• How the welfare state expands and endures

On the first of October this year the elderly were given “free” public transport throughout New Zealand¹. Winston Peters used this as an election bribe in 2005 and Labour needed his support to stay in power so Peters was able to deliver on his promise (at the taxpayers’ expense, naturally). Thus the welfare state expanded.

No politician will take way “free” public transport for the elderly, because to do so would be political suicide: thus the welfare state endures.

There was another interesting effect arising from the giving of “free” public transport: Grey Power complained that the West Coast of the South Island had no public transport at all², and that it wasn’t fair that other people got “free” public transport whilst those on the West Coast – who pay the same taxes – got nothing. This is not an unreasonable complaint, but it does show one of the fallacies inherent in a welfare state.

The welfare state is is supposedly all about fairness and equality – Socialist/Marxist concepts – but it can never deliver those things. Public transport is a perfect illustration of this: everyone pays the same taxes, but those in rural areas do not receive the same level of service as those in the cities. Thus people in rural areas suffer unfairness in two ways; they don’t receive the same return on their tax dollars, and they don’t have the same level of public transport as city folk do.

There are three morals to this story:

1) the welfare state almost always expands (at the taxpayers’ expense), but very rarely shrinks.

2) Socialism/Marxism claims to cure inequality but in attempting to do so creates new inequalities.

3) life isn’t fair, and forcibly taking money from one person and giving to another will never alter that.

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1. by a strange coincidence this “free” public transport was made available five weeks before an election. The fact that Labour did not acknowledge Peters’ role in this was indicative of the rift between them.

2. apart from long distance buses, which are unsubsidised and not part of the welfare scheme

• Insane rules for election day

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

According to this page on the Elections website the government kindly allows free debate on any day except election day:

You are free to start or join debate, and to try to influence other voters

As an individual you can join in any time (except on election day) by communicating with people you know, or to the public through talkback radio, writing newspaper letters or articles, putting your personal opinions online on a non-commercial basis, getting news coverage of your views, or communicating directly to members of your organisation or shareholders in your company.

I have three responses to the rules for election day:

1) First let’s look at “communicating with people you know”. I’ve been looking at s197 of the Electoral Act and I cannot see anything preventing me from talking to my friends about the election on polling day, so I don’t know where the Electoral Commission got this from. Section 197 (1)(h) says that you can’t give anyone a written list of parties and candidates on election day, but apart from that the gist of s197 covers broadcasting, public places, etc.

2) I can understand the rules in s197 that prevent squads of party faithful waylaying and intimidating voters in the street, but the rules requiring billboards to be taken down are simply insulting the intelligence of voters. Also, the rules allow cars and people to have rosettes, streamers etc. on election day, so banning billboards is inconsistent.

3) s197 also prevents people from trying to influence voters on election day via the internet, TV, radio, public address systems/loudspeakers and the like. I can understand that extremely loud public address systems could be intimidatory to voters, but internet, radio and TV are all opt-in means of communication, i.e. you have to turn them on, you are not forced to listen to them, and you can turn them off at at any time. Therefore I believe that on election day I should be able to say whatever I like on my blog, or on a radio station I own, or on a radio station whose time I have purchased. As I said in my earlier post, I should be allowed to say whatever I like when I am using my own property.

However, my slave masters will not allow this so in this post I have avoided (take a deep breath now) “any statement advising or intended or likely to influence any elector as to the candidate or party for whom the elector should or should not vote”.

Related post:

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

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Election 2008: weather and fireworks

Weather Unfortunately the forecast is good for the entire country, with just a few showers predicted in some places. The Right doesn’t like fine election days because left wing voters are more inclined to stay home when it’s wet, which says a lot about the expectation of comfort, self motivation and personal enterprise of those who vote for the left. Some people say that left wing voters are less likely to have cars because they are oppressed, but in my area where over 50% of the population is welfare dependent every man and his dog has a car and a satellite dish. This includes those living in state housing.

Fireworks The election is three days after Guy Fawkes and surprise, surprise, Helen Clark has laid off the nanny state act this time; last year she was threatening the naughty children with a total ban.

In 2006 Marian Hobbs introduced the Fireworks Safety Bill* and it is safe to assume that a total ban on sales to the public is still on the Labour agenda. Notice that they call it the Fireworks Safety Bill, not the Fireworks Banning Bill. This form of lying by politicians is nothing new.

Personally I’d be happy to strap Labour and the Greens to a giant sky rocket and send them on a one way trip to Mars.

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* a couple of points from the press release I’ve linked to:

1) Hobbs refers to the “illegal” use of fireworks: if they’re being used illegally why don’t they just use the existing laws? In NZ there is a repeated pattern of introducing laws to cover something that is already illegal.

2) Hobbs says “This Fireworks Safety Bill allows for communities to hold public fireworks displays”. Well, isn’t she so kind, allowing the serfs to go and watch a regulated fireworks display. Let no one say that Labour is the Fun Police.

Click here to view more gems from Marian Hobbs.

Election 2008: more hypocrisy from Helen Clark

In this clip from TVNZ Clark says “I believe passionately about…being kind to each other”. Are all these personal attacks on John Key during the election campaign her way of being kind to others? Or does her kindness only extend to those who share her opinions? Yes, this election is all about trust: trusting Clark to be a lying hypocrite.

Hat tip: Bob McCoskrie/Family First

Election 2008: choosing your slave master

New Zealand elections are a farcical process because we get to say who we want our slave master to be, but we do not get to express our opinion about the legitimacy of the governmental system. Nor are we allowed to say whether or not we want a government that has no legal constraints upon it and therefore has absolute power over us – power which is backed with guns and prisons.

No, we are only allowed to say which slave master we think will be the least cruel, so our country is only one step better than a one-party state that holds sham elections. We should be grateful that we have elections at all, because there is nothing that prevents the government from cancelling all elections: whatever “rights” we have in law exist solely because our beneficent masters keep them there as long as they find it convenient to do so¹.

Why do I refer to the government as a slave master? Because there is a body of opinion amongst constitutional lawyers which says that the government stole sovereignty (ultimate authority) from the citizens and rendered itself illegitimate when it passed the Constitution Act 1986².

I also refer to the government as a slave master because most New Zealanders have to work for four or five months each year just to earn enough to pay their taxes, so they are enslaved for those four or five months.

As Leo Tolstoy said:

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the produce of another’s labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded on ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live on.

Whichever way you vote you will still be enslaved, so this is not a “free land” as our national anthem says. The state is always your enemy, and as a classical libertarian I am opposed to that enemy and seeking freedom. The first step to freedom is realising that you are a slave.

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1. the fact that Helen Clark was able to breach the Bill of Rights with the Electoral Finance Act shows that the government is able to break laws with impunity: to put it another way, laws are only effective whilst the government chooses to make them effective because the government is truly above the law. It also shows that we cannot expect to receive any protection from the Queen or the Governor General, who is chosen from a list supplied by the Prime Minister.

Section 18 of the Bill of Rights codifies the right to vote: if the government can use the Electoral Fiance Act to take away the government-given right to freedom of expression in s14 of the BoR they can also take away our government-given right to vote.

Click here to view a long but very interesting article on the legalities of the EFA.

2. Update: I was remiss in not citing my source: click here, here, and here.