General Debate 20 December 2008

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philu

dpf..why am i blocked acess to most threads..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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December 20, 2008 11:00am
Redbaiter

Notice the Herald has reported on Sarah Palin’s daughter’s boyfriend’s mother being arrested on drug charges. Meanwhile Obama’s reported drug use and numerous other potentially criminal alliances remain concealed. Huge gaps in his past continue to be covered up.

In an opinion piece, Paul Thomas, when he should be getting off his fat useless arse and bringing readers the truth on Barack Obama and his Chicago gangster connections, displays his ignorance and bigotry when he revisits every empty false and inaccurate Democrat talking point on George Bush that ever was.

The mainstream media are totally politically corrupt.
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December 20, 2008 11:02am
philu

sigh..!..obama has admitted inhaling..

quote:.”…that was the point..wasn’t it..?..”

which orifice did you pull that one out of..?

..ratty..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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December 20, 2008 11:06am
Redbaiter

“dpf..why am i blocked acess to most threads..?”

I hope because all you ever do is, in futile attempts to boost your non existent traffic, post links to the worthless unreadable insufferably pompous crap you write on your useless blog.
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December 20, 2008 11:06am
WebWrat

Some Winston Churchill quotes to ponder:

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. ”

“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong. ”

“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. “
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December 20, 2008 11:14am
lloydois

For anyone who has read Dreams From my Father Obama’s drug use has hardly been hidden. No surprise what the drugs will be in Sherry Johnston’s case. Wasilla the meth capital of Alaska.
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December 20, 2008 11:18am
gingercrush

Redbaiter, Ratbaiter which one is the lefty?
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December 20, 2008 11:25am
reid

In the hope that someone in power who may read this blog picks it up for consideration…

Review the taxation rate on redundancy payments. Decades ago it used to be taxed at 5%, now it’s 39%.

This is something significant and meaningful that would be directly targeted and would not cost a lot and would be very popular. Do it and do it now.
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December 20, 2008 11:29am
goodgod

Question:

dpf..why am i blocked acess to most threads..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)

Answer:

sigh..!..obama has admitted inhaling..

quote:.”…that was the point..wasn’t it..?..”

which orifice did you pull that one out of..?

..ratty..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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December 20, 2008 11:32am
Redbaiter

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/coasterad/Politics/votedsarahnm7.jpg
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December 20, 2008 11:37am
side show bob

How’s the grass going this year Philu, nice rain to keep things growing, plenty of grass on the farm. Cops been flying around here, sounds like they had a couple of scores, some crying in their beer, how sad never mind. Would be safe to find a job now as you can get the sack in the first ninety days, saves working for to long.
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December 20, 2008 11:39am
dave strings

I thought FillYou said that if Labour lost the election he would stay off KiwiBlog! (He also said he’s be back to read the apologies if labour won – but that’s not an issue anymore.

So remember folks. If you read his drivel it will FillYou up with anger and venom. If you ignore it he will be fulled with frustration and rage. Then when the ‘work for welfare’ act is passed, and the longest-term bludgers are the first ones to be put on to road sweeping, he’ll be blowing his top in true red.

Go Phil!
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December 20, 2008 11:59am
Ross Miller

I have on occasion had a crack at the ACT Party (they are after all electoral opponents) but on Thursday after watching the Adjournment Debate can I pay a special tribute to Rodney H for a simply outstanding speech. He was generous in paying tribute to politicians across the political spectrum; he was thoughtful in looking forward to 2009; he spoke with compassion and conviction; it was a speech for the occasion and a ‘tour de force’.

I congratulate him and wish him well.
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December 20, 2008 12:12pm
PhilBest

PaulL made this comment on the general debate thread a couple of days ago right near the end, so many people would have missed it.

It was so well said, I thought it would be worth copying and pasting nearer the top of a new thread when I got the chance:

PaulL (2318) Vote: Add rating 4 Subtract rating 1 Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

“……the problem with the get rich quick schemes is that there’s a sucker born every minute. Blaming the shysters is a bit silly, we should be blaming the people who put their money into schemes that are too good to be true.

The attitude we have created over the years in NZ, in which we think that the wealthy get their money through pure luck or through some secret magic that they are being denied, is the cause of much of this. As long as you think other people got rich through these means, you think you might too. Of course, look under the covers, and those who get rich either inherit it or work bloody hard to get it. Chris Trotter and his ilk who pretend that people get rich by exploiting the masses are continuing to engender this sort of attitude. So, we need a culture that rewards and values hard work, and tells people that yes, they can be rich too, but they better be prepared to spend every waking hour at it. And if they don’t want to work that hard, that is fine too, you just won’t be rich – that is a choice, so stop being envious of those who made a different choice….”

EXACTLY. The underlying MORAL problem is the same; the cowboys who play around with the stock market and the petty believers in socialism; both are oblivious to the source of all wealth, and worse, kill it off through their folly.
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December 20, 2008 12:17pm
PhilBest

Oh, and those Winston Churchill quotes from webwrat above, are very apropos too, especially THIS one:

“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. “
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December 20, 2008 12:20pm
PhilBest

More Winston Churchill:

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. ”

“There are two places only where socialism will work; in heaven where it is not needed, and in hell where they already have it.”

“The difference between the Christian disciples in the Book of Acts, and Socialism…. is this. For the Christians, it was, “all mine is yours”, for the socialists, it is “all yours is mine!””
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December 20, 2008 12:24pm
PhilBest

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Editorial was good:

“To Catch A Thief”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122956314669716617.html

Excerpts:

“…….Since 2000 and especially after the fall of Enron, the SEC’s annual budget has ballooned to more than $900 million from $377 million. (See the nearby chart.) Its full-time examination and enforcement staff has increased by more than a third, or nearly 500 people. The percentage of full-time staff devoted to enforcement — 33.5% — appears to be a modern record, and it is certainly the SEC’s highest tooth-to-tail ratio since the 1980s. The press corps and Congress both were making stars of enforcers like Eliot Spitzer, so the SEC’s watchdogs had every incentive to ferret out fraud.

Yet they still failed to nail Bernard Madoff. Since at least 1992, when the SEC sued two accountants peddling Madoff investments while promising sky-high returns, the commission missed opportunities to dig deeper into his operations. In 1999, trader Harry Markopolos wrote that “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme,” in a letter to the SEC. More recently, multiple SEC inquiries and exams in 2005 and 2007 found only minor infractions…….

“……..Back at the SEC, even Chairman Chris Cox is blaming the enforcement staff, which as everyone knows may or may not pay attention to the five Commissioners. “The Commission has learned that credible and specific allegations regarding Mr. Madoff’s financial wrongdoing, going back to at least 1999, were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, but were never recommended to the Commission for action,” he says……..

“…….Mr. Cox and Congress will undoubtedly look for other conflicts of interest, but the larger truth is that the SEC’s failure is business as usual. The real news would be a case when the SEC DID prevent a fraud……

“……. the only people who seem to have taken concrete action to protect investors from Mr. Madoff are private research shops like Aksia LLC. Its analysts did the real work of figuring out that Mr. Madoff’s claimed investment strategy couldn’t be happening at the volumes he claimed to be trading. Likewise, it was the short sellers who first blew the whistle on Enron, while the SEC was clueless and the firm’s auditors were asleep.

There’s a lesson here for investors and Congress. Instead of shoveling more money and power to the regulators who already had plenty of both, let’s take care not to overregulate the people who actually warned about Mr. Madoff’s miracle returns……..”
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December 20, 2008 12:30pm
PhilBest

And I would add to that comment, that it was not the 16,000 regulatory agency staff in the USA who saw the financial crash coming. It was the “Austrian Economists” and private financial industry analysts who follow their theories. No-one listened to them then, and no-one of any importance is listening to them now.

I have posted this before, but here is a CLASSIC example; very accessible and memorable: a series of clips of economist Peter Schiff being mocked in several TV appearances by his fellow panelists on financial market programs, over the last few years:

“Peter Schiff Was Right”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
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December 20, 2008 12:37pm
PhilBest

And here he is on TV on the 20th November just gone, being treated with considerably more respect (in spite of his still-unpalatable message):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlo8uvlwQeQ&feature=related
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December 20, 2008 12:40pm
kiwipolemicist

A while ago DPF and I, amongst others, lambasted the useless NZ military forces. But that is actually a good thing, because it makes it harder for the government to control the population.

The US has a strong military and what do they do? They put military police into drink-driving check points and start building a 20,000-strong military force for domestic security. The snake is biting the handler in the US, but thankfully in NZ we only have a kitten’s claws to worry about.

Never forget that the state will use any excuse to control the population: terrorism is the latest excuse, and just look at how the SIG has been misued.

http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/military-police-on-the-highways-of-america-part-1/
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December 20, 2008 12:45pm
reid

More evidence on this dreadful global warming:

Ice storm knocks out power to 220,000 in US Midwest
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December 20, 2008 12:47pm
dad4justice

The global warming is that bad in Christchurch I am half way thru a cord of blue gum today. The log burner is roaring and lovely smoke everywhere. They gonna ban fires in Ch Ch because Bob each way hasn’t a fucking clue in his puppet muppet head!
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December 20, 2008 1:00pm
PhilBest

Reid posted this comment yesterday, he hasn’t repeated it now, I will do it for him:

# reid (1436) Vote: Add rating 2 Subtract rating 1 Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 8:36 pm

“Sorry people, I’m going to do this on every general debate thread until it’s reported that someone has at least considered it.

In the hope that someone in power who may read this blog picks it up for consideration…

Review the taxation rate on redundancy payments. Decades ago it used to be taxed at 5%, now it’s 39%.

This is something significant and meaningful that would be directly targeted and would not cost a lot and would be very popular. Do it and do it now.”

I would like to add a question; I read in the Wall Street Journal that one thing that is making the crisis worse in the USA, is that tax laws were changed in the 1980’s so that if a company makes an arrangement to pay off debt at a discount, which tends to happen when businesses are in trouble and lenders might be glad to get most of their money back rather than risk losing it all; the discount is assessed for tax purposes as “income”……

What applies in NZ?
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December 20, 2008 1:06pm
billyborker

so sad dad, its ECAN not CCC banning your fire, and a fucking good thing, too. I don’t see why you can’t have a log burner, as long as you confine the smoke to your own property. But why should I have to put up with your stink in my home?

Of course, if you lived in Oxford,as you claimed last week, a log burner would be no trouble. But i don’t need mine on today, my double glazing keeps the hosue warm enough.
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December 20, 2008 1:07pm
billyborker

Yes, a discount is income. The discount represents value received and so is income. What else should it be?
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December 20, 2008 1:10pm
PhilBest

Hmmmm, Redbaiter, you will be interested to know that “Investigate” Magazine’s just-released preview, shows that they have an article on Barack Obama, “Saint or Sinner?”………

I look forward to reading it.

I hope the article author has done as much research as John Perazzo; “The Closing Argument” (which is pretty thorough):

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2336
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December 20, 2008 1:13pm
dad4justice

ECAN is a sick joke billybunker. I live in many places. Nice garden of yours. Haha the eyes of truth never stop watching.
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December 20, 2008 1:16pm
reid

“But why should I have to put up with your stink in my home?…my double glazing keeps the hosue warm enough.”

But it doesn’t keep out the stink billy? How very odd.
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December 20, 2008 1:21pm
WebWrat

Have you signed THE BIG LIST?

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/sign_the_big_list/asc/P580#commentsmore
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December 20, 2008 1:36pm
MT_Tinman

“# reid
December 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am

In the hope that someone in power who may read this blog picks it up for consideration…

Review the taxation rate on redundancy payments. Decades ago it used to be taxed at 5%, now it’s 39%.

This is something significant and meaningful that would be directly targeted and would not cost a lot and would be very popular. Do it and do it now.”

I agree.

These ridiculous payments, usually gained through blackmail and paid more often than not because some poor bastards lifetime dream has dissipated in bad debts owed to it and grasping union-fed semi-workers demands should be taxed at at least 100% if not more.
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December 20, 2008 1:41pm
reid

“….should be taxed at at least 100% if not more.”

So are you a socialist re-distribution fanatic or what, MT?
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December 20, 2008 1:45pm
cha

# reid

Scientists now have evidence that the theorized phenomenon known as “polar amplification” has been occurring for the past 5 years.
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December 20, 2008 1:48pm
WebWrat

I’ll put up with socialism as long as it doesn’t impinge on my life style.
I’ll put up with people that don’t want to work as long as I don’t have to pay them.
I’ll put up with people that want to have babies as long as I don’t have to pay for them.

Yada, yada …
The list is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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December 20, 2008 1:56pm
MT_Tinman

Too damned right I am Reid.

Completely crazy, left wing, card waving, lazy as fuck imitation commie all the way through which is of course why I’m happy to let the taxation system ensure that redundancy receiving thieves do not profit from their crimes of blackmail and intimidation of those who worked bloody hard to start their own business and create the jobs these pricks half do.
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December 20, 2008 1:58pm
reid

“Scientists now have evidence that the theorized phenomenon known as “polar amplification” has been occurring for the past 5 years.”

Yeah cha I was waiting for someone to raise that. To quote one of Steve Job’s execs when discussing AGW with Al Gore (who’s on Apple’s board)

“Geez we’d better stop this global warming before we all fucking freeze to death, eh?”
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December 20, 2008 2:05pm
reid

I quite agree with you MT, perhaps the economy would work better if every employee received no compensation at all…
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December 20, 2008 2:08pm
MT_Tinman

What does redundancy theft have to do with “compensation”?
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December 20, 2008 2:12pm
billyborker

redundancy is the compensation the hard working, capital gain creating employee gets for having a stupid and underperforing employer who pisses the potential against the wall.
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December 20, 2008 2:21pm
reid

I don’t see a distinction between redundancy provisions and general remuneration from a philosophical perspective MT, in the sense it’s a free exchange of labour for compensation determined by a combination of regulation and market factors.

If an employer chooses not to pay the going rate they can take the consequences, which range from lower-quality workers who affect productivity to legal consequences. It’s your choice to employ people with whatever redundancy provisions you wish, and take whatever consequences you like given the quality of people you attract. Redundancy isn’t theft anymore or less than any other part of a remuneration agreement is theft.

See what I’m advocating in reducing the taxation specifically for redundancy has no effect on employers. Their gross liability neither increases nor decreases. What is affected is the consolidated fund but in the scheme of things that’s a negligible hit notwithstanding the huge numbers of redundancies that are going to occur in 09. It will however have a massive effect on the affected employees both in emotional and objective terms. That’s why it makes political sense in that it would be wildly popular and there is no specific sector negatively impacted.
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December 20, 2008 2:24pm
PhilBest

MT_Tinman has a point. Redundancy payments, when gouged out of an already failing business, are not just a disaster for the people who have risked their capital in providing those jobs in the first place, they are a disaster for the potential future employment that might have been salvaged had the cost burden of redundancy payments not been imposed.

But in the event that some fair redundancy payment is made, perhaps voluntarily and perhaps as a result of an employment contract, I agree with Reid that it should be tax free.

Reid, I think you and Tinman are arguing two different aspects of the redundancy issue. He is talking about when it is extorted through Union heavying and helps to kill a business.
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December 20, 2008 2:27pm
cha

# reid

I’m very much apatheticlly agnostic about the AGW religion but the more I read the more I scratch my head and wonder.
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December 20, 2008 2:28pm
reid

Yeah but Phil my suggestion is based on the assumption of redundancy provisions that are already in place. There is no suggestion to change those in any way, so it’s not “gouging out” anything new from a struggling employer.
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December 20, 2008 2:31pm
Banana Llama

# kiwipolemicist (214) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
December 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

A while ago DPF and I, amongst others, lambasted the useless NZ military forces. But that is actually a good thing, because it makes it harder for the government to control the population.

The US has a strong military and what do they do? They put military police into drink-driving check points and start building a 20,000-strong military force for domestic security. The snake is biting the handler in the US, but thankfully in NZ we only have a kitten’s claws to worry about.

Never forget that the state will use any excuse to control the population: terrorism is the latest excuse, and just look at how the SIG has been misued.

http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/military-police-on-the-highways-of-america-part-1/

Not much anyone can do about it when fellow citizens run around with blinkers on placing their heads up each others arss, perhaps the military booting in the door and shoving a gun in their face will wake them up, but by then it will be too late.

Alas America i knew thee well =\
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December 20, 2008 2:36pm
reid

Yeah cha AGW is a definite possibility. My position on it is exactly what my position is on 911 and the war on terror.

All three of those of issues maybe exactly as conventional wisdom paints them. AGW may be a reality. The 911 official story may be precisely accurate. The war on terror may really be a threat to the state.

However on all three of those issues, a real debate has not yet occurred. AGW evangelists (a.k.a. fanatics) allege the evidence is in, it’s compelling, and we should get on with solutions and they do things like bang effigies of skeptics head-down into the sand to illustrate their point. Yeah that’s logical.

Believers of the 911 official story can’t even bring themselves to examine critically the mountains of evidence on the hundreds of discrepancies. Rather when you attempt to discuss these they go off into some fantasy of their own, alleging that thousands of people would have had to have been involved and surely someone would have blabbed and therefore the discrepancies can be true. Like children they stick their fingers in their ears and shout lalala and refuse to understand there is no logical connection between their dismissal of the discrepancies and their fantasy as to how it can’t possibly be a setup. They fail to see the fallacy in their fantasy which is that merely because they themselves can’t imagine how it could have been done in any way other than as officially portrayed, doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been done.

Similarly, the war on terror is portrayed as a threat to the state justifying the imposition of enormous worldwide security measures and legislation waiting in the wings to be imposed when, not if another terrible attack is made and blamed on terrorists. All the apparatus necessary for a 1984-like regime is ready and waiting to be imposed and we are asked to trust the people who will be administering it that they won’t abuse it. This is not what the Founding Fathers suggested was a wise thing to do. It may indeed be the case that strip-searching old ladies and attractive young females at airports is all for our public safety but once again, no public debate has been held. We are all asked just to accept it and ignore the alternative propositions such as perhaps it to get us all used to having our rights violated so we don’t cause trouble when we’re all asked to carry identity papers and submit to microchip implants, in order to “protect us.”

None of these three serious global issues have had a full and frank public airing designed to bring out both sides. Instead, in every case, detractors of the official perspective are painted as lunatic supporters of the evil ones. I’m amazed this phenomena which undeniably exists in all three cases, doesn’t strike more people as being just a little bit peculiar.
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December 20, 2008 3:01pm
Rex Widerstrom

Well said kiwipolemicist. It’s hard to draw a line that runs, to choose an example at random, from forcing rational adults to wear bicycle helmets, which seems on the face of it to be a relatively benign activity, all the way to a police state. But the two are at opposite extremes of the same line of thought.

The fact that wearing a bicycle helmet is a sensible idea obscures the fact that the state has no right to force citizens to not engage in risky behaviour – a tendency made worse by its insistence on picking and choosing what risky behaviours are acceptable – facing a 160kg forward on the opposing team okay, cycling with a bare head not.

It’s gratifying that while at least some in NZ can parse that argument, the US seems so far gone that the populace can’t separate the fact that breathalysing potential drunk drivers is perfectly reasonable thing to do from the fact that having the military involved in doing it couldn’t be more wrong.

It demonstrates that despite (or perhaps because of) not having a Constitution or an effective Bill of Rights, we’re sensitive enough to erosion of our civil liberties by an overbearing state to still be able to spot the difference. Long may it remain so.
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December 20, 2008 3:41pm
Patrick Starr

Billybarking. …………whilst the election result is the compensation the hard working, capital gain creating kiwi gets for having a stupid and under performing government for the last 9 years who pisses the potential against the wall.
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December 20, 2008 3:45pm
Viking2

PhilBest, billybonker, In the last two weeks the new Finance Minister William has agreed to change the law relating to writing off losses by finance companies. Apparently it stood the chance of jeopardizing the resurrection of the companies.
Reported in the business news so won’t be hard to find.
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December 20, 2008 4:03pm
kiwipolemicist

Rex W: thank you.

I think that we are in agreement on helmet laws, i.e. that is a form of totalitarianism/nanny statism.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/the-nanny-state-has-set-its-eyes-on-skateboarders/

I do not agree that breathalysing drivers is a reasonable thing to do, rather it is a breach of civil liberties.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/police-checkpoints-breach-the-civil-liberties-of-the-many-to-catch-the-few/

Remember also that the police and the military are essentially the same thing, i.e. thugs hired by the state to impose its will upon people. The only difference between having police and military at checkpoints is that the use of the army in a role reserved for police by convention is a characteristic of totalitarianism, and thus is to be avoided at all costs by those who value liberty.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/who-are-the-police-really-serving/

Caution, this is more than a bit radical:
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/drink-driving-should-be-legalised/
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December 20, 2008 4:48pm
reid

“we’re sensitive enough to erosion of our civil liberties by an overbearing state…It’s gratifying that while at least some in NZ can parse that argument, the US seems so far gone that the populace can’t…”

Bought about by years of calculated anesthesia, IMO, Rex. For example, endless celeb pap, dumbing down the education system, superficial biased media and entertainment industries that somehow always manage to cover angles in exactly the same way over and over and over again, marginalization of anyone who doesn’t toe the party lines, obfuscation by classifying all issues along a simplistic conservative-liberal spectrum that hides the fact some issues aren’t ever covered by either side. Boy, lucky that such things don’t happen here, eh?

Oh hang on…
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December 20, 2008 5:11pm
kiwipolemicist

Rex W: thank you.

I think we are in agreement with regard helmet laws, i.e. they are a form of totalitarianism/nanny statism.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/the-nanny-state-has-set-its-eyes-on-skateboarders/

I do not agree that breathalysing drivers is reasonable, rather I believe that it is a breach of civil liberties.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/police-checkpoints-breach-the-civil-liberties-of-the-many-to-catch-the-few/
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December 20, 2008 5:21pm
Ross Miller

kiwipolemicst … please don’t come the crap that breathtesting drivers is a breach of civil liberties. Freedom imposes responsibilities. Drink driving is irresponsible and infringes on my civil liberties ..,. the right to expect that other drivers will act responsibly. Thats why we have a Police force … to protect us from these social terrorists.

You do your reoputation a deal of harm by going into bat for drink drivers.
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December 20, 2008 6:45pm
thedavincimode

philu says:

“dpf..why am i blocked acess to most threads..?”

Outstanding effort Phil! Why, before you know it, you’ll be up to a sentence! This the payback for higher education, or even just some education really.
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December 20, 2008 6:51pm
Redbaiter

“You do your reoputation a deal of harm by going into bat for drink drivers.”

He’s not batting for drink drivers. he’s batting for civilization- ie the social state that existed before jack booted thugs posing as Police stopped people going about their lawful business for no good reason. Drink driving blockades are a disgrace, and anyone who supports them is a knuckle dragging barbarian. A line that should never be crossed has been crossed, and it is symptomatic of so much that is wrong with the Nationals that they support and protect this barbaric stain on our society.
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December 20, 2008 7:39pm
expat

Oh the barbarism of weeding out drink drivers before they kill, maim and destroy.
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December 20, 2008 7:42pm
Redbaiter

“Oh the barbarism of weeding out drink drivers before they kill, maim and destroy.”

There are many ways the problem could be dealt with other than by breaching a custom free men have held dear for centuries. As a brainwashed moron and a half educated barbarian, you probably wouldn’t know the significance of this.
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December 20, 2008 7:46pm
getstaffed

If it’s a violation of human rights to stop drivers in an attempt to identify drunk drivers, is it a similar violation to inspect passengers’ luggage for bombs?
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December 20, 2008 7:48pm
Redbaiter

Oh gawd.. another fucken knuckle dragger. Why don’t you read a bit on the history of the legal system, democracy, government and civilisation you slack jawed simian primates.
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December 20, 2008 7:51pm
expat

Go on Red, trot out your weblink to a tinfoil hat wearing survivalist article that proves drink drive checkpoints are a fundamental breach of your godamn right to slaughter someone.
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December 20, 2008 7:52pm
expat

You are spthethial.
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December 20, 2008 7:54pm
Redbaiter

Drink driving is one issue. Stopping innocent and law abiding citizens going about there business is another. If you guys had half an IQ point between you, you’d be able to make this important distinction. I guess a decade or two of “public good” government advertising has fucked whatever modicum of ability you might ever have possessed to think rationally on this and many a subject.
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December 20, 2008 7:59pm
Redbaiter

their business
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December 20, 2008 8:02pm
expat

Red – As the theme song goes for Team America – Kiss my __ and suck on my ____s.

And you’re still spthethial.
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December 20, 2008 8:05pm
Redbaiter

As I said. A barbarian. No need to flog the point to death.
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December 20, 2008 8:07pm
billyborker

I feel very odd, but I do have to agree with redbaiter on this. Stopping peiople, lawfully going about their business, is a gross imposition on civil liberties. It amazes me that we accept so readily giving up freedom the moment we step into a car.

The police cannot stop me, walking on the street, without sufficient cause. Yet they can when I drive a car.

The police cannot enter and search my home without either a legally obtained search warrant or good cause, yet they can search my car once I have been stopped on any pretext.

Most of you seem to subscribe to the “If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide” theorem, whereas for me it is “I have done nothing wrong so have nothing to prove”.

I must stop when directed to by the Police, as that is the law. But I can also voice my contempt for the law and those who enforce it.

I refuse to be searched when leaving a shop, if they want to look in my possessions, first they can tell me what they expect to find.

When approached by the police, I remember my youth and declare ” I have done nothing wrong, I have nothing to say to you.”.
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December 20, 2008 8:07pm
billyborker

getstaffed (2636) Vote: 0 0 Says:

December 20th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
If it’s a violation of human rights to stop drivers in an attempt to identify drunk drivers, is it a similar violation to inspect passengers’ luggage for bombs?

Yes, it is.

In fact, look at the law changes around the world since “The world changed forever on 9/11”. The terrorists are winning, we are giving up our freedoms in the vain hope of maintaining them. The answer to terrorism is not less freedom, it is more freedom.

I have great memories of the chaos I caused in a Burger King one afternoon not long after the London terror attackes when I yelled “He’s got a backpack” and people ran for cover. 🙂 Bunch of paranoid sad fucks.
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December 20, 2008 8:11pm
Redbaiter

“Yes, it is.”

You sign a commercial agreement when you purchase a ticket to travel on a privately owned plane in the company of numerous other people. It is nowhere near a similar situation, and the question is a red herring and shows the person asking it has not even a basic grasp of the issues. ..and the terrorists are not winning you lamestream media stooge.
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December 20, 2008 8:17pm
billyborker

Red, here’s a dollar, would you like to buy a clue?

1. You sign nothing, buying a ticket these days, and click through agreements have been overturned in courts ariound the world.

2. You luggage isn’t searched by the company that owns the plane, but byu the agents of the state.

Fuck, you are one dumb twelve year old, aren’t you?
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December 20, 2008 8:20pm
Redbaiter

“Fuck, you are one dumb twelve year old, aren’t you?”

Not so stupid that I think travelling somewhere on a plane owned by someone else is a basic human right and not a matter of choice and commercial agreement.
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December 20, 2008 8:24pm
billyborker

How odd you will give up your freedom for the exchange of $. I guess I place a higher value on mine.
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December 20, 2008 8:33pm
Redbaiter

“I guess I place a higher value on mine”

You don’t even know what it is you damn fool. As if a leftist, a supporter of one of the most barbaric ideologies to ever plague the civilized world, is ever going to be anyone to lecture anyone on freedom. Arrogant fuckwit.
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December 20, 2008 8:35pm
Rex Widerstrom

Redbaiter says:

There are many ways the problem could be dealt with other than by breaching a custom free men have held dear for centuries.

And billyborker seems to agree, so I’d like to ask you both: Such as?

Honestly, if I’d seen one workable alternative solution to keeping irresponsible drunken f-wits from killing innocents that didn’t involve Mr Plod leering through my driver’s window, I’d be all for it. But having been involved in an accident with a drunk driver – he decided to parallel park in Waiwhetu Road, just turning from the centre line to the kerb and stopping, who then dragged me from the wreck and knocked my front teeth out because I’d dared damage his precious heap of unsafe junk – it doesn’t take statistics to convince me they’re a menace.

That I saw him mere months later, obviously drunk again, trying to pilot this enormous heap down the winding narrow roads in the Hutt hills, didn’t fll me with joy either.

Hopefully reliable alcohol interlocks will be developed and fitted to all cars, rendering them inoperable if the driver is drunk. Then Mr Plod can sod off back to doing some crime fighting.
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December 20, 2008 9:08pm
billyborker

Rex, your own post gives you your answer to a “workable alternative”.

Obviously the random stopping of law abiding citizens did nothing to stop this miscreant. Having those police on patrol, looking for erratic drives would make more sense and be a better use of resources. While the police are on the side of the road, randonmly testing the innocent, a multitude of hopeless drivers, many sober, are free to cause carnage.

Remember, it isn’t juyst the drunk who causes crashes. Where are the random tests for stupidity?
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December 20, 2008 9:37pm
Redbaiter

“Such as?”

What are you suggesting Rex? That I have no sympathy for your experience? If so, that is a ridiculous allegation. That I disagree on the administration of the law does not mean I have no concern for the results of the crime. The guy was drunk. He was driving. He caused an accident. He knocked your teeth out. In your own words, you saw him “mere months” later drunk driving again.

FFS. This is no case for random stops and checkpoints. The guy should have been arrested at the scene, given three years jail (at least) and banned from driving for three years (at least) after he was released.

At heart of most of NZ’s social problems is the dysfunctional justice system.
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December 21, 2008 12:31am
Rex Widerstrom

Sorry Redbaiter, you’ve completely misinterpreted what I was saying, and I should probably have expressed it better.

I didn’t mean to imply you have no sympathy, just that you hadn’t proffered a workable alternative to random stopping as a means to keep such people off the roads. I’m sure you’d be sympathetic to anyone who was the victim of crime.

I believe he was arrested and banned from driving (the details are a little hazy – I was recuperating and it was more than 20 years ago) but my point about seeing him again was meant to illustrate that nothing deterred him from drink driving again almost immediately.

But leaving aside the inadequacy of penalties, I don’t think billyborker’s suggestion of relying on police patrols to spot “erratic driving” will catch enough, considering they’ll presently pull over anyone who looks like they’re DUI already.

We can’t possibly retrofit every vehicle with an alcohol interlock (assuming they’re even accurate enough) so that falls outside the parameters of a workable solution.

I loathe the intrusion of a random stop – and especially the way the Police have used them to snoop on people by asking you to state your name and address into the breathalyser rather than just blow – and the number inconvenienced versus the number caught is huge (I heard one cop in Australia quoting a blitz of 40,000 motorists catching 200 drunk drivers) but what else catches 200? And of course the unanswerable question – how many drunks got away?
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December 21, 2008 12:47am
expat

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10549093&pnum=0

Ralston reckons the public service needs a reaming.

I reckon he’s right.
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December 21, 2008 6:17am
expat

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10549103

Hickey notes that 2009 is going to suck ass for the housing market.

What hasn’t been noted by the pundits is that on top of the headline issue of global liquidity shitfight is that also globally (western economies) is that the post WW2 boomers are hitting the retirement wall. 2008/2010 is the year the hump of the boomer demographic hits 65 – down turn in housing prices guaranteed.
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December 21, 2008 6:43am
Ross Miller

I really dispair at the antics of those who criticise the targetting of drink drivers as some sort of infringement of civil liberties. And if it helps someone get his rocks off by calling me a knuckle dragging moran for articulating such an ‘extreme’ position then who am I to argue with such intellect.

What to expect next? Drink drivers are the product of lack of parental love; were denied a puppy; bullied at school; bored at work …. spare me this crap. Drink drivers are social terriorists and not too far removed from the Osama’s of this world. Repeat drink drivers are even further down the food chain.

This is where Libertarians hit the wall. Arguing the toss against the backdrop of a perfect world. Well, the world ain’t perfect and never has been and that’s where your argument falls flat.
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December 21, 2008 10:00am
expat

Agree Ross. I prefer to tell them to kiss my __ and suck on my ____s.

Purile yet somehow satisfying, I must have been neglected as a child.
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December 21, 2008 10:07am
kiwipolemicist

Rex W: my post shows that one “swoop” in Manukau stopped 9429 cars and netted 220 drunks (2.33%).

http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/police-checkpoints-breach-the-civil-liberties-of-the-many-to-catch-the-few/

Despite what some people have said here I am in no way batting for drink-drivers. They are stupid and selfish and a bunch of other unprintable things. If they kill themselves that’s fine (that comes under personal responsibility and consequences of actions), but if they kill someone else or harm someone else’s property I have a problem with that. I also have a problem with them killing themselves and leaving the wife and kids without support.
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/drink-driving-should-be-legalised/
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December 21, 2008 10:12am
Patrick Starr

To apply some of the logic used here we’d be stopping everyone in the street for blood tests to catch P users, and perhaps sending CYFS to every family household to check for potential child killers.
At least the cops got it half right this week targeting Sth Auckland – (where they caught four times the average drink driver). Problem is many of them don’t have a licence to lose, and will pay the fine at $10 per week from the benefit – it means nothing to them.
If they want to catch people who drink and then drive why not check point the exit to pub and nightclub carparks? There’ll be a far higher percentage of drinking drivers there than stopping me on a busy road at 4 pm driving my kids home from a school camp.
Start targeting the known demographics.
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December 21, 2008 10:14am
Patrick Starr

Kiwi Polemicist. I had a qick scan of your link and agree with this part-
“First problem: what is the definition of ‘drunk’? What blood alcohol level makes someone unfit to drive? Physiologically this varies widely, but the government picks an arbitrary blood alcohol number and applies this to everyone”

Having just forked out over $300 in taxi fares over the past week I can assure you I don’t drink and drive. In saying that however on a scale of 1-10 where do you place your driving ability? – If the threshold of the “arbitrary blood alcohol number” for the lowesrt performing driver may have the safe driving limit at only 1 on a scale of 1-10

I can assure you if I did drink and drive (and I don’t) my driving ability would still be at least 7 after a couple of glasses of wine, whereas we still have drivers at only a 2 stone cold sober
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December 21, 2008 10:38am
Redbaiter

“This is where Libertarians hit the wall.”

Did you even read what was said above about this, or so you just repeat mantras drummed into you by desk bound public servants intent on expanding their empires and with advertising budgets far greater than they should ever be permitted??

For decades England led the world in respect for personal freedoms. Long before the Libertarians were ever a sparkle in anyone’s eye. One of the most important features of English society, and one that set it apart from some of the monolithic totalitarian states of Europe was its respect for the right of the individual to go about his business without being stopped by police. When this right is removed, you join the barbarians.

What is it with you brainwashed statists that you are apparently unable to see the simple fact that drink driving is one issue and setting up checkpoints and stopping law abiding citizens going about their lawful business is another?? Mr Starr is right above. When you breach this basic right, why stop with drink driving?

It is appalling that NZers are so infected by social good advertising campaigns that they are unable to think clearly on this issue. Helps explain how Hitler and Goebbels managed to convince so many Germans that the extermination of the Jews was a good idea. You are soppy socialist sponge brains, and a danger to civilized people, freedom and democracy. If you can be so easily manipulated on this issue, you can be manipulated on anything. Disgraceful.
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December 21, 2008 10:44am
kiwipolemicist

Patrick Starr says “To apply some of the logic used here we’d be stopping everyone in the street for blood tests to catch P users, and perhaps sending CYFS to every family household to check for potential child killers.”

I’m glad to see that some people get the point 🙂 .

Remember that Comrade Cindy Kiro *did* want to monitor every child, so the state attitude towards drink-drivers *does* extend to other areas of our personal lives. Comrade Paula Bennett, the new social welfare minister, has the same attitude so we’re not safe yet.
( http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/paula-bennett-claims-ownership-of-all-new-zealand-children/ )

The Marxists try to justify state monitoring of parents and children by saying that they are protecting the children (just as they justify state monitoring of drivers by saying that they’re protecting us from drunks), and now Aussie wants to bring in internet censoring…to protect the children of course. The state will take away many freedoms in the name of “protection”.

A nanny state is also a police state, because part of a nanny’s job is ensuring that the children follow the rules. Only a nanny that is stronger than the children can be successful at controlling the children, so the nanny state imposes gun control laws and other restrictions to maintain her monopoly of force.

I am old enough and ugly enough to not need a nanny, thanks all the same.

http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/australian-government-is-calling-internet-censorship-cyber-safety/
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December 21, 2008 11:08am
Ross Miller

One of the great thinks about our so called ‘free’ society is the right to agree to disagree.

Redbaiter … we agree to disagree. But there is nothing “digraceful” in that surely. As for “soppy socialist sponge brains” etc well quite franky, over the top comments leave me completely unmoved except to note that extreme rhetoric does much to discredit the ‘Right’ in the body politik.
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December 21, 2008 11:20am
WebWrat

kiwipolemicist (216) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 10:12 am

Rex W: my post shows that one “swoop” in Manukau stopped 9429 cars and netted 220 drunks (2.33%).

……………..

So 9209 people who are ligitimately going about their own private business get pulled over, interrogated, blow in the bag and then get sent off feeling soiled, unjustly interrupted, offended and disappointed at the police state our country has become.

The 220 drunks, what happens to them? Apart from providing a little bit of revenue to the state, which is the object of the whole exercise …. fuck all.

Isn’t it time to PENALISE criminals and DETER crime and leave law abiding citizens alone?
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December 21, 2008 11:21am
kiwipolemicist

WebWrat: my point precisely.

They did execute warrants and collect fines as well, which just shows that checkpoints aren’t just about “protecting” us from drunks. As I said in the post, *at most* 3.64% of those stopped “deserved” police attention, which means that at least 9086 innocent people were metaphorically slammed up against a wall and subjected to scrutiny by the state.

If I block a public road and/or stop people going about their lawful business it’s a crime, but it’s ok if the state does it.

(All the numbers are here:
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/police-checkpoints-breach-the-civil-liberties-of-the-many-to-catch-the-few/ )
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December 21, 2008 11:39am
Lee

Not being a libertarian or a socialist I have no problem with randomly stopping drivers in order to do something to wind back NZ’s appalling alcohol habits, and nor do I have a problem with checking airplane luggage to prevent people being blown up in mid-air.

Especially on the former issue, NZ desperately needs to strongly re-regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol, starting with raising the legal drinking age to twenty.

Both libertarians and socialists throw around the concept of “rights” with far too much intellectually and morally vaccuos abandon.
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December 21, 2008 12:50pm
wikiriwhis business

I’m having a problem with police over these drunk drivers

After all these years of driving education, the police would have us believe hundreds are still travelling our highways in stupified conditions

I will say this

BULLSHIT

I would believe many are simply driving a few fumes over the mark which is hard to personally tell.

We get no info or stats on alcohol levels of drivers.

Until official records are published about the average mean stats I have no problem distrusting the police version.
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December 22, 2008 11:11am

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