The copywriter for National’s election billboards in 2008 (“Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes” – Yeah Right!) attacks National’s Waterview motorway decision this morning
“Residents of Mt Albert and Waterview in Auckland are preparing to defend their homes against government bulldozers,” says Glenn Jameson at SOLO of the decision by the government he helped to elect, “and every citizen in New Zealand who values their own property should stand beside them in solidarity”:
Transport Minister Steven Joyce is planning to use 1.4 billion dollars that don’t belong to him to level 365 homes that don’t belong to him or the citizens who will benefit from the 4.5km motorway link. Using the excuse that it’s for the greater good of the community effectively crushes the rights of every member in that community – and the only ones who have the temerity to call that good are thugs.
One has to sympathise with resident Leonard Purchase: ‘Bastards. They're a bunch of no-hopers – rats. I've been here 23 years. I inherited this place from my father. My old man bought it [and] he died here – I thought I was going to die here too... Nobody's come to talk to me – it's just things that have come through the mail.’
The day a government reserves the right to flatten your house without your permission is the day you cease to actually own your property. Your beloved garden, hand-built barbeque, and painstaking renovation are disposable chattels to the politician who coldly draws a line across a map on his way to building another monument to draconian law. It’s time we all linked arms and told the government to get off our land and bugger off out of our lives.
True. You want to build a motorway without doing people over? Then learn how to do it peacefully.
UPDATE: Nat’s ad man Glenn Jameson clarifies in part:
While it is true I did co-write the National Party campaign I wish to point out a glaring and embarrassing inaccuracy from my own agency, which has only just now been linked to my attention: I have never been nor will ever be a "dyed-in-the-wool National Party supporter” . . .
Read the whole clarification here.
39 comments:
Leonard Purchase didn't even buy his own home, he inherited. Who gives a f**k. Bulldoze it.
The only difference is that Leonard's bludging was privatised from his father, rather than taxpayer funded.
Thank you Cactus for eloquently and in one paragraph demonstrating your favourite party's respect for the importance of property rights.
Garrett + Cactus = Rights? Fuck 'em.
It would be interesting to see how many of them would still be complaining if they were offered $20k above market value for their houses...
If they are offered significantly above 'market value', then many people would still want to keep their houses.
How is the 'market' supposed to define what something is worth?
This is an issue of the individual right to own their own property.
Besides, how is a government supposed to gather the money to buy large numbers of houses? Oh right, theft (aka, taxes).
"How is the 'market' supposed to define what something is worth?"
Isn't that what markets are there for?
Markets do not set prices. Prices are NEGOTIATED by a buyer and a seller.
The thing you need to remember is that the maximum money you can obtain for an object in a market equals exactly what someone is WILLING to pay for it.
And this is important, because the value attached to an item encompasses more than just the price to build an identical house on a similar block elsewhere.
Which means that the only real way to obtain the cash to buy out the Mt Albert folk who stand in the way of the Highway is to privatize the whole exercise. Then it is up to the developers to convince private investors to part with their hard earned cash.
An exercise infinitely more difficult that convincing the politicians to part with YOUR money.
And Cactus: Who gives a f**k? You should. Because if they can bulldoze Leonard's home for any bullshit reason they like. They can bulldoze your's next.
And the way things are going, you may find that the only job that Mr. Leonard can find after he's been evicted is Driver of a Government Bulldozer...
Cactus - It doesn't matter how Mr Purchase acquired his home, as long as it was lawful his absolute ownership thereof should be respected. I assume you see nothing wrong in estate taxes. then?
Private bludging (also called asking for charity) is OK because you have a willing donor. Taxpayer-sourced bludging is not OK, because the money is obtained by putting a gun to the heads of productive people.
Silly me, I thought buyers and sellers negotiating prices was called a market.
Also, spare a thought for those a little further away - they have no rights at all. the public works act will be used for the ones they need - but the houses that are now adjacent to a motorway get no compensation - and I suspect will have suffered considerable loss, due to the govt "taking" the houses near them.
Cactus said:
"Leonard Purchase didn't even buy his own home, he inherited. Who gives a f**k. Bulldoze it."
And people say that Libertarianz should work with ACT rather than highlight their statist tendencies! This disregard for individual and property rights by ACT and its supporters shows they are no different to other state worshipers. ACT has nothing to offer true advocates of freedom.
Julian D
So Libz members - how do you make progress in a society that won't acquire property for capital works?
I assume the "owners" - real and by viture of having a rich daddy will be compensated for their loss. It's not like it's stolen and as I've said elsewhere in this economy the owners should be glad to be cashed up.
Considering your entire political party was pictured recently at the PJ O'Rourke function spread over 2 tables, perhaps you should get off the high horse and start thinking a little practically.
Richard McGrath - an estate tax works perfectly well in my view, particularly if all the money is used to fund income tax cuts. You have obviously don't realise the beneficiaries of estate taxes are trust lawyers. The prospect of such tax brings only a smile to my dial.
"And people say that Libertarianz should work with ACT rather than highlight their statist tendencies! This disregard for individual and property rights by ACT and its supporters shows they are no different to other state worshipers. ACT has nothing to offer true advocates of freedom."
And if a Libz supporter disagreed with what you said on an issue would you fire off a similar tirade, and refuse to work with the entire party because of it?
If you want some influence in government, you either have to a:wait until over 50% of the population agrees with your policies and votes for you, or b:work with other people who sometimes don't share all your views, but are closer to them than the other lot. Which of those alternatives do you think is the most practical?
Kate - my problem lies in people being forced to sell their home to the government. Often their investment in the property is not just financial but emotional, and that is hard to quantify. The Autralian movie The Castle portrays what I'm saying beautifully.
You obviously have no problem with the concept of Eminent Domain, but it's anathema to someone who feels that people should deal with each other peacefully. Eminent Domain is akin to the Mafia making you an offer you can't refuse, with a gun at your temple.
A society that won't "acquire property for capital works" is one where there is a willing buyer and willing seller for every transaction.
I'm not sure how you define "progress" - I define it as any move toward freedom. I regard freedom as the situation where there is 100% recognition of individual rights, including property rights and the right to act in self-defence.
I think you need to look at the bigger picture when you discuss estate taxes "working well" - there will be wider negative effects that overwhelm any perceived benefits from imposing the tax (taxation being theft made lawful by statute).
FOR THE RECORD:
While it is true I did co-write the National Party campaign I wish to point out a glaring and embarrassing inaccuracy from my own agency, which has only just now been linked to my attention: I have never been nor will ever be a "dyed-in-the-wool National Party supporter." The National Party were fully aware of my - and my co-writer's - libertarian roots and hired us to take down a common enemy: Helen Clark, the greater of the two evils.
My reasons for working with the so-called enemy have been stated many times: to a) get rid of the Clark/Cullen cabal, and b) end the EFA, the most evil piece of legislation to ever pass into NZ law.
The Pond has just informed me that they are making the necessary corrections immediately. Thank you, Peter, for bringing it to my attention.
Glenn Jameson
Private bludging (also called asking for charity) is OK because you have a willing donor
no. no it's not. and even if it was OK to ask (which it's not) it is certainly not right to give.
There is no such thing as society: only individuals.
Bludging and begging destroys individuals
There are foreign examples of building infrastructure without compulsory purchase. In Australia, the private sector is left to build a highway and told to negotiate with property owners, it does, it offers good money to buy a route, and figures it out. In France, double market prices are offered for roads or railways to be built, and the result is they get multiple offerings. The key is that if the road or railway will generate enough revenue through tolls or fares, then the cost of acquiring the land becomes one factor in determining if it is worthwhile.
For example, if enough people of Waterview said no, regardless, it would cause a road builder to choose another route or tunnel more - it becomes a tradeoff. Remember that this whole problem occurred because previous governments did set aside land to build anything BUT this section of motorway.
So clever.
Anonymous: Whose philosophy are you making up? Who ever said benevolence is wrong, except the onanists on the left who want to defame individualism, because they want to sacrifice individuals to their great cause, not convince them?
Hey Cactus
The Government Hospital wants your right arm and breast. They'll give you market rate +20%. You must comply. Be ready for your surgery next week.
Who gives a fuck about your feelings on the matter. Operate. Amputate. Cut it!
LGM
Liberty, thanks for the comment about the prices paid in France.
I wanted to point out that the acquisition of land for roading can work out really well for private owners. The Orewa bypass through to Johnstones Tunnel proved quite lucrative for people.
Obviously with that being open land, there were less people affected, but if people were offered double market rates in Mt Albert, that motorway would find a route within a month. And best of all, if they put a toll on the new road to pay for it, it would further discourage those nasty South Aucklanders.
In France, double market prices are offered for roads or railways to be built, and the result is they get multiple offerings
This is France we're talking about, right?
It's all taxpayer dollars. Fuck that.
if they can bulldoze Leonard's home for any bullshit reason they like. They can bulldoze your's next.
No they can't. Because Cactus is a wealthy and Productive member of society and lives in HK. Purchase is a Labour-voting bludger and lives in Mt Albert. I can't believe you can't see the crucial difference: the idea that Purchase and Cactus are in any way comparable is, fundamentally, leftism
Convince 50%... work with people who don't share your views... Which of those alternatives do you think is the most practical?
Ensure we life in a state and and government that makes rational decisions in favour of the productive, not pissing about with the 90% of society who are leeches. Again, consider Hong Kong, consider Singapore, consider Fiji - all of which offer rather better climates for investment than NZ is every likely to!
Who ever said benevolence is wrong
Let's see: Darwin, Rand, Nietzsche, and especially Maggie Thatcher. Those who desire charity are not "individuals". By giving them charity we only increase their dependency and destroy their individuality. We also degrade ourselves.
Hey, you all retarded Libz, Cactus is right. In this occasion you treated dole/welfare bludgers such as Leonard Purchase like a hero in this case (property rights issue). Most of the times, the posts here are about hammering the same sort of people ,ie, the dole/welfare bludgers for sucking on the state's tits. Can't you defend your principles in one unified perspective rather than treating these issues separately?
At what point you bag state-tit suckers as Leonard and at what stage you do need to staunchly defend him?
Anonymous:
1. Most motorways in France are built and run by private companies and tolled. France has the most privately owned and commercially run highway network in the world, yes strange indeed.
2. What the hell do you know about Purchase? He's a national superannuitant, that's all I know. Who the fuck are you to judge a man who legally owns his house when all he wants is to hold onto it? How easy it is for those on the "right" to just denigrate those they don't know out of some sort of old fashioned snob based bigotry? So people who own houses they inherit and don't have jobs you approve of can just fuck off then and lose their individual rights? I'll happily defend the right of labour voting pensioners to hold onto their property rights, like I'll defend the right of socialists to smoke dope and nazis to publish books. However, I guess you think freedom is only for the productive.
3. Rand did NOT say benevolence was wrong. She regarded it as quite moral, but it is not a primary moral obligation of anyone. Frankly if you think benevolence is wrong then you fall into the leftwing stereotype of libertarians who wouldn't stop to help someone who falls over in the street, who wouldn't raise children (leeches as they are), who wouldn't donate to a charity to help people devastated in a disaster, or wouldn't be surf lifesavers because why bother if people drown? Fuck everyone right? They have no rights except while they are productive - if people experience misfortune then fuck em.
Clearly some ACT supporters think national superannuitants deserve no private property rights, so that a state bureaucracy can build a road funded by taxes on all road users. Funny free market capitalist party.
"Convince 50%... work with people who don't share your views... Which of those alternatives do you think is the most practical?
Ensure we life in a state and and government that makes rational decisions in favour of the productive, not pissing about with the 90% of society who are leeches. "
How, dimwit? The very point of the comment is that in order to get to that situation, you need to get into a position where you can start making changes to the way things are done. How are you going to do that? Just you, with a bunch of guns, starting in Napier? Dumbass.
Oh yeah the crypto-lefties are really out to play today.
1. French motorways - don't make me laugh. At best they're partly privatised SOEs, and worst, open socialist rorts. Yeah they're tolled - big deal: who introduced road tools in London: that's right, RED KEN
2. Defending the "rights" of labour voters, socialists, and unionists. Please.
3. Rand said nothing at all about charity being moral. She certainly did say charity giving to the undeserving was immoral. But I'm not a Randian,
And yes, if people "experience misfortune" - that is, if people choose not to make provision for themselves and their families then they must accept the consequences. To do otherwise most certainly does create a huge moral hazard!
4. twr - how - well for example, given the appalling state of the government's books; the crashing economy; and the blatant and continued corruption of the unions and labour party; and the breakdown in law and order with police shootings and gangs --- I think Key and Hide should just announce emergency measures: suspend parliament; make the necessary spending cuts (50% at least to all areas of welfare, including education and health as welfare); eliminate the gangs and corrupt parties and unions; get a really democratic electoral system (property and income qualification); and put off elections until 2015 at least.
working well in Fiji - but we have far more problems than the do.
Redbaiter: So where are roads run how you like them? Yep, you'll struggle to find anywhere more commercial than France. Actually tolls have been on roads in London for centuries, the congestion charge is hardly the first toll in London, but then pricing a scarce resource is somehow a socialist conspiracy to you.
2. Yeah fuck people who you disagree with, they should lose their rights. Zeig heil. Got a photo of Pinochet on your wall? He supported the free market, but he locked people up who wanted to debate the point. Yep you're onto a real winner with that. Sound's a lot like Stalin.
3. Yep, when I find you bleeding on the side of the road because of a hit and run driver I'll make sure to ignore you because your misfortune was because you didn't make provision for every eventuality in your life. Yep that kid who is an orphan can rot in the gutter too, stupid dead parents' fault. Of course I wouldn't give to the undeserving, but benevolence was never rejected by Rand (and certainly not Thatcher, who encouraged charity).
enough troll feeding for the night.
Bravo Scott! Hear hear! Thanks to you and PC for exposing Cactus, Troll & Co. for the hypocritical authoritarians they are.
You know, there's a reason I generally view anonymous comments as bad faith trolling until or unless proved otherwise. Because it mostly is.
For example, Anonymous 8:56 says "Who ever said benevolence is wrong? Let's see: Darwin, Rand, Nietzsche, and especially Maggie Thatcher" -- and then just keeps repeating this trolling nonsense just to get attention.
Certainly Cactus and Nietzsche would fit this bill, but the others most certainly do not -- as I'm more than sure our troll already knows.
Rand, for example, never said benevolence was wrong. Never. In fact praise of genuine benevolence permeates her work.
To be specific, she regarded benevolence as a virtue, albeit a minor virtue -- a subset of the virtue of justice: of treating others as they deserve.
To see what this means in concrete terms, here's some advice Rand offered in a 1946 discussion with a correspondent [you can find it in her published 'Journals']:
"Whatever meaning we attempt to attach to the slogan ["love thy neighbour as yourself"]—it still remains a tenet of collectivism. If "love" here means self-preservation, as you say, or the protection of one's interests—well, it still means that you must preserve and protect others as much as yourself. Since your chief activity of self-preservation on earth is work to obtain food, the slogan means that you must work for others just as much as for yourself. . .
Actually, you not only must not preserve and protect others as yourself—you could not do it, if you attempted to. Each man's fate is essentially his own. Any help you can give him is strictly of a secondary nature. Example: any poor relative. Have you ever succeeded in helping a person who did not want to help himself?
. . . It's that element of owing, of a moral duty, which is crucial here. . . Now I say, you owe nothing to your neighbor. If you wantyour desire—not his need. It is then a favor to him—not his rightful due.
Now, must you always want to help him? Is it morally desirable that you should? No. Here is where the real issue comes in: you may (morally) wish to help him only when such help does not involve the sacrifice of your own interests.. Example: you may loan money to a friend in need, if you really like him and can spare the money; but if you give him money which you need yourself for a major purpose of your own—I say you are positively immoral. More specifically: if your friend needs money for food, and you pass up buying a new dress and give him the money—that is all right. But that is not a sacrifice, because you actually wanted him to have food more than you wanted a new dress. But if that money was required to finance your education, or career, or wedding, or even if you wanted that dress for a date with your sweetheart—then you would be immoral if you gave that money away. You cannot place the interests of another man above yours, nor on an equal basis with yours. Yours must come first. (Always remembering that his come first for him.) That's the only way men can live together at all. Any conflict of interests must be solved by mutual voluntary agreement. Actually, there can be no essential conflict of interests among men, if none demands or expects that which is not his, if each man recognizes that none of the others exists for his sake and that he can demand nothing from them on the ground of his need.
Take your own example—about rushing to put out the fire in a neighbor's house. You may (and would) certainly do that—if your own house is not on fire at the same time. But if it is? Whose house would you and should you save first? Of course your own, and properly so. Therefore, you cannot "love him as you love yourself."
. . . I don't think that you run to save your neighbor's house by reason of a natural impulse. You do so by reason of the premises you have accepted about human relations in general—and one of them is benevolence toward other men, which is natural in the sense that there are good rational grounds for it—unless the particular man has forfeited this benevolence. Would you always rush to save that house? I am sure that if it were the house of, say, Henry Wallace [think Michael Cullen but much, much worse]—I would not rush to save it.
And this leads me to my main point about human relations: man being a creature of free will, any blanket commandment about what one should feel toward him is completely improper. Feeling proceeds from judgment based on a code of values. Man must be judged by his own record and actions . . . A blanket command to love is collectivism.
Thanks Julian. But has anyone pointed out that's a disgusting looking beard and ponytail look you've got going on in that photograph there?
You know there are other candidates who could use that against you. ;^)
Stalin didn't support the free market (at least not for long).
He's a national superannuitant
What more needs you know? He's not "retired". He's not "a man of independent means". He's not "a pensioner" on a state or even a war pension. He's on super. Same as being on the DPB.
find you bleeding on the side of the road because of a hit and run driver I'll make sure to ignore you
first aid is one thing. But are you going to take me to hospital, bleeding all over your Mercedes, then pay for me to be admitted and for all the care I need - because I'm not insured. Didn't think so.
And nor should you!
"that's a disgusting looking beard and ponytail look you've got going on in that photograph there?
You know there are other candidates who could use that against you. ;^)"
Old 1L Norman maybe? What is this rhubarb about 'Get More Muscle' anyway? 1L is the classic 7 stone weed.
Anonymous: Nope, but Pinochet supported the free market. Nice evasion there, the ends justify the means don't they?
Oh and how many people over 65 don't claim national superannuation? My parents do, having owned two successful businesses in their lifetimes and never been on welfare from the day they arrived on NZ's shores, also having substantial savings and investments of their own that they still pay taxes on, having also had private health insurance that time - but they are just welfare beneficiaries because they are getting back the taxes they currently pay, along with the deal the state forced them to go along with as part of years of extortion? Go fuck yourself. By the way next time you drive on local streets outside a city you pay rates in, you're just like being on the DPB as you bludge off of the ratepayers there.
Yes I might give first aid and phone an ambulance, I might do ANYTHING I like. The hospital may choose to write off someone's medical bills too. It's the difference between obligation and choice. In my case if I knew you were a cunt, I wouldn't value your life, so would rather do what I want.
Oh yeah the crypto-lefties are really out to play today.Aren't they just...and they are known as the ACT Party and its supporters.
Business bashing, bank bashing, gang patch ban, Superstupid City, eminent domain rubbish, more regulation for NZX...the list goes on.
To quote Glenn Greenwald:
"When they have a club in their hands, no one is more sadistic. When the club is removed, no one is more whiney."
Fits ACT like a glove.
Ruth said
"Oh yeah the crypto-lefties are really out to play today.Aren't they just...and they are known as the ACT Party and its supporters."
Well said Ruth. (Credit where it is due).
Julian D
"Redbaiter: So where are roads"
Hey LS, you sanctimonious preaching little poseur- On the rare occasions I comment here, (given the host's desperate addiction to sycophancy) I comment as Redbaiter.
You know, false (and entirely devoid of proof) allegations kind of fit your psychological profile so well.
Libetarianz- from 8000 votes to 1000 votes in 3 elections. After such a decline, any leadership group with any self respect would resign.
Julian your potential supporters have always been from the libertarian left. The Right will never change.
OK so the Left don't agree with you on economics - economics doesn't win seats - nobody really cares. The market will work it out as it always does.
You concentrate on issues like the supercity, gang patches, eminent domain and the votes will come. Any small erosion of support for ACT can be seen by Libz as a mighty victory.
BTW I gave that buffoon Bruce Sheppard a serve today on a site I know he reads. He has been the only one to pick up on the Mark Weldon jihad. Everyone on Sheppard's blog is congratulating him for being a good guy and exposing these 'insolvent' companies. He has not even named one company.
What a joke.
If you don't like the NZX governance don't invest in it. Otherwise mind your own business.
Ruth I agree with your statement:
If you don't like the NZX governance don't invest in it. Otherwise mind your own business.And this idiot of exaggerated/inflated self-important Cactus Kate is one of those jihadist that campaign against Mark Weldon.
This stupid woman always talks her self up and doesn't realize that she can't get to the status of where Mark Weldon is at the moment.
I see the Libertarianz are alive and well. All dozen or so of you. Oh the name calling and labelling.....shocking......I thought you were all above that. And rolling out Rand, oh dear..... I did get the full "we have to trot out the old clunkers to prove we are well-read" treatment. All over some man who inherited a rickety old house from his daddy.
LGM - thinks body parts are next....l.o.o.n.y. You see this is why people won't join the Libertarianz. You always take things too far to prove whatever silly point you wish. They wouldn't take my body parts, they would go to a third world country where the parts are cheaper and the seller more willing. Precisely why you don't build a motorway through a suburb like Remuera, the homes are too expensive. It's far better to go to a third class suburb like Mt Albert and bowl over a few dungers. That's good economics from where I sit.
TBO - We've had this little talk on my post already. No sadly I will in my lifetime not be gifted the chance of running an entire portion of the "free" market as a regulator, participant that I can take the fiscal advantages of having regulatory control and cross-subsidise into other investments throughout the economy and internationally. Then bump the share price to own 10% of the company and call myself an excellent CEO operating in a free and fair market.
But then after Weldon's finished I imagine no one else will either.
BTW have you adopted the "no condom" approach to a start-up in the USA and fired your lawyer because she dared tell you that you are an ignorant idiot when it comes to those sort of matters, and doing your own drafting?
Property rights are a very simple concept. They only get complicated when people try to change the essence of what they are.
The moment this happens, the boundaries become blurred, which enables those who fancy a bit of something that belongs to somebody else - to get their hands on it, or to have a say in what they do with it.
Libertarianz will never convince people like this to change their minds - These people just want what somebody else owns, or want to force others to comply with their views, and they dont care how they do it - if its by immoral means they dont care, and will never chose to see otherwise.
Cactus says Libertarians go to extremes to illustrate their point, but this is the way that it can go - bit at a time, just like boiling a frog. Once it is seen as acceptable to blurr the boundaries, that boundary gets foggier, and less defined until people like Cate and Redwanker distinguish no boundaries at all - everything that belongs to others is then fair game.
Septic Cate illustrates this point by saying "F**K Him - Bulldoze his house
If enough unscrupulous people get together and say something should be bulldozed, (or body parts harvested as the case may be) then it will be done - all under guise of "for the public good"
Property rights are SIMPLE - just like those who do not understand or wish to abuse them!
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