Here's the core of Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnton's speech at the Libz conference over the weekend.
2008 looks good for all of us who have struggled to dislodge Helen Clark from the Premiership. The Labour government no longer looks invincible. Its ministers look more and more foolish every day.
We have a finance minister who hates money; a foreign minister who hates foreigners, and a police minister who blames a month of rising crime on a full moon -- suggesting that, under this government, crime will only fall when we start having months without full moons. Lunacy indeed.
There are many reasons for wanting rid of Labour. Labour has continued the destruction of New
Zealanders' property rights: vandalising Telecom (our largest listed company); denying forest owners their newly minted carbon credits; and confiscating the foreshore and seabed from its rightful owners -- not to mention the myriad abuses of the Resource Management Act.
Labour has squandered a decade of economic golden weather -- extorting wealth from the creative and spending the gains like a drunken sailor on an engorged, vampiric bureaucracy.
Most ominously, Labour has taken every opportunity to silence dissent: threatening charities
with the loss of their charitable tax status if they criticise the government; banning the use of
parliamentary images for satire or ridicule; and, with the Electoral Finance Act, attempting to muzzle
everyone during election year.
With this list of crimes against freedom, who can't welcome Labour's two-year slide in the polls and
National's complementary rise? I for one will be damn glad to see the back of Helen Clark, come November. But I'm not so sure I'll be pleased to see the front of John Key.
National Party acolytes will tell you that National is “a broad church.” What that means is that National is a brand name. It doesn't stand for anything. To National, politics is a sport -- they'd quite like the blue team to beat the red team, for all the reasons we all like our teams to win out over the other teams, but like all sports teams there's no fundamental difference between them and the other team. In this respect, John Key is the perfect captain.
Witness National's “me too” politics. Interest-free student loans to bribe university-age voters? Me too. National orginally said it would oppose interest free student loans "with every bone in its body." Now, not only will National keep interest free loans but will also introduce a ten percent voluntary repayment bonus, meaning that I can borrow $10,000 on Monday, pay back $9,100 on Tuesday and pocket the discount.
Where are the bones in National's body now -- in particular the 33 vertebrae?
This is only one example of how we're going to see a "me too" election from the Blue Team. We've seen it already. KiwiSaver? Me too. Foreign policy? Me too. Waffling on about climate change? Me too. Cap on GP's fees? There's the faintest whiff of controversy? Oh, go on then, me too.
Even National's greatest recent challenge, the Electoral Finance Act wasn't met with outrage. It was
simply taken as an opportunity for point-scoring against the red team. They didn't ask for freedom, they asked for "consensus."
If the question at the next election was simply how to get rid of Labour then the answer itself would be simple: vote National. However, the question at the next election is not how to get rid of Labour. It is how to end Labour's assault on our freedom. John Key's National Party shows no signs of being willing, ready or able to end that assault. And that means that voting National is not the answer.
A vote for National sends the message to all parties that it's business as usual. And business as usual is exactly what we don't want. Only a vote for Libertarianz says that the game is up. We'd like our freedom back please.
NB: Keep an eye out on the Libz TV site for the video of Bernard's speech to appear soon.
Inside this Issue:
1. What was the question again? – Bernard Darnton
2. Three Simple Remedies for Housing affordability – Peter
Cresswell
3. Libertarianz Conference 2008 – Craig Milmine
4. Compulsory Third Party Insurance Nonsense – Liberty
Scott
Libertarianz on Campus – Daniel Aguilar
5. Letters to the editor
6. Libertarianz Press Releases
7. Deadline Approaching for Candidates – Craig Milmine
8-9. Candidate Nomination Forms
10-11. Support Libertarianz
12. Contact Details
2 comments:
Your personal name calling - twerp - etc attacks on John Key have been rather egegrious and unworthy of you homey.
You won't remember this. It was from Shakespeares Sister. The URL has now changed. About big P and little p politics.
[Little p politics] means committing to a good education for everyone, even if you do not have children. It means supporting people in the decisions they need to make to live their lives with dignity, even if their choices and decisions are not ones that you would make. It means thinking about the needs of others -- not instead of your needs, as martyrs do, but in addition to your needs -- even when you gain nothing directly by doing so.
Practicing politics is hard.
Practicing POLITICS, on the other hand, is relatively easy. All you need is an opponent, a target, and a posse. You fight with your opponent, you attack your target, and your posse backs you up in both endeavors. It doesn't matter what happens to any of them at the end of the day, because, in the end, it's all about You.
I hope Libz will practice politics, and eschew the anti-Key Politics we have seen so far.
Actually, NotYourBusiness, I don't think Bernard Darnton was 'attacking' John Key at all. If you read the (summary of the) speech, you'll see quite clearly that Darnton was criticising National's lack of any determination to put an end to Labour's destruction of our freedoms and our country.
If you call this 'attacking John Key', then I think you show a poor grasp of reality in New Zealand today.
Do you feel happy about the fact that our country is plummeting off the bottom of the OECD, our best people are fleeing in droves and our industries and businesses are being starved of the resources with which to operate?
Do you feel happy that while this horrific scenario is being played out, the major opposition party with the best prospects for electoral success shows no sign at all that it intends to change the direction of this disaster or do anything to halt the slide?
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