New Zealand Conservative

Our society seems to think all change is good. Everything old is v1, and useless and anything that is worth anything has to be new and v2. Because a progressive thinks, “Well, you know, we must progress. We can make changes and all this discussion only slows us down. We must always remember that, at the end of the day, the sun will rise.” But, at the end of the day, the sun sets. PS: A useful guide to conspiracy theories (Hattip - Your NZ Blog)

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. --Aristotle Think about your habits, and what you repeatedly do. Declare those acts you wish to define yourself by, and work them into habits.   Habits of excellence. Conversely, chances are bad habits are holding you back. Until you recognise the battle ground, you may give up without a fight. This is a message for me, but you are welcome to the idea too. Reminds me of the book I chose for the graphic. The ultimate, and perhaps the original of those "guide to life" books. It's one of those books that might be very different from what you think it might be, should you take the time to read it. It packs a lot of insight into daily living, and the message is just as relevant today as it was back in the 15th century.

Creativity is so important for people. If you're not creative, you suffer. If you are creative, you suffer in a more glorious way. -- Emanuel Garcia

I was recently thinking it would be great to have super powers. When I was a kid, I was an avid comic reader, and the traditional super powers of flying, super strength, invulnerability and so forth were all very cool. I was thinking though of other super powers for a modern world that were not so screamingly obvious, and didn't require the wearing of tights or masks or horn rimmed spectacles. Not that people need super powers to dress inappropriately. So I've tried to come up with a list of 5 top super powers that aren't the standard super powers. I've also tried to list another way of achieving this power, so we'll see how that goes. I could have got to 10, but I might take all the good ones. I'm sure our readers could contribute on that score and get the list to the standard "top 10". Anyone here have a super power of blog commenting? Well, do ya? Here's my list:

I have all these vouchers, passed down from generations, that are about to expire. Who would have thought the proviso "valid until the end of the Mayan calendar" would ever be a problem? Anyone need a human sacrificial ceremony at half price? Actually, what's worse is loyalty cards. For the most part, they infuriate me. The reason is quite simple. Every time I make a purchase at a shop which receives my regular custom, they ask if I have my loyalty card so that I get the discount I am entitled to. All fine and good until there were so many loyalty cards in my wallet, I could barely get the wallet in my pocket. So I stripped my wallet back to the bare essentials and loyalty cards went in a small purse that lives inside my laptop bag. So now they never seem to be handy when I need them. So I miss out on earning those loyalty rewards, which rather than inspires loyalty, makes me feel the shop has deliberately engineered the system to make it difficult for me to prove ...

Vision without execution is hallucination. -- Thomas Edison It seems to be human nature to dream, to have some kind of vision of how you would like your future to be. Thomas Edison sums it up for me though by pointing out if you don't have a plan to execute, then you are fooling yourself. It's a hallucination. I think that's so true on the personal level. Wider than that, is the ETS. I suppose there, the vision is to save the world from the effects of man-made pollution. The execution of that is Kyoto, Copenhagen and in NZ, right now, the ETS. But it doesn't gel. Edison may have had a saying for this situation. Perhaps it would have been something like: Executing on a hallucination will not achieve the vision. Dream on, dream on.

DimPost has penned a post that I think could fairly be categorized as "chardonnay socialism" at its best, especially when taking the comments into account. One thread muses about the potential theft of public money . Apparently, such theft occurs whenever a Government decides to lower taxes. I think this quote by StephenR sums up the position nicely: No-one is disputing that people should be able to spend “their” money on whatever they like. The question is, how much money should be “theirs” in the first place. I must say that it is novel to see the "tax is theft" mantra turned on it's head. With socialism, paying less tax to the government means you are keeping their money you earned. Another question might be, "And after disputing a person's earnings, why does it automatically become the governments to take?" Yes, I realise this is all really about people paying their "fair share" for their existence in this world, and that the wor...

I've finally made it back to the lair and see that the blog is silent. Well, might get a few stray comments yet, the midnight oil has yet to be burned. It's been a strange week, the school holidays change the rhythm of life. The tsunami in Samoa was tragic news, and seems like another has struck Indonesia. Lives lost and others irrevocably changed in the blink of an eye. We all have a finite life, and we generally do not know how many days we have before us, so every day behind us is hopefully part of the journey that sees us become the best people we can possibly be. Some are on this journey to save their souls, others to spend them. Others still may not realise life is not a spectator sport. Even those who think they are on the sidelines are in the game. I'm straying into one of those philosophical musings that make it appropriate to discuss three items of wisdom from around the traps: * It was Henry Ford who said “Whether you think you can or can’t…you are right.” ...

Front page on the Dom Post is a plea to let a frail old man off from killing his wife. Apparently, a murder/suicide without the suicide. The Green Liberals think there is no such thing as a loving smack, and it must be made illegal. Yet they suggest a loving kill is a fundamental right. Go figure.

To many people, free will is a license to rebel not against what is unjust or hard in life but against what is best for them and true. --Dean Koontz Some people don't believe in free will, and think we all react exactly the same when the exact same conditions are duplicated. The point that there are so many, many possible conditions (if not infinite, then at least an improbably huge number) then perhaps we can never truly test this theory out. Aside from that, it's easy to rebel against what is best for us if we cannot even acknowledge such truth.

"She lost because people didn't bother voting for her because they thought she was going to win it" lamented 21 year old Gordon. And on that foundation, Gordon then makes the quote of the day: "I didn't vote for her because I thought everyone else would." Seems Gordon is a product of the times. The challenge is not to run our lives that way over the things that matter to us. And for those straying across this blog in three months hence, when this matter in particular is all but forgotten, Gordon refers to the initially derided "matronly" Ms Boyle from Blackburn Scotland coming in a respectable second on "Britain's Got Talent". Although I like the quote because it survives out of context. Title of this blog post courtesy of the Constitutional Peasant sketch from the Holy Grail, of course.

A general question to our visitors: If there was absolute proof of God, and that there was an afterlife - a heaven and a hell, would you do things differently? If we knew for absolute certainty this life was all about spiritual development for a next life, do you think other people would do things differently?

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. --Albert Einstein It’s intriguing that the best place to view total solar eclipses in our Solar System is the one time and place where there are observers to see them. It's intriguing to think of the conditions required to make it possible. It's intriguing to think of what we can learn from them. It's intriguing to think that this is only one of many reasons we can call Earth a privileged planet. We may have frail and feeble minds (relative to the mind of God), but we seem to be getting all the help we need to use them well. On the other hand, as Einstein once said: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.   It’s intriguing that the best place to view total solar eclipses in our Solar System is the one time and place where there are ob...

The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. [Thomas Jefferson] God himself will not save men from their wills. Thomas Jefferson understood this and suggested that the State also, is fundamentally unable to save men from their desires. A democracy allows the majority to vote in a political class committed to keeping the lambs well feed. A democracy also has the capacity to vote the same wolves out if they do not behave themselves. Sort of. Apathy, ignorance and ideological disposition may mean that the majority simply follows the best propaganda. Do we recognise propaganda when we see it? The age of reason heralded in an age of human rationalism that spre...

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Readers have already noted I have used (agreed with) quotes from famous opponents of Conservative or Christian thinkers. Bertrand Russell was the last, and you can add John Stuart Mill to the list. Mill had lots of interesting things to say about man, morals, faith and politics. Some good, some bad. Mostly bad. Unless you are a hedonist, and your moral code comes down to whatever makes you happiest. Naturally, what makes you happy can cause great distress to others, so Mill convinced himself that certain refined people, such as ...

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. --Bertrand Russell We bloggers can come across as people with strong opinions and therefore, apparent certainty. For all but the most egotistical, it's not the case. Indeed, I'm not actually certain of this line of thought, but I'll run with it. It used to be that the fools and fanatics were the fringe dwellers. Depending upon your own views, scorn would be summarily heaped upon the religious fanatics, the extreme racists, the overt capitalists, the zealous communists, and both liberals and conservatives were good for a small contribution from their fringe dwellers. And don't get me wrong - we still have our stereotypes that play true to form. But times, they are a-changing, and the more dangerous fools and fanatics hide well. They are particularly adept at crying wolf and pointing to the wolf. The wolves, in their sheeps clothing, ...

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable. -- G. K. Chesterton Update [Finally get to finish my thought]: The Boobs on Bikes Parade is all about Women's Rights. A bare breasted women promoting a porn expo is all part of their self development and growth as a human being. That's why we all need to support Steve Crowe on this issue. Go Steve, we know where you are coming from, and our sisters thank you. --End Sarcasm--

All the morality and all the rights in the world plus a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. If you have some means of enforcing the morality or rights, then you might get the coffee without the dollar. Mike Huben Could I have a cup of coffee please?

Thought for the day: A sword uses red ink.