Writ Day went by in the twinkling of an eye.
All posts by Richard
Power to our people
Get your smoke on!
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
Hear, hear.
Tick the leaf and give your party vote to the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.
Now is the time for action!
Can you imagine a political campaign ad like this in New Zealand? No, didn’t think so.
Perhaps not uncoincidentally, also in my inbox later in the day was a press release from ACT Leader Don Brash with the subject line, Time for Action. Don says
PREFU figures released today show that the National Government is projected to achieve fiscal surplus by 2014/15, as originally projected in the Budget. If achieved, this would place New Zealand in an elite group of countries. But the PREFU also highlights some very disappointing facts …
New Zealand will continue to suffer from anaemic economic growth for the foreseeable future and is projected to have long-term growth markedly slower than the growth assumed for Australia. This suggests that the Government’s objective of narrowing the gap between incomes here and those in Australia is still a distant dream.
I think I have a sound grasp of basic economic principles. I know what wealth is and where it comes from. But I have no idea what PREFU is. If Don says that today’s release of PREFU figures is good news, I believe him. But this anaemic press release doesn’t inspire this reader to action. I suspect that the latest poll which shows that John Banks trails in Epsom did not inspire the writer. It now looks likely that Don will have nothing to show for his unprincipled pragmatism in regard to ACT’s choice of Epsom candidate. A seat for him in Parliament after the upcoming election is still a distant dream.
I admire Don for (among many things) his public stance on cannabis law reform, and I despise the media and assorted low-lifes who used the opportunity to put the boot in rather than seize the opportunity to debate the issues. But now it looks like the cannabaton has been passed back to the ALCP. Thanks, Don, we’ll run with it.
RWC 2011
‘Tis death!
How’s this for a haka? Go the All Blacks! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
Tim Wikiriwhi is my Co-Pilot
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Tim Wikiriwhi is joining me as co-blogger!
I first met Tim at the 2006 Libertarianz Party Conference. His speech to the conference attendees was unforgettably, pulpit-poundingly passionate! Just like the man himself. A Christian libertarian cat set among the Objectivist pigeons!
Here is how Peter Cresswell live-blogged it.
Tim Wikiriwhi – Keeping the faith
Tim Wikiriwhi, the christian libertarian. T-shirt reads: “Stand fast in the liberty of Christ.” Christ!
This isn’t a game. This is real. People’s lives are being destroyed, but those people will do so little to help remove the shackles that help imprison them. People’s lives are being destroyed, but so many libertarians themselves who KNOW what’s wrong will do so little to do what they know is necessary.
Organising libertarians is still like herding cats. Why? Why so many ‘useless inert nothings’?
Don’t be pessimists; be optimists. Take it seriously. LIVE YOUR CONVICTIONS.
There is no reason and passion dichotomy: if you’re not passionate, then there’s something wrong with your reason.
Why quit? Why quit when the competition is morally bankrupt to their core, and totally absurd. To quit in the face of such small adversaries is cowardice. We have reason and virtue on our side.
Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Don’t be a quitter. If you are, and you KNOW what the fight is about, you’re shirking what you know needs to be done. God said, the lukewarm will be spewed from my mouth. Don’t be lukewarm.
The socialists aren’t beating us, too many are doing it themselves.
While hundreds of libertarians sit on their arses, the forces of evil are at work. Rust never sleeps. What do you need to wake up?
Being an individualist is no excuse for excluding yourself from activism. An individualist wants to see his values in the world; a christian libertarian who KNOWS that libertarianism can save the poor, the weak and the needy MUST do what he can to make those values real.
Not to attack the enemy is to give them the advantage. Why, when the enemies of civilisation will do everything — even blow themselves up! — will so many libertarians not even support their local Libz candidate?
Libz offers the only real choice between freedom and slavery. Your motivation for activism should be love: love for your fellow man. Individualism need not be anti-altruism.
God bless the Libertarianz.
Welcome, Tim!
Friday focus
Tim Wikiriwhi sent me this. It’s from Fonterra focus, October 2011.
I am the head of sales of a large automobile dealership. A customer is prepared to buy a vehicle from me on the condition that I record the transaction as having been made two weeks ago. It is now 14th January. For tax purposes, the customer wants to have the transaction recorded in the previous year. What do I do?
1. I doctor the accounts in accordance with the customer’s wishes.
2. I tell him that I will not honour his request.
3. In order to buy time, I promise him that I will think about his offer. This will make it more difficult for him to buy from one of my competitors in the meantime.
4. I tell the customer to talk to the managing director.
One reason I post this is because sometimes I “doctor” the timestamps on my posts. This is because my personal posting policy is “1 a day”. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I post just the title of a post and a promissory note, and come back later to finish writing. In any case, built in to WordPress is the ability to write posts and to embargo them so that they are officially published later. Even when you’re dead. When the timestamp of a post bears little relationship to when it was actually posted, I usually indicate that by marking the time as 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM. (You see this when you mouse over the date immediately under the post’s title.) I’m not trying to deceive anyone. Hence this disclaimer. (If you’re really bothered by this, go talk to the managing director.)
Fix reason firmly in her seat
Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object.
In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. but it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities?
You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile or death in furcâ. See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. §. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib 2. de cruce. cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all.
Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some, however, still extant, collected by Fabricius, which I will endeavor to get & send you.
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1787
[Cut into pieces.]
Sermon on the Hill
At short notice, I was roped in to substitute for ALCP leader Michael Appleby at a Wellington Central candidates meeting, held this evening in St. John’s Hall in Karori, Wellington. I was the final speaker. The meeting was organised by Ethne Wyndham-Smith, Coordinator for the Karori Community Centre. Thanks, Ethne!
We’re in a church hall, so I’m going to give you a sermon! A short sermon. A sermon on Prohibition.
There was a song released a few years ago which you may have heard. My kids introduced me to it. It was called What if God smoked cannabis? Well, it’s an interesting question. Of course, God wouldn’t smoke cannabis. He’s sky high, all the time! Let’s bring it down to earth a bit and ask, instead, what would Jesus do? Would Jesus smoke cannabis? I don’t know, but I think the short answer is no. Jesus would not smoke cannabis.
But if you ask, would Jesus smoke cannabis, you’re asking the wrong question! The question is not, would Jesus smoke cannabis, but would Jesus arrest people who do? And the short answer to that, I believe, is also no. Jesus would not arrest people who smoke cannabis. He would not support Prohibition.
The Bible reading this evening is from the Epistle to the Collossians. Chapter 2, verses 20-23. Here’s what the Apostle Paul had to say about Prohibition.
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (NIV1984)
Paul recognised that Prohibition doesn’t work. Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! Don’t take drugs! These rules lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
There are good people with me up here on the stage. Two particularly good people are ACT candidate Stephen Whittington and Libertarianz candidate Reagan Cutting. Both Stephen and Reagan recognise what Paul recognised, and both support the ALCP’s core policy: legalise cannabis. They’ll join with me in telling you that Prohibition doesn’t work. And they’re right, it doesn’t.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Now think for a moment about that. Prohibition doesn’t work… OK. So, what would it be like if Prohibition did work? What’s Prohibition supposed to achieve? What’s Prohibition for? Prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Now, ask yourself, why on earth would you want to do that? Is it any of your business if people are taking drugs? How are you going to stop them?
Do you want to stop me taking drugs? If so, how are you going to stop me? Are you going to persuade me that taking drugs is a bad idea? Or are you going to send the police around to my house one day? Would you have them enter my house, against my wishes? Would you have them ransack the place, searching for the wrong kind of plant? Would you have them drag me off to a police cell, and detain me against my will? Would you?
Prohibition is violence! Jesus was not violent. What would Jesus do? I’d like to think that Jesus would give his party vote to the ALCP. This election, I ask you to do the same.
Please, give your party vote to the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and help end Prohibition. Prohibition is VIOLENT, it’s UNCHRISTIAN and it’s WRONG!
[Cross-posted to SOLO.]