The police state has slain another freedom: now talking on a hand held cellphone whilst driving is illegal [1]. This is from the NZ Herald:

For frontline road police such as Sergeant Ashley Gore, the ban on using hand-held phones while driving could not have come soon enough.

“We have been waiting for the cellphone ban to come in because we have seen a lot of bad driving and so many near-misses,”

Naturally the policeman and the NZ Herald trumpet the party line, whilst ignoring the fact that talking on a hands free phone while driving is about as dangerous as talking on a hand held one.

The NZ Herald goes on to say

Even before the ban, police were able to charge motorists caught driving erratically while on the phone with careless use of a motor vehicle.

Great, so now if you drive erratically whilst talking on a hand held cellphone you can be prosecuted for two offences instead of just one [2]. That’s like having state executions where they shoot people twice in the head despite the fact that once would suffice.

The cop’s statement typifies the attitude of those people who rule this country:

We have been waiting for the cellphone ban to come in because we have seen a lot of bad driving and so many near-misses

The key phrase there is “near misses”. Most of the time people manage to talk on a cellphone without causing any problems, but the state punishes the majority in order to ‘protect’ them from the minority [3]. Again and again our masters see something that causes occasional problems and they decide that it must be made illegal in order to maintain social order and justify their parasitic careers. It Is Important To Be Seen To Be Doing Something is their motto. It’s the same with the anti-smacking law: a tiny minority of people beat their children to a pulp so giving a swat on the rump steak was made illegal for everyone [4].

Here’s a better way. Talking on a cellphone while driving doesn’t violate the non-aggression axiom, so make it legal. At the same time, bring in restorative justice so that those who damage person and/or property as a result of driving whilst talking on a cellphone bear the full cost of the consequences of their actions, including medical care for the injured [5]. At present the cost of medical care for the injured is borne by every taxpayer, so offenders are shielded from the consequences of their actions. When people see what the potential cost of driving whilst talking on a cellphone is – far, far greater than a $80 fine – the sensible ones will stop the practice. The foolish ones will continue their habits no matter what system is in place, but at least with my plan they will receive a huge and just self-inflicted punishment rather than a paltry $80 fine from the state.

Making people bear the full cost of the consequences of their actions is a fair and just way of reducing the dangerous practice of driving whilst talking on a cellphone. It is also consistent with the laws of nature: when a child puts his hand on a hot stove the pain teaches him to stay away from hot stoves.

~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

The NZ Herald delivers state propaganda

What is a “social contract”?

Referendum on anti-smacking law: John Key gives the finger

1. Arguably it’s not a slaying of a freedom, but rather a removal of a permission. Experience shows that any ‘freedom’ we have only exists because the state allows it to exist. If you have trouble believing this, consider the fact that the state can take your house and property at any time, it can take your children if abuse is even suspected, it can force medical treatment upon you and your children, it controls what you put into your body, and it can take as much of your money as it wants to. New Zealanders have no legal means with which to to control the government, therefore the government is the de facto absolute ruler over them. You are a vassal, a pawn controlled by the state.

2. You can also be prosecuted if the phone is not ’secured in a mounting fixed to the vehicle’. That’s right, you can’t put the phone on the seat beside you and use a hands free kit. For the full details see clause 23 here (PDF 96KB). The plain-English version (it’s as close to plain English as a bureaucrat can get) is here.

3. Who needs enemies when they have friends like that? The ban on using cellphones whilst driving is fundamentally a violation of property rights, i.e. it violates your right to do whatever you like with your property unless you violate the non-aggression axiom in the process. Think about it: Nanny State (Big Brother’s sister) is sitting in the back seat of your car and telling you that you cannot pick up the cellphone that you own.

4. That was one of the publicly stated motivations for the anti-smacking law. Here’s my version: our masters believe that smacking is wrong so they force everyone to parent as they do. This action arises from their conviction that every child is the dominion of that state not the dominion of their parents (as shown by the fact that parents must get permission from the state before they can home school their children). See footnote 1.

5. If someone is killed the offender should provide for that person’s dependents, providing what the deceased would have otherwise provided. At present every taxpayer bears the cost of providing for the dependents (via the welfare system) and therefore the offender is shielded from the consequences of his actions.

~~~~~~~~~~

The NZ Herald has an interesting article about a new way of monitoring people who have congestive heart failure.

Basically a set of scales and a blood pressure monitor are wirelessly connected to a cellphone: that’s the Bluetooth mentioned in the article, which sends data between gadgets via radio waves. The cellphone then sends the data to the hospital each day. If people forget to take their readings the hospital is supposed to chase them up.

One of the symptoms of heart failure is fluid accumulation in the body. People are supposed to weigh themselves daily and phone the hospital if they gain more than 2 kg overnight. Of course people do forget to weigh themselves, and the hospital won’t know if they’ve forgotten. A sudden worsening of congestive heart failure often leads to hospitalisation and/or death, but close monitoring and a rapid response to problems reduces the likelihood of these outcomes. That’s why this system has people weighing themselves.

Most people with heart failure are elderly, and it will be necessary to make the gadgets user-friendly and reliable in order to overcome unfamiliarity with and resistance to technology. Those patients who aren’t able to manage this form of self-monitoring are likely to have carers who can do it for them.

No system is foolproof (at the patient end or the staff end), but this looks like a simple and effective way of improving the management this condition.

~~~~~~~~~~

Garth George’s column this week has the nauseating title “We Should All Salute Our Wonderful PM“, and it goes downhill from there. It’s what is known as a hagiography, a biography of a saint.

Go and fetch a bucket, then read this extract:

He is a man of the people, as yet unspoiled by the poisonous atmosphere of power politics, and in spite of his position and spectacular wealth remains one of us.

He is every bit at home in the company of a class of primary schoolkids as he is with the man and woman in the street, or in the company of the world’s high and mighty. He is amiable, engaging, good-natured, highly intelligent, humorous and, most of all, unaffected.

Now for a dose of reality. Recently we had a referendum where 87.4% of a representative sample of the population showed their opposition to the anti-smacking law. As I said in my earlier post, John Key’s response was thus:

I don’t care how amiable, engaging, good-natured, highly intelligent, humorous and unaffected John Key appears to be: what I do care about are his actions, and his actions show that he is not a man of the people. His actions show that he is a man who wants to rule the people.

Sociopaths are some of the most dangerous people around, and they can be engaging, good-natured, unaffected, and humorous when they want to be – that’s part of what makes them so dangerous. I’m not saying that John Key is a sociopath, but I am saying don’t judge a book by its cover.

~~~~~~~~~~

The NZ Herald is reporting that Bill English, Minister of Finance Fraud wants to change property tax laws (translation: the government wants to steal more money). The article says in part…

[English said] “We haven’t had those put to us yet, but I think the evidence that investment patterns in New Zealand could be more productive I think is pretty strong.”
[...]
Those advocating change argue that investment is being funnelled into unproductive parts of the economy, such as investment properties. [Is anyone other than the government saying this? Beware of unsubstantiated statements like this one]

What arrogant nonsense. People only funnel money into “unproductive parts of the economy” when the government forces them to: if people make a poor investment their diminishing wealth tells them that they’ve done so and they quit. That’s one of the signals that people receive in a free market.

What’s really happening here is that the state doesn’t like people putting money into investment properties, so it’s going to slap on extra taxes and make that part of the economy ”unproductive”. That is how the state interferes with the free market and fouls up the signals.

If we had a true free market (i.e. zero state interference) we’d know which parts of the economy were truly unproductive: they’d be the parts that everyone was pulling their money out of. Snap quiz: how many people would throw money at the government if they didn’t have to?

It’s more than a bit rich when the government, the parasite that sucks away more than 45% of your wealth, starts blathering on about unproductive parts of the economy. Pot, meet Kettle.

~~~~~~~~~~

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

This is from the NZ Herald:

Prime Minister John Key said today the Government was “now effectively in negotiation”.

“There’s an ETS on the books, it’s a very expensive one under Labour, it would mean that quite a number of business in our view would close down. There would be a high price for consumers to pay.

“We want to amend that. Our preferred option is an ETS,”

So, according to Key, an ETS is a good thing if he thinks that it is affordable.

I find the notion of an emissions trading scheme quite bizarre: the government wants to create a tradable commodity out of thin air, based on the false premise of anthropogenic (man-created) climate change. Who wins out of this? The state of course, because there will be GST on every trade. Also, the International Monetary Fund has admitted that carbon trading is a tax and will take money away from wealthy countries, giving it to poor ones.

I say that there should be no Emissions Taxation Scam.

~~~~~~~~~~

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

This is from the NZ Herald:

A proposal to license tobacco retailers and turn cigarette packs into plain packages bearing only health warnings has found strong support.

In planning for the “end game” of widespread tobacco use, researchers canvassed public health physicians, policy officials in the Ministry of Health and other departments, and journalists.

They floated five proposals:

[1] Creating a Smokefree Commission that could require licensing of retailers, ban sales near schools, take over wholesaling, and end the glossy branding of tobacco and cigarette packets, turning them into generic, plainly packaged products displaying only health warnings.

[2] A weaker form of the commission, with licensing, but keeping existing links between suppliers and retailers.

[3] Progressively reducing tobacco import quotas, which would probably force prices up.

[4] Changing the law to make it easier to sue tobacco firms successfully.

[5] Making the tobacco industry responsible for reducing smoking, with stiff penalties if it failed to meet targets.

There is so much wrong with this insane and evil plan that it’s hard to know where to start. Here’s a partial list:

• I find it hard to believe that anyone would be so naive as to think that this would actually reduce the consumption of cigarettes. Illegal drugs almost always come in plain packaging and as far as I know no one has said “I don’t like buying marijuana when it’s wrapped in tin foil so I’ll quit right now”.
• this is yet another example of state employees trying to tell everyone else what’s good for them
• this scheme would also be a violation of property rights, i.e. it would control what cigarette companies do with the packaging that they own (as do the current regulations)
• “take over wholesaling” – sounds like Communism to me
• banning sales near schools would be a violation of property rights that would effectively be stealing money from shop owners (by reducing their profits)
• a Commission would be yet another waste of taxpayer’s money
• licensing would be yet another compliance cost for businesses that are being bled dry by the government
• when it comes to suing tobacco companies I have no sympathy for the claimants because nowadays everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. I understand that there was a time when tobacco companies told lies and hid the truth, but even then common sense would have told people (if they’d listened) that inhaling smoke that makes you cough is bad for you. Making it easier to sue tobacco companies is a Marxist notion based on the belief that big business is bad
• making the tobacco industry responsible for reducing smoking? Have these people been smoking something that isn’t tobacco?

Where do these totalitarian nanny-state ideas come from? From a bunch of university academics of course. It’s no coincidence that these people – who are state employees – almost always come up with ideas that further the state’s plans. All around the world we see that academics are hand in glove with the state, history shows that most of the leftist ideas come from academic circles, and a great many politicians come from academic backgrounds. Why do people teach in universities (or any school)? Because they want to control what future generations think, and people who want to control other people are attracted to politics, so a move from academia to politics is perfectly natural. Just think about Helen Clark’s career.

The bottom line is this: the state has no right to control what people put into their bodies. Furthermore, it is unjust to penalise shop owners and tobacco companies when attempting to control what people put into their bodies. The state should butt out and mind its own business, because it has no business taking an interest in tobacco in any way whatsoever (no pun intended).

I hope to see a free world where shops can sell whatever they like to whoever wants to buy it and each smoker bears the cost of their decisions, rather than having taxpayers bear the cost when they are dying of emphysema. The cost of health insurance would be a true and just disincentive for smokers.

What do you think about this proposal and the points that I have raised?

~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

The pointless death of an undercover policeman

The minimum drinking age

Sue Kedgely can’t force people to live healthy lives

~~~~~~~~~~

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

Would you want to send you children to school in an era where schools are a combat zone and respect for teachers is nil? Yes, there have been school fights as long as we’ve had schools, but events like this were virtually unheard of when I was at high school.

How the children really view the teacher is clear in this video, and I think that he did very well in a situation where he could never prevail and faced a real risk of injury.

Was this a riot? Consider this definition from S87 of the Crimes Act and decide for yourself:

A riot is a group of 6 or more persons who, acting together, are using violence against persons or property to the alarm of persons in the neighbourhood of that group.

~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

Thinking about state schools

New Zealand has changed a lot in 20 years, thanks to the liberal left agenda

A biblical perspective on home schooling and state schooling

~~~~~~~~~~

Click here if you can’t figure out where the tune comes from.

~~~~~~~~~~

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

Yesterday I witnessed an 18 month old child squawk when her big brother tried to take a piece of her food. Clearly she has a basic understanding of property rights, i.e. “That food is mine”. You don’t have to teach children the concept of property rights, and from this I conclude that property rights are a part of human nature, i.e. it’s a “built in feature” added by our designer.

The bedrock of libertarianism is property rights¹, and I believe that libertarianism is consistent with human nature. This belief is supported by the fact that sociopolitical systems that try to remove all personal property rights do not flourish and last, whether they be involuntary (e.g. Socialism/Communism/Marxism), or voluntary (e.g. hippie-type communes). These systems fail because they are contrary to and hostile to the way we are made.

The girl that I witnessed defending her property rights is living in a Socialist country and as soon as she starts earning money the state will begin to violate those property rights on a daily basis². The sad thing is that so many adults accept this situation without so much as a squawk, despite the fact that even a toddler recognises theft when she sees it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

There is no such thing as “human rights”: a classical liberal perspective on the Electoral Finance Act

What is a “social contract”?

1. Property rights are summed up by the non-aggression axiom, which says “It is illicit to initiate or threaten invasive violence against a man or his legitimately owned property”.

2. The only things certain in life are death and taxes, but at least death doesn’t get any worse

~~~~~~~~~~

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

Deborah Coddington is supposedly a libertarian, a person “passionately advocating individual liberty”, according to the cover of her 1998 book Liberty Belle. Now she says this:

Here’s a question for the Act Party: If its leader would sacrifice his ministerial portfolio for his “one law for all” policy, why does this party of principle advocate a different law for children when someone accused of perpetrating violence against a child comes before the court?

I cringe when I read overseas headlines proclaiming that despite New Zealand’s dreadful reputation for child abuse, we want to defy international trends and bring back pro-smacking legislation [1].

How to explain why we’d do this, especially if you talk about child murders like James Whakaruru or Nia Glassie? [2]

Commentators who sneer Sue Bradford’s law change hasn’t saved a child from death miss the point.

It’s illegal to hit an adult but that doesn’t stop adults from murdering each other. [3] (source)

That is not a libertarian position. A libertarian does not support a law which restricts personal liberty by making it illegal for parents to use force for “the purposes of correction”. A libertarian does not support a law by which a totalitarian nanny state controls how parents respond when their children misbehave. As for calling a smack – usually a swat on the rump steak or similar – “violence”, that is a gross distortion of the truth befitting a Marxist like Sue Bradford and conduct unbecoming for a libertarian.

Deborah Coddington has lost the plot and I cannot consider someone who holds her views to be a libertarian or a passionate advocate for individual liberty. Perhaps she’s headed back to her left wing roots.

~~~~~~~~~

1. Coddington has fallen for the fallacy/lie which says that outlawing smacking will reduce child abuse, and making smacking legal again will lead to a rise in child abuse.

2. This argument is specious in the extreme because it’s pretty obvious that the people who murdered these children won’t be bothered by an anti-smacking law.

3. They don’t miss the point, but Coddington does here. People point out (“sneer”) that the anti-smacking law doesn’t save lives because for a long time Bradford said that the anti-smacking law was about reducing child abuse. When she announced her anti-smacking bill she said “Section 59 [of the Crimes Act, which then permitted smacking] adds to the whole culture of abuse of children that is still so rampant in New Zealand society”. Several years later she said “the epidemic of child abuse and child violence in this country continues. My bill was never intended to solve this problem” (source). As I said in my earlier post, Sue Bradford Is A Liar.

~~~~~~~~~~