Blog description.

Accentuating the Liberal in Classical Liberal: Advocating Ascendency of the Individual & a Politick & Literature to Fight the Rise & Rise of the Tax Surveillance State. 'Illigitum non carborundum'.

Liberty and freedom are two proud words that have been executed from the political lexicon: they were frog marched and stood before a wall of blank minds, then forcibly blindfolded, and shot, with the whimpering staccato of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ resounding over and over. And not only did this atrocity go unreported by journalists in the mainstream media, they were in the firing squad.

The premise of this blog is simple: the Soviets thought they had equality, and welfare from cradle to grave, until the illusory free lunch of redistribution took its inevitable course, and cost them everything they had. First to go was their privacy, after that their freedom, then on being ground down to an equality of poverty only, for many of them their lives as they tried to escape a life behind the Iron Curtain. In the state-enforced common good, was found only slavery to the prison of each other's mind; instead of the caring state, they had imposed the surveillance state to keep them in line. So why are we accumulating a national debt to build the slave state again in the West? Where is the contrarian, uncomfortable literature to put the state experiment finally to rest?

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Monday, September 30, 2013

Maryan Street’s Euthanasia & Iain Lees-Galloway's Drink Drive Bills' Redux. The Barbarity of Fortress Run Lives.


It was a sad day Maryan pulled the only bill in the Fortress that would’ve enacted an individual's rights, rather than the laws in the majority that destroy them; in this case the right to die in dignity, in warmth and in the company of family, not alone in a cold corrugated shed with a plastic bag over your head, reflexes fighting for a final breath. 


I almost didn’t put my previous satirical post up because, frankly, it wasn’t very good. However, I’d just completed a big post on the burden of the vicious snitch society championed by Green Leader, Russel Norman, when viewed in an appropriate literature; I’m busy and behind with the day job; and I wanted to put a protest post up in the face of my disappointment at Labour MP Maryan Street pulling her euthanasia bill from the (ridiculous) parliamentary lottery called the ballot, stating she did not want it debated in an election year. My post needed to take a dig at labour’s paternalism, and the barbarity resulting from not being able, yet again, to get a debate started on an issue that is so important to all of us, especially when considered against the tsunami of pointless laws that floods out from the sand pit of the Fortress of Legislation. Let it be understood my satire was at Maryan’s expense, but at least she had brought this basic right to die in the arms of one’s loved ones into the waiting room, albeit, withdrawn again: from National there is only the conservative silence of cowardice, or worse, the cruelty resulting from their childish mystical belief in the God-Boy myth.

But despite my post’s deficiencies, I’m pleased to say something useful did come from it. Both Maryan and Iain took the hook and bit down on it. (And to that extent, Iain, it did everything it had to, didn’t it :) )

The following twitter exchange (mainly) with Maryan brings up some interesting, wholly depressing, points about the system of our democracy. I’ll put the various parts of the exchange up, then where applicable highlight the questions left open by it. But first, importantly, as I noted to Maryan and Iain, it was satire. The first tag of the post included ‘Civilian Template’, thus I obviously was not quoting either of the MPs. From the exchange, I probably don’t have a lot of time for Iain: he went straight for the man, not the ball, plus his private member bill, the first time he has hit my consciousness, indicates merely another busy body wowser prepared to impinge on the rights of responsible drinkers, in what will be a pointless exercise to stop a minority of irresponsible drink drivers, given reducing the blood alcohol limit will do nothing to stop those already driving over the existing limit. So that’s Iain, but those who’ve read this blog will know that while much of Maryan’s statist beliefs are anathema to me, for her euthanasia bill I have a lot of respect for her. I’m glad her last tweet was still a smiley face.

So, while the blogging world seems worried only about David Cunliffe’s timesheets, moving back to what matters: policy, and please forgive the typos, it's Twitter.












Aside now to Iain’s drink-drive private member bill:











Iain didn’t contact me again, nor did he email any evidence of his claim.

Does anybody know if half a bottle of wine with a meal would put me over the 0.05 alcohol limit he wants via his new bill? (A 40% reduction from the current limit of 0.08).


The Euthanasia Debate Continued:







Here’s the first interesting bit, Maryan referring to her End of Life Choice (EOLC) bill:






And my reaction is still the same. A senior member of our Parliament will not have a bill dear to her debated in election year because she cannot trust MPs to work honourably, or think dispassionately and non-partisanly, given the exigencies of getting themselves elected.

Questions:

Can a representative democratic system work with such apparent low quality representatives? My sand pit admonition when writing on the Fortress seems well placed.

If MPs can only be expected to work conscientiously two years out of three, shouldn’t their salaries be docked by a third? My tax money is not taken from me for their private electioneering one year in three surely?

If our MPs are so witless that principles and manners are sacrificed to power lust every third election year, then is this an argument for a five year term? (With the rejoinder that other than for this bill, I’m quite happy for MPs doing nothing, rather than spewing out law after law after law restricting my liberty, and taxing me for the privilege).

Or, is this Martyr Maryan falling on her sword after being pushed by new Leader David Cunliffe, as I implied in my original blog piece?

Anyway, onward …









Maryan’s first sentence here is a valid point under our system, although I disagree with it entirely. So long as there are doctors, and there are, willing to operate a euthanasia service, then because the way I choose to die is nothing to do with the state, this is no part of a state debate. For that matter, nor does the Medical Association have a moral mandate to speak for all doctors on such a matter of conscience.






And so to the David Cunliffe issue:




.

The fact that David Cunliffe may have put pressure on bills such as this to be withdrawn so as not to scare voters in 2014 was mentioned in my original piece: Maryan never commented on that. In face of my last post above, Maryan did not answer to that, either, or David Cunliffe. The final tweet was:



And so my question remains unanswered:




It was a sad day Maryan pulled the only bill in the Fortress that would’ve enacted an individual's rights, rather than the laws in the majority that destroy them; in this case the right to die in dignity, in warmth and in the company of family, not alone in a cold corrugated shed with a plastic bag over your head, reflexes fighting for a final breath.

Imagine yourself, or your loved other, in that damn shed. Wonder why an election year should make any difference.

I’m mad as hell at Maryan for doing it, but as the only MP with such a bill in the offing, am at the same time glad she is there, if we must have this tyrannical form of governance. Though if this was her Party Leader’s doing, then there’s not enough letters in my scrabble set to say what I would wish to him and this trading away of our very humanity for votes.


That other question.

Given my earlier posts I had to get this one in:




No answer.


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