Wednesday 26 August 2009

(Horrific) Quote of the Day: The collectivist evil that lives on [update 3]

I’ve been saying all along that all this anti-smacking spin and nonsense is not primarily about child discipline.  It has come about because Sue Bradford and her fellow travellers wanted to use those who cannot tell the difference between a smack and assault to advance the state's control over families.  I’ve been suggesting you should never forget that Sue is still at root a Marxist -- and Marx called explicitly for the nationalisation of children and the abolition of the family.  And along these lines, I’ve reminded you of her support for Cindy Kiro’s surveillance state – her wet dream of for clipboard-wielding Stasis examining every family in the country, an apparatchik in every home.

That is the ultimate goal of the collectivist, as Plato described for them over two-thousand years ago in The Republic  The Laws [see excerpt here at Google Books].  If you want to see horrific, then this is it:

The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace -- to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals... only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it."  [Hat tip Samizdata]

Feel free to express your revulsion, in any terms you care to use.

UPDATE 1:  Cometh the hour, cometh John Boscawen’s Private Member’s Bill.

UPDATE 2: Cometh the hour-and-a-half and we’ve got Sue Bradford calling Boscawen’s bill to denationalise children “a return to the Dark Ages,” and John Key continuing with his “it’s-working-fine-already” blind denial.

At least it was fun watching Adolf at No Minister wriggling while he waited to be sure what he was supposed to think.

UPDATE 3: SteveW points out that the first line of this quotation has been dropped, suggesting this changes the meaning  -- the first line being. "Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are required; the greatest principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander..."  Now note first of all that to make more readable translations some translators change clauses into sentences, which is what’s probably happened in Samizdata’s translation (which I understand comes from Karl Popper’s book, so it’s him you’d be accusing of selective quotation.)

And note also that the context given here is both “ in war and in the midst of peace,” a context Plato reinforces for the reader by going on to emphasise that “we ought in time of peace from youth onwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded… I should add that all dances ought to be performed with view to military excellence…”  In other words, according to Plato, society should be conducted like a military garrison.  And that idea is really the quote’s full context.

19 comments:

Berry said...

Try this one:

“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”

Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler

Berry said...

Or this one:

"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

Rousseau

El said...

Pure evil and rotten to the core.

Greig McGill said...

Holy crap, that Hitler quote is chilling. Amongst friends, we often refer to random leftist freedom violations and "protection" laws as TotCism (Think of the Childrenism). Seems Hitler was aware of this phrase we use in jest long before we were.

Elijah Lineberry said...

*SHUDDER*...

It really makes you think how important it is to have chaps like us (libertarians) to keep this sort of thing in check.

KG said...

"keep this sort of thing in check" Elijah?
Nobody is keeping it in check so far--name a single piece of totalitarian legislation the Libz have defeated.
Don't get me wrong--I'm almost completely in favour of the Libz but their influence on keeping what freedoms we have left intact and restoring those we've lost is almost non-existent.

KG said...

Yegods! A couple of the comments under that linked article are frightening...to think thickos like that are out in public is a worry. One of them doesn't think 1.4 million 'no' votes are significant!

Russell said...

KG: "...Libz but their influence on keeping what freedoms we have left intact and restoring those we've lost is almost non-existent".

Can you recommend a group commited to freedom that does exist please?

Elijah Lineberry said...

KG, I was talking about libertarians with a small 'L'.

Let me put it this way for you ... were the Libertarianz, ACT (*cringe*) or National (*cringe*) not on the ballot paper at each General Election New Zealand would be some Communist republic long before now.

No one should be under any illusions as to the pure evil we are up against.

KG said...

No Russell, I can't.

Fair point Elijah. But I can't help thinking that the kind of half-hearted arrangement we have right now is actually worse since it gives the illusion of freedom.
At least Poles and Hungarians for example knew what they had to fight for.

Stevew said...

A commenter on Samizdata pointed out that the beginning of Plato's first sentence has been left out - which changes the context a little:

"Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are required; the greatest principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander..."

Bristleface said...

The question that niggles me is what is it about this law that politicians in our alleged democracy are so wedded to? Key has expressed concern about how rolling back Bradford's ammendments to S59 would make us look "internationally". Could the following extract from the UNICEF Child Protection Handbook for Parliamentarians (Number 7, 2004) be a clue to the lack of political will?

http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Guide_Enfants_OK.pdf
Banning corporal punishment
The Committee on the Rights of the Child urges States Parties, as a matter of urgency, to review and amend their legislation in order to prohibit all forms of violence, however slight, within the family and in schools, including as a form of discipline, as required by the provisions of the Convention [UN Convention on the Rights of the Child]

UNICEF is a UN body - the United Nation's Childrens Fund. It is therefore safe to assume that they operate within and promote UN policy.

Are we a sovereign democratic nation or are we not [Rhetorical question]? Key is clearly a UN Globalist Chimp, swinging from the same low-hanging branch as Bradford.

Anonymous said...

Always hated Platos crap and
the diseased thinking it has
produced.

Sus said...

Latest news is Key's statement that "National will not support" Boscawen's PM bill.

So just like his predecessor, he's now speaking on behalf of all his MPs.

How're you feeling about your golden boy now, Nats?

Peter Cresswell said...

It must be hard for the poor lambs (National MPs and supporters) having to wait until John tells them what they think.

Sus said...

Is this ACT's chance to Man up by taking on Guy Smiley?

Anonymous said...

I am inclined to think that rulers have rarely been above the average, either morally or intellectually, and often below it. And I think that it is reasonable to adopt, in politics, the principle of preparing for the worst, as well as we can, though we should, of course, at the same time try to obtain the best. It appears to me madness to base all our political efforts upon the faint hope that we shall be successful in obtaining excellent, or even competent, rulers."-- Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies

Maksimovich

Brian Scurfield said...

Popper lays out the rest of the passage on page 103 of his book. Here's another excerpt:

And in times of peace, and from the earliest childhood on should it be fostered - this habit of ruling others, and of being ruled by others. And every trace of anarchy should be utterly eradicated from all the life of all men..."

Popper writes:

It should be emphasized that the passage deals primarily with military expeditions and with military discipline, but Plato leaves no doubt that these same militarist principles should be adhered to not only in war, but also 'in peace and from the earliest childhood on.'

So yes, PC, as you conclude, that idea really is the quote's full context.

You may be interested in this from later in the book:

It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities. I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind, no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency, of their originality and stubbornness and health, than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them.

Anonymous said...

I know this is personal, but when I see Bradford's dead eyes in that blank face and that squirming mouth, I feel physically ill. And to think that she will be crowing over Key's decision is rubbing salt into the wounds.

Mrs Danvers