From the Sunday Start Times Editorial:
The Right has found a heavy club to beat the government with: a referendum on smacking at the next election.
The 'right' disagree with the social engineering policies of the Greens and Labour. Should they mobilize, the left paint this as extremist behaviour, and only about the election - not about the actual issue at hand.
This is a brilliant ploy by the religious extremists of Family First.
This issue is of passionate interest to people who believe in the importance of the family, and the rights of parents to decide how to raise their children. And this leftist can only see this as "a ploy". I suspect his/her world view filters everything, and therefore he can only see motives that mirror his/her thinking.
It will gather not only libertarians, Act voters and other motley fanatics of that kind, but many decent and ordinary people.
So apparently, Libertarians are not decent people, and ACT voters are fanatics. The left are increasingly looking unhinged as they reclassify anyone in disagreement with a Labour/Green policy. Looks like this name-calling was the final straw for Lindsay Mitchell. Well done Lindsay.
It is as though the Brethren had found a cause that appealed to the mainstream.
Except this protest against the repeal of s59 has nothing to do with the Brethren. But associating anything with a Christian based group, and in turn, then with the Brethren, has become the standard leftist bashing technique. It speaks volumes on their continued media based persecution of the Brethren and the sweeping ill-formed generalisations they will make to sway opinions.
The political and social effects are likely to be large and wholly malign.
WTF? Now they stop to consider the social effects? As for the political effects - just like the EFB - this is the reaction when politicians just stop listening to the people they supposedly represent.
Referenda are tricky and can easily be subverted.
and the article then launches into all the reasons we should not let the people decide. It's one thing to get 12,000 signatures together demand the government do something to stop whaling. It's another to give any form of acknowledgment to nearly 300,000 signatures.
"Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?" is about as neutral as asking: "Should cold-blooded murderers get their just deserts on the gallows?"
Again, not only incapable of being able to distinguish between a smack and assault, the question has to be equated to cold-blooded murder. Maybe they really do want to institute the death penalty for smacking?
So the article concludes:
Family First was an active player at the last election, and it has found an ideal vehicle to drive through the next one. But do you really want to get in the passenger seat with them? Perhaps amid the fury of the election campaign, voters might pause to think before making a knee-jerk reaction. But don't hold your breath.
So now that the editorial has done its best to paint people opposed to criminalizing parents and making a smack illegal, it urges all decent people not to associate with Family First, Christians and those fanatics from ACT and the Libertarianz.
I'm wondering if Helen Clark will seize upon these ideas as justification for refusing a referendum. I mean, given the EFA the left seem so over this 'democracy thing'. In the words of the Greens over at frog blog:
"As for the whole direct democracy thing - human rights are not appropriately decided by referenda." and “majority rules, and stuff the minorities!” I’ve always thought that was the basic flaw with democracy.
Yeah, it's indecent that 300,000 extremists are allowed to live in New Zealand. So, what are the Greens and Labour going to do about it?
Related Link: Beware Extremists
See also: Kiwiblog - Smacking Referendum Likely
Print out and sign the petitions
The Anti-Smacking Petitions
Petition explanation sheet
The Right has found a heavy club to beat the government with: a referendum on smacking at the next election.
The 'right' disagree with the social engineering policies of the Greens and Labour. Should they mobilize, the left paint this as extremist behaviour, and only about the election - not about the actual issue at hand.
This is a brilliant ploy by the religious extremists of Family First.
This issue is of passionate interest to people who believe in the importance of the family, and the rights of parents to decide how to raise their children. And this leftist can only see this as "a ploy". I suspect his/her world view filters everything, and therefore he can only see motives that mirror his/her thinking.
It will gather not only libertarians, Act voters and other motley fanatics of that kind, but many decent and ordinary people.
So apparently, Libertarians are not decent people, and ACT voters are fanatics. The left are increasingly looking unhinged as they reclassify anyone in disagreement with a Labour/Green policy. Looks like this name-calling was the final straw for Lindsay Mitchell. Well done Lindsay.
It is as though the Brethren had found a cause that appealed to the mainstream.
Except this protest against the repeal of s59 has nothing to do with the Brethren. But associating anything with a Christian based group, and in turn, then with the Brethren, has become the standard leftist bashing technique. It speaks volumes on their continued media based persecution of the Brethren and the sweeping ill-formed generalisations they will make to sway opinions.
The political and social effects are likely to be large and wholly malign.
WTF? Now they stop to consider the social effects? As for the political effects - just like the EFB - this is the reaction when politicians just stop listening to the people they supposedly represent.
Referenda are tricky and can easily be subverted.
and the article then launches into all the reasons we should not let the people decide. It's one thing to get 12,000 signatures together demand the government do something to stop whaling. It's another to give any form of acknowledgment to nearly 300,000 signatures.
"Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?" is about as neutral as asking: "Should cold-blooded murderers get their just deserts on the gallows?"
Again, not only incapable of being able to distinguish between a smack and assault, the question has to be equated to cold-blooded murder. Maybe they really do want to institute the death penalty for smacking?
So the article concludes:
Family First was an active player at the last election, and it has found an ideal vehicle to drive through the next one. But do you really want to get in the passenger seat with them? Perhaps amid the fury of the election campaign, voters might pause to think before making a knee-jerk reaction. But don't hold your breath.
So now that the editorial has done its best to paint people opposed to criminalizing parents and making a smack illegal, it urges all decent people not to associate with Family First, Christians and those fanatics from ACT and the Libertarianz.
I'm wondering if Helen Clark will seize upon these ideas as justification for refusing a referendum. I mean, given the EFA the left seem so over this 'democracy thing'. In the words of the Greens over at frog blog:
"As for the whole direct democracy thing - human rights are not appropriately decided by referenda." and “majority rules, and stuff the minorities!” I’ve always thought that was the basic flaw with democracy.
Yeah, it's indecent that 300,000 extremists are allowed to live in New Zealand. So, what are the Greens and Labour going to do about it?
Related Link: Beware Extremists
See also: Kiwiblog - Smacking Referendum Likely
Print out and sign the petitions
The Anti-Smacking Petitions
Petition explanation sheet
Very well said ZenTiger. It was truly any abysmal effort of an editorial. Clearly, the SST have no desire to obtain any semblance of credibility.
ReplyDeleteOne thing though, the petitioners could have taken the adjective "good" out of the question. It does make it a loaded question. They still would have gotten 300K signatures and at the same time not given the lefties any ammo.
The strategy of denigrating the EBs seems to be one of the few that Labour thinks is working, so much so their fellow travellers are now seeing if they can get any traction from extending the net to these other unworthies: like Act voters, libertarians and other "extremist fanatics."
ReplyDeleteI believe this an example of what the left call "dog whistle politics," and purport to despise -- except when it's on their own coin.
It's going to be a nasty election.