Since it’s been a few days since the control freaks at the Greens have called for a ban, a restriction, or just another way to boss us all around – last week it was bans on fishing, imports and foreign investment – this morning’s call for a mandatory charge on supermarkets’ plastic bags (effectively a new tax on supermarket shoppers) is already a few hours overdue. As Sus says, Wussel Norman’s insistence that the government must force all supermarkets to emulate “New World's silly decision to impose a 5c charge on every plastic bag is just more force from New Zealand's most violent party. More fascism from self-professed peaceniks. More blanket contempt for everybody from these we-know-best control freaks.” More force from “peaceniks” who’ve never understood the difference between persuasion and force.
Have you understood the real message of the Greens yet? it’s not peace, love and non-violent macrame pot-holders – and it’s certainly not “the environment.” It’s bans, bullying and the “soft fascism” of government force.
Give ‘em up.
27 comments:
Anybody got any ideas on how we can publicise and ridicule New World?
There must be a way to point out to these fuckers how stupid they are...? Surely...?
I certainly won't be going into another New World if they go ahead with this.
Bludgers from the taxpayer such as Sue Bradford whinging about foreign investment is completely fucking ridiculous. The woman doesn't produce at all for the society except sucking off the state's tits is complaining that foreigners with money can come here to buy NZ. Yes she thinks that NZ is for sale.
What a fucking stupid idiot woman who contributes nothing to society (such as producing) except bludging of it see foreign investment as something evil? I wondered if the woman herself even passed primary school exams and qualified to continue on to secondary school?
Fucking dumb bitch.
Pro-Smacking: The woman doesn't produce at all for the society
Not to defend her, or to take away from your other hassling of a well-deserving target, but why should one produce "for society"? Where's the motive in that? Produce for yourself.
I would much prefer New World charging a nominal fee for bags (which they should be free to do if it suits them) than getting rid of them completely to appease the idiot greenies. I'm happy to pay an extra 50c on my shopping to avoid having to cart around stupid recyclable bags.
Correct, TW. Of course it's NW's choice as to what they do.
As it's mine to avoid them as my own opposition to the overall wetness of it all ...
;)
Greig, I agree with what you're saying in that I should produce for myself, but my argument is that Bradford thinks that what I produce for myself, her & other bludgers are entitle to what I produce and that's what I don't like. Even the bitch doesn't produce for herself.
I don't see anything wrong with NW deciding to charge for their bags - I wouldn't see anything wrong with every other supermarket doing it either. Similarly, my tits aren't in a tangle over The Warehouse adopting that policy as well.
Whatever those businesses choose to do is up to them, whether we regard it as pointless/stupid or not. The only time I'd have any issue with it is if the shops were told to do it by gummint, which is the point of the original post here.
By all means protest with your wallets if it's that important to you, but how the hell anyone could feel outraged by New World's decision is beyond me. If they'd just come out and said "We can't be arsed handing out free bags anymore, you can pay for the bloody things yourselves", most people here wouldn't have said anything, but because they've used an environmental angle, hackles go up. I'm no hippie, but what's wrong with someone wanting less bloody rubbish around the place?
It seems like a case of people taking the opposite stance because they're expected to... opposition for the sake of it - which is similar to the shockingly handled 'anti-smacking' bill.
I've been against Bradford right from her days in the 'unemployed workers union', but I actually feel sorry for her over the anti-smacking bill. She doesn't seem to have had the brains to push through an an amendment that was necessary and should have been reasonably straight forward. Part of the blame for that amendment turning into this whole anti-smacking fiasco lies with media coverage, and the rest with the Greens for not being able to sort their shit out properly. It's thrown up pathetic and poorly thought out comments by both supports and opponents alike, and resulted in the $9m waste of time referendum.
Marcus, I think you misunderstand Bradfart's motivation behind the bill. It's nothing to do with avoiding violence to children, it's about stopping people from disciplining their kids and letting the government control their lives. Any amendment that allowed any kind of smacking would be an anathema to her.
twr, as much as I'm loathe to do so, I'm going to give the Troll the benefit of the doubt over the initial reasoning behind amending the bill. Initially, the only thing that should have been on the cards was closing the loophole created by the phrase "reasonable force". The same loophole that piece-of-shit lawyers exploited in defense of their piece-of-shit client who'd beaten a child senseless with a jug cord.
As soon as the media termed the amendment "The Anti-Smacking Bill", there was an uproar. Decent parents will be made into criminals! I think this is where Bradford failed - instead of saying "Oh fuck up and get off your high-horse, I'm just trying to stop some wanker claiming reasonable force and getting off the charge of assault.", she traipsed out the usual PC bullshit about smacking children being wrong, and children having all the same rights as adults.
Whether this was her own belief or if she was just spewing forth the sort of crap the rest of the Greens expected I don't know. Suffice to say she lost the plot.
As I said before, both supporters and opponents are guilty of brainless overreaction. Good parents are NOT going to be villified - technically if I clip one of my lads under the ear, I'm breaking the law (just as I am every time my speedo hits 51kph around town) but I'm not going to have the cops beating my door down if I've given my boys a smack on the bum.
The problem is it gives the cops the ability to do exactly that. I was on a bus on an empty road on a Friday night that was pulled over and ticketed for doing 5kmh over the speed limit. Legislators expect cops to be reasonable and cops use their power to bully easy targets. The reports this morning on the news from the cops say "the law is working as it is". Of course they will say that - they'll never say they want less power. It's up to us to let them have the minimum possible, and prevent the inevitable abue of it.
...abuse...
It's up to us to let them have the minimum possible, and prevent the inevitable abuse of it.
Hell yes!
If the greens are all about controlling people's lives, then why are they trying to give people more freedom with their water, food and drugs? All other mainstream parties are keen on reducing freedom in those areas. Why do you not give them stick for that?
Hi Marcus .. good to hear from you again .. and yes, the original point of this post was ridiculing the Green suggestion to have all supermarkets *forced* to do what New World and its partners have done.
Re Bradford though, you give her too much credit.
Her original private member's bill was to ban smacking outright. Make no mistake.
And when she heard of the first suggestions of it being altered, her words were .. I saw her say it in Parliament .. "if there's any amendment to my bill, I'll pull it".
The Clark stepped in, a deal was done, Key joined in, Bradford was silenced and the argument shifted to being one of, in Clark's words, "stopping the heinous abuse" a la Kahui.
The woman is a card-carrying Marxist. Her goal is persistent interference.
Re the defence of reasonable force for assault: I'd prefer that a jury decide individual cases than a blanket law imposed on everyone.
Cheers.
Sue Bradford has nothing to do with Marxism. Read her bio.
How does pushing for a 5 cent charge on plastic bags (which is not a ban, of course) compare with putting CCTV cameras in people's homes?? http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-worst-families
haha incredible! if you want to rail against a fascist government, there's your chance
"Why do you not give them stick for that?"
Oh, we do, we do.
"Sue Bradford has nothing to do with Marxism."
Yea, that's perfectly true. She was actually a Maoist. From Bryce Edwards website:
"Inspired by the Chinese revolution while at Auckland Girls Grammer, Bradford joined the Maoist Progressive Youth Movement in her teenage years. She helped set up Auckland’s Resistance Bookshop in the late 1960s, and even travelled to China to study during the 1970s. Eventually she went back to Auckland University to study Chinese, and then to Beijing in 1981 to study at the Beijing Language Institute.
Around this time the Workers Communist League (WCL) was formed and Bradford joined, remaining active until it dissolved about a decade later. The WCL according to Chris Trotter was, ‘a feisty socialist party of mostly university students which acquired an important industrial base in the car-assembly factories of Porirua and the Hutt Valley.’ One leftwinger I know with a background in the far left of the 1970s also had the following to say about Bradford’s involvement in the WCL:
I tend to think that Bradford was always a very non-reflective Stalinist hack. She got involved in (WCL) Maoism, which was miles to the right of the CPNZ's brand. And she chose to get into it at a time when anyone with any nouse, or just plain human decency, already understood how awful Mao and co. were. I mean the guy was the first head of state to recognize Pinochet after the coup, even beating the Yanks! Mao and co were also funding the contras in Angola and aligning with ultra-right wing regimes all over the world on the basis that they were good coz they were anti-Soviet and the USSR was imperialist enemy no 1 for Peking. And that was what she signed up to! All that's happened with her is that she has returned to her natural state - wet liberalism. The WCL recruited loads of wet liberals, it was their speciality, out of the China tourist trade. Once the going got rough in the late 80s, they all ended up as right-wingers… or went back to being wet liberals."
Gee that was a while ago, wasn't it?
I was addressing the 'card carrying Marxist' comment which implied some involvement in the present
Sus, I know I give her way too much credit. Call it wide-eyed optimism that nobody could be that stupid!
Hi Rimu .. I have no time for authoritarian philosophy, no matter the tinge.
They're all bastards who would control my life. Their differences pale by comparison with their similarities; thus I have no qualms in lumping them all in together.
The NZ Green party seeks to ban and compel, neither of which is compatible with freedom.
Why does it have to be one thing or the other anyway - why not offer BOTH?
This charging 5 cents a bag bullshit is just an excuse to pass on another charge to the customers
Imagine the stigma at the supermarket checkout - people looking at those who chose plastic bags like they were leppers, while they walk out - nose in the air - with their brown paper bags.
Plastic or paper bags Sir?
Seems a lot more rational to me
But this is the kind of Non-thinking we have come to expect from our nations population - dumbed down by the government-run school system
What sort of creative solution do you EXPECT them to come up with
BAN IT or TAX it is about their limit im afraid
Since, the Greens and their supporters are predisposed to the idea of control and banning everything that doesn't suit their totalitarian/socialist agendas.
I am predicting that in the near futures, their good looking members will be pushing to ban ugly looking cunts in the society from existence. When that day arrives, I will be voting the Greens so that ugly mothafuckers & assholes such as Sue Bradford and all Green MPs would be banned from existence. This will be the day to celebrate for humanity.
I often have what I call the "plastic bag experience" in Europe.
It's especially prevalent in London.
I dared ask for 3 plastic bags at one chardoney socialist supermarket.
Shock, horror!
I was scolded for my anti-environment activities by the checkout operator.
I resisted my initial urge to respond and scold her for her anti-human views.
I decided it wasn't worth debating with someone who supported her supermarket's racist support for "british jobs for british people".
I didn't bother to advise her that her support of her employer's policies of subsidies for (white) british farmers, meant the poor in the 3rd world died and african dictactors were kept comfortably in power.
Reduce use of plastic bags.
Only buy home grown.
It's the same, *uninformed* anti-life philosophy.
Rimu
The Greens want to give people choice only about food, water and drugs they approve of - thus missing the point entirely when it comes to person freedom of choice.
For example they are all behind trendy causes like legalising herb - but would cheerfully ban Coka-Cola or tobacco.
I assume the reason is because those two products are produced by muti-national companies (equals bad in green right-think) while pot is essentially locally grown and organic (equals good in green right-think).
Hi Sean
The Greens are not interested in banning either coke or tobacco. They are trying to stop fizzy drinks from being sold to kids in schools and to limit tobacco advertising. Both of these are for public health reasons, not because they are produced by foreign corporations.
Any hidden or unspoken agenda that they have beyond that is pure speculation on your part.
It is obvious to everyone that persecution of businesses (foreign or otherwise) is in no one's best interests. Any party that engaged in it would not last long in a democracy. It bemuses me that you would think the Greens dumb enough not to understand that.
"It is obvious to everyone that persecution of businesses (foreign or otherwise) is in no one's best interests. Any party that engaged in it would not last long in a democracy. It bemuses me that you would think the Greens dumb enough not to understand that."
Rimu, I can't believe you wrote that with a straight face.
You are talking about the NZ Green party, yes? They're the worst offenders -- and that's a big call given that every political party represented in Parliament supports policies that adversely affect, if not downright punish, businesses.
What the hell do you think the myriad of taxes and compliance costs do? Help them?!
And as for your earlier point regarding the limitations on the supply/advertising of coke & tobacco respectively for reasons of "public health", so what? I don't need your party to mind my business or tell me what's good (or bad) for me. I'm a big girl and I'll make my own decisions as to what I put into my body.
And who are you -- or anybody else, least of all a central planner -- to determine what constitutes "public health" anyway?
Numerous policies have been proffered in the past, some of which I vehemently disagree with.
How about we respect each other's right to live our lives as we see fit -- and not impose our views upon the other?
Rimu
Sus beat me to it with a well constructed response so I will not re-invent what she said here :o)
What I WILL say is that I get the impression from your posts is that you are a positive and well intentioned individual who, on the whole, values issues of personal choice and liberty and can tell the difference between persuasion and force. The thoughtful and balanced way you have put your views on here attests to that and you have my respect.
As you continue to read this blog you might like to allow yourself to consider the Green position on these things a lot more critically . After all the truth has nothing to fear from intense scrutiny. If you should find that the Greens are not really with you in the way you really want them to be then perhaps you should consider looking elsewhere?
"After all, the truth has nothing to fear from intense scrutiny."
Worth repeating, that. Well said.
(Timely, too, given the week's events thus far re MP accommodation).
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