All posts by Richard

ACT, Ayn Rand, Birds, Green Party, Metaphysics, Property, Regulation

Killing Whales To Save Them (Part 1)

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I got this in my email today.

ACT

 
Killing Whales To Save Them
Press Release by ACT Leader John Banks
Thursday, July 5 2012

The proposition that South Korea could begin so called ‘scientific’ whaling is an international outrage, ACT Leader John Banks said today.

“Like Japan, it remains ludicrous that they believe you need to kill whales to save them,” Mr Banks said.

“This thinking is as lamentable as it is obscene.

“It should be condemned and stopped before it even begins,” Mr Banks said.

ENDS
 
Media Contact: Shelley Mackey, Press Secretary, 04 817 6634/ 021 242 8785
(shelley.mackey@parliament.govt.nz)
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ACT

Animals have rights. Yes, even feral conservatives like John Banks.

This PR may seem like one out of left field to some, but John Banks has a long history of campaigning for animal rights and supporting animal welfare legislation. It may seem that he and (former) Green MP Sue Kedgley make strange bedfellows, but a SAFE media release in (pre-election) October last year had this to say.

Greens Lead the Way against Colony Cages

If the nation’s three million caged hens could vote, the Greens and Act’s John Banks would be ruling the roost come this year’s election, says leading animal advocacy organisation SAFE.

Outgoing animal welfare spokesperson and Green MP Sue Kedgley, announced yesterday that her party will pledge against cruel colony cage systems and Act Party candidate, John Banks, also says he will pledge his personal support to help caged hens.

…

I say (and I am afraid this is going to be very unpop­u­lar), good on them both. Many libertarians are conflicted about animal welfare legislation. They think such legislation is unprincipled, while at the same time they abhor animal cruelty. I find their arguments, that the way to prevent animal cruelty is through social rather than legal sanctions, feeble at best and unconscionable at worst.

My defence of my seemingly unlibertarian views on the matter of animal welfare legislation is this. Animal welfare legislation is not a moral issue. It is a metaphysical issue.

(Almost) all libertarians I know subscribe to the view(s) that

human beings are individually possessed of certain inalienable rights, which are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of … happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers – and only such powers – from the consent of the governed; that all laws legislated by governments must be for the purpose of securing these rights; that no laws legislated by government may violate these rights …

If you believe, as I do, that non-human animals also possess some (limited) rights, then it is within the proper scope of government to secure those rights. Animal welfare legislation is not necessarily unlibertarian. Whether it is or not depends on whether or not non-human animals possess rights. And that is a metaphysical question, not a moral one.

Atheism, C S Lewis, Christian Libertarianism

What a fully Christian society would be like

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I’m currently reading C. S. Lewis’s mas­ter­piece Mere Chris­tian­ity. As literature, it’s scintillating. As philosophy, it’s invigorating. As a guide to Christian living, it’s chastening.

Here’s Lewis on what a fully Chris­t­ian soci­ety would be like.

… the New Tes­ta­ment, with­out going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Chris­t­ian soci­ety would be like. Per­haps it gives us more than we can take. It tells us that there are to be no pas­sen­gers or par­a­sites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one’s work is to pro­duce some­thing good: there will be no man­u­fac­ture of silly lux­u­ries and then of sil­lier adver­tise­ments to per­suade us to buy them. And there is to be no ‘swank’ or ‘side’, no putting on airs. To that extent a Chris­t­ian soci­ety would be what we now call Left­ist. On the other hand, it is always insist­ing on obe­di­ence — obe­di­ence (and out­ward marks of respect) from all of us to prop­erly appointed mag­is­trates, from chil­dren to par­ents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpop­u­lar) from wives to hus­bands. Thirdly, it is to be a cheer­ful soci­ety: full of singing and rejoic­ing, and regard­ing worry or anx­i­ety as wrong. Cour­tesy is one of the Chris­t­ian virtues; and the New Tes­ta­ment hates what it calls ‘busybodies’.

I challenge anyone reading this post to tell me that the society Lewis envisages is not vastly superior to the one we live in today.

(In the course of searching for the C. S. Lewis quote—so I didn’t have to type it all out—I came across a non-retarded atheist blog, viz. Rick Beckman. How do my co-bloggers feel about a new blogroll category, “We the Damned”? :-P)

Alcohol, Jihad on Drugs™, Labour Party, Libertarianz, Nanny State, National Party, Privacy, Prohibition, Propaganda, Sheeple, Slashing Bureaucracy

Trained circus seals

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On Facebook, a libertarian friend posts

Sue Bradford complains:

“Bennett & English begin promoting next round of welfare changes – this time, it’s drug testing of beneficiaries. No thought appears to be given to lack of adequate A & D services, consequences to personal & family health & well being if you have no income, & downstream medical, police, court, prison & other costs. All aimed at appealing to beneficiary bashing vote, again, sadly.”

If you choose to take drugs, then get done when they stay in your system, any resulting consequences are of your own doing – so deal with them like a mature adult. It’s called taking personal responsibility. How hard is this to understand?

My response? Sue Bradford is right, for once. Here’s a post from my old blog that explains why.

[Reprised from beNZylpiperazine, August 2007. Five years later, National has picked up where Labour left off and nothing much has changed.]

What is it with right-wingers and their fetish for trained circus seals?

Popular among right-wingers is the following proposed solution to the problem of welfare abuse: make welfare beneficiaries jump through hoops. Exactly which hoops it’s thought welfare beneficiaries should jump through depends on the right-winger making the proposal. What particularly irks me is the suggestion put forward here.

Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare cheque because I have to pass one to earn it for them??

Please understand – I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet.

I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse drinking piss & smoking dope all day.

Surely, paying people to sit on their arses drinking piss and smoking dope all day is one of the better uses of government money. But I digress. There is an obvious problem with the proposal. If you make passing a urine test a condition of eligibility for the dole, this will have the unintended consequence of inducing people to apply for the sickness benefit as alcoholics or drug addicts, where failing a urine test is a condition of eligibility.

It’s all far too reminiscent of Jenny Shipley’s failed and embarrassing 1998 Code of Social and Family Responsibility. [PDF]

The truth is, there is only one solution to the problem of welfare abuse – remove the state entirely from the provision of welfare and devolve that responsibility to voluntary charities and private insurance companies – and only one political party advocating this solution – Libertarianz. Here are a couple of ideas which may (or may not) be part of the soon-to-be-announced Libertarianz transitional social welfare policy.

First, stop treating “alcoholism” and “drug addiction” as afflictions which qualify the afflicted for the sickness benefit. Drug addiction is a lifestyle choice, not a disease.

Second, put a six month time limit on the unemployment benefit. I don’t mean that beneficiaries should cease to receive the dole after they’ve been on it six months. I mean that all unemployment beneficiaries should cease to receive the dole six months after the policy is implemented. So, if the policy were to be implemented tomorrow, the unemployment benefit would be off the WINZ menu come February next year. Six months should be ample time to find a job. Perhaps some right-wingers might offer employment opportunities for professional trained circus seals.

Intellectual Property, Justice

Stop the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer to the USA

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Stop the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer to the USA

Richard O’Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to ten years in prison, for creating a website – TVShack.net – which linked (similar to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies online.

O’Dwyer is not a US citizen, he’s lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.

The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

When operating his site, Richard O’Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.

Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honoured moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.

Richard O’Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against the anti-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.

This is why I am petitioning the UK’s Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer. I hope you will join me.

– Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder

Please sign the petition.

Heroism, Love

Move over, Mitre 10

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This afternoon, my mum and I attended the Episcopal Ordination (Consecration) of Bishop-Elect Reverend Justin Duckworth (previously blogged about here) and his Installation (Enthronement) as the 11th Bishop of Wellington at St Paul’s Cathedral in Wellington.

It was a spectacular occasion. More funny hats than you can shake a stick at. The stick, on this occasion, being the impressive Pastoral Staff, shaped and carved (out of matai) by Huitau te Hau. Justin recounted that he had received the Pastoral Staff the previous morning, at Rimutaka Prison. It was gifted with a message, viz., “Remember who you serve,” or words to that effect.

It was a joyous occasion, but also a serious one. The seriousness of the occasion was evidenced by one of the three readings, viz., John 21:15-19.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

The part of the service that impressed me most occurred shortly after the ordination and installation of the new bishop. Justin was greeted, welcomed, and his wife Jenny was presented with flowers, and then (from the event programme)

Bishop Justin responds and then symbolically washes the feet of three members of the Diocese.

That’s right. His first significant act as Bishop was to kneel before those whom he has been appointed to serve, and wash their feet. This is true humility. Being a libertarian, I could not help but be reminded of Matthew 20:25-28 (also Mark 10:42-45).

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If I had my way, every session of Parliament would begin in a like manner, with every Member of Parliament washing the feet of one of their electorate constituents. Just to remind the bastards who they’re there to serve.