An apology
Heh I got sent this by an anonymous donor 
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Heh I got sent this by an anonymous donor
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September 22nd, 2006 at 5:06 pm
You know, she does almost look attractive there. Not remotely hideous.
Helen is an excellent advertisement for the wonders of photoshop.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:15 pm
They should have used that Woman’s Day/Weekly photoshoot one instead. Its even more ridiculously photoshopped than that one. The expense of the vaseline required on the camera lens alone would have been astronomical!
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Almost as much fun as this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7_tdzKUyzI&eurl=
shamelessly pinched the link from spareroom
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:29 pm
See now thats funny.
5 seconds to sad sonic crybabying
4…
3…
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Hammer time indeed !
Look it’s just not correct to place images of the Prime Minister in a public forum when they have been so heavily doctored. Well not unless they have a crest on them and the tax payer paid for it.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Even the teeth are fake.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:57 pm
This photo disproves the theory that “You can’t polish a turd”
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Since when did someone’s looks become a point of interest in a politicians professional life. Oh, right when they are a women. You fat ass right wingers are a bunch of sexist slobs, no wonder there are only 3 women in your top 20 ranking mps.
Just because Kathryn Rich is the yummiest mummy ….. shit I wasn’t supposed to say that.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:02 pm
In her dreams, this is why im angry at her PARTY , this is false,she is NOT easy on the eyes, thinking of dogs, my dog looks better, BELIEVE ME.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Sea Monkey…That’s kinda stink. Couldn’t you have just linked to Spare Room? Bad Netiquette. Bad Sea Monkey.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:08 pm
What the hell? That’s not bad netiquette.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:18 pm
BJ labour photoshops dear leader and this makes non-commies sexist pigs?
Therapy not going well?
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Labour, free beer goggles since 1999 !
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Ms. A. Samways,
1) read;
2) retract;
3) apologise.
Sort of what like Labour should have done in the first place really.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Oink!
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
No comment on the Nats calling her “lesbian”, then? Not even from David Farrar? Do you REALLY think the photoshopping was the issue?
I thought better of this blog. Thought it actually was a place for some intelligent political debate. But it’s clearly become a safe haven for bigotry. And those who excuse it. Shame.
Have a nice weekend.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Simon G, candidate for the first sense of humour transplant on the grounds of desperate need.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
simon g.:
Perhaps some of us have directed out comments right to the source, and don’t actually think being a lesbian is such a terrible thing. Now, I would sue if someone said I was straight but I’m just queer that way – though it would take me a very long time to stop laughing.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:03 pm
And another thought for Simon. I’m a Nat and a former office holder in the Young Nationals, and I haven’t checked out the website in years. Not really that high-traffic a site.
If she was that offended by the imagine – which has been reprinted in every major metropolitan daily, broadcast on television, and described on radio hundreds of time – all she has achieved was to increase it’s circulation exponentially. It probably would have been smarter to laugh it off with barb about stupid kids who need to grow up (and I’ve read some pretty dodgy stuff from Labour Yoofsters over the years), than cite it as Exhibit A in the great golf club conspiracy.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 pm
With the taxes I’ve paid, I reckon I own the mole on her left cheek.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Not that high traffic a site… what a lame excuse.
All of you who’ve tried to defend this really have no shame.
Crawl back into that hole will you.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Yes it’s despicable to pretend the PM look like this. George is correct, just give us the real Helen.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:53 pm
George Darroch:
Why don’t you come back and tell me the combined circulation of the Herald and the Fairfax NZ metropolitan dailies, and seriously try to argue any political website or blog – even this one – gets that kind of traffic?
I do have to remember that a good section of this blog’s readership has a direct inverse relationship between their bile ducts and their brains, so let’s spell out the obvious for the special needs readers. I thought that image was appalling – I’ve privately e-mailed the chair of the Young Nats to say exactly that – but what was achieved by it being reprinted in every metropolitan daily, screen on both networks, and described in detail in hundreds of raidio broadcasts?
Personally, if I’m offended by something I don’t react to it in a manner guaranteed to increase it’s circulation exponentially inside a news cycle.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Dont just guess on Davids site traffic , click on the ‘sitemeter’ logo and get the results:
Total 950,952
Average Per Day 3,155
Average Visit Length 2:05
Last Hour 148
Today 883
This Week 22,085
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Craig. Hasn’t that image been sitting there for a number of months and long before this recent furore?
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
discerning punters will have noticed the post on the famous peterquixote site last year a picture showing the photoshop transfer of Sue Woods teeth into the mouth of HELLENGRAD for last elections, and they bought it, i done it myself,
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:08 pm
discerning punters will have noticed the post on the famous peterquixote site last year a picture showing the photoshop transfer of Sue Woods teeth into the mouth of HELLENGRAD for last elections, and they bought it,
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:37 pm
I saw the unedited mouth tonight and wanted to put a bit into it…
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Did anybody catch HC on 10 years younger? Buggar, I missed it.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Paul:
So I understand, but as I said I’ve not checked out the site for years – it’s been six years since I was an officeholder – so I’m pretty much taking Russell Brown’s word for it. OTOH, I don’t really see it being any more or less distasteful if it’s been there a week, a month or since the days when Lady Thatcher was still Miss Margaret Roberts.
I don’t even visit party websites that often, as its more convenient to be on mailing lists for PRs and speeches if you’re that interested. Is there some law obliging political parties to make their websites ugly, under-unfriendly and content-light?
Isoceles:
Thanks for proving my point.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Who-ever of her minders allowed Miss Clark to appear on TV last night garbed in black and looking like a Christian outstaring a lion at death’s point ought to be shot.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Mara:
Just at the moment, I’m sure she’d find that a perfectly acceptable option for any number of people.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Craig. I agree with you. But tell me this? How do aggrieved and exsasperated parties, publicly portray an indivdual (who holds the highest political office in the land),and whom as a matter of public record, has lied to her constituency on more than one occassion (and does not recant). Then (later), threatens to pass into law, new laws that validates a breach of the law? What extant exists in constitutional law, for the Labour party to even consider such an option? In my view, any such action (by the law makers), also risks bringing the judicary into disrepute which already has a struggle in maintaining its impartiality and confidence of society.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Whoops, I’ve had too many whines! But in short, she sets herself up for parody and treating her compatriots as fools, she brings an awful lot upon herself.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Are you talking about the bombshell on Campbell Live this evening yet? http://www.tumeke.blogspot.com
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Are you talking about the bombshell on Campbell Live this evening yet? http://www.tumeke.blogspot.com
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:13 am
The issue is not, and ought not be, where Clark is a lesbian. What is the issue is did they take $800,000 in taxpayer funding and use it illegally. I think the Young Nats did the opposition a disservice with the lesbian remark. And the lunatic Wishart is obsessed, like most Christian nutters, about other people’s private lives. But Labour should be called the hypocrites that they are. They drag Brash through the mud (something they learned from there pet poodle) and then whine when Wishart does it to them. Wishart and Clark deserve each other. But what the hell did the rest of do?
Surely we shouldn’t let Clark divert the issue to Brash or even to herself as “victim”, while engaging in the very acts she condemns. Stay on the issue: $800,000. Pay it back. To take it was corrupt.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:39 am
Bomber, do you mean the news that Labour hired PIs to go through John Key’s rubbish?
No wonder Klark is unhappy. She must know that the EBs have some interesting ‘background’and unfortunately for her,unlike National, they won’t allow her to blackmail them into suppressing it. I can’t quite see the Labour whip sitting doen with the EBs to ‘work through the issues.’
I doubt very much any National people are/were involved, and it is interesting to see Labour appears to be the only political party which has spied on it’s opponents and their respective families.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:21 am
Bored, bored, bored, bored, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring….
This is so boring!!!!
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:33 am
Guys – some of the comments in this thread are below the belt. The humourous response is not a licence to attack the PM’s looks. There is a legitimate issue that Labour are so image crazy that they feel the need to photoshop, but please keep the comments clean.
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Helen Clark has put up with the unsubstantiated lesbian rumour for 30-odd years without comment; that she’s decided to speak up now, when she can score a point against National, shows her political astuteness. That National left themselves open to the charge of using smear tactics, by either participating in, encouraging or turning a blind eye to the promotion of that rumour, shows their lack of it. This kind of behaviour is rightly characterised as corrosive of our political life and it’s too bad that it’s taken some of you so long to notice it going on within your own party and to speak up.
Ditto for David’s belated and very mild protest about comments on Clark’s looks. This blog has hosted all manner of bile and unsubstantiated rumour about Clark over the past couple of years. In the end, how you treat your enemies is as important to your reputation as how you treat your friends.
I think National has some serious work to do to raise its standard of debate. Let’s have less ad hominem attack and hyperbole and more debate about substantive issues.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Observer- What do you and Helen Klark think are the substantive issues? I can only guess about that by going on the matters she has raised in the last few days-
1. A magazine called my husband a homosexual (when it didn’t)
2. We had to change out routine radically because we are being followed by Private Eyes (no changes to routine specified, no followers reported by Security staff other than TVNZ journalist.
3. Don Brash is corrosive and divisive influence on NZ politics (Oh wow, he has ideas that challenge some of Labour’s ideas)
4. Alan Brady said retrospective legislation was an approved way of dealing with Labour’s pledge card funding theft- (Brady denies ever saying this)
5. Don Brash and the Exclusive Bretheren are in league and out to get me (no link ever proven)
6. National must not call Labour corrupt as calling governments corrupt is a nasty nasty thing to do (even when Labour when in opposition frequently termed National corrupt)
7. Threatened to dish dirt on National MPs (and then denied ever planning to do this)
8. Drew Don Brash’s affair to the attention of the media by shouting about it inside parliament (thats a real substantive issue)
Can’t wait for next weeks ‘substantive issues’ observer, and the chance to debate them in a manner you “approve” of. Obviously, you’re going to be a very objective spectator to those events.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
observer – my response i not belated. It was made the first time I checked the blog since that post was made. I was out socialising Friday night – not home reading comments.
I also have no responsibility for the comments, so long as they do not break the law. Sometimes I will comment on inappropriate ones, but I do not have the time to be commenting (or even reading) eveny comment made. Comments reflect on those who make them.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
DPF
I don’t think anyone expects you to read all comments, but you may have noticed that what used to be a great place for some constructive debate has turned into a bile soaked echo chamber.
In addition, despite your political leanings, it seemed that you made a real attempt to foster debate.
I’m not sure what’s happened, it may be the media attention, but you seemed to have recruited (unintentionally), some of the uglier elements from the NZ blogosphere.
I’ll await the inevitable ad hominems…
“you socialists hate freedom just like Herr Klark. The country is sick of your Nazi tactics. Why don’t you just set up a gulag for anyone who isn’t gay or a commie.”
I think that’s 5 points for each Soviet allusion (Herr Klark,gulag,commie),
10 for a non sequitur (hate freedom),
20 for the ability to speak for the entire country, and 200 for the Godwin.
September 24th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Weizguy, I welcome real debate from the left, however, as you have your debating premises, so do I have mine. Just so you understand, I am relatively new to NZ. Although born here, I have lived overseas most of my life. I came back here a few years ago because of a certain set of family circumstances, and was shocked to find it a socialist hell hole.
I believe the left have gradually constructed a totalitarian society here, and that this has gone unnoticed because it has been so gradual. Many long term NZers can’t see it, but to one arriving from overseas, believe me its stark. You and your kind have built a Potemkin village here, and I am not going to debate with you what colour the store fronts should be. I want to tear down the false fronts, and expose your putrid stinking backyard to view.
If you don’t like that, I’m sorry, but as you will notice, more and more people are beginning to feel the way I do. We’re sick of having our views expressed for us by dumbfuck mass media communicators dedicated to preserving the status quo because they don’t know any better and because their livelihood depends on it.
We’re sick of having a large part of our income stolen under the guise of taxation, and used to buy the votes of racists and malingerers by those politicians who would shamelessly pervert democracy in exchange for power over others.
Ever see that movie “Network”.??? We’re sticking our heads out the window and saying “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more”. Learn to live with it weizguy. We’re going to burn your damn village to the ground, and you’ve got no way of stopping us. All you will be able to do is piss on the embers.
September 24th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I believe the left have gradually constructed a totalitarian society here
Which political paradise was your home prior to NZ, redbaiter? Do you actually know what “totalitarian society” means? If you do, I suggest you look into clozapine – it is a relatively effective treatment for paranoid schizophrenia.
September 24th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
The most interesting thing about the ‘Luke – I am your lesbian father’ farrago was how unfunny the ‘joke’ was. Exactly why calling someone a lesbian is amusing, and moreover, is worthy of being placed on a party website is beyond me.
I’d hope that people who want to run the country one day would able to think on a higher plane than paint-huffers like Redbaiter here – but apparently I’m shit out of luck.
There’s a bit of a problem with Young Nats leadership methinks.
September 24th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Ever want to argue the issue rather than make references to insanity in exactly the manner that caused me to come to my conclusions Andrew, I’m ready. Many of Stalin’s dissenters were falsely incarcerated on the grounds of insanity too.
September 24th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
When I came back from overseas, I was told over dinner by some friends that there were things that just weren’t able to be said aloud in NZ. And I have found that to be absolutely true.
Redbaiter is correct, we do have a totallitarian hellhole here that most people aren’t even aware of. Mostly because they don’t want to know. And the people that do know, that understand what is going on feel isolated and helpless.
Which is what happened in Poland before JPII brough everyone together and they realised that there were millions like them (not that we have that sort of population here).
September 24th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Alright Redbaiter – define totalitarian society!
September 24th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Alright Redbaiter – Let’s start with a definition of “totalitarian society”.
And no, answering “NZ” is not good enough.
September 24th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
“When I came back from overseas, I was told over dinner by some friends that there were things that just weren’t able to be said aloud in NZ. And I have found that to be absolutely true.”
What were you trying to say? “Dad, I want your big hot cock in my arse”? If you’re willing to stick to civilised statements argued rationally I don’t think you’ll have a problem with being heard out anywhere in NZ. Even if you stray outside that I don’t think you’ll find yourself violently gagged. People might just – shock, horror – disagree with you strongly because they find your ideology repugnant.
“Totalitarian” suggests a society where certain things cannot be said without the government grabbing you and locking you up on a flimsy pretext. Since you and Redbaiter are both still in the wild I think it’s safe to assume you can say some pretty crazy shit here without any concern about that. Certainly far beyond what is reasonable or sane..
(Oh, and Redbaiter – I’ll save you the effort of typing your reply: “Err… that’s the thing with you pathetic lefties, you think that Redbaiter is not sane. Why, Stalin thought that his critics were crazy too. This kind of totalitarian hatred isn’t restricted to leftist hell-holes either: some people even accused Charlie Manson of being insane. But sadly here in New Zealand you can be struck down by government force for actions as innocent as waving your genitals at a toddler or being caught debating the leftist politics of hate with a dairy herd. Helen Klark is after poor Redbaiter!”)
September 24th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Err. Your comments are grossly offensive. DPF: could you please ban this guy?
September 24th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Err, what a grubby mind you have.
September 24th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
You see Andrew? Err’s comments are a good idea of the kind of social attitudes that make NZ a totalitarian society. Very timely and helpful to my argument.
Definition of a totalitarian society as they exist under the influence of today’s leftists is a society that does not permit the expression of unapproved political views. You’re probably confused with the older totalitarian style of state where they locked people in prisons, exiled them or murdered them. The left discovered (too late for millions of victims) that those methods don’t work. Today’s totalitarian states work pretty much in the way that you Andrew and err have just indicated. By making certain thoughts and speech unacceptable, they gradually by very sophisticated methods forge a society where there is only one accepted political perspective, and its usually a false perspective. As it is in New Zealand.
I suggest you go to the web page of Socialist International (Klark is a senior figure in the organisation) and read the objectives outlined there and if you can’t agree with me after you’ve done that then I give up. Let me try to explain the plan in a few words. The weakness of Marxism is that it will only work if it is universal. Walls don’t work, as the East Germans found, and you cannot have isolated pockets of free thinkers putting a spanner in the works. The solution is to incrementally convert every society in the western world bit by bit by bit into a one party Marxist state.
Its a plan that has worked very well over the last few decades, especially in New Zealand, the UK and the USA, Canada, most of Europe and South America. All of these countries and regions have key politicians who are members of Socialist International, and all have societies that are locked into socialist political scenarios. High taxation, massive levels of government spending, high levels of welfare dependency both corporate and public, a meek and submissive mainstream media that refuses to employ anyone that doesn’t fit the right socialist pattern, an education system controlled by the government and teachers unions and a government that slowly but surely chips away at the rights of individuals and their earnings and their property and their businesses. If you can’t see something so obvious to so many of us Andrew, its because like the frog in the slowly heating water, you won’t know you’re being cooked until its too late. I came back mate, and I noticed the heat straight away.
“Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When obstructionists become too irritating, label them as fascist, or Nazi or liars…. The association will, after enough repetition, become “fact” in the public mind.” –Communist Party, Moscow Central Committee 1943
September 24th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
“Err. Your comments are grossly offensive.”
Donkey, mate, if I were talking to anybody other than Lucyna and Redbaiter I’d be considerably more tasteful. Unfortunately I have this terrible habit of lowering myself to the standard of my company.
Redbaiter predictably seems to have fallen back on his frequently-used “You disagree with me and you are a totalitarian!” line. While delightfully ironic (“Look! Did you see that! By disagreeing with me he’s repressing me! It’s totalitarian! I want a non-totalitarian New Zealand where nobody is allowed to disagree with me, ever!”) it grows rather wearisome and as such the frustration with his idiocy does tend to vent occasionally.
September 24th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Sorry, got dragged off before finishing prior post.
My point with the monumentally offensive stuff earlier was actually a rational one. What Lucyna and Redbaiter are objecting to as “Totalitarian” is the normal right of a society to set its own boundaries for moral statements. So the stuff that I posted was clearly over that line, and quite deliberately so: indeed, the post should have made that clear, in a rather sarcastic manner.
So if I write a post like the one above, DPF takes offence and decides to ban me for it then there’s a simple cause-effect thing going on:
cause: I make statements outside the moral boundaries of the society I am a part of.
effect: Censure of some description.
Unfortunately for Lucyna and Redbaiter they both lack the ability to look in the mirror and see that it is their own ability to keep step with the moral compass of their society that is the problem. Instead they insist on seeing this as some international totalitarian conspiracy, when in reality they’re just experiencing the same shock and disgust that practitioners of female genital mutilation or advocates of the stoning of rape victims see from us in the west.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Dear oh dear, redbaiter. There is a certain etiquette that goes along with a rational argument. The first is to define important concepts. You haven’t.
Your description of the great left-wing conspiracy is lovely, and if that is how you see the world, then my recommendation from earlier still stands.
Given that you noticed the terrible totalitarian state NZ was in when you returned home, please tell me which political paradise you came from, redbaiter. You say the Americas and Europe have succumbed to the great left-wing conspiracy. That means we are left with Asia, Africa, Oceania and Antarctica. Oceania contains the Pacific, Australia and NZ. Nuff said. I am fairly sure we can rule out Antarctica, so that leaves Asia and Africa. Now I usually try to avoid generalisations, but you see, I thought the great totalitarian societies were in those regions.
On a serious note Redbaiter – I think your comments are an insult to all those who live genuine totalitarian states, and you need to get a life. You froth as much as the rabid freaks who sell the Worker’s Voice. You have a lot in common with them.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:31 am
“On a serious note Redbaiter – I think your comments are an insult to all those who live genuine totalitarian states, and you need to get a life. You froth as much as the rabid freaks who sell the Worker’s Voice. You have a lot in common with them.”
“Donkey, mate, if I were talking to anybody other than Lucyna and Redbaiter I’d be considerably more tasteful. Unfortunately I have this terrible habit of lowering myself to the standard of my company.”
Thanks you two, for showing how right I am. Pity you couldn’t have manufactured some sort of argument for the fact that NZ is a politically tolerant society. Guess that was just too hard. Your comments show you apparently don’t even possess the simple ability required to comprehend what I said, especially you Andrew in your obvious inability to understand how totalitarianism has a different face these days. Go back to school and learn basic comprehension before you waste my time again.. lemmings..
September 25th, 2006 at 11:23 am
“totalitarianism has a different face these days.”
Redbaiter, you dunce, “Totalitarian” has an actual meaning. You can’t just redefine it to mean whatever you like and then claim that it has a “different face these days” and that anybody who disagrees with your completely inappropriate use of a word is some kind of ignorant fool.
Let’s try an actual definition:
Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul”
In other words, a system where – were it really in existence – the government would have crushed you, the National party, the EB and anybody else it disliked long ago by the use of force. As opposed to, say, doing what they do now and disagreeing with the whole gamut in strongly-worded statements. That is not a totalitarian society.
This is the problem. You don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between these two scenarios:
a) Redbaiter says something retarded, asserts it strongly and refuses to argue rationally. People surrounding Redbaiter turn around and say “Redbaiter, shut up.”
b) Redbaiter says something pertinent, government crushes Redbaiter with an iron fist.
I can assure you, it’s all the former. You don’t seem to have yet addressed the irony of your regularly accusing New Zealand of being a “totalitarian state” for disagreeing with your rather batshit opinions, yet you attack anybody who disagrees with your own position with a violence that goes well in excess of anything you find yourself being the recipient of.
You’re just a pathetic wannabe playground bully: the kind that’s quite willing to talk tough and swagger around until somebody actually stands up to them, then runs crying to the teacher complaining that the other kids are being mean and it’s all so unfair… Except in later life you seem to have found the word “Totalitarian” to replace “unfair” because it has a couple more syllables. That doesn’t make it any more applicable to the actual circumstance you find yourself in.
September 25th, 2006 at 11:45 am
“You’re just a pathetic wannabe playground bully: the kind that’s quite willing to talk tough and swagger around until somebody actually stands up to them, then runs crying to the teacher complaining that the other kids are being mean and it’s all so unfair… ”
“Dad, I want your big hot cock in my arse”?
Don’t waste my time with your arrogant hypocrisy you pathetic cowardly fraud.
September 25th, 2006 at 11:50 am
He is just an idiot err, not worth the bother.
Scary to think anyone could be so vile and hate-filled I know, but no point arguing with it.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
“Don’t waste my time with your arrogant hypocrisy you pathetic cowardly fraud.”
Hypocrisy? That was intended to be an example of something so monumentally offensive that you couldn’t say it in NZ. It seems to be toned about right: you’re demonstrating that quite effectively by being so terribly offended. My question was, short of that, what exactly was Lucyna trying to say that was getting her in so much trouble? She seems to have left that rather vague, instead taking the option of telling me I have a “dirty mind”. Sure! That’s why I can come up with stuff so monumentally offensive that it cannot be said in New Zealand without such a response. What’s so dirty in your mind that you have the same problem, Lucyna? And why haven’t you noticed that it’s dirty and put it away in public?
That aside, your rather confused attempt at highlighting my hypocritical nature doesn’t really address my point: that you’re extremely heavy on the invective yourself but the sheer act of disagreeing with you seems to warrant an accusation of “totalitarianism”. The difference between you and me is that when you reply angrily to my posts I don’t accuse you of trying to implement a totalitarian state in New Zealand. I’ve got enough balls to fight my own corner without trying to compare everybody who disagrees with me to Stalin or Hitler.
I’m rather interested as to how I’m cowardly or a fraud, too – considering we’re both anonymous here.
Oh, and Sonic – nobody capable of roughly approximating correct grammar should be as dumb as Redbaiter, so he doesn’t have that excuse either.
September 25th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Go back to school and learn basic comprehension before you waste my time again
1. – I am still at school.
2. – I can’t comprehend the incomprehensible.
3. – I am not wasting your time. You’re doing that all by yourself. Nobody is forcing you to respond to any comments here. You choose to do that yourself, so you are wasting your own time.
Given your nom de plume, I used to think you you were here just to wind people up, which I used to think was quite funny. However, now I think you’re just a raving nut-job. Not stupid, just mad.
I will leave it at that. I am fairly sure you look like the fool here.
September 25th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Err, did you notice in your definition of totallitarianism that nowhere was it described “how” all autonomous behaviour is crushed. You assumed “force”, and I presume direct knock on your door, drag you away, take you to the gulags force. Which if you actually read what Redbaiter spent the time writing, you would realise that the direct force method has been found not to work so well, and the totallitarian state of today works more subtely.
And if you wanted to know an example of just what couldn’t be said in NZ society, you could have just asked. But no, you had to be insulting and mocking instead. Which was Redbaiters other point as well.
If you really want to know what particular thing I was told not to say out loud here – ask nicely and I might tell you. A grovelling apology would go down well, too.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Lucyna, if you want to try to redefine “totalitarian” as essentially meaning “having some social norms” then you’re not going to get far. Real totalitarian states do exist, which is why we have a word for them. If you want to open up your definition so far that you try to claim that any culture that has defined limitations on what it will allow in public discourse then you’re essentially devaluing the meaning of the word entirely: once a word becomes so general as to apply to everything then it becomes useless in talking about anything specific.
Now, you seem to be suggesting that New Zealand has a totalitarian society because we have a left-wing, socially liberal government which is generally supported in its aims by the populace – and that if other viewpoints are advanced that populace tend to argue with them. Sorry, but doesn’t that strike you as the definition of a democracy? The people have some social norms, and have elected a government that fits those social norms. Some people disagree, they argue their case and have the opposing case argued back. Strikes me as the picture of health, to be blunt.
What is the suggested alternative? A society where you and Redbaiter advance your rather extreme views and nobody challenges you?
Regardless of all this, your suggestion that totalitarianism now operates by more subtle means tends to suggest it isn’t actually totalitarianism at all: If a totalitarian state crushes all autonomous institutions (as the definition I provided suggested – and that’s not been disputed yet) then why hasn’t the National party, Act, Investigate Magazine, Kiwiblog and Sir Humphreys been crushed? Your very ability to argue this point here with me in public suggests that actually you’ve not been crushed, that you are an institution acting freely against the beliefs of the government of New Zealand and that you’re wrong. Unfortunately your very ability to argue this point so publically proves the absence of totalitarianism: even if Helen Clark was reading this conversation right now you’d still be able to continue it next week.
Try doing the same in China or North Korea and we’ll talk about totalitarian states. Until then the whole debate seems rather silly.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Gee Andrew, given that every post you make is a reinforcement of my own viewpoint, I reckon I know who the fool is. You are following the classic totalitarian pattern, in attempting to categorise people who have political views that oppose the mainstream as insane etc, and apparently this clear contradiction completely escapes you.
The fact is I am not insane, and although my views may be different to that of the average National Party or Labour Party socialist, they are not irrational and neither are they as insular as you (in typical totalitarian fashion) attempt to imply.
That you think they are insular is another example of how the totalitarian political perspective in NZ affects the way people think. You are apparently completely ignorant of the fact that in the world at large, there are any number of academic texts, books and commentary that relate to the subject of modern day totalitarianism. In fact, the author Tammy Bruce recently toured New Zealand discussing this very issue. Did you know that Andrew? I doubt you’ve even heard of her. ..and that’s because, as in all totalitarian countries, you are only getting one side of the story. …and that’s a failing of yours that sticks out like dog’s balls..but then as you admit, you’re either a student, or a teacher, and if the latter, an example of where the totalitarians gain so much of their strength, for it is the education system that has fallen prey to their manipulations more than any other institution.
Tammy Bruce’s book, “The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds” aims to show why the left has, in her words, become “so compelled to resort to speech and mind control, thus contributing to a vicious circle of destroying individual liberty.” Political correctness, the most benign but still dangerous form of the left’s campaign, began with suggested speech and has ended up with campaigns designed to destroy anyone who disagrees with their agenda.
That’s totalitarianism Andrew, and sadly, you’re one of its propagandists. The campaign has been so successful, you can’t even see it when its staring you right in the face.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
“In fact, the author Tammy Bruce recently toured New Zealand discussing this very issue. Did you know that Andrew? I doubt you’ve even heard of her. ..and that’s because, as in all totalitarian countries, you are only getting one side of the story. …”
So you missed the NZ Herald story on her visit then, eh Redbaiter? Or does having a write-up in the largest daily paper in the country just not sit too well with your imaginary society where your ideas are censored and persecuted?
As for the rest of your rant, try a thought experiment: How exactly would your argument differ if you actually *were* insane? If you’re not crazy then doesn’t it worry you that your argument is not measureably different from the actually insane? If you’re unable to couch your argument in rational terms then it’s hardly the fault of society if it fails to listen to you.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Err, get the message will you you totalitarian swine.. you cancelled yourself out of the debate (or any debate for that matter) with your contemptible and cowardly remark to Lucyna. Apologise, or don’t you have even a skerrick of self respect??
September 25th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Hang on, so what you’re saying is that I said something that now officially un-persons me and warrants surpressing any rational argument I might make, regardless of its merit? Weren’t you and Lucyna just arguing a minute ago that this precise behavior is, in fact, totalitarianism?
I do waiver on my “Is Redbaiter just trolling or is he really such a fuckwit?” position quite regularly. Which means if you’re a troll then you’re a good one. But I have to say, the above post is either the most fantastic example of doublethink or a marvellous bit of trolling. So either way you’re outdoing yourself today, well done!
That aside, care to point out exactly how New Zealand is being brainwashed to avoid Tammy Bruce by two Sandra Paterson columns and a feature story? Or are you still repressing me?
September 25th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Except that your vulgar and insulting comment is nothing to do with politics, and merely an issue of good manners.. something else that is often beyond the ken of the average uncivilized leftist.. Apologise.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Being rude and mocking does tend to make people stay far away from you, Err, no matter how valid or not your arguments. That’s got nothing to do with what we are talking about, where having an opinion on something that does not represent what the society expects the opinion to be, casts the person out, effectively crushing dissent. Now that opinion may not be the private opinion of individuals, but in public they cannot state their real opinion for fear of being persona non-grata.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
err.. I’ve run out of bait. Can I borrow some of yours?
September 25th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Redbaiter,
You seem to have arrived at your current position because people took violent offence to your own rather offensive statements and responded by acting in a manner you have characterised as “totalitarian”.
So if all the disagreement with your statements were predicated on taking issues with your manners – which are no less apalling than mine considering the fact that you opened a post less than half an hour ago calling me a “totalitarian swine” and it didn’t actually stand out in any way as insulting in contrast with your normal mode of operation – then you’d retract your characterisation of NZ as totalitarian? After all, what is political correctness if not a manifestation of people attempting to detail in extreme depth what exactly constitutes good manners in a tolerant and multi-cultural society?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either you accept that people are entitled to find your arguments (or your manners, or whatever) repugnant and then ignore you – without being totalitarian – or they are in a position where they are forced to debate with you in a civil manner regardless of how disgusting your statements become.
Your actions on this thread prove which one you actually believe in – that individuals and organisations have a right to be offended by statements without being classed as totalitarian.
Available positions to you at this point in the thread:
a) “New Zealand is totalitarian – AND SO AM I!” (entertaining, but possibly a bit of a dead-end in terms of future debate)
b) “New Zealand is not totalitarian”.
How has this come about? Because you’ve arrived at what appears to be your own definition of totalitarianism: the deliberate refusal to listen to any opinions other than one’s own once the speaker becomes offensive to you. Or would you care to provide your own concise definition of totalitarianism that both fits Helen Clark’s government and me but excludes you? You’ve been asked for it previously in the thread and instead decided to change the subject.
My definition excludes you, which is seemingly rather polite of me given that you feel the urge to call me a totalitarian every ten minutes or so. Unfortunately it also excludes New Zealand, the UK, Australia, the US and the entirity of the EU, which rather buggers up your argument if you hop on there too.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Apologise.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Redbaiter – 1 simple question to which a simple answer should be possible:
Which country were you living in before coming back to NZ?
September 25th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
“Being rude and mocking does tend to make people stay far away from you, Err, no matter how valid or not your arguments.”
Well, yes, we’ve been trying to explain this to Redbaiter for a period of some months now. Unfortunately he seems to believe that we’re surpressing his free political expression at the behest of Helengrad de-Klark or something of the sort.
And I’m again going to have to take issue with your attempted re-definition of “totalitarian” to mean “a society where there are norms that you cannot violate in public without consequences”, because it’s so spectacularly general that it would apply to every society in the history of mankind. That rather debases the meaningful nature of an otherwise useful word.
Force or other forcible government instrument (essentially the threat of force, at heart) is a necessary part of any totalitarian state. You can’t attempt to claim that political correctness (=an attempt at codifying politeness) is an instrument of a totalitarian state yet also occupy the position quoted above.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Andrew, leaving aside for a moment the facile implications of your question, I will tell you that I lived in many different countries, including Libya for two years and even there, under the repressive regime of the totalitarian Ghaddafi, I found the the political atmosphere in Libyan society, less personally intrusive and oppressive than I find it here in New Zealand.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
So how are you oppressed in NZ, redbaiter? How is your personal freedom affected by the totalitarian regime that currently rules NZ.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Come back Andrew when you’re prepared to compose an argument rather than conduct inquistions with endless simpleton and infantile questions that have been answered anyway.
Answered to anyone with an open mind and average comprehension skills that is… half educated well indoctrinated and narrow minded totalitarians would probably find that fact difficult to appreciate, which is no doubt the reason for your particularly tiresome behaviour..
September 25th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Redbaiter, all your prior posts have demonstrated is that you found the official position of totalitarian Libya more aligned to your personal outlook than you find New Zealand’s social norms. I think that says considerably more about you than it does about New Zealand – I doubt you took a similarly public position of opposition and were treated better.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Apologize
September 25th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Learn to spell…
September 25th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Err, there are levels to rudeness. On debate blogs, such as this one, a bit of biffo is to be expected. Being called a totalitarian so many times, I would have thought you’d have gotten used to it by now. Especially since you don’t even take the idea seriously.
What you said however, went into the realm of the pornographic. Try saying it to the guy standing next to you in the street sometime, and see what type of a reaction you get. Compared to the reaction that you’d get if you called someone a totalitarian, or a dickhead. There are levels as to what is acceptable to what type of people in what type of situations. This is not about acceptable thought, but acceptable behaviour.
And I’m again going to have to take issue with your attempted re-definition of “totalitarian” to mean “a society where there are norms that you cannot violate in public without consequences”,
You misunderstand. There are enforced engineered unnatural norms. Norms that if you talk quietly to people about, you will find people that strongly disagree with them but are unable to do so in public.
Trying to make out that you yourself are a victim of some sort of perceived totalitarianism by Redbaiter and I is just a silly attempt at playing devil’s advocate. I doubt you actually believe what you are saying, so why argue a position you don’t understand?
September 25th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Redbaiter – it is not possible to have a rational debate about totalitarianism if that person keeps calling the other person a totalitarian and saying that every argument is a typical totalitarian response which is to be expected from the totalitarian indoctrinated.
You said NZ is a totalitarian state.
I asked you for a definition of a totalitarian state.
Your definition was:
a society that does not permit the expression of unapproved political views
As far as I can tell, you are entirely free to hold any view you want, and furthermore, you are entirely free to express it.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
“You misunderstand. There are enforced engineered unnatural norms. Norms that if you talk quietly to people about, you will find people that strongly disagree with them but are unable to do so in public.
Trying to make out that you yourself are a victim of some sort of perceived totalitarianism by Redbaiter and I is just a silly attempt at playing devil’s advocate. I doubt you actually believe what you are saying, so why argue a position you don’t understand?”
I’m not arguing a position I don’t understand, I’m pointing out that your position labels you guys as totalitarian as neatly as it labels me so. Your position is so full of holes that your continued promotion of it just makes you look more ludicrous.
For a start, how does one decide if social norms are “enforced, engineered, unnatural” ones or just good old ordinary social norms? They’ve changed inside human lifetimes? Norms do that, quite naturally. They were arrived at after a sustained period of promotion? Frequently that is the only way to act against an injustice that has become engrained in society – by making this injustice public and demonstrating why it is unjust. It strikes me that you just want to be able to pick and choose which social norms are just social norms and which ones (which, coincidentally, you happen to disagree with) are actually totalitarian repression in disguise.
There have always been norms that a number of people disagree with in private and yet espouse in public. That doesn’t make those norms bad. Graham Capill was very inconsistent in his behavior surrounding the social norm of not having sexual relations with children, that doesn’t make it an “enforced, unnatural” norm unless you’re one of the crazy lunatic fringe.
What it comes down to here is that if you disagree with a social norm these can be changed – by means of rational engagement with society. Not by screaming about totalitarianism in a circumstance where there clearly is none. Just because you and Redbaiter run against the grain of New Zealand culture doesn’t mean that New Zealand is totalitarian – for that to be the case you’d have to have found yourselves “crushed” by those who disagree with you.
Exactly how crushed are you today? Does my disagreeing with your facile arguments count as crushing? Or do you actually need to suffer some impact other than hurt feelings for actual totalitarianism to exist?
September 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
“Redbaiter – it is not possible to have a rational debate about totalitarianism if that person keeps calling the other person a totalitarian and saying that every argument is a typical totalitarian response which is to be expected from the totalitarian indoctrinated.”
What you mean of course Andrew is that its not possible to WIN a debate on totalitarianism when you constantly exhibit all the characteristics of a totalitarian at the same time as you are busy claiming not to be one.
The remarkable thing about this exchange is your inability to comprehend the point regarding the changed face of totalitarianism. Libya is an example of failed totalitarianism, in that Ghaddafi is trying to impose his political will upon the people by means of terror. So whilst you have all of the appearance of a well controlled state, the fact is that most Libyans despise Ghaddafi and his regime, and are happy to say that in places where they know they will not be informed on. Anarchy rules as there is not really a functioning government. When Ghaddafi travels, the streets are cleared for kilometres around the path of his journey. He lives in fear of his life. Meanwhile, your average Libyan (leaving aside the Islamic influence) is a free thinking free spirited independent individual, almost the complete antithesis Andrew of dull witted socialist drones like you, Err and Sonic.
In NZ, under the control of the more sophisticated and cunning regime of the International Socialists, totalitarianism has enjoyed a much more successful outcome. For example, the social environment is so controlled, you have an opposition party too frightened to speak out on the principles it professes to care about and dragged so far left by gradual social engineering, a party that once professed to stand for true liberalism is just a pale and timid imitation of the ruling clique of socialists. National today is just Labour lite..
You have parents willingly dropping their children off at socialist controlled pre-school day care centres without even coming close to realising the degree of indoctrination that is delivered in those centres. You have schools where the curriculum is totally contaminated by socialist propaganda disguised as social studies and humanities. You have universities where any challenge to the propaganda of leftist lecturers will result in a failure to pass. You have mainstream media controlled by massive injections of government advertising revenue and strategically placed leftist sycophants. You have the state controlling the most influential news outlet in the country, TV One.
As the end product of all of this, we have you Andrew, and your mates on here, so sadly lacking in critical thinking skills and comprehension that even when something is explained three of four times to you, and is so incredibly simple for any free thinker to understand, you guys are completely stumped. Your own inability to consider this issue at any more than an extremely superficial level is just one more nail in the coffin of your argument that NZ is not totalitarian.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
And yet more sex, Err. Bringing Capill in on the argument in a way to try and equate the private vs public thoughts with pedophillia. Trying to imagine what private thoughts people have that they won’t publicly state stops at sexual thoughts for you, it seems.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
My apologies redbaiter. I now see I completely missed your point. I thought you meant that there were overt restrictions on your ability to freely express yourself.
However, you are talking about subtle and covert methods used to brainwash and indoctrinate the population at large. Social engineering if you like. That is an interesting idea.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
I’m sorry Lucyna, I apologise for bringing the largest and most dramatic recent example of discord between private and public actions in New Zealand politics into an NZ political discussion of divisions between privately and publically held beliefs.
It won’t happen again.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
“I thought you meant that there were overt restrictions on your ability to freely express yourself.”
Well hell, I dunno about you Andrew, but I reckon having supporters of the status quo label myself and others who think like me insane, making us the constant target of obscene abuse and attempted ridicule, and even being told that NZ would be a better place if I and all who thought like me were exterminated in the same way the conquering Viet Cong murdered so many South Vietnamese are a series of pretty good examples of modern totalitarianism’s overt restrictions on freedom of political expression.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Redbaiter, you accuse others of being “totalitarian” with practically every breath. Should you have such a thin skin about people calling you insane in return? You certainly do seem to be more than a little touchy with anybody who even remotely dares to disagree with a word you say.
As for advocating your extermination… I reckon I must have missed that one. Does it happen often?
September 25th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Apologize to Lucyna you ill mannered arsehole..
September 25th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I don’t think anyone is thinking of exterminating you though redbaiter.
I thought your point was that the methods used in the modern totalitarian state were more subtle, more covert. As you say, “schools where the curriculum is totally contaminated by socialist propaganda” and indoctrination of children in pre-school centres.
September 25th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
“Apologize to Lucyna you ill mannered arsehole..”
Sorry Redbaiter, but I consider the social norms that prohibit that kind of language to be artificially engineered and part of a giant right-wing conspiracy to surpress edgy humour. Anybody who attempts to surpress my free expression of these views by getting offended is clearly attempting to crush me with their violent totalitarian opression.
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