The Greens want to ban… | Kiwiblog
10 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in James Buchanan, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: Ban-it left, fatal conceit, meddlesome preferences, political correctness, pretense to knowledge
- Ban fizzy drinks from schools
- Ban fuel inefficient vehicles
- Ban all gaming machines in pubs
- Ban the GCSB
- Ban violent TV programmes until after 10 pm
- Ban feeding of antibiotics to animals that are not sick
- Ban companies that do not comply with a Code of Corporate Responsibility
- Ban ACC from investing in enterprises that provide products or services that significantly increase rates of injury or illness or otherwise have significant adverse social or environmental effects
- Ban commercial Genetic Engineering trials
- Ban field testing on production of GE food
- Ban import of GE food
- Ban Urban Sprawl
- Ban non citizens/residents from owning land
- Ban further corporate farming
- Ban sale of high country farms to NZers who do not live in NZ at least 185 days a year
- Ban the transport by sea of farm animals, for more than 24 hours
- Ban crates for sows
- Ban battery cages for hens
- Ban factory farming of animals
- Ban the use of mechanically recovered meat in the food chain
- Ban the use of the ground-up remains of sheep and cows as stock feed
- Ban animal testing where animals suffer, even if of benefit to humans
- Ban cloning of animals
- Ban use of animals in GE
- Ban GE animal food
- Ban docking of dogs tails
- Ban intrusive animal experimentation as a teaching method in all educational institutions
- Ban smacking
- Ban advertising during children’s programmes
- Ban alcohol advertising on TV and radio
- Ban coal mining
- Ban the export of indigenous logs and chips
- Ban the use of bio-accumulative and persistent poisons
- Ban the establishment of mustelid farms
- Ban new exploration, prospecting and mining on conservation land and reserves
- Ban mining activities when rare and endemic species are found to present on the mining site
- Ban the trading conservation land for other land to facilitate extractive activities on.
- Ban the further holding of marine mammals in captivity except as part of an approved threatened species recovery strategy
- Ban the direct to consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals
- Ban sale of chips and lollies on school property
- Ban any additional use of coal for energy
- Ban fixed electricity charges
- Ban further large hydro plants
- Ban nuclear power
- Ban further thermal generation
- Ban private water management
- Ban imported vehicles over seven years old
- Ban the disposal of recyclable materials at landfills
- Ban the export of hazardous waste to non OECD countries
- Ban funding of health services by companies that sell unhealthy food (so McDonalds could not fund services for young cancer sufferers)
- Ban healthcare organizations from selling unhealthy food or drink
- Ban advertising of unhealthy food until after 8.30 pm
- Ban all food and drink advertisements on TV if they do not meet criteria for nutritious food
- Ban the use of antibiotics as sprays on crops
- Ban food irradiation within NZ
- Ban irradiated food imports
- Ban growth hormones for animals
- Ban crown agency investments in any entity that denies climate change!!
- Ban crown agency investments in any entity that is involved in tobacco
- Ban crown agency investments in any entity that is involved in environmentally damaging oil extraction or gold mining
- Ban non UN sanctioned military involvement (so China and Russia gets to veto all NZ engagements)
- Ban NZ from military treaties which are based on the right to self defence
- Ban NZers from serving as mercenaries
- Ban new casinos
- Allow existing casinos to be banned
- Ban promotion of Internet gambling
- Ban advertising of unhealthy food to children
- Ban cellphone towers within 300 metres of homes
- Ban new buildings that do not confirm to sustainable building principles
- Ban migrants who do not undertake Treaty of Waitangi education programmes
- Ban new prisons
- Ban semi-automatic weapons
- Ban genetic mixing between species
- Ban ocean mineral extractions within the EEZ
- Ban limited liability companies by making owners responsible for liability of products
- Ban funding of PTEs that compete with public tertiary institutes
- Ban the importation of goods and services that do not meet quality and environmental certification standards in production, lifecycle analysis, and eco-labelling
- Ban goods that do not meet quality and sustainability standards for goods which are produced and/or sold in Aotearoa/New Zealand
- Ban new urban highways or motorways
- Ban private toll roads
- Ban import of vehicles more than seven years old unless they meet emission standards
- Ban imported goods that do not meet standards for durability and ease of recycling
- Ban landfills
- Ban new houses without water saving measures
- Ban programmes on TVNZ with gratuitous violence
via Kiwiblog
No more witty politicians
18 Mar 2014 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: Attack Ads, David Lange, Gough Whitlam, manners, Michael Bassett, Paul Keating, political correctness, Robert Muldoon, social friction, wit
Did the crowd boo when Gough Whitlam was so ill-mannered as to refer to Kerr’s cur? Did the crowd at the steps of Parliament chant ‘manners, Gough, manners’ rather than ‘shame, Fraser, shame’?
When Gough was challenged by a voter for his view on the contentious issue of abortion, hoping to catch him out, Whitlam replied that he was for abortion and in the heckler’s case, he wished that abortion would be retrospective. Everyone laughed and Gough got off the hook.
30 years ago when public meetings in elections were raucous affairs rather than photo opportunities, being able to give as good as you get was a key political skill.
Public meetings were tests of a politician’s mantle and those that did not fight back were judged to be weak. Stand-up comics had easier initiations.
Wit has lost its place in public discourse.
Robert Muldoon pinged the famous insult “New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQs of both countries”.
Consider David Lange:
- Micheal Bassett was a member of parliament and a cousin on my father’s side of the family. My father delivered him and it became plain in later days that he must have dropped him.
- To US Ambassador H. Monroe Browne, who owned a racehorse called Lacka Reason: “You are the only ambassador in the world to race a horse named after your country’s foreign policy”.
- And I’m going to give it to you if you hold your breath just for a moment…I can smell the uranium on it as you lean towards me.
- …a man whose life is so boring that if it flashed past he wouldn’t be in it.
Paul Keating’s contributions to Australian culture would be lost:
- He described his opponents as “mangy maggots”, “intellectual rust buskets”, “gutless spivs”, “foul-mouthed grubs” and “painted, perfumed gigolos”.
- Keating said of Howard: “From this day onwards, Howard will wear his leadership like a crown of thorns, and in the parliament I’ll do everything to crucify him”.
- On Andrew Peacock: “A soufflé doesn’t rise twice”.
- On Wilson Tuckey: “He’d be flat out counting past ten”.
Free Speech for Me – But Not for Thee
15 Mar 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: culture wars, free speech, hate speech laws, Nat Hentoff, political correctness
Nat Hentoff wrote a nice book in 1992; Free Speech for Me–But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other. It was about those from the right and the left who would suppress the rights of individuals to voice opposing viewpoints.
Hentoff deals with traditional censors–religious fundamentalists and political right-wingers–but does not neglect the new ones, e.g. feminists who tried to prevent a pro-life women’s group from participating in Yale University’s Women’s Center.
Hentoff discusses everything from college campuses preventing non-politically correct subjects from being discussed to censorship he faced while writing his columns. Then there were hate-speech ordinances, speech codes on campus, flag-burning amendments to the Constitution, and feminist-Moral Majority coalitions to ban pornography.
A group of librarians in New York suggested that the following label be put on particular books in school libraries, as needed: “WARNING: It has been determined that these materials are sex-stereotyped and may limit your sense of freedom and choice”.
He especially criticizes “civil libertarians” who use the First Amendment as protection of things they like and then ignore it when trying to ban what they hate (racist writing, sexual harassment, etc.). Voltaire would be turning in his grave.
Rather than set up left-wing straw men to knock down, Hentoff details stories of how the Left censors, while acknowledging that the Right censors. Since conservatives admit their intentions, they are not as dangerous as the duplicitous people on the Left.
Free speech has been on balance an ally of those seeking change. Change in any complex system ultimately depends on the ability of outsiders to challenge accepted views and reigning institutions. Without a strong guarantee of freedom of speech, there is no effective right to challenge the status quo.
British Columbia has an extremely broad hate speech law that prohibits the publication of any statement that “indicates” discrimination or is “likely” to expose a person or group or class of persons to hatred or contempt.
Professor Sunera Thobani of the University of British Columbia faced a hate crimes investigation after she delivered a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalist activist, remarked that Americans are “bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood”.
The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans. Priceless.
Meddlesome preferences or ban smoking, but keep your hands of my dope
14 Mar 2014 3 Comments
in liberalism, Public Choice Tags: meddlesome preferences, political correctness
I was having a conversation in the pub about social control of private behaviours that harmed no one else.
James Buchanan captures the essence of this mind-set with his phrase “meddlesome preferences”, whereby:
“the elitist, who somehow thinks that his or her own preferences are ‘superior to,’ ‘better than, ‘ or ‘more correct’ than those of other[s], tries to control the behaviour of everyone else, while holding fast to his or her own liberty to do as he or she pleases.”
Much of the culture war over political correctness is about resentment that the other side has had a chance to enact into law their meddlesome preferences when they were last in government.
From “Politics and Meddlesome Preferences”, in volume 13 of the Collected Works of James Buchanan:
Consider the following politically orchestrated regulations:
- Prohibition on private leaf burning.
- Prohibition of the possession of handguns.
- Prohibition of the sale or use of alcoholic beverages.
- Prohibition of smoking in public places or places of business.
- Prohibition on driving or riding in an automobile without fastening seat belts.
- Prohibition on driving or riding on a motorcycle without wearing crash helmets.
It seems quite possible that at least in some political jurisdictions, a majority of voters might be found to support at some time or another in the past each and every one of the six activities above.
In a democracy, politicians respond to the electorate, and electoral majorities may, in a piecemeal fashion, close off one liberty after another. The political process may well work so as to make each and every person in the relevant community worse off with enactment and enforcement of all of the prohibitions listed than he or she would be if none of the prohibitions were enacted.
To add to Buchanan, the progressive left preaches deference to government – reverence for experts and the need to protect society from itself – and the right of democratic majorities, guided by elite experts, to govern very much as they see fit, as long as they do not interfere with their stash of dope and sexual privacy. Free choice for me, but not for thee!
The conservative Right has its own taboos and plenty of meddlesome preferences but is stout in the defence of religious freedom (for Christians and Jews at least).
The powers of government should be limited to the power you would give to those crazies and busy-bodies to the Left or Right of you when they next get their turn in power, as always will happen in 3, 6 or 9 years’ time or so.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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