and how middle class and uncool that was at school. Strange how the mind works, because over the last week I’ve had a lot of scattered, disparate memories about our home life and of growing up with family and friends which in some indefinable how, are applicable to Dad and today … In no particular order:

I remember family caravan holidays with the Lawrys’. You wouldn’t get me on a caravan holiday today, too claustrophobic, bad plumbing, but they were fun. And Norma remains a stalwart boon for Mum; thank you Norma.

I remember much time spent with Aunty Yvonne – Mum’s sister - & Uncle Murray. Fun times with  cousin Russ, who we don't see enough of these days.

I remember like yesterday lots of great times with Pam and Maurice Wilson and family; playing pool and table tennis with Randal, Curtis and Bradley in the games-room at Weedons, despite Randal has subsequently tried to burst my eardrum piloting a plane up Mt Cook.

I remember Christmases at Dad's sister, Aunty Audrey, with Neroli, Jocelyn, Jarrod, Roger and Jenny and family, plus that agitated little dog jumping up and down in the laundry.

I remember evenings,  always long summer evenings with lots of tall trees, at Dee-anne and Gordon Field’s, fun times with Bundy, Fliss and Rick though I’ve not seen you all for years … also the story of that little dog that ate too much one Xmas and popped. (Sorry I don’t know why this dog theme has snuck in).

I remember cricket on the lawn at Clem and Claire Lewis. (I've scribbled out my bit on the World Cup final.)

And much more. Nothing stunning, thankfully it was as standard as childhoods should be, perhaps with an overall excess of good. Lazy summers - at least from a kid's eye view - and  family outings etched into memory, Dad driving us there always too slowly, holding up the traffic, in whatever model of Chev car we had at the time.

If I was asked to define the essence of dad, it would be Dad as that quiet, steady and calm stillness sitting in the lounge or the dining room, keeping it and us together … unless my memory plays tricks, and he was more simply bemused, or perhaps just befuddled by us all. Though the reason I don’t think that is because bringing this back to my hair - often pondered now that I’m losing it for I inherited neither Dad's love of tractors, nor, unfortunately, his thick crop of hair - there was the one time I remember cracking that wry smile, and eliciting an actual chuckle from him, namely when I arrived home once sporting three rows of blue spikes in the form of a Mohawk, the tip of each spike painted white, sides shaven. And that wise chuckle from Dad would’ve been brave in the face of Mum’s more disappointed take on the whole venture, no doubt wondering where it was all going to end with her sorry looking son. Sorry to have done that to you Mum.

Albeit of course, it all had to end with us here, at some stage, sadly, though not sadly also. Death brings contemplation on past thoughts and deeds, and impresses on us the need of making the most of today and tomorrow, because they are fleeting. Especially as Dad’s days might have been more fleeting than they were. In many ways he was a miracle man, he had his first open heart surgery at 48 years old, and modern medicine and probably in no small part his peaceable nature gave him another 34 useful, valuable years more, and perhaps my one regret for him.

Probably you’re not supposed to cover regrets at funerals, I have no idea, and I admit to being etiquette challenged, but I will nonetheless …

Dad enjoyed his life, I reckon, and just as I truly can't ever remember him angry, certainly not yelly, shouty raised voice angry, ever, that was never his way, nor do I remember him complaining about his lot, or even us lot, not once. This despite - noting I’ve spent the last twenty three years variously telling farmers how much tax they have to pay, or more often, how big the losses have grown to - that a certain bunch of circumstances, in the form of a certain bunch of nutters who shall not be named – well no, Exclusives - conspired against him, directly and indirectly, seeing out his time sheep and cropping farming, which he would have liked. That is regretful. Though he had his vintage tractors, latterly the vintage magazine up to some years ago, and writing his machinery books to keep him occupied and linked to his love of the land. As my final comment on Dad and I, all these topics – vintage, tractors and machinery - are frankly a mystery to me, though not his love of mucking about with words. We had that in common, and pretty much the whole family loves reading and books which must have come from Mum and Dad. And in that milieu somewhere is also Sheryl, Dad, and all those jigsaws. But on Dad's writing, I’ll finally make a promise: as Barbara got stuck with the proofing of it, at some stage I'm going to read his whole 150 ruddy years of Massey Ferguson, or Harrison or whatever they are, those red tractors, and all their history thereof; though probably not all at once; I’ll look rather to reading that book over a 150 months, starting perhaps wine night Fridays to ease the pain a bit.

As my final comment on Dad and family, his death is as it always will be, the end of an age, a good, kind age, because he was a gentle-man, albeit the end of this age is not quite yet the end of the Hubbard name. From all us kids, from me, thanks for doing the dad thing well, Dad, and fare thee well. Mum, I don’t aim to be doing this public speaking lark in a hurry again, so you need to stick around for a bit, please.