• Police want drinking age raised

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A Police Association survey has shown that 72% of the statist thugs in blue want the drinking age raised to 20.

There are two main issues here:

1. the state has no right to tell people when they are old enough to drink: think “Nanny State”
2. the drinking age isn’t the problem

Let’s look further at #2. I believe that the problem with alcohol abuse – which is not a problem that the state should be attempting to solve – arises from people being raised to be nihilistic hedonists. Translation: people are raised to believe that there is no meaning or purpose to life beyond personal pleasure so they go and get drunk. Universal welfare is also a problem, permitting people to be be permanently drunk without the penalties that a drunken worker would experience. You can even get an Invalids Benefit on grounds of alcoholism.

The ironic thing is that the secular humanism taught in schools encourages nihilistic hedonism so the state is trying to fix a problem which it has aided and abetted.

The state cannot solve the drinking problem, nor should it attempt to.

Related posts:

• The minimum drinking age

• The pointless death of an undercover policeman (arguments for drug legalisation, which also apply to alcohol)

• A biblical perspective on home schooling and state schooling

Do you think that we should have a minimum drinking age or not? Do you think that raising the drinking age will help?

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Who is responsible for uneducated children? (Part 1)

In his weekly column Garth George says:

If anything, apart from the economy, needs a fresh look and new inspiration from the incoming Government, it is education.

New Zealand is right up there with the world leaders – Denmark and Korea – when it comes to the performance of our top students. But unlike those two countries, we have a huge disparity between our top achievers and the rest.

Much of the reason for that is Denmark and Korea are largely monocultural, whereas New Zealand has always had two cultures at least, and latterly a whole bunch more.

And the tail-enders in our education system are, unfortunately, made up mainly of Maori and Pasifika children. Sure, there are many Pakeha kids who also miss out, but they are a minority.

So the most important task of the new Government when it comes to education is to maintain the standards at the top end while at the same time improving the lot of the tail.

He then lauds the new Minister of Education and her Associate Minister and says:

It will not be difficult for the new team to ensure that our top students continue to hold their place among the world’s best, for they are children and young adults who have a real desire to learn and who have wholehearted support from their families.

The real challenge will be to find methods and means to lift the performance of the thousands of children who are at the other end of the educational spectrum and who, by and large, have no parental support.

It is there that the nub of the problem lies. It is all too easy to blame “the system”, or schools, or teachers for the lowly performance of so many kids, but the real fault lies elsewhere – with their parents.

For instance: at a decile 3 school with which I have a minor involvement, whose roll is 93 per cent Maori, at least half of new entrant 5-year-olds have the oral skills of 2-year-olds and no writing skills at all.

Thus the teachers cannot begin at square one; they have to spend huge amounts of time bringing their new charges up to a primary school starting point. [emphasis added]

First I will address the blue parts: educational success in Denmark and Korea has little to do with monoculturalism and a lot to do with the strong work ethic that is prevalent in those countries, because they know that educational success aids vocational success. As George says, successful students are characterised by a desire to learn and parental support.

Now for the red parts. Why do Maori and Pasifika children form the bulk of the “tail-enders”? There are at least three reasons for this:

1) they have a cultural world view which says that one should only think about today. Educational success requires both parent and child to see that today’s actions will have value tomorrow and beyond. Allow me to illustrate.

I live in an area where the majority of the population is Maori or Pasifika and it is very rare to see people on the streets for the sole purpose of exercise. Yet when I go to wealthier areas dominated by Pakeha it is common to see joggers and walkers who are clearly out for some exercise. Exercise is just like education: it requires a care for tomorrow and willingness to sacrifice today in order to gain tomorrow.

2) universal welfare has removed the need to care about tomorrow. If the state will take care of tomorrow by stealing money off people and giving some of it to you every week, along with a house and health care, why give any thought to tomorrow? Education is all about tomorrow and thus gets binned along with all other thoughts about tomorrow.

Compare this with countries that have no welfare system: education is regarded as a privilege and the children are eager to learn because they know that the stakes are high.

3) universal welfare pays people to be uneducated. To put it another way, being uneducated is profitable because you can go to the welfare office and truthfully say “I can’t get a job”. The state then says “You are clearly oppressed by the capitalist pigs, here’s some more money so that you can enjoy equality with those who work hard to pay for your cigarettes and satellite TV”.

Who is responsible for uneducated children? Parents and the welfare system that has destroyed the work ethic.

What can you add to this list of reasons for poor education amongst Maori and Pasifika children?

Poisonous are the fruits of welfarism

What do you think of when I say “beggars”? Do you think of beggars on the streets of India? Do you think of New Zealand? Read on to learn about beggars in New Zealand.

I live in an area in which over 50% of the population is dependent on welfare, and the area could be politely described as “rough”. The local shopping area is very basic, but there are a couple of decent cafes: I’ve never eaten in them, but I often walk past and they’re clearly a cut above anything else in the area. Yesterday I saw two middle-aged ladies sitting outside one of them, eating and smoking.

I then saw one of the local yokels stroll up to them. He was in his twenties, with a poor quality tattoo on his neck and the obligatory hoodie and jeans, all in black. He was scruffy but by no means the scruffiest I’ve seen. He asked one of the ladies if she could spare a cigarette, whereupon she gave him her half-smoked one. The male then asked if she could spare another for him to have later, and the lady said that she only had one and she’d need it for herself, so the male slouched off with the aimless shuffle of the long-term unemployed. I can’t be sure that he thanked his benefactor.

Several things about this scenario struck me. First, that the male was happy to take a cigarette from a stranger and share whatever diseases she might have. I’m assuming that such considerations never entered his head.

The second thing that struck me was the bare-faced cheek required to ask a stranger for a cigarette.

The third thing that struck me was that this was begging, plain and simple. I’ve often been asked for money when walking about the area, but those people are clearly just trying it on to see if I’m a sucker (“Sure, I’ll give you some money the day after hell freezes over”). How do ten-year-old kids become so disrespectful that they will ask a stranger for money – whilst munching on McDonalds? Yes, that happened to me. That’s bad enough, but classic begging is in a different category.

Then I got to wondering where all this begging originated from, and I thought of a comment that the economist Gareth Morgan made during his trip through Africa. He said that wherever he went in Africa, people were begging for money and asking him for things by name. Yet other other countries he’d been to were equally poor and the people didn’t beg; instead they invited Gareth and his friends in for something yummy like tea containing salted, rancid yak butter. Gareth believed that Africa had received so much aid that the people had come to expect hand outs, and that this was manifested in begging.

New Zealand is a welfare state where it is easy to get benefits, and people are so used to receiving hand outs that they’ve come to expect them. When the government (actually, the taxpayers) doesn’t provide what people want they expect others to provide. Like Africa, selfishness is more evident than generosity. Like Africa, we have beggars and despots.