All posts by Richard

Green Party, James, Mana Party, National Party, Socialism

Won’t somebody else please feed the children?

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I got an email from Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Greens.

Education is the best route out of poverty. But hungry kids can’t learn and are left trapped in the poverty cycle. Let’s break that cycle lunchbox by lunchbox. We can feed the country’s hungry kids, if we work together.

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I have taken over the Feed the Kids Bill which Hone Harawira introduced to Parliament. The Bill is at a crucial stage of its progress – part way through its First Reading – and may be voted on as early as next Wednesday 5 November.

The way the numbers stack up in the new Parliament the Bill will be voted down unless we can persuade the National Party to change its position and support it to go to Select Committee.

If the Bill goes to Select Committee, MPs will be able hear from  parents, kids, teachers and others about what they think are the best solutions for feeding hungry kids at school. There are lots of ideas about how school food could be delivered and who should get it. The key thing is to have the public debate about addressing child poverty, and come up with the best solution for helping hungry kids.

Please help this happen, by emailing John Key, asking that National support my Bill at least to Select Committee.

Because of the potentially short timeframe, you’ll need to send your emails as soon as possible and before Monday 3 November at the latest.

I’m probably not going to email John Key but if I did I wouldn’t be urging him not to support the bill. At least, not on its First Reading. If National Party MPs vote for the bill on its First Reading, it can go to the Select Committee stage. I agree with Turei that

The key thing is to have the public debate about addressing child poverty, and come up with the best solution for helping hungry kids.

Won’t somebody else please feed the children? No doubt the best long-term solution for helping hungry kids is not state food. But as quick-fix statist solutions go this one is surely unexceptionable. Paying state(-funded) schools to feed hungry kids is an advance on paying state(-funded) parents to feed them, isn’t it? The Bill targets the funding for school food at Decile 1 and 2 schools, too. The Feed the Kids program could probably be nearly fully funded by concomitant deductions in the benefits or WFF tax breaks of the parents of those children attending the schools in question. Isn’t this an advance for “a hand up, not a handout” safety net state welfare system? Or am I missing some serious unintended consequences?

I went to primary school in the U.K. in the early ’70s. We had school milk at morning break and school dinners at lunchtime. Morning milk was a third pint of silver top, and lunch was typically a dollop of mince meat, a dollop of mashed potatoes and a spoonful of (mushy?) peas. Followed by a serving of stodgy pudding and watery custard. All lovingly served by the matronly school dinner ladies. It all seemed perfectly normal, because it was. (But then came Thatcher the Milk Snatcher …)

Dinner ladies serving lunch at a school in Derby.

While our MPs debate the merits or otherwise of the bill, and alternative statist approaches such as the existing “income management” regime, my thoughts are with the children who continue to go to school without breakfast or lunch. Children like the early John Banks who grew up in poverty in the 1950s. “Of course, I support sandwiches and food in schools,” says Banks. “I would have loved some sandwiches and some food in schools, but that is not the answer.”

So what is the answer?

According to Banks, the way out of child poverty is children living in homes “with unconditional love, and I never knew anything about that,” and having access to a world-class education. But the state cannot provide unconditional love.

According to the Bible, it comes down to us. James tells us simply

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (NIV)

Children whose parents send them to school sans breakfast and lunch are, in effect, orphans. Won’t somebody please feed the children?

ALCP, Cannabis, Genesis, Matthew, Voluntary Euthanasia

God’s gift to the terminally ill

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Opium-poppy

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Here’s a Biblical argument for euthanasing the terminally ill.

The argument relies on a couple of reasonable assumptions which I now make explicit.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. …

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (KJV)

I assume that God gave us plants for all sorts of purposes, not just to eat. Creating the known universe, including our solar system, our planet and all life upon it including us was quite a feat. The account given in the Book of Genesis, of the origin of God’s green earth, is necessarily highly abbreviated. It cannot reasonably be argued that God did not intend us to use trees for building material as well as fruit, nor can it reasonably be argued that God did not intend us to use Cyperus papyrus to make the manuscripts that the Books of the Bible were originally written on, notwithstanding that these non-nutritional uses aren’t specifically mentioned in Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis.

I also assume that we can tell what a plant is for simply by looking at its actual uses. Take any plant. What’s it good for?

Now I’m fond of using Genesis 1:29 (“I have given you every herb bearing seed”) as an argument for legalising cannabis. The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes. I think the ALCP’s cause is righteous. And I don’t think it’s eisegetical to suggest that God gave us cannabis for our recreational use among other things but I do acknowledge that it can reasonably be argued that getting high is not among the uses God intended for it. No matter, I don’t think principled exceptions disprove the general rule.

Sometimes I meet the objection, but what about deadly nightshade? Did God give that to us to eat too? But this objection just lends further credence to my view that God gave us plants for more than just food. So what about belladonna? Well, what’s deadly nightshade good for? It turns out that belladonna is a medicine and dispensable to a healthy diet.

Belladonna tinctures, decoctions, and powders, as well as alkaloid salt mixtures, are still produced for pharmaceutical use, and these are often standardised at 1037 parts hyoscyamine to 194 parts atropine and 65 parts scopolamine. The alkaloids are compounded with phenobarbital and/or kaolin and pectin for use in various functional gastrointestinal disorders. The tincture, used for identical purposes, remains in most pharmacopoeias, with a similar tincture of Datura stramonium having been in the US Pharmacopoeia at least until the late 1930s. The combination of belladonna and opium, in powder, tincture, or alkaloid form, is particularly useful by mouth or as a suppository for diarrhoea and some forms of visceral pain

Which brings us to the miracle plant that is the topic of this post, the opium poppy. Surely, God intended us to use this plant for the strongest of strong pain relief! Morphine is the predominant alkaloid found in the opium poppy, and in the 21st century it is still the analgesic of choice for pain management in the terminally ill.

Jesus himself is said to have been offered a drink containing opium (according to one interpretation) on the cross, but declined to accept.

They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. (KJV)

Now to the argument. Morphine is not just an analgesic. It is also a respiratory depressant. It slows breathing and, in sufficiently high doses, slows breathing to a stop. Its effects as a respiratory depressant are inseparable from its effects as an analgesic, both brought about by activation of the central nervous system’s μ-opioid receptors. Is it by design that these two remarkable effects of morphine are, as it were, yoked together? I suggest that it is.

I suggest that morphine’s design ensures that when a terminally ill patient is in severe pain, and the dose of morphine administered is increased appropriately, it also tends to kill the patient. That’s euthanasia by any other name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FRwnkrolYc

2 Thessalonians, Acts, Communism, Keep it Metal!, Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings

Give me Communism, or give me Death!

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61f68893e1f764adcf9b33986bc6a7ef

Article twelve of the 1936 Soviet Constitution states

In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

It disturbs me that according to Lenin, “He who does not work shall not eat” is a necessary principle under socialism (the preliminary phase of the evolution towards communist society, according to Marx).

It disturbs me because under New Zealand socialism the exact opposite is true, “He who does not work shall eat”. Will the real socialism please stand up?

It disturbs me more that this aphorism is taken directly from Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. (KJV)

But there it is in Article 12 of Chapter 1 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution. 🙁

What does the Bible say about communism?

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you[a] sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. (ESV)

Now I’m not suggesting that this passage from the Acts of the Apostles endorses communism as we know it. But it certainly describes communism of a sort. There’s no escaping the fact that the first Christians were commies!

I’m also not suggesting that comrades Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for being insufficiently communistic. They died because they lied.

What I am suggesting is that this passage confirms the theory of property rights according to which property rights are conventional.

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. (ESV)

Luke says that “no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own” so it might almost seem that the Apostles were maintaining a contradiction. Of course, any of the things that belong to you are yours! But I think that two conventions are being alluded to in this passage. The prevailing convention in society at large, that of private property, and the convention in force amongst the Apostles, that of communal property.

So the question arises, were Ananias and Sapphira thieves or misers? Did the proceeds of the sale immediately fall to the collective, such that in keeping back some of the proceeds of the sale Ananias and Sapphira were guilty of theft of communal property? Or did they proceeds of the sale fall to Ananias in the interim, and in keeping back some of the proceeds he (and his wife, who was party) were guilty instead of being mean and selfish and breaking an accord?

Gospel music, Proverbs, Renascent

Seek me while you can!

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Wisdom calls aloud in the street
She raises her voice in the public squares
At the noisy streets she cries out
In the gateways of the city she makes her speech

How long will you simple ones
love your simple ways?
How long will mockers boast
and fools hate knowledge?

I would have poured out my heart to you
And made my thoughts known to you

Seek me while you can
Or it will be too late
Then you will call to me
But I will not answer

Since you rejected me when I called
Since you ignored all my advice
And would not accept my rebuke
I in turn will laugh at your disaster

How long will you simple ones
love your simple ways?
How long will mockers boast
and fools hate knowledge?

I would have poured out my heart to you
And made my thoughts known to you

Seek me while you can!

They will call to me
But I will not answer
They will look for me
But they will not find me

They will call to me
But I will not answer
They will look for me
But they will not find me

Since they hated knowledge
And did not choose to fear the Lord
They will eat the fruit of their ways
And be filled with the fruit of their schemes

The waywardness of the simple will kill them
The complacency of fools will destroy them
Whoever listens to me will live in safety
And be at ease without fear of harm

How long will you simple ones
love your simple ways?
How long will mockers boast
and fools hate knowledge?

ALCP, Cannabis, Cannabis Corpse, Kim Dotcom, Mana Party, Vote 2014

Cannibalising the cannabis vote (Part 2)

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The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party‘s electorate candidates did well in last Saturday’s general election. (See Part 1.) But the ALCP’s share of the party vote was down.

The 2014 GENERAL ELECTION – PRELIMINARY RESULT gives us 0.41% of the party vote. That’s roughly 20% down on 2011’s final result of 0.52%, and pretty much back to where we were in 2008. (But we’re projected to be 0.45% after special votes are counted.)

With cannabis law reform happening in many jurisdictions around the world (e.g., Jamaica, Uruguary, Colorado, Washington) and the “synthetic cannabis” industry derailing itself this year here in New Zealand, cannabis law reform was supposed to have been much more of an election issue. But it wasn’t. So what happened?

Before we get to that, let’s take a look at our party vote performance in previous MMP elections. The ALCP first contested the general election in 1996, which was New Zealands first under the Mixed-Member Proportional system. (See NEW ZEALAND ELECTION RESULTS.)

Year 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014
Percent 1.66 1.10 0.64 0.25 0.41 0.52 0.41

The 1996 general election saw the ALCP’s best party vote result. Subsequently, its vote share steadily declined to an all-time low of 0.25% three elections later in 2005. It’s risen since then, to 0.52% of the party vote in 2011. Last Saturday’s result is a slight dip, but as much as 20% down on 2011’s result nonetheless. How to explain all this?

I think a big part of the explanation is obvious. After 1996 and again after 1999, cannabis law reform voters came to the realisation that a vote for the ALCP was a “wasted” vote. Wasted in the sense that it was extremely unlikely that the ALCP would ever reach the 5% threshold and have MPs enter Parliament. Nonetheless, a vote for the ALCP is worthwhile as a protest vote, worthwhile because protesting is worthwhile and it’s absolutely clear what AlCP voters are protesting about: cannabis prohibition.

But cannabis law reformers want more than just to protest, they also want to effect change. And I think another part of the explanation of the decline in the ALCP’s party vote share in 2002 and 2005 is that the cannabis vote was cannibalised by the Green Party. In 1996 Nandor Tanczos and Metiria Turei were candidates on the ALCP’s list. In 1999 Nandor Tanczos was on the Green Party’s list and entered Parliament. By 2002 it was obvious to cannabis law reform voters that in the dreadlocked skateboarding Rastafarian MP the CLR cause had a champion in Parliament, and in 2002 Nandor Tanczos was joined by Metiria Turei (after her 1999 stint with the McGillicuddy Serious Party). (Nandor Tanczos has since left the toxic hellhole that is New Zealand’s Parliament. Metiria Turei remains and is now the Green Party’s co-leader with Russel Norman.)

I confess that I party voted Green once (I’m pretty sure it was in 2002) and for exactly the reason just outlined. I’m sorry. 🙁

Giving my CLR vote to the Greens turned out to be a mistake. (Even though in my book Nandor Tanczos was, and still is, cool.) It was a mistake for two reasons. Because, beyond legalising a couple of strains of industrial hemp, the Greens have done nothing for cannabis law reform despite having had Parliamentary representation for 18 years now. And my vote for the watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) no doubt helped further their far-left agenda. Fortunately, in 2003 I saw the light of liberty, identified as a libertarian, and joined the Libertarianz Party. 🙂

Fast forward to 2014 and the cannabis vote was again cannibalised. This time by the Internet Party who basically copied the ALCP’s cannabis policy (stopping only just short of full, Colorado-style legalisation) and announced it barely two weeks out from the election. With much song and dance, since Internet Party leader Laila Harre’s partner in crime, the Mana Movement’s leader Hone Harawira, balked and gave the Internet Party’s policy pronouncement a great deal of extra publicity. (See, e.g., Internet Mana leaders fall out over weed and Mana leader angry at cannabis plan.)

It’s hard to tell how many party votes went to the Internet Mana Party that would otherwise have gone to the ALCP, given that the IMPs gained only 1.26% of the party vote (although projected to rise to 1.37% after special votes are counted). I’d like to think it was at least as many party votes as we lost compared to our 2011 election result.

This time I wasn’t anywhere near stupid or unprincipled enough to give my party vote to the IMPs. But those who were and did also made an electoral mistake. We witnessed InternetMana self-destructing over cannabis policy. Hone Harawira lost his (inaptly named) Te Tai Tokerau seat to Labour’s Kelvin Davis, and so all those CLR voters who voted IMPs flushed their party votes straight down the toilet. They should have protested instead! Then at least we’d know that they voted for cannabis law reform.

Regardless, perhaps John Key will hear the CLR message and legalise cannabis in the Fifth National Government’s third Parliamentary term.

What’s The Likelihood of Cannabis Law Reform in John Key’s Third Term?

Uncategorized

Your options are faith, delusion or nihilism. Take your pick.

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Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I’ll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don’t know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can’t think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit. We don’t know why we’re going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That’s the God bullshit. And then, there’s the noble man bullshit; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there’s anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit. I don’t have anything going for me. I haven’t got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don’t have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.

500full

ALCP, Cannabis, Cannabis Corpse, Kim Dotcom, LCPA, Libertarianz, Mana Party, Vote 2014

Cannibalising the cannabis vote (Part 1)

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The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party took a big hit in Saturday’s general election. I don’t mind saying that I’m somewhat disappointed. (It’s my party – I’m the Vice President – and I’ll cry if I want to.)

The 2014 GENERAL ELECTION – PRELIMINARY RESULT gives us 0.41% of the party vote. That’s roughly 20% down on 2011’s final result of 0.52%, and pretty much back to where we were in 2008.

This time around was supposed to have been our election. With many jurisdictions around the world decriminalising (e.g., Jamaica) and some countries (Uruguay) and US states (Colorado, Washington) outright legalising, globally the tide has turned on cannabis prohibition. Consciousnesses were supposed to have been raised and cannabis law reform was supposed to have been much more of an election issue. But it wasn’t.

I was optimistic that we’d double our vote and achieve 1%. I never doubted that we’d stay safely above 0.5%. But we didn’t. So what went wrong?

Before we get to that, let’s take some big bong hits. All our candidates did well in their electorates, and their individual successes are worth celebrating.

Preliminary vote counts are highlighted in the table below, with some comparable figures from the NEW ZEALAND ELECTION RESULTS from the previous two general elections in 2011 and 2008. (Figures in brackets may not be the same candidate, the same electorate or the same party. Two out of the three.)

Candidate 2014 2011 2008 Electorate
KINGI, Emma-Jane Mihaere 838 703 – Te Tai Tonga
DOMBROSKI, Jamie 608 439 – New Plymouth
GRAY, Abe 466 (398) (483) Dunedin North
CRAWFORD, Julian 395 (398) (483) Dunedin South
WILKINSON, Robert 373 (254) (487) Christchurch Central
GOODE, Richard 332 332 (64) Mana
MANNING, Romana Marnz 307 352 – Tukituki
McDERMOTT, Adrian 267 (319) – Te Atatu
GREGORY, Alistair 258 (404) (407) Wellington Central
LYE, Jeff 221 (331) – Kelston
– (559) (788) Te Tai Tokerau
WILKINSON, Steven (203) 450 623 West Coast-Tasman
MACDONALD, Fred (107) 253 – Otaki

Clear star of the show is Emma-Jane Kingi harvesting 838 votes in the southernmost Maori electorate of Te Tai Tonga. EJ, you rock! Also a very strong showing from Jamie Dombroski harvesting 608 votes in the New Plymouth electorate. Solid numbers too from the ALCP’s Leader Julian Crawford and Deputy Leader Abe Gray in the Dunedin South and Dunedin North electorates respectively. (The numbers in brackets are Julian’s results from 2011 and 2008 when he ran in the Dunedin North electorate.) And well done to budding newcomer Robert Wilkinson representing the party in the Christchurch Central electorate.

I’m happy enough with my own preliminary result of 332 votes in the Mana electorate. I expect a few more votes when the special votes are counted and the Electoral Commission announces the final results early next month. But my tally right now is exactly the same as last time. It’s significant that I got over 5 times as many votes standing under the ALCP banner this time and in 2011 as I did in 2008 when I was a Libertarianz Party candidate. Whose mast you nail your own colours to matters a great deal. I’ve included a couple of candidates in the table above who stood as ALCP candidates in previous elections, but who went their own ways this time. Both Steven Wilkinson and Fred Macdonald stood as Independents, and both more than halved their yields.

Satisfying results from our other candidates too, albeit slightly down on previous figures at this stage. I’d anticipated a few more votes for rising star Alistair Gregory who ran a stellar campaign in Wellington Central. In fact, the not quite comparable numbers in brackets are votes won in previous elections by Michael Appleby, the ALCP’s locally well-known leader and brand-recognised figurehead since the party’s inception in 1996 until he stood aside late last year. Suffice it to say, Ali had big shoes to fill.

But I think there’s another reason that Ali’s (and Jeff’s and Adrian’s) vote counts were down a little on previously (and also why Julian’s and Abe’s vote counts were steady despite Dunsterdam being this election’s ALCP campaign headquarters). They all had competition in their electorates from Internet Party candidates. Which brings me to what I think accounts for the significant drop in the ALCP’s party vote.

The Internet-Mana Party cannibalised the cannabis law reform vote. Read more in Part 2.

2 Corinthians, ACT, ALCP, John, Labour Party, Metallica, National Party, Peter Dunne, Romans, Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings, Vote 2014

Am I evil? Yes I am.

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I’ve been honoured once again to have received Liberty Scott’s endorsement of my candidacy in his 2014 New Zealand voting guide for lovers of liberty.

Statue of Liberty

 
 
Mana – Safe Labour – Richard Goode Kris Faafoi or Hekia Parata? To hell with them both, vote for libertarian Richard Goode standing under the ALCP banner. He believes in more than just legalising weed, he believes in a smaller state and so your vote will be principled.

It’s true. I do believe in a smaller state and I am principled. Well, mostly.

I had intended to post my own series of Eternal Vigilance electorate candidate endorsements. In the end, I posted only two, one for Grant Keinzley and one for Alistair Gregory. Why only two?

I ran out of time, as I so often do. More exactly, I ran out of time to do a proper job. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, you see. And that brings me to the other reason I posted only two endorsements in the end. The paucity of perfect candidates, indeed the paucity of anywhere-near-perfect candidates. As far as candidates worthy of a Christian libertarian’s endorsement go, Alistair Gregory is about as good as it gets. But I have since had serious qualms about my other candidate endorsement and I resile from it.

Here at Eternal Vigilance we champion principle over pragmatism. Two of us (me and Tim) are former Libertarianz activists, candidates and spokesmen. Libertarianz was New Zealand’s only Party of Principle, and Tim and I actively carry on its proud tradition of promoting more freedom and less government. As do some other former Libz members, two of whom are running as candidates for the pseudo-libertarian ACT Party this election. (Although at least one former Libz activist is beyond giving a shit.)

To its great credit, and the credit of all in the party at the time, Libertarianz never compromised. Even to the point of promoting the practically unworkable Tracinski’s ratchet. The Libz recognised that the greater good is never a moral defence of government action, and voting for the lesser evil is always morally indefensible. (Are you ratcheting evil?)

Sensing the Libertarianz Party’s impending demise, I jumped waka and joined the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. Legalising cannabis is a libertarian policy, and it was the policy of the Libertarianz Party for which I was the Spokesman on Drugs, so there was no cognitive dissonance for me and no ill-feeling from any of my fellow libertarians who all wished me well with my open infiltration of the ALCP. (Check out the ALCP’s ten principles and tell me if you see a libertarian influence.)

But the devil is in the details. While I steadfastly stand by my party’s policy of regulating cannabis Colorado-style, I recognise regulation for what it is.

Regulations are actually prohibitive – if government defines the one way they will allow something they are really prohibiting all other ways.

Thus I fail any libertarian purity test.

1. Is there a positive candidate to endorse?

But so does Liberty Scott. As a libertarian, does he really have any business asking questions 2 and 3?

2. Is there a likely winner worthy of tactically voting to eject because he or she is so odious??
3. Is there a tolerable “least worst” candidate?

It’s no secret that I consider Peter Dunne to be New Zealand’s most evil Member of Parliament. Evil in an utterly banal way, like Adolf Eichmann. Dunne now faces the very real risk that he will lose his Ohariu electorate seat to Labour Party challenger Virginia Andersen. So I hope and pray that Virginia Andersen is Ohariu’s new MP when the votes are counted tomorrow night!

I admit I was even tempted to get out on the streets and help Andersen with her electorate campaign. But I didn’t, and in the end I couldn’t even bring myself to endorse her candidacy explicitly when I spoke at a recent Meet the Candidates evening in the Ohariu electorate. Compared to Dunne, Andersen is the lesser evil. But what about the even lesser evil on the Ohariu voter’s ballot paper, fellow libertarian Sean Fitzpatrick? He’s explicitly stated he’s seeking only the party vote for the pseudo-libertarian ACT Party. Perhaps he, too, secretly hopes that Ohariu voters will give their electorate vote to Andersen? But aside from that, Fitzpatrick’s party has no cannabis policy. That’s why I call it pseudo-libertarian. Drug legalisation is the litmus test for being a libertarian. The ACT Party fails on that count. What’s more, post-election the ACT Party may enter into a coalition agreement (to provide confidence and supply) with the National Party. How evil is that?

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? (ESV)

Jamie Whyte & co. are believers in individual freedom and personal responsibility at least.

They’re lesser evils. But what about my own candidacy? Am I evil? Yes I am!

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (ESV)

but some fall shorter than others. I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that I’m a lesser evil just like all the candidates in the list below. I’m standing to give Mana voters the choice to vote for a lesser evil. Am I evil? I’m your man!

Without further ado, here are my candidate endorsements. I’ll spare you the details.

Christchurch East Robert Wilkinson (ALCP)
Dunedin North Abe Gray (ALCP)
Dunedin South Julian Crawford (ALCP)
Epsom Adam Holland (Independent)
Kelston Jeff Lye (ALCP)
Mana Richard Goode (ALCP)
New Plymouth Jamie Dombroski (ALCP)
Ohariu Virginia Andersen (Labour)
Palmerston North Iain Lees-Galloway (Labour)
Te Atatu Adrian McDermott (ALCP)
Te Tai Tokerau Kelvin Davis (Labour)
Te Tai Tonga Emma-Jane Mihaere Kingi (ALCP)
Tukituki Romana Marnz Manning (ALCP)
Upper Harbour Stephen Berry (ACT)
Wellington Central Alistair Gregory (ALCP)

Politics is a dirty, worldly business and we know who is god of this world. Should Christians, who are in this world but not supposed to be of it, even get involved in politics?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.