DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Sidestepping judgement & theft by proxy

Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath ransacks the newspapers for headlines and stories on issues affecting our freedom.

This week: Sidestepping judgement & theft by proxy

1. “Namby-pamby language robs us of ways to castigate wrong-doers” – Fellow Mastertonian Karl du Fresne has written a great piece on the misuse of the word “inappropriate.'’ Inappropriate touching, inappropriate head-butting, inappropriate watching of blue movies paid for by taxpayers, Hitler’s “inappropriate” behaviour toward Jews. The catchword of the age—used when people are too scared to pass judgement on others – because their moral base, their means of determining right and wrong, is a bit fuzzy. Or when they lack the courage to calla spade a spade.
       Later in the article, Karl observes what a lot of people, particularly from the Blue Team, know but don’t want to admit:
       
           “[That] Labour governments [have created] a vast network of state-
       subsidised community agencies in the belief that there’s nothing that can’t be solved
       by state intervention… National leaves them alone because dismantling them is just
       too much hassle. “
   
   He further notes that:
   
           “[They're] making bugger-all difference to anything. But they certainly provide
       careers for a lot of well-intentioned, middle-class women.”
   
   Does Karl know he is a libertarian?
   
           “An even bleaker view is that these organisations may be part of the problem
       rather than the solution, discouraging people from taking greater responsibility for
       their own lives..
       “Like the Labour government that New Zealanders tossed out in 2008, they don't think 
       people can be trusted to make their own choices.”
   
   He really nails it toward the end of the article:
   
           “At the core of the increasingly hysterical debate … lies a choice between a free
       society - in which we accept that a minority of people will behave criminally or
       irresponsibly, and take reasonable steps to control them and minimise the harm
       done - and an unfree society, in which unreasonable constraints on the responsible
       majority are justified by the need to control the behaviour of the irresponsible minority.”
   
   Brilliant stuff, Karl. Any further comment from me would be superfluous. Everybody, please read this article in full.
   
   
2. “Ugly duckling Buck House grows up  a beauty with heritage” – Ugly duckling is right; I wouldn’t want to live in this place (above), but New Zealand’s version of eminent domain has been used to seize it from its rightful owner: the person who, using his own money, commissioned Ian Athfield to design it and someone else to build it. This family home has now been placed on a “heritage list.,” taking away what few remaining property rights the owner once had. 
       For those who don’t know what a heritage list is, it’s a list of assets someone wants to preserve and enjoy at someone else’s expense because of envy. If you can’t own it, but like looking at it, get the government to steal it for you! Great idea.
   
           “The move, which could stop any alterations to the $1.6 million home,
       including painting it a different colour, has infuriated owner John Buck. It was a prime example of the ‘nanny state gone mad,’ he said. “
   
   Sorry John.  This is just nanny gone mad—just her at her normal  hysterical best. While the Hysterical Places Trust and Hastings District Council collude to stop the person who paid to build this property from exercising his rights, John Buck himself is effectively being consigned to sub-human status – stripped of the right to own anything. He should never have let the fascists get their jackboots in the door five years ago:
   
           “Mr Buck had ‘reluctantly’ allowed his home to be included on the trust's heritage list
       in 2005, accepting that the trust wanted it noted as an exceptional building. That
       designation did not impose restrictions on the owner.
           “However, now the trust wanted it protected under the district plan.
           “A council report presented on Monday said policy was to not list buildings of
       private owners without consent. The trust argued that though consent was preferable,
       it was not necessary."
   
   Only one political party promises to uphold property rights as though they were something important – Libertarianz.
   
   
3. Not a major news story, this one, but I just want to pay tribute to a nice guy, a gentleman, a classmate and medical colleague, a much-liked GP from Newtown in Wellington, Peter van Dyk, who died suddenly and unexpectedly at the weekend, aged 48. I know Pete’s friends and colleagues will be as shocked as I was at hearing the news. To his wife Steph and their children – you’ll be in my thoughts this week.

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny – when
the government fear the people, there is liberty.”
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson