Of course I’ve talked to real humans. Most people don’t even *have* an opinion on this issue. It seems like a very dry accounting debate. And the only real opinion I have is that the matter is not settled, but if it is settled, then either Labour should pay, or that should be the end of it once and for all, depending on the ruling.

Is Russell your appeal to an authority I should follow? You’re trying to give him a big head, surely? I’m imagining he’s arguing from a tactical point of view, but it’s not his personal money that’s going to have to be stumped up, so it’s easy to say.

81% think this is not another “prima facie” case where helengrad should be let off the hook. It is a pretty high statistic in my opinion. Have you talked to people on both sides of the spectrum outside the blog politics bubble. they take the facts as they are and formed a conclusion. Most people will be able to form their own conclusion – and have – without waiting for the AG. That is nit picking.

Do you really want to compromise your integrity by trying to run with Jordan & tony Milne? Even Russell Brown thinks it should be paid back. And he had not seen the final AG report either. Just used basic morality.

I’m also pretty sick of this 81% statistic which people constantly try to spin. It was a hypothetical question, to which the answer was surprisingly low – I would have thought more than 81% of people would think unlawful behaviour should be rectified *IF* it occurred.

And whether Labour did it knowingly is not the only question. The question of whether it actually was against the law is *still* a big question.

So don’t call the kettle black when you say I’m huffing, puffing and obfuscating. My thoughts have been very clear, and very clearly communicated on this matter.

If a service station worker got caught lifting $5 from the till for bus fare to get home after work he/she would most likely need to A; Pay it back B; Find a new job after being fired for theft as a servant.

OK I’ll concede that the law may be different regarding politicians stealing stuff (as evidenced by Jolly Jim using a Parliament franking machine to send out a thousand odd personal letters and only needing to pay it back) but this is wrong.

IF there was a single politician with any integrity I would expect a private members bill to be sitting in the ballot box that proposes legislation that ensures politicians are treated the same was as any other employee in this country when they are guilty of theft. I’m not holding my breath.

The combination of those two points makes it a corrupt practice. 81% of New Zealanders think the money should be paid back. ie it was taken against the rules. So the only question is doing it knowingly. The evidence certainly points that way doesn’t it.

That means National is simply doing its job as the opposition in bringing the government to account. In all this huff and puff and obfuscation those simple points are lost.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2006/09/just_when_you_thought_they_cou.html#comment-88500

xxx

S

Otherwise you suggest I had moved goalposts

1.08

Craig, I’ll simply note that you are unable to cite any paper with an editorial line not supportive of National on economic/business policy. An admission that my point on this is accurate? Thus I hardly think it’s a conspiracy theory to point out this fact.

Do any of the 4 major print daily’s regard other policy as more important than economic policy and supports Labour on this,

to the extent of actually supporting this party’s election in 2005.

Perhaps you could let us know and back up what you said (but I suspect it’s more a case of accepting the public still don’t like nuclear ships here, FFS those who want their economic policy in place are prepared to compromise on other policy issues -so is National).

1.56

Craig, if you believe any of the Herald, Dom Post, Press or ODT gave an endorsement for Labour in 2005, say so. It can be disproven.

All 4 took a position in favour of National’s tax cuts on that central election issue. That cannot be disproven.

Having the time aint got nothing to do with it.

Yeah right.

I know you’re a bit slow, dear, but could you please bag me for things I’ve actually written? I don’t post comments here under any name but my own, so it’s not that hard.

And nice to see SPC shifting the goalposts – so it’s not pro-Nat bias in the leaders/editorial but ‘endorsements’, which might strike people as two different beasts. I’ll do some digging, but I don’t recall any major newspaper endorsing any party last year – that’s more of a American/English deal, isn’t it?

And did you get what Hofsteader said about pedantry and wrenching things out of context as a hallmark of the paranoid style. My God, you make it so easy…

You ARE dismissing the opinions of those who would benefit from tax cuts simply because they would benefit from tax cuts. As if their position was solely based on that one thing.

You are in a desperate position, sonic. You are sounding less and less rational, and considering where you started this is no mean feat.

It’s like dealing with a bunch of toddlers sometimes, you make a simple point and the playground instinct takes over.

I can certainly read Kimble, I’m less sure that you can actually write.

So rather than their wealth being the cause of their opinions it might (and I would postulate is probably) the effect. That makes this group really, really worth listening to unless your head is stuck so far up your arse that you are deaf to any other opinions.

If that is the case you are totally a lost cause and really not worth much further effort towards your rehabilitation.

“Studying the millennial sects of Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Norman Cohn believed he found a persistent psychic complex that corresponds broadly with what I have been considering—a style made up of certain preoccupations and fantasies: “the megalomaniac view of oneself as the Elect, wholly good, abominably persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph; the attribution of gigantic and demonic powers to the adversary; the refusal to accept the ineluctable limitations and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissention, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral; the obsession with inerrable prophecies…systematized misinterpretations, always gross and often grotesque.”

Of course – he is alluding to the idea that the groups outside of the government order or mainstream, involved in such conflict over difference, have to rationalise their marginalisation, if they are to sustain their worldview.

The timeframe Cohn used of course refers to groups challenging the Catholic religious order (it being all too human and fallible and of the worldly order for religious idealists, which is why the pressure came to make government secular and have religion related to otherworldly idealism).