The idea of Roger Douglas making a comeback seems both all wrong and delicious at the same time. I mean, who asked for that, and yet, here he is.
My main objection to letting market forces run the country is that it assumes a basic level of intelligence and personal responsibility that is sadly lacking in a good proportion of the population. How would you imagine education vouchers would go down in Mangere? Every general election you read horror statistics in the paper about the number of people who supposedly don't understand MMP, so how can we expect people to have enough gumption to adequately keep up in a market economy? I mean, look at America...
Sadly, if perhaps luckily, kiwis are too soft-hearted to go down this route, but imagine how nice it would be to live in a decent, ordered society like Singapore. Repressive? No. Disciplined and self-reliant. Good citizens. Solid, reliable citizens.
Something that angered me about Michael King's history of New Zealand is that he criticised the charity system at the turn of last century for being directed only at the "deserving poor". To my mind, charity ought to be earned. If someone is hungry, and they don't smoke or booze it up at the pub, help them out. Otherwise, wait till they shape up. It really is that simple. They'll get the hang of it.
The notion of unconditional charity (beloved of turn-the-cheek Christians) saps the soul of initiative. Blanket welfarism has created the underclass we must endure on a day to day basis.
Another piece of bankrupt liberalism is the common academic view that the 18th century deists were being patronising by keeping their closet atheism from the masses for fear that they would lose all respect for authority and run amok. The deists were right of course; the world they wished to protect has been destroyed by the breakdown in moral authority over the past century. Just look at British reality shows: that's a Dystopian hell if ever there was one.
This relativist nightmare we currently call 'society' is an upside-down theatre where hoodies in sports cars are encouraged to believe (by an education system perhaps worse than no education system) that they are the equal of any heart surgeon, where loose morals is considered a 'lifestyle choice' and the law, according to a t-shirt I recently read (perhaps needless to say, on a suitably overlarded gut), is something that is only broken "if they catch you".
Kill all shitheads? If I were in charge...
Posted by stuart at March 29, 2008 4:01 PM