New Zealand Conservative

When a society does not value truth, it follows that immorality becomes the norm, and the values that holds society together - trust, honesty, respect and integrity disappear. There are many stories reflecting my concern. Recently, the complete misreporting of Susan Devoy's comments about Christmas was compounded by the media who, on the same pages as they corrected the mis-reporting, were still posting opinion pieces of outrage from their own reporters, pretending the truth didn't matter.  Why waste a story, even if built on lies? This post I came across, where the US Federal Court maintains wearing war medals never earned, expressly worn to misrepresent a persons history, is just another form of free speech. Essentially, they maintain intent to deliberately lie or commit fraud is free speech. These judges have forgotten that free speech only exists in a society that values truth, because free speech should be a counter to poisonous ideas, lies and the misuse of power...

I still think it has to be satire, but truth is stranger than fiction they say, and this story sums up the way society is changing. When we discuss children becoming tradable commodities, the idea seems preposterous, but tradable commodities they must become, for some marriages to acquire children. Meanwhile, this is a story of a person who sold himself on the sharemarket. He'd let his new shareholders decide what to do with his life. Vasectomy? Well, they thought it would maximise his earnings potential not to have children, and his girlfriend being a minor shareholder, got voted down. Sleep deprivation experiments to increase his output? Why not. Shareholders also voted him vegetarian, and eventually decided a different girl friend might yield better economic results. The Man who Sold His Fate is the title of the article, but it would be more accurate to say " The Man Who Sold His Humanity ". And you can follow the twit on twitter: https://twitter.com/kmikeym ...

I walked into Whitcoulls bookstore today, and saw that they have a big cardboard stand featuring the books of one E.L James - a female author. For those that don't know, she has authored a number of very successful novels, beginning with Fifty Shades Of Grey . It's basically "porn for mommies" (as one reviewer described it) and has taken off like wildfire. It is the number one bestselling book on Amazon at the moment, and the two sequels are numbers #2 and #3. I know that some women have read Mills & Boon and other such books for titillation, but this one seems overtly pornographic with supposed explicit scenes and heavy doses of bondage and sadomasochism. I had to wonder if a book like this would have been popular in a mainstream bookstore only a few years ago? Or is it only popular because it is said to have been inspired by the Twilight series? All I can say is that we as a society seem to be getting further and further away from genuine love and it is lu...

I came across a blog recommended by Chuck Bird: What Does The Research Really Say? by Dale O'Leary. It seems to focus on gender and sexuality issues, from a conservative viewpoint. It seems well thought out and not afraid to cite studies and references to support their argument. I've added Dale to our sidebar. The latest post covers the topic of diversity and discrimination. Like, if we are going to allow diversity of opinions and beliefs, then that should also include the beliefs of social conservatives! We are currently in the midst of a culture war. On one side we have the Sexual Left – Radical Feminists, Sexual Revolutionaries, followers of Alfred Kinsey and Margaret Sanger, and members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer coalition (sometimes labeled as sexual minorities). On the other side we have Social Conservatives — those who belong to faith traditions which hold that life begins at conception and sexual activity belongs in marriage and that...

I was reading an article about how on the program "Dexter" about a serial killer who kills the bad guys. The article discussed bringing kids into the storyline, and Dexter is morphing from a cold, hard killer to a person that can alternate between being a loving Dad and then a cold hard killer. "Dark in a new way" boasts the article. With kids on the set, some observations are made: It's a strange thing for any child in their development years to spend time on a film set, says Dexter's altar-ego, actor Michael C Hall of his young co-stars. "They are not really privy to the darker elements - they're kept from that. But they are also little sponges and they absorb energy. There could be a scene where nothing explicitly is being said, but there's a great deal of violent thoughts or tension between the characters and we'll start the scene and the actors will give over to whatever that pretending is and [Luke or Evan] will totally burst...

Every now and then the secular blogs like to pick up a generic story highlighting the evils of religious fundamentalism and open the chat threads for a bit of religion bashing. Kiwiblog has one going at the moment ( Religious Fanaticism ), and the Standard kicked one off recently that kind of backfired: Peter Jackson - Satan's Little Helper . By pointing out how some presumably extremist religious group had identified Sir Peter Jackson's upcoming Hobbit movie as a sell out to the deep and distinctly Christian themes running through the original Tolkien LOTR books, it should have been fair game. But being a left wing blog, Christian bashing had to take a back seat to Jackson's supposed capitalist, anti-union, commercial sell-out motivations. Kiwiblog, on the other hand, has used a story of ultra orthodox Jews acting like the Taleban with regard to the treatment of an 8 year old girl for dressing "immodestly". This has provided an entree for atheists to de...

Despite the historical belief that sexual offending during adolescence was “experimentation”, data would indicate otherwise. A random community sample of adult women reported that 25% of the sexual abuse reported by 500 women was perpetrated by adolescents aged 18 years and younger. Similarly, Mullen et al (1991:2) state that: “teenage offenders were a large and often quite violent group, who carried out one quarter of the offences”. New Zealand Police statistics indicate that for the years 2000 to 2005, youth under the age of 17 years committed on average 15% of all sexual offences in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand 2005). [ p10, Getting It Right, August 2007 ]

Earlier, the detective leading the investigation into the attack said New Zealand society " needs to have another good look at itself ". I've already discussed this at length: If it's my problem, give me the power to fix it . The people of NZ, when this incident came to light have poured in messages of condolences and support, along with donations. Let's not disregard that as the various hand-wringers who wish to blame every-one but the actual perpetrator ask for more government intervention and raising the minimum wage by $3/hr to cure this evil. If society itself needs to take a look at itself, lets start by shining the light very brightly on the animal evil person that inflicted this horror. If we really must go one level deeper, then look at his upbringing. I suspect easy access to porn and violent movies from a young age might figure largely in his history. Possibly also a life of some level of abuse. Whatever the case, this should not deter u...

I just have to laugh at how vapid and pathetic the fundamentalist atheists are whenever a debate on social and political issues arise. They never hesitate to *introduce* quotes from the bible to use as weapons against any person who is known or assumed to be Christian, and then immediately winge they are debating issues of the bible! To see it in action, read this thread: The Redefinition of Marriage In particular, note how they initiate the religious strawmen arguments, complain about it, and then ignore Reid and others say "stick to the addressing points I am making, which are political" which they continue to ignore, so by the time MNIJ turns up, a fundy atheist in the tradition of a Pavlovian dog, all he can open with is yet another selective quote from the bible, doing his best to take the conversation of course to an area he can froth. On the other hand, the tactic sometimes works, as there are the occasional fundy Christian that will come along and play the ...

New York Times: The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest reached unexpected early success today when the banking industry indicated they had taken on board the widespread criticism and offered to reform the financial system by next Tuesday. The reforms were seen as modest by some but were described as "a good step forwards".  Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank offered a 10 point plan in response to the OWS protests sweeping the globe: Government bonds would be scrapped.  Investing in government was an oxymoron, as was government investing Fiat currency would be abolished and there would be a return to the gold standard The gold standard would then be abolished, and return to coins minted in the realm of USA, bearing the noble head of Caesar Obama Caesar Obama would appoint local Lords to ensure the rights of citizens were upheld. A small tithe would fund this activity The noble head of Caesar Obama would be phased out for glossy beads Glossy beads would be exchanged for...

Surfing more than hunting. Skimming more than reading. Storing more than considering. Never-the-less, these posts will bear some thinking in the slower cycles of the week. Stephen Franks raises some excellent points that bear further thought when considering inequality in society and how to improve it. We discussed the Spirit Level recently, and here's another example where declaring a solution (tax people until they are equal) without actually addressing the problem will not, ultimately resolve anything. The key word for me in these discussions at the moment though is something completely different: Robots. Have we considered what society will be like in 20 years when robots and computers are taking jobs. I'm seeing the Matrix meets Terminator about 5 years after Blade Runner. Either than or Logan's Run. Surely, it wont be that bad? The Macalope makes a few good points about Windows 8 and the marketing approach of Microsoft, and then a few good rebuttals ...

I'm assuming that I missed the widespread publication and analysis of the court transcripts* and other material that detailed unequivocally the guilt of Macsyna King to the point she is deserving of any subsequent lynching by the NZ public. But then again, the column by Michael Laws in today's Sunday Star Times (SST) hints at what I expect might be the real reason Wishart and King are drawing so much venom from those that normally disparage others for any poison dripping from fangs or nibs. Laws pointed out that Macsyna King has become the face of the "underclass" that routinely beat, mistreat and maltreat their off-spring. To Laws, King has become the embodiment of the concept that the predominantly Maori, welfare dependent, drug abusing social group need to be hated, scorned and abused for visiting the sins of their parents on their children. Nothing but a good violent lynching can break the cycle of violence, Laws explains as he justifies placing the sins...

This is my one thousandth post at NZC and I thought I'd reflect on a post I made in my early days of blogging. So I've dug up an old post I made in December 2005 on my old blog, where I argued that the blogosphere does have merit, and we bloggers across the spectrum of bloggers were making a difference. It was really a response to a common meme that the blogosphere was nothing more than an exercise of shouting into the wind, or individual blogs were simply echo chambers for the same opinion. However, I have noted an impact in the antique media - there is no question the journalists read the blogs and some of the points made in posts and in the comments find their way into those articles. Sometimes, a very odd turn of phrase matches the same turn of phrase used by a blogger - I saw that with one of Lucia's post a few years ago. Fran O'Sullivan obviously had a good read of Antarctic Lemur's investigation into the Doonegate saga back in 2005, and increasingly, ...

I read an interesting article today in Harvard Business Review (wow, that makes me sound kind of intellectual doesn't it? :). In any case, the piece was written by a Peter Bregman, entitled " Why I Returned My iPad ". And what was the reason? It didn't take long for me to encounter the dark side of this revolutionary device: it's too good. It's too easy. Too accessible. Both too fast and too long-lasting. Certainly there are some kinks, but nothing monumental. For the most part, it does everything I could want. Which, as it turns out, is a problem.

What a powerful statement . And yet, doing the wrong thing seems infinitely better than setting us back on the road to doing the right things. Doing the wrong thing becomes a belief that to be sustained must be weighed against the problem of simply doing nothing. The opposite of doing nothing should not be doing the wrong thing.

Here it is - the token gesture from Statistics New Zealand to deal with public concerns over the ethnicity question in the census. Basically they are not going to change a thing because Ethnicity statistics are used by government, service providers, and communities to plan and deliver programmes, particularly in the health and social services sectors. More likely they will be used by grievance mongers to get a bigger slice of the pie for their group. But if we go down this track why don't we completely tribalize. After all Indians, a recognized ethnicity, are not a homogeneous group nor are those of European ancestry. Now this slightly related story is very funny, a Waikato University political science student is aggrieved because Hone Harawira has lumped Maori in with 'other minorities' such as "homosexuals and Asians". Which goes to show being a minority is not just a matter of race. It is anything you want it to be or not to be as the case may be. Anyway I ...

Angelina Jolie has been voted the most beautiful woman in the world. Well she's no Helen of Troy. The Tat in the picture has gone now. It has been replaced by many others since - some of which have also been removed. Normally I don't even read stories such as that linked above - they are mere fluff. But it troubles me slightly that a woman who mutilates herself is held up as the epitome of feminine beauty because it will lead the less favored to imitate, which does little to enhance their place in this world and is something I'm sure they will live to regret. Every generation has its feted beauties of course, most vapid celebrities but a few with more substance, maybe. Here is a young Bette Davis in a soft focus photograph. Far more feminine than the latest epitome of female beauty, few could argue with that. She was a great actress too. Good enough to last in the film industry well into her later years when her beauty had long faded. She is shown on the right in a still...

Where better to read about the perils of social networking than on a blog? Stay away from them. They is bad. New Zealand Conservative links to a technology update that shows how social networking causes brain damage, jealousy, social ineptness and cancer:

The film 300 portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC, in which 300 Spartans held off a huge Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. It angered many Iranians for the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks. If I remember the movie correctly, at least one of the Spartans was a conniving, backstabbing coward who lusted after the queen. A bunch of those in the political assembly were blind idiots who followed a good speech. So it wasn't all one way traffic. The Iranians ignore that part of the movie and focus on the historical inaccuracies to do with King Xerxes and the Persians. Comic book writing genius Frank Miller (Dark Knight, Sin City) and the producers of 300 have already gone on record saying they play loose with the facts. Anyway, we expect that from Hollywood and comic book writers. Especially if the movie ever starts with "based on a true story". I'm not sure anyone would be...

In the ongoing quest to annotate the obvious and increase publication tallies, it has been confirmed that who you hang out with can affect your mindset. If your social contacts are happy then there's a good chance you too will be happy, which begs the question: why do people blog? WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Happiness is contagious, researchers reported on Thursday. The same team that demonstrated obesity and smoking spread in networks has shown that the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy. And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness, they reported in the British Medical Journal. "If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent," Fowler said. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling, if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent," he added. A happy third-degree friend -- the friend or a friend of a f...