Religious Discrimination
Matthew Hooton writes in the SST on the sinister language used by Labour in defending the Electoral Finance Bill:
This week, Steve Maharey, a man Labourites seriously promote as a potential prime minister, told parliament: “The intention of (the Electoral Finance Bill) is to capture people like the Exclusive Brethren, not the Catholic Church.” A potential Labour prime minister actually said that in our parliament, but it gets worse.
No less than the deputy prime minister, Michael Cullen, asked the justice minister to amend the bill so that the Catholic Church’s planned anti-poverty campaign would be allowed to proceed, on the grounds that it would support Labour’s Working for Families policy, in contrast to something the Brethren might say.
That, too, was actually said in our parliament. Our deputy prime minister and a potential Labour prime minister are openly arguing that some religious groups should be allowed to express their views, while others should not.
Labour often talk about how they will change the Bill so it won’t affect legitimate groups. This suggests there are some groups which are illegitimate and should not be allowed to have a voice. Matthew also provides some good quotes, worth reflecting on:
As an historian, Cullen must have read the words of Robert H Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials: “The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.”
Maharey has surely read Noam Chomsky: “Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”
Both must have read George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
This is absolutely correct. There is no virtue in defending the right of free speech for views you agree with. The virtue is in defending the rights of people whose views you despise and think are totally wrong.
Finally Matthew reminds us of a classic New Zealand movie, which some took to be aimed at showing what life in NZ under Muldoon could become:
Politically motivated sackings. Ministers deciding which religious groups should be allowed to speak. Bureaucrats being instructed to peddle propaganda for the ruling party. Registers of political activity. This is not a scene from Sleeping Dogs.
It’s our reality, today, under Clark.
Maybe Mike Moore had a point after all!
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 am
about frikkin time the media woke up.
I think the historical significance of the Exclusive Brethren and their appropriation a sjustification for the EFB will be that it represented a pivotal moment in NZ political activity – it represented the moment that the Labour Party became the very thing its original founders hated.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 am
Those on the extreme left and extreme right communists and fascists have so much in common, these attempts to alienate the EB are nothing but Clark’s anti-semitism .
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Excellent post. The most remarkable thing is tho, that in most historical cases, the kind of thugs who attack freedom of political expression have come to power by violence or some kind of undemocratic means.
Here in NZ today, they have been elected to power because they have managed to garner a majority of votes from the people of NZ. This is quite a remarkable state of affairs.
NZers need to reflect upon what this means about their country, and what it has become. A country where the policies of anti-democratic totalitarians find favour among the majority of its citizens. A country that once sent men to war to fight for freedom of political expression NOW VOTES FOR THE POLICIES OF THE DICTATORS THOSE MEN DIED FIGHTING.
I believe the main reason this change has occurred is that the mainstream media in NZ have failed in their duty. NZers are just not fully aware when they vote left, of what they are really voting for.
The media have a major role to play in any democracy, and a democracy will only function if the voters are well informed. Labour’s left wing media plants have for years denied NZers real information on the objectives of the left, and apart from a few notable exceptions, they are doing the same today.
This bill would have passed with barely a murmur of protest if not for the efforts of bloggers.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 am
This regimes time has surely passed, it seems pretty standard practice in NZ politics for the power rush to overwhelm the little sense a party had by their third term.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:50 am
Godwins invoked.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
Classic divide and conquer technique.
Favour one group over its rival (Catholic over EB).
This will be a true test of the Catholic church (and every other church – including the ultra conservatives) to see how they react to this favouratism from a government.
If they say nothing they are deemed to be in league with the government, if they speak out they will be the next target of this government.
Because as history has shown, once they silence one group they will pick on the next one to silence.
How save Destiny church? Howabout the Protestants?
Be interesting in how Zen Tiger, Lucina and the fellow Catholics on the NZ Conservative blog react to these Labour party statements.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 am
STC, I take it you approve of religious discrimination then?
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
So if an Islamic group produce a leaflet for the 2008 election explaining why it won’t support Labour because they discriminate against people based on religion – will Labour take them on as well ?
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 am
Burt,
Absolutely and this is the crunch for not just every church, it is the reality for every organisation from unions to employer groups, from lobby groups like the AA to Federated Farmers, every organisation should now be concerned.
The “We Won, You Lost, Eat That” attitude is coming to the forefront. If you are against Labour you are a second class citizen deemed not wothy of a say in this “free” society.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:15 am
So substitute ‘Jews’ each time the Exclusive Brethren are mentioned and see how it reads.
And where is the out-cry from Civil Liberties [Barry Wilson or whoever he was?], John Minto, and the Churches? And the RSA – don’t they have a on-going commitment to the ideals of those who served the country against this sort of fascist crap?
Will the Catholic Church be silent because it is ‘useful’ to the Government – Jesus would have been proud of that!
And the new Christian party is too busy fighting amongst itself to have any view of this either – another honour for Jesus.
Was freedom of speech, the pinacle of news and current affairs, and in depth journalism paying Judy Bailey $800,000 a year?
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Our election funding system is sham like in Britain and the US but in many ways even worse. The media’s afraid to seriously look into the issue and, anyway, they only do what they’re told. To hear some different views on election funding that aren’t purely a result of ignorance and spin (that includes you Hooton) check out the 6000 word interview with Nicky Hager that’s in the new White Fungus which is coming out next week.
http://www.whitefungus.com
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
Spare the self-righteous indignation.
The Exclusive Brethren tried to covertly spend millions of dollars in collusion with the National party to subvert the electoral laws.
When you do something like that, you kind of expect the parties that weren’t in collusion with the campaign to want to clear the law up a bit to stop such an unprincipled rort occuring again.
Now I’m not really for this Bill, and I think the controls on genuine third party advertising should be pretty relaxed, but there should quite clearly be some kind of constraint on the behavior of those that would try to spend millions of dollars secretly to try and steal an election.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
(Martin Niemoller)
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:41 am
Ahh, so you’re a labour lacky, perhaps you’ve forgotten that it was Labour who spent up large using money stolen from the tax payer to steal the election. I guess for you that doesn’t count as it was labour. The EB broke no laws and spent their own money, I have no problem with it.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:44 am
‘Labour lacky’ Andrew W
Really is that the best you can do? Nice to see you tow the line mate.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:54 am
Andrew W how is Clark anti-semitic because she doesn’t like the EB?
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 am
Labour told us after the 2005 election that their additional $800,000 didn’t make any difference to the outcome of the election – “Move on” was the call.
Therefore by Labour’s own admission the amount of money a party spends during an election makes no difference.
Or have I forgotten the golden rule of Labour supporters – it’s only wrong when other parties do it. You Labour supporters are all showing yourselves to be lovers of corruption – how does it feel to show the world you have zero integrity ?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 am
I don’t know burt, You tell me.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
If I asked under the Information Act for Steve Maharey to comment on the appropriateness of South Park’s BLOODY MARY episode, regardless of his answer, could that be deemed as a politician expressing an official view on an issue which would then qualify it under the provisions of the EFB to be a matter that limits anyone else, like the Catholic Church, from expressing their view on it to $60,000 [like a couple of court cases to express a view] in an Election year?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
He could have used “lickspittle” a term i believe I am credited with for using to describe adoring sycophantic adherents to Clarkism.
It is so much more appropriate as the word lackey implies so sort of work, something socialists avoid like i avoid cancer.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 am
Has anybody noticed how bad John Key is at public speaking. I mean, I know he’s got a pretty space and knows how to smile for the cameras, but he doesn’t actually know how to speak. The gaffe when he said he’d be leading Labour into the next election was hilarious. But the funny was that he didn’t notice he’d made it. I mean he wasn’t even thinking about the words coming out of his mouth, just repeating his lines and not even noticing when his strings got in a tangle. I know that doesn’t really matter with the media these days, smiling for the camera is the main thing, but Clark will demolish him in the debate. I wish there would be one sooner.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:14 am
Rudolph Hudsucker
As I support the position that all parties that were identified as having broken the law get charged I can’t really tell you what it’s like to be so partisan that my own head is up my own a55.
Furthermore I didn’t support retrospective corruption validation so I guess I’d never make it as a Labour supporter.
Sorry I can’t tell you.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Southern Raider DPF recently posted on how an analogy that Bush made was misconstrued as a gaff – “it was an analogy which no intelligent person could confuse.”
You have made the same mistake.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:17 am
know burt, it seems like you can’t tell us much. Do you know how politics really operates. I suspect you don’t, but you’re part of it.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 am
Has anybody noticed how bad Rudolph Hudsucker is at blog commenting. I mean, I know he’s got a pretty website and knows how to troll and spam comments, but he doesn’t actually know how to type. The gaffe when he typed about the gaffe that Key madewas hilarious. But the funny THING was that he didn’t notice he’d made it. I mean he wasn’t even thinking about the words coming out of his arse, just repeating the Labour spin and not even noticing when his tits got in a tangle. I know that doesn’t really matter with the blogs these days, dribbling Helen’s lines for the trolls is the main thing, but the VRWC will demolish him in the debate. I wish you’d piss off on the weekends like Sonic.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
Actually I did notice. Thanks for bringing up Key again. Let’s talk about this guy. He’s a moron with a pretty space just below his face.
[DPF: You are veering dangerously off topic]
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
There are only 2 reasons why The Labour Party hate the EB
1. They nearly succeeded in bringing down the government
2. They think they repress women
The Electoral Finance bill isn’t about transparency of democracy it is akin to Ernesto Bertarelli changing the rules of the America’s Cup to ensure that he retains it next time.
This blog is the closest thing we have to keeping democracy – let’s keep this issue alive
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Rudolph Hudsucker
So now you have shown us that you are a lefty by playing the man and not the ball – would you like to try this debate thing. It’s fun give it a go and see if you can keep up.
Lets start with election spending. Do you agree with Labour that the additional $800,000 it spend in 2005 made no difference to the election outcome?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 am
Burt.
It has been my experience on this blog that when youtry to engage a left wing blogger in reasoned debate, it’s like teaching a pig to sing.
It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Keep trying though
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:34 am
ah burt..!..always with the nostalgia/old battles..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:34 am
of course burt, but wouldn’t it be better if politicians could spend time working on policy and talking to people rather than always chasing corporate dollars to have any chance to win. Labour and National are playing the same game, just Labour has a little more integrity. But if you think I’m a Labour lackey you’re highly unperceptive.
[DPF: In NZ politicans spend very very little time chasing corporate dollars - maybe a few functions a year for senior MPs. Most of it is done by the party hierarchy. What MPs do spend a lot of time on is building membership, local functions that raise $500 per pop etc.]
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 am
Rudolph
Can you clarify what “of course..” means. You think it made a difference or you think it didn’t ?
Labour has a little more integrity than National… Now you are trying to be a comedian. Is integrity something that you can put in place retrospectively in your world ?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
philu
It’s only historic when it’s history. The curent electoral funding debacle is what is keeping it alive – not me.
You and I should get together for a bong one day – I’m sure we would have a bloody good laugh at each others perspectives.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:40 am
sorry, I meant a lot more integrity, National doesn’t have any, but I wish Labour would be a little bolder in standing up to you cronies. What you don’t understand is I disagree with the whole system of election funding. Yes, I’m criticising the very goldfish bowl you’re swimming around in.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 am
got to log off for a while but pile up the insults and I’ll respond to them later.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
Rudolph, this idea should appeal to someone with your outlook, wouldn’t it be even better to do away with elections as well! Then the government wouldn’t have to worry about all that campaigning, think of the zillions we could save without democracy, that should all be right up your alley.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:48 am
burt..
bongs are so..2006..!
so retro..!
haven’t you found the wondrous delights of ‘vaporising’ yet..?
mmm!!!..vapoorising…!!
“..just the thc vapour thanks..!..hold the vegetation..!..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
Rudolph didn’t answer the question. Funny that question always send sonic packing as well.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:50 am
“s’cuse me..!..while i kiss the sky..!..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
“Tow the line” – pffft.. typical half educated well indoctrinated one dimensional leftist.. drunk the Hate-Brethren Kool aid by the keg full..
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 am
philu
mmm!!!..vapoorising…!!
Oh yes… I concur.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:57 am
Congratulations Matthew, David, and the contributors to this thread for daring to turn the rout of would be opponents too scared to appear to be thought to stand beside the EB.
For months the PM and her lackeys have been able to silence critics with fear of association with the EB. In Hansard Mallard repeatedly referred to them as “chinless scarfwearers”. Imagine if an opponent had denigrated a viewpoint of Ms Clark’s Islamist friends by calling them “towelheads”, or if someone had attacked Tim Barnett as a ‘shirtlifter’ instead of dealing with Tim’s argument. Any substance in the debate would have been media buried for days in outraged howls for apologies, and the insulter would have lost from the moment of opening his mouth.
Instead the insulting ad hominem attacks have been treated as substantively justified, or immaterial.
I watched a number of submissions to the Select Committee around mine (for Sensible Sentencing Trust). On the pro-bill side, the Green MP was absent and Labour and NZ First members affected a bored indifference, confining themselves to taking turns (Benson Pope then Doug Woolerton) with variants on the question “So you support the EB right to rort our system”.
It worked on some submitters. They were reduced to confused mumbling along the lines that they “supported the objectives, just not how ‘extreme’ the bill is”.
To his credit, the Forest Owners Association’s Roger Dickie did not fall into that shameful category.
This is our generation’s fight for freedom.
All the anti-discrimination rhetoric and legislation of the past 20 years has been hypocrisy. Terrorised by a farcical expression of EB views, the left Establishment have shed their sheeps’ clothing of pretended tolerance (expressed mainly in law ordering ordinary people to pretend tolerance).
The long term worry is not now those who’ve been exposed. It is how we recreate media sensitivity to hypocrisy. Intolerance has masqueraded as “human rights activism” for years. That brainwashing seems to have worked. Journalists who should have been sceptical have not blown the whistle. This thread blows them.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
perhaps this extract taken from a recent article by sometime Labour Party activist, cabinet minister and historian, Dr Michael Bassett somes it up completely …
“Flick forward to Clark’s time as deputy Prime Minister 1989-90 and her own leadership since 1999. Those same characteristics are there, only more so. She has become one of the cleverest political organizers – some would say manipulators – in New Zealand’s political history. Promoting Margaret Wilson, Ruth Dyson, Maryan Street and Heather Simpson, she surrounded herself with a dour Praetorian Guard who picked Labour’s candidates on the basis of whether they were prepared to support her, and their causes. Clark learnt early the importance of cultivating the media, which, like Parliament itself, was being feminised. Many journalists have adopted her; she has become their best friend. Clark has very successfully ridden the international wave of female empowerment that has dominated the last 30 years.
Paranoia can become a liability. Witness Clark’s obsession with the Brethren that underlies the proposed crazy election spending restrictions, and her closed mind over nuclear power. Economies, societies and political parties have to evolve, and update. Experts now know that the high-tax, regulatory world of Clark’s youth slows growth. Easy welfare, so eminently fair in the 1970s, causes much of today’s family dysfunctionality, violence, child abuse and crime. Out-dated shibboleths and political correctness drive her educational system. Today’s Labour Party seems listless, many of its MPs having served their initial purpose of supporting Clark. Labour averts its gaze from economic and social problems that need fixing if we are to compete in a globalizing world.
Skilled at deflecting criticism, with a genius for seeing off opponents and down-grading colleagues who aren’t true believers, Helen Clark and her government nonetheless have grown stale. Their thinking doesn’t “move on”, which, oddly, is her favourite phrase.”
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Your comment Ross reminds me of the amazing commentator consensus to dismiss (as personal revenge) Mike Moore’s recent alarm calls to the honest members of the party he’s worked for so hard.
None thought to remember the corroboration (like Dr Bassett’s) from other former Labour people. The only comparison I recall them making was with John Tamihere’s even more pithy expose. That too the chatterers had tried to detoxify with ridicule of John.
Contrast that with the chatterers’ eagerness two decades ago to trumpet the warnings (Derek Quigley’s deification), then mea culpas of National people awakening from their own apostasy under a dangerous leader.
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
REDBAITER: One thing you could add to your post is that dictatorial leaders can be elected in a democracy by bribing voters. If Labour hadn’t bribed the electorate in the last few weeks before the last election it is likely they would have lost. Unfortunately the arguments over the EFB will fall on deaf ears for at least 50% of the electorate. But offer more goodies and those ears will be wide open. Then they get the government they deserve.
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Stephen F sums it up perfectly. Let he who has ears let him hear; let him who has eyes let him see.
Very hard for ‘Rudolph Hudsucker’ et al to comprehend. I guess the dumb bit comes with the territory.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:20 pm
At the risk of repeating myself, the EFB has nothing to do with the EB.
The EB are the ‘enemy within’ that Labour have created and demonised in order to justify their EFB.
EFB may give her a stab at fourth term before she resigns
but she can severely impede Labour’s electability for many years, but that is secondary to her own ambitions for getting re-elected its a zero-sum gambit.
She will play the suckers with this mythical ‘EB under the bed’ until the cows come home and her supporters will parrot the ‘EB-evil/EFB-good’ line ad nauseum, regardless of the truth.
If the EFB goes through, she will take over/buy the media with Labour Govt propaganda which will involve lucrative advertisng contracts designed to promote Labour and also keep the news media tractable.
However, if it this strategy fails to work, she will allow Burton and the rest of her minions take the bullet if it fails, before the election is called, then wash her hands of it, and them.
After the next election she will quit for a UN type job but it will be very difficult for everyone else in NZ to ‘Move On’ after this.
Her legacy will be that it will become accepted government practice to demonise, persecute or villify any group in New Zealand if they are perceived as a threat to the government. This basic abnegation of Human Rights in NZ will employ our police force as a political arm, to arrest malfactors, and the judicial system as amechanism for fining or denying kiwis their democratic voice.
What astounds me, is the number of those out there who are prepared to parrot the ‘EB-evil/Labour-good’ line in support oof Helen Clark’s ambition, which is already established to be designed ofr her self-aggrandisement, and not for the good of the New Zealand public. It really is the ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’ line writ large.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
As for Rudolph – why would any one wnat to insult him He’s entitled to his opinion, just as I am entitiled to mine…… this year at least.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Frank. Says: I might as well repeat this question asked on a different thread:
“September 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Sonic: Have you proof that these 7 businessmen were representing the views of 6,000 members of the Exclusive Brethern?”
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
“To hear some different views on election funding that aren’t purely a result of ignorance and spin (that includes you Hooton) check out the 6000 word interview with Nicky Hager”
Heh. You want to avoid ignorance and spin, and you read something from Nicky Hager? Clearly you are living in lala land.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Lee C said “At the risk of repeating myself, the EFB has nothing to do with the EB.
The EB are the ‘enemy within’ that Labour have created and demonised in order to justify their EFB.”
You could be right there Lee, but I believe that the EB made the mistake of opposing the Government in a pretty spectacular way – now it’s payback time. What does seem unhealthy though is Benson-Pope’s seeming preoccupation with the EB through the Select Committe process – pretty much everyone who has posted here after going to the SC has reported on this. Maybe it’s a smokescreen.
Back to Hooten though – in some ways it’s a pity that HE is the one who has brought this to light, and not the MSM – the potential implications of what he has noted will get muddied by charges of political partisanship. If this is the thin end of the wedge, where might it end?
September 23rd, 2007 at 4:20 pm
TOTAL AND COMPLETE TARGET MISS !!!!!
They have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at the EB’s so much so that they obviously consider them a much more critical target than the National Party,
In doing so they upset a vast majority of organisations and common kiwi’s.
But to add insult to the very people (The EB’s) they tried to stop are now not even stopped!!!
INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!
September 23rd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
The trouble with the Jews was that the looked like other Germans, so you had to some how identify them so people could beware!-Hence the Yellow Stars.
The trouble with the EBs is that their pamphlets looked like any old pamphlets
so they should have declared their religion along with along with their names so good socialists wouldn’t be defiled!
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Surely this is a gag post David. Its simply too ridiculous to be true. To confirm the story: the government wants to constrain free speech but codify in law an exemption for one organisation which the govt presently agrees with in respect to one issue.
No, surely this is not true. Its just too bad an idea and the consequences of it are too serious. And it is openly corrupt.
Please, DPF, tell ms its not true.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I don’t know whether anyone has proposed this or not, but if the EFB does pass it would be good for groups to flout it and (if they are arrested) for it to be made a very public court case. In this way, it will bring the bill to the attention of the general public much more than a lot of the discussion which is going on now which seems to be under the radar of most NZers.
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:07 pm
The EBs are not the target per se, they are merely the convenient stooges. If they hadn’t shown up Labour would have demonised some other group to justify this facism.
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Oh dear it appears that Mr Hooten has been channeling some of the more way out commentators on Kiwiblog.
I wonder what the local Jewish community is going to make of another National party insider demeaning the holocaust by comparing criticism of the EB’s covert campaign at the last election to the suffering of Jewish people during the greatest crime in history.
A huge own goal.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm
inventory, I think Benson-Pope is just really really keen to get back in the good books of the upper echelons of the party, and his EB fixation is just a way to nail his colours to the post.
sonic I agree, it is too facile to make direst comparisons like Clark=Hitler EFB=Jews. It is belittling what the the National Socialists did to the Jews, and taint the contemporary argument about the EB.
BUt on a psychjological level, there is an element of hate-mongering about Labour’s treatment of the EB, which is quite suspect, and begs the question why are they allowed to use their priviledge to do this?
I also don’t like it way people throw the accusation of ‘Nazi’ around, or use ‘gulag’ to describe the smallest infringement on their liberty.
However, the thread is about religious discrimination, and so, to some extend, it is not completely erroneous to bring up histrorical comparisons, even it they stretch credulity at times.
In the meantime, Labour still however keeps playing the EB=card, and has attempted to demonise them in an attempt to pervert more logical discussion about the merits of the Bill as a constitutional issue.
But it is stretching it a bit to suggest that any disagreement people might have with the EFB, or any sympathy shown for the EB amounts to mud-slinging accusations of naziis.
If someone were to use this accusation of naziism against their opponents because it suited theier own agenda, when they know it to be untrue, might they not open themselves to the charge of ‘demeaning the holocaust’?
Conversely, might they be accused of trying to change the subject?
Or at best, using this very serious situation in a flippant manner?
Or are they really interested in defending the rights of people, Jewish or not, in which case, why are they strangely silent about recent accusations made against the EFB, by the Human Rights Commission?
I like to ask myself a cautionary question, which goes like this:
In any given society, if the Nazis took over tomorrow, who amongst the people you know, would be most likely to put themselves forward for a Brown Shirt? This evaluation is based on psychological type, and previous strength of attachments to various causes, as well as the ability to bend the truth, or ignore inconvenient ones if it foils the party line.
I like to think I wouldn’t join up, I can’t be sure, but I like to think it.
Who do you know who might be a prime candidate?
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Lee C said “inventory, I think Benson-Pope is just really really keen to get back in the good books of the upper echelons of the party, and his EB fixation is just a way to nail his colours to the post.”
Possibly Lee – but remember too that B-P was the sponsor of the Civil Unions legislation (as Labour weren’t honest enough to get one of their gay MP’s to sponsor it – that would have told all and sundry the legislation’s real purpose!), so he probably took some heat from EB constituents. Also, the “social” activities that B-P is alleged to have partaken in would not have endeared him to the arch-conservative EB.
Like you though, I’m still deeply suspicious about an underlying agenda here for Labour. The progress of the EFB should be stopped forthwith.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Sonic said “I wonder what the local Jewish community is going to make of another National party insider demeaning the holocaust by comparing criticism of the EB’s covert campaign at the last election to the suffering of Jewish people during the greatest crime in history.”
Ahem, Sonic – I do believe that it was one Nicky Hager who decribed the EFB as the type of legislation associated with Nazi Germany – and even in your wildest dreams, I don’t believe you could call Nicky Hager a “National party insider”!
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Benson Pope is still a prime candidate for bashing the EB, it isn’t like he hasn’t had a history of bulllying or victimising those who couldn’t retaliate.
Every party needs its enforcers.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
As of this week, Godwin’s Law is redundant.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
He he – between duct tape, tennis balls B&D gear and workplace threats, you’d have to say that B-P has form in the victimisation/bullying dept!
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:44 pm
What I want to know is why didn’t any other parliamenterians, of any stripe, take these two to task for these comments?
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:02 pm
ben Says:
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
“No, surely this is not true. Its just too bad an idea and the consequences of it are too serious. And it is openly corrupt.”
The following is from Hansard
Questions for Oral Answer 18 Sept Q4
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/QOA/d/f/9/48HansQ_20070921_00000223-4-Electoral-Finance-Bill-Parliamentary-Democracy.htm
English to Burton (answered by Maharey)
The relevant points only in this quote, Use the link if you want all verbage…
Hon Bill English: “Will the Catholic bishops’ campaign on poverty, scheduled for election year 2008, be caught as an election advertisement and therefore make the Catholic Church subject to all the requirements of the third party regulations in this bill?”
Hon STEVE MAHAREY: “I think the Minister of Justice has made it clear a number of times that the intention of this legislation is to capture people like the Exclusive Brethren, not the Catholic Church as in the example the member has pointed out—that is, the Catholic Church going about its normal process of issue-based discussion, and not supporting a particular party but simply explaining an issue.”
Hon Bill English: “……What basis does he think Caritas Aotearoa – New Zealand and the Catholic Bishops Conference would possibly have for the statements that they have made in their submission—that it will catch their campaign on poverty, and that the bill does not distinguish between groups like the Catholic Church or Caritas and the Exclusive Brethren.”
Hon Dr Michael Cullen: “Will the Minister ensure that the bill is amended so that the Catholic Church’s campaign can proceed,…..
Hon STEVE MAHAREY: “I will ensure that that takes place, because of course this is the kind of good news that the National Party does not like but that ought to be told right across New Zealand.”
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Whaleoil makes a very good point. That whenever Helen Clark uses the word Exclusive Breatheran substitute the word jew and then see how you feel about it. The ugliness of her language against that religious group is borrowed directly from Hitler. Looking at it like that and you can see the true character of today’s Labour Party. How dare people spend their OWN money opposing us.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Damn, am I hearing we should treat the EB types with total equality.
They should not get any special favours at all.
What a great idea, now the EB are in favour of
the Iraq crusade, even want Clarke to apologise
for being against it.
Since they are not pacifists, should they lose
the right not to defend NZ when needed.
Remember Brash saying we should all be totally equal in all respects.
Should a few be more equal than others.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
grumpy I agree with the sentiment of treating us all equally. However by including them in the speech that Don Brash made we would need to then allow them the same reaction some other groups had to that speech. We would therefore need to allow them to have quite a backlash.
Lets play with what was said and see how we like it. Following on from Whaleoil’s principal.
Imagine….
Would we accept that from Parliament ?
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Interesting…
If the Catholic Church has been given special consideration to campaign on child poverty – has the Child Poverty Action Group ?
Will the CPAG be limited to spending a maximum of $60K publishing any material at all in 2008?
The CPAG have a court case still in progress, will spending for this be hindered in any way by the electoral funding rules?
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Sonic is right to a point; in the danger of comparing current EB persecution with the Nazi treatment of the Jews. The holocaust stands out as a permanant stain on Western civilization.
But it began some where.
That is where the comparison comes in.
In the early 1930s an unpopular religious minority was deliberately defamed and made a scapegoat for the ills in German society.
Ridiculously false accusations concerning their religious observances together with enforced racial stereotyping degraded the Jewish people in the eyes of the Nation.
Along with this were allegations of covert political influence and international conspiracy which succeeded in dehumanising a section of the population to a point where the national conscience was so desensitized that the “Final Solution” could be implemented.
Makes you wonder why the Labour Caucus call Benson-Pope the “Brown Shirt”.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Just a little point people.
It wasn’t just the jews who were persecuted by the Nazi’s. Jehovah’s Witnesses were also locked up and gassed, as were political prisoners, communists, gypsies, and other undesireables, like outspoken journalists.
I am not saying that the EFB is akin to these camps, but when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, his continual references to Jewish Plots and thier attempts to continually subvert the true leaders are beginning to resonate.
I do not agree with the Exclusive Bretheren. I find them to be a somewhat strange and unusual grouping, who do not seem to fit neatly within NZ Mainstream society, but they are allowed to freely hold a beleif, and live thier lives in accordance with those beleifs as long as they do not break the law.
And in this vein, I find the EFB to be the thin edge of the wedge. This impinges on the base freedoms we should be safeguarding, and it needs, it MUST, be stopped now!
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Gerrit, personally I think that the Labour Party statements as to what groups are legitimate to be chilling, to say the least.
The Labour Party treats the EBs as if they were a criminal organisation, which they are not. The EBs “crime” was to attack Green Party policy through their pamphlet. The EB’s accusations against the Greens were mostly entirely true, as ZenTiger showed in his post on the matter on the now defunct Sir Humphreys. So, what the Labour Party are showing is that criticise the policies of their staunch quasi-ally (The Green Party) with the truth to be a crime.
So, they’ve got everyone focusing on the fact the EB’s dared to spend money on anti-Labour stuff (which was really pointing out scary Green policy) and on the EB’s identity (aaaiiieee- Christians!!!) which seems to get many in the NZ population frothing without breaking out a sweat.
And in the meantime, Labour keep ploughing ahead with their clampdown on free-speech, which I think they hope will keep them in power after the next election, because buying votes will most likely not be enough.
Scary, scary, scary stuff, that this is happening. Bringing up Catholics as a “legitimate group” is just a blindside to make everyone think everything will be alright.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 pm
The whole comparison thing is lame. Anti-semitism is about racism. The Nazis objected to Jews as people. Their religion was of secondary importance.
There are a lot of people in this country who think the EBs are a dangerous, small-minded cult willing to use their collective resources to influence political change and yet, ironically, forbidding themselves to actually participate legitimately in the political process.
I don’t give a rats arse about the EBs as people. I am sure they’re a bunch of nice people. But the cult to which they belong – now that deserves the vilification it is getting.
Here’s the thing: Under the Nazis you could not “stop” being a Jew. You were a jew by blood (the infamous blood taint). By comparison, as soon as someone leaves a cult like the EBs, they’re no longer EBs. That’s the difference. There is no real comparison with the Jews and the EBs.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I understand some people’s willingness to defend the EBs. The horrors the EBs perpetrated on its membership pales when compared with the monumental evil perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church against its adherents and society generally over many centuries. For a very recent small example (small compared to, say, the Inquisition) the US Catholic Church expects to pay out more than $4 billion in compensation to the thousands of young Americans (mostly boys) sodomised by trusted family Priests and for its willingness to go to extraordinary lengths to cover-up its own malfeasances. I suppose when you’ve spent a lifetime justifying that kind of hypocrisy and evil – defending the EB cult as being mostly harmless must come easily.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Dead Duck Dux
You do make a valid case re the difference between race and religion for a selection criteria. However are you defending that the selection of people based on religion is justified because they can leave that religion to escape the persecution?
We will need to be careful how we draft that law if we don’t want suicide bombings in Wellington.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I wonder what the local Jewish community is going to make of another National party insider demeaning the holocaust by comparing criticism of the EB’s covert campaign at the last election to the suffering of Jewish people during the greatest crime in history.
And when Helen Clark et. al. compare people holding a lawful and legitimate protest march outside Parliament to “blackshirts” and “Nazis” isn’t trivialising the horrors of the Third Reich? Keep spinning, Sonic – because last time I looked there was universal revulsion at the desecration of Jewish graves at the Makara cemetery in Wellington a few years back, and the horrible desecration of mosques in Auckland more recently.
Here’s the thing: Under the Nazis you could not “stop” being a Jew. You were a jew by blood (the infamous blood taint). By comparison, as soon as someone leaves a cult like the EBs, they’re no longer EBs.
And where do I begin with this fatuous and frankly offensive nonsense from Dead Duck Dux. I can’t actually “stop” being of Catholic and Protestant descent; and I don’t think I’ll stop practicing my faith – no matter how much you despise it – because you’re a bigot, or that bigotry is socially respectable (you know, like anti-Semitism was not so long ago).
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
“But the cult to which they belong – now that deserves the vilification it is getting.”
“Here’s the thing: Under the Nazis you could not “stop” being a Jew. You were a jew by blood (the infamous blood taint). By comparison, as soon as someone leaves a cult like the EBs, they’re no longer EBs.”
DDD I’m disgusted by that comment, Like the Jews of pre-Hitler Germany I’m sure that the EB are amongst the most law abiding people in society, for you to actually say they deserve vilification! Adolf’s right, Godwin’s Law is redundant. You just proved how utterly contemptible the haters supporting this campaign against the EB are.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
“the US Catholic Church expects to pay out more than $4 billion in compensation to the thousands of young Americans (mostly boys) sodomised by trusted family Priests ”
Secular teachers abuse far more children than Catholics. ..and your bigoted and hate fillled diatribe against religion is just another example of what filth are currently running this country and how fucked in the head they are. David Benson Pope- “Panty Boy Slut”, making judgements on the EB’s and issues relating to this bill. FFS..!!! What a low this country has come to under the political ascendancy of the left.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
DDD
Some light reading for a defender of the indefensible like yourself.
First They Came for the Jews
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Duck’s rant is a perfect example of the hate mongering that accompanies leftist political objectives. Stalins gulags and purges, Pol Pots killing fields, Guevara’s blood filled massacres were all justified by the same kind of rhetoric. The left, especially insane haters like Ducky who wrap themselves in cloaks of academia and moral superiority, are extremely dangerous people.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
The exclusive brethren made some pamphlets and distributed them. So what ! At least they paid for the propagation of their views out of their own pockets. They should be judged on the content of the material published and not on whatever wacko views they might hold on whatever.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Andrew, you dork, I said the Cult deserves vilification. I have no view on the individuals. The few I’ve met around here seem nice enough. And by the way, Andrew, read back a few posts. I have nothing but contempt for the EFB. I don’t like the EBs because they’re a dangerous cult. Mind you, I also think all religious institutions pretty much fall into that category. My comment is only tangentially related to the EFB.
Burt, well-versed in the horrors of Nazism, thanks – and I am not sure anything I’ve said could be interpreted as defending the indefensible. I am sure you’re also aware the Nazis also railed against trade unionists, academics, social democrats, socialists, feminists, homosexuals…hey wait a minute…I am getting an irony alert from Black Pot and Glass House HQ.
Red, I know you’re scared, but I rarely venture into the Bay… Seriously, man, get help.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
“I said the Cult deserves vilification. ”
Moron, the cult is it members.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm
And I never mentioned the EFB in that comment
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Dead Duck Dux
We do know you don’t like the EB, however you still haven’t addressed my first question:
are you defending that the selection of people based on religion is justified because they can leave that religion to escape the persecution?
IE: Are you saying you don’t have an issue with law that are openly intended to target a particular religion or group of people?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Craig
I thought you were smarter than that.
How’s it bigotry to talk about the Catholic Church’s horrendous record of abuse? I mean, it goes back centuries, it’s not exactly a secret! How’s it horrendous to talk about the EB cult’s manipulative behaviour?
You want to believe in magic and have a big invisible friend, that’s your business. But when your religious beliefs start rolling into the secular world and start negatively affecting others – well, then I say it’s open season. This whole concept that people’s whacked out nonsensical views are beyond discussion is bullshit. The EBs did what they did because of their extraordinarily weird beliefs.
I don’t know why you’re so keen on defending the EBs, they haven’t even got the decency to participate in our democracy (other than through illicit means).
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:21 pm
“(other than through illicit means).’
What “illict means”???? I say this is a lie and a cowardly false allegation, just the kind of crap haters like you habitually engage in Ducky. (“they’re evil and they deserve vilification”). For fuck’s sake just listen to your self you revolting creep.
All these people ever did was criticise the left, and who they are or what the believe in or what Christians are alleged to have done in the distant past and all the rest of your insane ranting doesn’t matter a fuck. You’re a liar, they did not break any laws.
In your sick attempts to vilify Christians and accuse the Brethren of crimes when they have commited none you’re filth Ducky, cowardly totalitarian filth. The kind that is destroying the heart of this country.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Andrew – I may be a moron but I do know that “cult” is an organisational descriptor.
Burt: To answer your question: I don’t think its fair or right to target anyone based on race, religion, creed, political leanings or even, their stupidity. But I think I am entitled to have a view on religion – as a concept. I think I am entitled to decry the stupidity and dangerousness of religious thinking (queue your reference to suicide bombers). I think it’s also OK to criticise religious organisations – especially when those organisations act against the broader good of society.
You see, I feel quite comfortable criticising a political party, its policies and its practices without feeling any guilt that I have somehow bad mouthed every single member of the party or those with sympathies with the party. I think you do too. I watch the way you and a number of others criticise the Labour party. But I am sure that you do not personally vilify someone who might be a labour supporter? Similarly, I know there are some on this blog who vilify socialism. But I am sure they would not reserve the same vitriole for someone who professes socialist leanings. I just don’t think religion and religious organisations should be exempted from this kind of criticism.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Red, you hate New Zealand and New Zealanders. You’ve said so in previous posts. Why are you so concerned? I love New Zealand and its people. That’s why I care about these kinds of things.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
“You’ve said so in previous posts.”
Another lie. Man you leftists are such conscienceless lowlife scum.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I love New Zealand and its people.
Except those NZers that deserve “vilification”.. pfft, what a disgusting creep..
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
DDD
OK, we are getting somewhere. You must not be supporting the EFB than as it’s clearly targeting a group based on religion.
Do you support Labour’s intentions in passing the EFB?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Once again, Red, I am talking about the Cult. You’re really not top of your game in the evenings are you? Have a good night, Red. Your increasing incoherence suggests to me you need a good sleep.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Burt
You’ve obviously glided over my many descriptions in this blog of the deficiencies of the EFB. I think it’s awful b-grade legislation that’s anti-democratic, poorly drafted, bad public policy. I can’t see how someone can’t say the EB is a dangerous and manipulative cult without being seen to defend the EFB? Weird. Are you so linear in your thinking (I mean generally, not you personally) that this distinction is not permitted?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:34 pm
“How’s it horrendous to talk about the EB cult’s manipulative behaviour?”
It’s not, what’s horrendous is you using this as a justification for their vilification. As you point out people, if they choose can leave the EB, it’s their choice, any club or religion has its rules that the members are required to adhere to, in my view its not up to outsides to impose their own morality.
“This whole concept that people’s whacked out nonsensical views are beyond discussion is bullshit.”
Agree, you and other people adopting our mutual friends hostility towards everyone he disagrees with will only destroy your own credability as it has his.
“The EBs did what they did because of their extraordinarily weird beliefs.”
They did what they did because they have the same concerns that hundreds of thousands of other NZers have about the direction the greens/labour is taking this country, how they went about it is probably a result of the fear of vilification they faced from haters and bigots.
“I don’t know why you’re so keen on defending the EBs, they haven’t even got the decency to participate in our democracy.”
It’s not illegal to not vote in this country, if they choose minumal participation in the democratic process that’s their choice, boy you really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for reason’s to hate them.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
The Christian Version of the Taleban,
Thread posted by DPF on Kiwiblog Feb20th 2007
* called “the Christian version of the Taleban” by David Parker
* and incited by Labour MP Georgina Beyer to be “dragged out of the country”.
And DPF refers to a very interesting article in the Herald back then and very appropo to refer to under this thread today.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10424769
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
I’m completely coherent Ducky. What part of totalitarian arsehole are you having trouble understanding? Just face up to what you really are Ducky, look in the mirror and say to yourself “I’m a sick commie hate monger”. You’ll feel so much better once you decide to bin all that self deceit..
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:40 pm
DDD
You are welcome to your opinion of the EB, this thread is however about the inclusion of clauses in our laws targeted to include and exclude certain religious group.
In this thread I didn’t see where you speak against this bill, so I was actually trying to broaden the dimension of your comments not seek a linear path as you suggest.
Good to hear that you don’t support the bill, how about Labour’s intentions and behaviour? Any chance of hearing what you think about that?
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Who is more like the Taleban?
The Politburo of Facist Helen Mugabe Klarks “dykocracy” ( to quote sonic)
or the EB’s ??
September 24th, 2007 at 6:33 am
I can understand why some bloggers are saying this can’t be compared to Nazi Germany, but I believe that impression is naive. I suspect we are not seeing the obvious comparison primarily because, with the benefit of history, we are looking at the end result of Nazi-ism and comparing that to Clark now.
Naturally, Clark isn’t like Hitler ended up – yet! But if you compare how the whole movement started and how things are starting here, the comparisons are eerily similar.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Yeah the EB/Jews and Labour/Nazi threadjack by sonic did its job. Practically half of yesterday was wasted debating it, when we could have been making specific references to the Human Rights issues raised abaout the present EFB Bill. Good job sonic!
September 24th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Although in fairness I did say the Labour Party had demonised the EB.
Which is true.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:23 am
“Almighty God, humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of Thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace, and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
September 24th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Aw, jeez, Burt, I am so pleased to have your permission. The EFB, for all its faults, is not about targetting a particular religious group. One of the major faults of the EFB is its all encompassing coverage. It certainly may have been motivated by the EBs sub rosa campaign – but the Bill applies a ginormous sledgehammer to deal with that particular pistachio.
In terms of targetting, I should point out that I have no problem with having laws trimming off offensive, dangerous or oppressive behaviour perpetrated by religious groups. I don’t think religious groups should be inviolable under law. So, I am relaxed if things like brutal circumcision practices or blood sacrifice are over-ridden by law regardless of squawks about religious freedoms. God, I can think of hundreds of examples where specific religious freedoms can be reasonably curtailed. Think about the kid whose parents forbid medical treatment because of their particular magic beliefs. What about wearing burqas where identification is paramount?
My views on Labour’s behaviour and intentions? Unlike many of the partisan views expressed here (on both sides), I judge as I find. There are times when all parties exhibit good behaviours and other times left wanting.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Here’s my question for all the Clark=Hitler drones: if you really believe what you’re saying what are you going to do about it? If you REALLY think that Clark poses the same kind of threat to our future as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (the destruction of our democracy to be replaced by an evil totalitarian state, countless dead) aren’t you morally obliged to take ANY STEPS NECESSARY to stop her? Isn’t it terribly remiss of you all to just endlessly whine and bitch on the internet? Don’t you have a moral imperative to prevent this nightmare future from unfolding?
After all – all it takes for evil to triumph is for ‘good men’ to do nothing.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Heh, Sofia thats a great reposte…
Isn’t the prayer always gabbled through in distaste with a millisecond between the “…Amen. – Are there any petitions….”
H1, H2 and snowwhite are foreign to the plea for help that is the substance of that prayer.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:57 am
It’s always the conflict with the “to the glory of Thy holy name” bit that gets me! Nothing could have been further from the truth in the last eight years!!
September 24th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Danyl, you are right. Me I’ve written to my local MPs, to John Key, to Labour, and made a submission to the SC.
Are you saying you have simply sat on your hands and watched this all go on because you don’t see it as that big a deal?
September 24th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Or are you one of the ‘good men’ to whom you refer?
September 24th, 2007 at 8:07 am
‘Cos that’s what I’ve noticed all along, the Labour supporters all going liike, ‘oh don’t worry, we’ll ‘iron it out’ at Select Commitee’ You guys don’t need to get involved, really, we’ve got it covered… Honestly, we cant see what the fuss is about.”
September 24th, 2007 at 8:07 am
“…aren’t you morally obliged to take ANY STEPS NECESSARY to stop her?”
Danyl, what I would not want to see is people being suckered into the sort of campaign that could be used by the Cark supporters as a justification for this regimes anti-democratic actions, fortunately the democratic process is well enough established in this country (unlike 1930′s Germany) that I don’t think even Clark can totally derail it.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Are you saying you have simply sat on your hands and watched this all go on because you don’t see it as that big a deal? Or are you one of the ‘good men’ to whom you refer?
If the EFB passes as is (which I think is unlikely) then I intend to participate in the inevitable civil disobedience campaigns next election – but that’s an entirely different matter. People on this thread are explcitly arguing that Clark is an embryonic Hitler – I’m asking the people who believe this what they intend to do to stop her. If you could go back in time and murder Hitler you’d have a moral obligation to do so, so what are these deluded clowns doing to stop Clark, whom they insist is our moral equivalent to Hitler?
At the moment it seems that all they’re doing is writing shrill, hysterical and ignorant anonymous blog posts – if they genuinely believe that Clark is a future genocidal mass murderer who poses a dire threat to the future of our democracy then that seems woefully remiss.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:22 am
But I haven’t have you read anything I’ve writtten? The fact is ‘assumptions are the mother of all f**k-ups’ and too many people are ‘assuming’ it will all be ok. I do not beleive you about the civil disobedience claim. That is a cop out. If you felt that strongly about your human rights you’d do it now instead of sniping at otheres who do.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:23 am
ps I thought my observation about Labour supporters advocating the ‘do nothing’ approach was spot on, and all the deflection in the world doesn’t appear to contradict that basic nugget of truth.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:27 am
In Hitler’s Germany the jews were a strange and odd grouping with money. Helen Clark has the same violence in her language against the EB that Hitler had against the jews. Change her language around and substitute the jews and you will appreciate the true face of the Labour Party. It may be different minority religion but it is the same ugly bigotry. The Democaracy Suppression Bill is a blatant step to squeeze the EB out of politics in a similar vein as Hitler did with another minority religious group
September 24th, 2007 at 8:27 am
DDD said “The EFB, for all its faults, is not about targetting a particular religious group. ”
What rock have you been hiding under DDD?
20/9: “Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I cannot remember anybody thinking it is Draconian other than the member and, as the author of The Hollow Men has pointed out, the position of the National Party is that it seems to want to continue a situation where it can get a large amount of money from the Brethren and have it spent on things that may well rort an election.”
18/9 “Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The purpose of the bill is to stop people like John Key working with people like the Exclusive Brethren to rort election spending law.”
12/9 “Hon MARK BURTON: That is not what this legislation does. It sets out to close the loopholes—or at least reduce them in size—that the National Party and its friends in the Exclusive Brethren Church, and others, exploited in 2005 in order to try to use large amounts of money to buy an election result.”
6/9 – A patsy question “Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Can the Minister confirm that a part of what the bill is aimed at is the advertising in 2005 by the Exclusive Brethren, which attached the Labour-led Government for abandoning a strike force in the Air Force”
5/9 “Hon MARK BURTON: That is a good question. It intends to protect our electoral system from the sort of behaviour we saw in the 2005 election campaign—from secretive, wealthy interest groups seeking, as they did, to subvert and spend up large, particularly in the final weeks of the campaign period, on behalf of the National Party, as this letter to Mr Key quite clearly makes clear. The Exclusive Brethren sought to “launch a $1 million very extensive election campaign with the sole goal of getting party votes for National”. But they did it whilst trying to subvert our electoral system.”
There’s but a few examples from Question Time during the last 3-week session of the House. Not about targetting a particular religious group? That’s crap, and you know it!
September 24th, 2007 at 8:29 am
In my view there are plenty of potential dictators in the recent history of democratic society, Muldoon, Clark and Nixon are obvious, ultimately it is the structure and balance inherent in democratic systems that stops them.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Calm down. There is an election next year.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:37 am
“Helen Clark has the same violence in her language against the EB that Hitler had against the jews”
What a lot of hysterical b*llshit. HAve the EBs been attacked physically? have they been thrown in prison? Have their businesses been shut down?
As I said above, throwing around this slur is lazy politics. It also demeans the crime of the holocaust.
You guys should be utterly ashamed of yourselves.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:38 am
ps I thought my observation about Labour supporters advocating the ‘do nothing’ approach was spot on, and all the deflection in the world doesn’t appear to contradict that basic nugget of truth.
Okay, let’s assume I’m a Labour supporter (I’m not) and endorse the EFB (I don’t) just to get that out of the way. I’m much more curious in examining the logic of the Clark=Hitler mentality. So far your opposition to Clark has taken the following form:
I’ve written to my local MPs, to John Key, to Labour, and made a submission to the SC.
You’ve also complained a lot on the internet.
So if you could go back in time to the end of Wiemar Germany can we conclude that your sole opposition to Hitlers seizure of power and subsequent murder of several dozen million people would be to write letters to a couple of politicians and make a submission opposing the Enabling Act? Don’t you think thats kind of pathetic?
September 24th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Bullets are so last millennia, so brutish, so stupid… Slow social poisoning over several generations is the smart dictator’s long game. This offers boatloads of plausible deniability too, which helps with post-revolution job prospects.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Got a nice new tinfoil hat Krazi Kiwi?
September 24th, 2007 at 8:45 am
The comparison with Hitler is silly. But the fact that people make it shows an extreme degree of alienation. To me, that is the real problem. Labour is prepared to govern in a very divisive and abusive manner, and sacrifice anything they can get away with in the question for power.
Labour is the party of hate speech.
Labour is the party of personal attacks.
Labour is the party of political regulation.
Labour is the party that believe the ends justifies the means.
… only, they’ve forgotten what the ends are.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Sonic: For the 3rd time:
Frank. Says:
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Frank. Says: I might as well repeat this question asked on a different thread:
“September 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Sonic: Have you proof that these 7 businessmen were representing the views of 6,000 members of the Exclusive Brethern?”
September 24th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Milo, you dont think comparing Labour (and by extension it’s supporters) to the Nazi party is “hate speech”?
September 24th, 2007 at 8:47 am
very comfy thanks sonic
September 24th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Sonic: you can’t have it both ways. If you want to make that comparison, you need to admit that Labour’s hate speech was wrong, and make a stand against it.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Frank I answered that at the time. The same campaign was run by members of the EB all over the world. Now you can pretend that is just an amazing coincidence, I think it is pretty good evidence of an organised campaign.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:10 am
dont forget ‘Frank.Says’ – a large proportion of EBs aren’t allowed views of their own
September 24th, 2007 at 9:11 am
No answer to Milo aye Sonic?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:11 am
sonic Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 8:37 am
“Helen Clark has the same violence in her language against the EB that Hitler had against the jews”
What a lot of hysterical b*llshit. HAve the EBs been attacked physically? have they been thrown in prison? Have their businesses been shut down?
Not yet sonic, not yet.
I’m sure when Hitler started his campaign against the Jews he didn’t start with physical attacks either, but with rhetoric.
Now I don’t believe that labour would go to the extremes that Nazi Germany did. That is not their intention. But just by scrolling through this thread we get the following statements.
“Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I cannot remember anybody thinking it is Draconian other than the member and, as the author of The Hollow Men has pointed out, the position of the National Party is that it seems to want to continue a situation where it can get a large amount of money from the Brethren and have it spent on things that may well rort an election.”
* Labour MP Georgina Beyer asked for its members to be “dragged out of the country”.
“I said the Cult deserves vilification.”
What is happening in this country when Law abiding people are set aside by the government of the day and subject to the sort of rhetoric that we are hearing?
Why should a group, who has done no more than speak out against the government, be vilified in such a way?
Why is this government hardening the attitudes of it’s supporters towards this religious group?
Where will it end?
Micheal Cullen has a MA in history. He should know.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Slighty, again you minimise the real nature of Nazi Germany’s racist persecution of Jewish people, by reducing it to a few comments in parliament.
The Nats seem to have a blind spot about how wrong it is to do that, “no fat people in concentration camps” seems to have been just the start.
Also the Byres “quote” got a reference for it?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Sonic: Let’s get this right. It seems in your view, Labour can do no wrong. While it’s opponents can do no right.
You dress this up as argument – yet you never revise your own position in response to other’s arguments. And in the 18 months I’ve been on Kiwiblog I have never seen you criticise anything Labour does. Nothing.
So why should we take you seriously?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Slighty, again you minimise the real nature of Nazi Germany’s racist persecution of Jewish people, by reducing it to a few comments in parliament
Implying that no comparable offence has been caused beacuse we only hear our most powerful leaders demonise the EB, rather than hear the rumble of cattle cars is hardly a defence.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Implying that no comparable offence has been caused beacuse we only hear our most powerful leaders demonise the EB, rather than hear the rumble of cattle cars is hardly a defence.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I am amazed that in an allegedly free society we/the media have allowed Labour to introduce the concept of legitimate and illegitimate political views. To the defenders of the EFB a question: how can we be described as a free society if my political views might be held to be illegitimate?
Take care not to confuse views with which you might disagree with illegitimacy.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Solzhenitsyn bitterly laments the Russian failure to resist, and speculates on when that resistance should have occurred:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . .” (they had no guns)
“. . . After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you,d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur”what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”
September 24th, 2007 at 9:33 am
“t seems in your view, Labour can do no wrong”
Not true, I’ve made many criticisms of Labour over the months, but sorry I’m not going along with the insane idea that they are the same as the NSDAP.
Oh and I’m not going to revise that view no matter what new hysterical nonsense you come up with.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Just be calm please everyone. Put your faith in the likes of Sonic and Panty Boy Slut, and everything will be well. You know that’s true.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Sonic: You can always tell when your argument is failing. There are two signs:
(1) The personal adjectives comes to the fore (“hysterical”)
(2) The lies get trotted out, in the hope nobody can disprove them (“I’ve made many criticisms of Labour ..”).
What’s next, kisses?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Redbaiter thinks he is Solzhenitsyn battling a Stalinist regime, in danger of being sent to some imaginary gulag.
Truly the shark has been jumped.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I think we’re a long way away from that Redbaiter. And there is an election next year.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Milo, comparing Labour to the Nazi party is hysteria in anyones book.
I’m merely stating facts, facts that would be clear to a 5 year old.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Sonic: What are the many criticisms you have made of Labour. Name them please. Just to be clear: I am explcitiy calling you a liar. Please disprove me.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am
sonic Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Slighty, again you minimise the real nature of Nazi Germany’s racist persecution of Jewish people, by reducing it to a few comments in parliament.
Sonic.
Again you miss my point.
Repression always starts somewhere, and sometimes with the best of intentions. Look at the comments that have been directed against the EB, by politicians and by some on this blog, and ask yourself if this is justified?
Ask yourself if this is required?
Is Labour inciting ill feelings against the EB to further its own aims by passing draconian legislation to limit dissent?
How far will they go?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Also, you accused me of hysterical nonsense. Quote that please. Just to be clear, I am explicitly calling you a manipulative deceitful propagandist.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Why? There are behavioural similarities.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:43 am
“So if you could go back in time to the end of Wiemar Germany can we conclude that your sole opposition to Hitlers seizure of power and subsequent murder of several dozen million people would be to write letters to a couple of politicians and make a submission opposing the Enabling Act? Don’t you think thats kind of pathetic?”
What a stupid and weak line of argument. Nobody is suggesting that Klark with her references to “legitimate groups” is throwing people in gulags yet. The issue is the failure of the mainstream media to alert the NZ people to the dangerous nature of this legislation. The issue is the use of the web to do this. Once again, the internet fills the vacuum of information created when leftists control the media.
Without the net, without the protests of bloggers, this legislation would have passed without a murmur. Some newspaper editors were even writing editorials in gushing praise. Sick incompetent NZ media. That’s the problem Danny. (and of course the sick bloody politicians in the Labour Party and the Greens who are foisting this disgusting legislation upon this country))
September 24th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Reading your comments sonic, people would assume the you think Clark is the new Messiah.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Wow attacked by Milo. Will my world ever be the same again?
Well for the record, a few examples.
I’ve said the EFB should ban anonymous donations, and all parties (including Labour) should open the books. I’ve said I think the minuman wage is way too low, I’ve said that I wold not vote Labour at the next election and I did not vote for them at the last one.
I’m sure there are many more, but that should put your “liar” nonsense to bed.
Oh and since you asked.
xxx
September 24th, 2007 at 9:46 am
… A “go straight to hell, do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect $200″ kind of messiah
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
“Redbaiter thinks he is Solzhenitsyn battling a Stalinist regime, in danger of being sent to some imaginary gulag. Truly the shark has been jumped.”
If you’d have had a real education Sonic, rather than just being indoctrinated with socialist garbage, you’d have the comprehension skills to understand that the point of Solzhenitsyn’s paragraph is “at what point should people resist the measures of totalitarian regimes?” My view is right when they begin. Like now in NZ.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
“I’ve said that I wold not vote Labour at the next election and I did not vote for them at the last one.”
ME TOO!!!!!
Who would have thought?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
“I’ve said that I wold not vote Labour at the next election and I did not vote for them at the last one.”
Sonic’s here illegally
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
The comparison of the policies contained within the EFB to the Nazi party are valid in intent if not in scale. Remember, it was not just the Jews who were exterminated. Refer my earlier post. Some people have commented that the Jews were exterminated on the basis of their Jewish Blood. Well, Jehovah’s Witness’s were in the same camps people, on the basis of thier religious beleifs!!!
Freedom of expression, and of religion, is a right long held dear in this democracy, and it is a right not given, but earned, in the blood of those who have fought for it. I remember what Victor Hugo meant when he said “I disagree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
The refrain “Lest we Forget” spoken on ANZAC day every year is never more poignant to me as it is now.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Interesting thread going here folks, conducted as usual with all the enthusiasm the typifies the Great KiwiBlog tradition.
I think the point is sonic that the holocaust didn’t suddenly occur in 1943.
At some point in the early 1930s National Socialist MPs began making “a few comments on parliament”.
So lets compare a few comment made about both groups:
Jews:An International Conspiracy.
EBs : “The same campaign was run by members of the EB all over the world”
Jews:Posters showing exaggerated racial features
EBs: “Chinless Scarf Wearers”
Jews: Hitler offered to pay Roosevelt to take the Jews.
EBs: Geogina Beyer wanted EBs dragged out of the country.
Having said this I agree with Andrew W that the checks and balances in our democratic system should hinder further progress toward the abyss of totalitarianism. The worry is we are in the process of tampering with those very checks and balances.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Sonic: Ah, criticism for being too right wing. All right, fair enough, I withdraw my specific accusation of lying. However, I think the substance still stands – your only criticims are for not moving far enough to the left, they are rare, and you never accept any argument from the right of Labour.
Now: what about withdrawing your accusation that I was peddling hysterical nonsense?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I’m watching the History Channel at the moment.
The program is “The rise of the Nazi Party”
A quote has just resonated and goes along the lines of…
“A good autocrat uses democracy to attain power, and then discards it to retain power”
September 24th, 2007 at 9:57 am
“Geogina Beyer wanted EBs dragged out of the country.”
Still awaiting a reference for that “quote”
Anyone?
Milo, I’m a lefty, what can I say? If you object to “hysterical nonsense” I take it back.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Redbaiter Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am “If you’d have had a real education”
Where were you educated Redbaiter?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:01 am
More Solzhenitsyn-
“If . . . if . . . We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. . . . We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
September 24th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Sonic asked:
“Geogina Beyer wanted EBs dragged out of the country.”
Still awaiting a reference for that “quote”
Hansard 23 May 2006, Budget debate.
Geogina Beyer ” The National members rave on about Australia, so much so that I’m almost prepared to table some of my own air points in order to help their leader to go- and by the way, could he drag the Exclusive Brethren off with him?”
Interesting comment coming from the worlds first trans-sexual MP and one that has been Labours Poster Girl on diversity issues.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Sonic.
Here’s the reference to Beyers comment
“I pause for a drink, Mr Deputy Speaker, because the disappointment is too much—I say it is clear water we drink here, just to inform the public about that. [Interruption] Well, we will not go there. The National members rave on about Australia, so much so that I am almost prepared to table some of my own air points in order to help their leader to go—and by the way, could he drag the Exclusive Brethren off with him?”
The full debate is here
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/1/9/4/48HansD_20060523_00000767-Budget-Debate.htm
Yes, Hansard no less.
Happy now?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:17 am
That quote is clearly a joke Reg. Is that all you have really?
Hardly the Krystalnacht now is it?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Sonic, stop minimising this. Tell a Jewish joke in parliament and see the shitstorm!
It’s OK if it is a joke is it. Open slather then on maori jokes, jewish jokes, transexual jokes. come on everyone, Sonic say’s it’s fine!
September 24th, 2007 at 10:22 am
“That quote is clearly a joke Reg. Is that all you have really?”
Socialist totalitarians are always telling dissenters they should leave the country. They do it on this blog very frequently. I’d say you’ve probably done it yourself quite often, given that you are one of the most vocal supporters of totalitarianism.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Is Redbaiter an American?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Ah, the first defence of the bigot “Aw gee, can’t you take a joke?”
September 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am
max, who cares? the topic is religious discrimination in nz. it’s alive and well and being feed intravenously by our elected leaders.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Well lets take it a bit further
“The National members rave on about Australia, so much so that I am almost prepared to table some of my own air points in order to help their leader to go”
OMG she just called for Don Brash top be kicked out of New Zealand!!!!!!
Any of you arguing that?
Thought not.
Thought not.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:29 am
” religious discrimination in nz”
Point to one example of discrimination against members of the EB.
Just one.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Sonic: they have been vilified in parliament by the government for their garb, appearance and views.
“Crazy cult” “Chinless scarft wearers” come to mind.
That okay is it?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:33 am
There isn’t one Sonic, not yet, but it would appear that the EFB has been devised to silence them, or so DBP seems to think if the information coming out of the select committee is anything to go by.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Of course, the interesting thing about the “Chinless” scarf wearers comment is that it is a misogynist attack on powerless women, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the pamphlet campaign.
The hypocrisy truly sickens me.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Sonic…..
This week, Steve Maharey, a man Labourites seriously promote as a potential prime minister, told parliament: “The intention of (the Electoral Finance Bill) is to capture people like the Exclusive Brethren, not the Catholic Church.”
What’s this?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Nice try sonic, but no evidence would convince you to stop deflecting and obfuscating. Perhaps you might like to ask member of the EBs if they feel discriminated against. That would be a more accurate measure.
Let’s remember that Labour is deliberately creating this environment of hatred and vilification in a insidious attempt cling to power. If the gulags are called for it’s for Labour’s top brass and all their appoligists.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:44 am
krazykiwi Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am
max, who cares?
I do.
That’s why I asked.
I am trying to put some of his comments and also comments others have made about him into some context.
That’s all.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Sonis said:
That quote is clearly a joke Reg. Is that all you have really?
So if Bob Clarkson asked if the Moslems and Gays could be dragged out of the country, the left would see it as a big joke and roll over themselves laughing?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Hmmn, so Kraykiwi – are you saying they deserve the Gulags because they would like to put other people in the Gulag? Seems a somewhat weak argument ….
September 24th, 2007 at 10:49 am
max, fair enough. i believe (from previous posts) that he’s a kiwi and lives in nz.
milo, also a fair point. was trying to put the blowtorch back onto labour who are behind all this nonsense. their desperate attempts to cling to power know no bounds.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Milo, a few harsh comments in parliament is hardly the rebirth of Adolph Hitler, get a grip man.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:58 am
rubbish sonic. deliberate, co-ordinated and sustained attacks on a minority by NZs mots powerful leaders are not to be brushed off.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am
SONIC
Please come out of the closet and settle a bet for us.
My neighbour has bet me $100 that you are a hairy legged barren harridan with a face that cracks mirrors.
And now the neighbour wants to offer six to four odds that you have never had sex with anybody, that does not have their snout in the taxpayers’ trough. Should I take the bet now, or wait till it gets out to 15/8?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Um in all fairness there does seem to me to be a pretty big difference between the Exclusive Brethren and the Catholic Church…
Which is that most people think the Exclusive Brethren are crazy.
And since when have crazy people been allowed free speech?
For example who here supports a minority such as paedophiles being allowed to talk to kids about how great sex with adults is?
I sure as heck don’t!
September 24th, 2007 at 11:12 am
“For example who here supports a minority such as paedophiles being allowed to talk to kids about how great sex with adults is?”
Like Catholic Priests?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Sonic: Where have I said that? You are distorting my views to make them easier to deal with. Try dealing with the arguments instead.
Although rickjj has a point – maybe the exclusive Bretheren could be locked up in mental hospitals? Or alternatively, they could have government officials visit them every month to check whether they are treating their kids properly. Now there’s food for thought.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:14 am
rickyjj in Berlin in 1934 said:
Um in all fairness there does seem to me to be a pretty big difference between the Jews and the Catholic Church…
Which is that most people think the Jews are crazy.
And since when have crazy people been allowed free speech?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Tauhei, better pay yout mate up, I’m exactly as you described.
Nice to see that you avoid silly personal attacks and stick to the issues at hand.
Oh hold on….
September 24th, 2007 at 11:15 am
so rickyjj, anyone who say things you don’t agree with, or who has a lifestyle that you don’t buy into… is crazy?
oh, and paedophiles commit criminal acts and shouldn’t be permitted to promote those acts. i’m in total agreement with you there.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Waiting for Sonic to criticise RJJ for his comment linking the EBs to paedophiles. I feel I could be waiting a while though.
G
September 24th, 2007 at 11:16 am
If the EFB is passed and the Socialists heaven forbid get re elected we will see introduction of new laws requiring members of certain groups to be registered. The EFB has this provision already and its standard stuff from governments who wish to control the citizens.
The spin will be that registration is for their own safety and protection. The reality will be to ensure they are restricted in what they can say and do.
The Lefts supporters will see no problem with this registration system and will condemn any opposition as tin foil hat wearers.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:16 am
some members and ex-members i have talked to are not crazy.
the women though can be a little fearful of being caught talking to me (being a non-EB).
also very curious about non-EBs – testing to see if we are really devil-worshippers as is portrayed to them or if (as they seemingly suspect) we are decent (but different to them) people
September 24th, 2007 at 11:17 am
“And since when have crazy people been allowed free speech?”
There you go readers- The EBs are diagnosed as crazy by the good Doctor Ricky, and therefore have no rights to freedom of expression. Jesuz effing Christ- and there are people here saying that its all well intentioned. I suggest this comment, (along with others made by Duck), illustrate so well the dangerous (and historically ignorant) people who typify the left, and where they will take this country if they are permitted.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:21 am
GD: I don’t think it will happen quite that quickly
But I do think Labour believes anybody who disagrees with them is badly misguided, and society needs to be protected from people with such Wrong Thoughts. They have already shown they are prepared to employ any means they can get away with in pursuit of that end.
So the real question is, what will we let them get away with?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:24 am
And since when have crazy people been allowed free speech?
Oh, ricky… that’s a shot that’s too cheap to take. You’re equating the Exclusive Brethren with pedophiles – which is far into bug-fuck lunatic territory AFAIC as folks equating Helen Clark to Hitler. If DPF wants to give you a platform, that’s his affair.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Or alternatively, they could have government officials visit them every month to check whether they are treating their kids properly.
Judging their past behaviour towards their children I’d probably support this.
Which is that most people think the Jews are crazy.
Lots of people disliked the Jews, but they didn’t think they were crazy. I strongly dislike Rodney Hide, but I don’t think he’s crazy. There’s a difference.
so rickyjj, anyone who say things you don’t agree with, or who has a lifestyle that you don’t buy into… is crazy?
No… Crazy people are crazy. Most people I disagree with aren’t crazy. They just have different opinions to me.
The EBs are diagnosed as crazy by the good Doctor Ricky
And almost everyone else in New Zealand…
September 24th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Chris Trotter, when referring to the theft of $800,000 of taxpayers money, defended it by saying in effect that the ends justified the means.
What ends are being considered with the EFB, and is engaging in persecution of religious minorities justified in achceiving these?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Sonic;: Coincidences don’t constitute evidence. Hard facts do.
You have no proof that the 7 EB businessmen acted on behalf of their 6000 members in New Zealand. QED
September 24th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Oh, ricky… that’s a shot that’s too cheap to take. You’re equating the Exclusive Brethren with pedophiles – which is far into bug-fuck lunatic territory AFAIC as folks equating Helen Clark to Hitler. If DPF wants to give you a platform, that’s his affair.
Well if the “folks equating Helen Clark to Hitler” get a platform, why shouldn’t I?
Yes it was a bad comparison, and I’m not by any means suggesting even a significant minority of them are paedophiles. Although there’s definitely some disturbing behaviour – ask the ex-members…
What I was more getting at is what is the definition of crazy? What is morally wrong or right?
Paedophilia is “wrong” because society believes it to be – if nobody had a problem with it it wouldn’t be wrong. Free-speech already has limits, so everyone can’t just complain about free-speech. It would be more constructive to show why this is a step too far.
Personally I wouldn’t hush the EB because it seems to legitimise what they’re saying.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:35 am
No… Crazy people are crazy. Most people I disagree with aren’t crazy. They just have different opinions to me.
The EBs are diagnosed as crazy by the good Doctor Ricky
And almost everyone else in New Zealand…
___________________________________________________________
Rickyjj.
I respect the right of the exclusive bretheren to practice their religion as they see fit. But has anyone else realised the irony here.
The EB are secretive, and protect themselves by excluding much of the outside world to protect themselves from undue influences. Many posters, you included, regard that behaviour as odd or crazy.
This group has been regarded as a weird sect by Labour, who are in the process of enacting laws that would in their eyes protect us from undue influence.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am
slightlyrighty: The EB are targeted simply as a diversionary strategy, to justify the existence of this contemptible Bill. They have concocted a cowardly attack on a religious group of people, because they know only too well they will not fight back no matter how much the provocation.
In my book this is persecution. An unwarranted attack by Helen Clark on a religious group of people who are unjustifiably held responsible for the independent actions of 7 of their members?
September 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I respect the right of the exclusive bretheren to practice their religion as they see fit.
I disagree with this too – we need to separate religions from cults, and the only way to do this seems to be popularity.
I support the rights of people to practice their own religions when they don’t affect others too much, but some cults go over the line… For example I don’t support the extreme strands of Mormonism that allow men to take 12 year old girls as their 8th wives. I don’t support extreme strands of Islam which carry out suicide bombings on infidels.
And I don’t support extremely closed groups which brainwash children into thinking the rest of the world are devil-worshippers.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Sonic said “That quote is clearly a joke Reg. Is that all you have really?
Hardly the Krystalnacht now is it?”
Bullshit Sonic. It was a cheap and nasty jibe, and I think you know it. Imagine the outcry if a National MP had advocated dragging all the transsexuals to Australia. Imagine the outcry if a pakeha MP had advocated dragging all Maori to Australia. Imagine the outcry if a NZ First MP had advocated dragging all Asians to Australia – come to think of it, Winston came close, and there WAS an outcry!
Hansard has recorded for posterity a planned and sustained attack on the Exclusive Brethren by Labour and their cohorts in the 2006 Budget debate, and sundry General Debates, the like of which hasn’t been seen (in my memory) since Muldoon’s attacks on the unions in the late 1970′s. It does Labour no credit whatsoever.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:53 am
ricky, we aren’t asking you to support them, rather to support their right to exist. So far as I can tell they aren’t doing anything illegal. The other two examples you give were both doing something illegal.
I certainly wouldn’t separate religions from cults based on popularity – that would just mean that no new religions could be started.
If you have issue with the Brethren beliefs or behaviours, could you let us know what ones. And whether they are broad beliefs of all Brethren, or the behaviours of a few. I.e. are we talking about the terrorist Muslims, or all Muslims here.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:55 am
The comparison of Helen Clark’s language against the EB with the prejudice of Hitler had against the jews is not too different. It is on the SAME slippery slope. It shows that the price of democracy is eternal vigilence. Helen Clark thinks that anything is fair game when it comes to politics. That is how she rose to the top in the Labour Party. She has the same hate speech against the EB that Hitler has against the jews. It is the same religious bigotry. She sees the EB as moneyed and part of an intenational conspriracy. She is proposing a raft of laws aimed at suppressing the EB sect out of politics in NZ. Hitler did the same with the jews. She tries to paint the characteristics of the EB to that of the National Party. She orders her MPs not to meet with the sect. It is religious bigotry of a very bad kind and comparing that with the jews is a useful way of showing the slippery slope the Labour Party is on over their treatment of the EB sect.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:58 am
i suspect that EB’s are over represented in taxes paid and educational achievement attained per capita, while being under represented in welfare dependency and crime committed. and yet they need to be stamped out?!?? those with the boots on are the crazy ones IMHO, but they’re entitle to be heard. viva democracy!
September 24th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
So far as I can tell they aren’t doing anything illegal.
See when it comes down to it, illegality is simply behaviour that the majority of the population has decided they don’t want carried out. If the government passed a law against them then they would be doing illegal stuff.
I certainly wouldn’t separate religions from cults based on popularity – that would just mean that no new religions could be started.
I think new religions start of as cults – if they get enough followers they are legitimised.
If you have issue with the Brethren beliefs or behaviours, could you let us know what ones.
I think the way their children are brought up is essentially a form of child abuse. It’s one thing to bring a child up a particular way, but to close them off from the rest of the world and have nothing more to do with them if they believe anything except what you believe is a step too far.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
rickyjj Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I respect the right of the exclusive bretheren to practice their religion as they see fit.
I disagree with this too – we need to separate religions from cults, and the only way to do this seems to be popularity.
OK Ricky,
At what point does a religion become popular?
What would be the criteria?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I notice I still haven’t had an answer to my question – if Clark is Hitler and the EB’s are the Jews then surely people making this argument – tim, krazykiwi, inventory et al – have a moral obligation to prevent another state-sponsored holocaust? I’m still VERY curious to know how you’re going about preventing what you all seem very convinced is going to be an appalling crime against humanity?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Back on thread.
It’s his topic afterall and DPF said…
…..It’s our reality, today, under Clark.
“Maybe Mike Moore had a point after all!”
Mike Moore has been a lot of places and see and spoken to a
great range of people of all sorts.
He has seen political behavour from both sides and over a long time.
But what is most telling to me is the degree of hatred that is
conveyed by many who speak for the Labour party about his
latest newspaper items.
Mike Moore is moving on. The Labour spokes people are still sharpening
knives and muttering on.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
PS Maybe when the EB sect come to Parliament they should wear a yellow star so people know who they are.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Helen Clark is practising religious bigotry against the sect. Substitute jews whenever you see EB in the speeches of Labour politicians and you can see straight away the slippery slope the Labour Party is on. Where this ends I do not know but they Labour Party is proposing a series of very harsh laws with the specific intent of removing the participation of the EB sect out of politics in NZ.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
How about we ban political parties who poll under 3%?
After all, they are hardly popular?
Or do we just ban organisations whose beliefs differ from your own ricky?
IMOHO, scientologists are nuts. But I wont want to ban them as they have a right to their beliefs however weird they might be.
However, organisations who break the law (and I’ll stop the arguement now, the EB did not break the law in 2005) should be prosecuted. Islamic terrorists should be stopped. Not becuase they are Muslims, but because they break the law.
But when governments change the law and muzzle all new zealanders for the actions of 7500 people, then something is seriously amiss.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
At what point does a religion become popular?
Well it’s obviously a grey area, isn’t it?
If just my family believes something about God that no one else does I don’t think it’s a religion. If millions of people believe it it probably is.
Catholicism seems to be a “popular” religion, the EB (if it is a religion) perhaps not.
I certainly can’t say when it makes the switch, but then there’s a lot of things which aren’t back and white…
Like if you only have one hair on your arm, is your arm “hairy”?
What about 2 hairs? 20? 200? 2000?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Danyl, is the issue somehow less significant if you can demonstrate that others aren’t responding in a way you approve of?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Daryl: “I notice I still haven’t had an answer to my question …”
I thought I had
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/09/religious_discrimination.html#comment-342968
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/09/religious_discrimination.html#comment-342977
September 24th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
shouldn’t that read “for the perfectly legal actions of 7 people” ?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
How about we ban political parties who poll under 3%?
Well we’ve banned “hate speech” haven’t we?
Or do we just ban organisations whose beliefs differ from your own ricky?
Like people who believe you should be allowed to have sex with kids?
IMOHO, scientologists are nuts. But I wont want to ban them as they have a right to their beliefs however weird they might be.
Well the Germans disagree agree with you – they’ve banned Scientology. Can you imagine the upcry if they’d banned Catholicism or Islam? I think that makes it a cult in Germany.
Islamic terrorists should be stopped. Not becuase they are Muslims, but because they break the law.
What if they got into parliament and changed the law to allow terrorism?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Bloody hell, the socialists are keen to see our societys diversity squashed and all acting to their socially engineered standards.
Anyone who’s a little different must conform aye Ricky?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Anyone who’s a little different must conform aye Ricky?
Haha well a LOT different to be fair.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Good point Andrew. I’ve always felt that:
PC = Promoting diversity while demanding Conformity.
G
September 24th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Oh, the EB are “a LOT” different are they? Those have met seem nice enough people, maybe I should be made to conform?
Ricky you’re way off in la-la land.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Oh, the EB are “a LOT” different are they? Those have met seem nice enough people, maybe I should be made to conform?
Again I’m not calling them paedophiles…
But I’m sure there’s a whole heap of “nice” paedophiles and terrorists out there too. What does this have to do with anything?
Most people would say paedophiles are a LOT different. Likewise (and again no one would say they’re as different as paedophiles) most people would say the EB are a LOT different. And these most people are people from a range of backgrounds, just as many conservatives as liberals…
You certainly don’t have to love Labour to think or agree with this legislation to think they’re crazy…
September 24th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
What system would you use to enforce this conformity Ricky torture has worked in the past, whole nations have been made to change religion through the threat and use of torture, or perhaps you can come up with something a little more PC? Perhaps an extra tax (socialists like taxes) on those who don’t conform, after all the wealthy are obviously nonconformists by most socialists standards. Oh forgot, whens the “fat tax” coming in?
It can happen , it is happening, far more easily than we realise.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Most meaning you ricky? Or most meaning you have a survey?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Hey Ricky, how about we just make sure victimless crimes aren’t crimes?
That’s one way to seperate the EB from the paedophiles.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Andrew, I think ricky is arguing that the EB’s children are victims, due to the warped world view they are brought up with. My problem with that definition is that I would then have to include Catholics as well, since I reckon that all the Catholics I know were brought up with a warped world view
I also think that some of the teachings that the EB give their children are weird, and they do have attributes of a cult in that “punishment” of a sort is meted out for those who leave. However, I think we need to be very clear about our line drawing. I we don’t like the EB’s views and think that they are so far outside the norm that we want to classify them as a cult, then lets do that. I don’t see it as in any way a justification for removing their political rights – that is irrational.
If we think their religion should be illegal, we outlaw it (thereby helping the children). If we think their religion should be legal, then I don’t see what justification we have for removing their political rights.
And don’t forget that this bill removes everyone’s political rights (except apparantly that Catholics will have special exemption), not just the EBs rights. As such, this discussion about whether we like EB or not is a red herring, and I think ricky already agreed that the EFB itself was a shambles that should be thrown out. Perhaps we should return this thread to its original purpose?
September 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
What system would you use to enforce this conformity
I think a law would do actually, that’s what we do for everything else. Although torture for corporate fraud would go down a treat for a lot of people…
Most meaning you ricky? Or most meaning you have a survey?
Most people I know, but you’re right, I haven’t done a survey… There’s a shitload of people out there though who hate Labour but also think the EB are weirdos. You can commission a survey from me if you’d like?
Hey Ricky, how about we just make sure victimless crimes aren’t crimes?
Sweet, we could legalise marijuana while we’re at it.
Although I was kind of hinting before that I do think they’re kids are victims. Of brainwashing. And yes while everyone’s brainwashed to an extent, at least most people actually have some interaction with other people and are allowed to question things without being cast out and disowned by their families…
September 24th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I we don’t like the EB’s views and think that they are so far outside the norm that we want to classify them as a cult, then lets do that. I don’t see it as in any way a justification for removing their political rights – that is irrational.
I totally agree with Paul, and yes I’d like to point out that I don’t support this bill.
Perhaps we should return this thread to its original purpose?
Yep.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Danyl: “I notice I still haven’t had an answer to my question – if Clark is Hitler and the EB’s are the Jews then surely people making this argument – tim, krazykiwi, inventory et al – have a moral obligation to prevent another state-sponsored holocaust? I’m still VERY curious to know how you’re going about preventing what you all seem very convinced is going to be an appalling crime against humanity?”
I don’t think anyone has said Clark=Hitler. What is being said is that there are some similarities in their rhetoric, and that Cullen and Maharey passed a disturbing line last week. That does not call for outright action against Clark. It is just something to be mindful when voting next year – and to keep an eye on in case it gets worse.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
ith respect Paul, you are using a socialist line of reasoning, B parents don’t raise their kids right (how the government, the majority of the population) think they should be raised, so that responsibility should be removed from them, if we actually look at the result though, I would suggest that they do a better job of raising their kids than many other groups in the community, perhaps we should start this removal of kids from their families program with a more appropriate group.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
“I notice I still haven’t had an answer to my question ”
You have. But don’t mind, just go on repeating yourself. Senile old fool.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Try searching though this thread for the word ‘Hitler’. Here’s a sample:
[Clark] is proposing a raft of laws aimed at suppressing the EB sect out of politics in NZ. Hitler did the same with the jews.
She has the same hate speech against the EB that Hitler has against the jews
whenever Helen Clark uses the word Exclusive Breatheran substitute the word jew
. . . when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, his continual references to Jewish Plots and thier attempts to continually subvert the true leaders are beginning to resonate.
Clark isn’t like Hitler ended up – yet! But if you compare how the whole movement started and how things are starting here, the comparisons are eerily similar.
Clark and Adolf Hitler are hardly the only politicians to demonise a minority in order to try and boost their poll ratings – the National Party under Don Brash did little else; John Howard in Australia has done very well out of demonising refugees; Winston Peters gets plenty of redneck votes bagging Asians . . . Reagan had his ‘welfare queens’ and the GOP currently has gays, muslims and illegal immigrants.
So far from resembling Hitler, Clark resembles . . . virtually every self-serving politician in the world.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I don’t know enough about the EB’s to form a considered opinion, but in my view to discriminate against one group/religion would normally have the PC police out, but because the government despises the EB’s it’s now OK to highlight this group and protect another one by making them exempt from the bill.
The bill will affect everyones’ rights of free speech and that’s why in a democracy it’s wrong.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Danyl Mclauchlan Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
“So far from resembling Hitler, Clark resembles . . . virtually every self-serving politician in the world.”
I agree.
Also wondering when DPF is going to write a comment on National/Bill English planned sell-off of SOEs after they win election…
September 24th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
“So far from resembling Hitler, Clark resembles . . . virtually every self-serving politician in the world.”
Which sorta gets back to my point, to bash away at it again, the biggest difference between Clark, Reagan, Nixon, Muldoon, etc and, Franco, Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet etc. is the democracy that controls the former bunch. Without that control the difference would be much less.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Also… to make it clear – I also am against the EFB
September 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Interesting new philosophy being introduced by Ricky on this thread.
That is that numbers are everything. Small sects are therefore weird and dealt with by passing laws to make them illegal.
If this strange dogma had been practiced none of the worlds great religions would have developed, but would have been strangled at birth.
Perhaps that would be the ideal world in Ricky’s view, but for the minor problem that we would have to begin persecuting that persistent little ultra-religious minority known as The Atheists.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
“If this strange dogma had been practiced none of the worlds great religions would have developed, but would have been strangled at birth.”
Can I point out that when todays great religions were in their infancy the establishment at the times often did try to strangle them?
It’s the tyranny of the majority, it occurs in democracies as well as dictatorships.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
“Clark and Adolf Hitler are hardly the only politicians to demonise a minority in order to try and boost their poll ratings”
Man, could you whitewash it anymore? Klark is using the EB’s as an excuse to introduce legislation that makes a pretty vicious attack on freedom of political expression. Maybe seeing you’re so into examples (in your attempts to make Klark look like the sugar plum fairy), you could provide examples of where Howard, or any of the others you referred to, have done the same thing. Apologist for totalitarianism.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
“It’s the tyranny of the majority, it occurs in democracies as well as dictatorships.”
Why does everything you write hear resemble the noise a stone might make if someone was shaking it in an empty coke can?
September 24th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
George said “I don’t think anyone has said Clark=Hitler. What is being said is that there are some similarities in their rhetoric, and that Cullen and Maharey passed a disturbing line last week. That does not call for outright action against Clark. It is just something to be mindful when voting next year – and to keep an eye on in case it gets worse.”
Point well made George. What the government (through the public utterances of its Ministers) is advocating is a law that targets a small sector of its opposition (albeit a wealthy sector). However, in their haste to deal with (or to) the EB, they’ve taken an approach which is likely to lead to significant restrictions for a much larger sector of the population. If there was any doubt that the EFB is motivated by a desire to pay the EB back for dipping their toes into the political waters in 2005, Maharey and Cullen’s comments in the House last week were undeniable proof.
Myself, I have certainly never suggested that Clark=Hitler – however, I will not resile from oft-made statements by myself on this and other blogs that she is becoming increasing desperate as she clings to power. When Confucious said “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, he have have been speaking prophetically!
September 24th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Andrew W said:
Can I point out that when todays great religions were in their infancy the establishment at the times often did try to strangle them?
I accept this Andrew, Note: Matthews gospel Chapter 2 and early Christian History.
However Herod and Nero and Co were Megalomaniacs; we are supposed to be living in a tolerant liberal social democracy.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Back on topic… To me, one of the best blogs to this thread was put in by Redbaiter which was…
“NZers need to reflect upon what this means about their country, and what it has become. A country where the policies of anti-democratic totalitarians find favour among the majority of its citizens. A country that once sent men to war to fight for freedom of political expression NOW VOTES FOR THE POLICIES OF THE DICTATORS THOSE MEN DIED FIGHTING.”
I’m a bit depressed. I would have thought this deserved to be front page news all over the country. Labour should be castigated for this. But sadly, there is barely a murmer from the MSM.
Given the knuckle dragging voting in the last election, once lollynomics kicks in and the media continue to refuse to keep them honest, I suspect Labour has a good chance of ramming this through and then getting back into power. Scumbags.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Why are you all allowing sonic to tuck your d**ks like this, don’t you understand, it is a great way to stop you discussing the EFB? Thought I’s already observed that the EB is a smokescreen, an ‘enemy within’ designed to raise paranois and justify the EFB. While you are all running around like headless chickens, this little rort is going ahead under our noses. Danyl accuses me of being pathetic. I accept that. Thanks for the wake uup. I’m going out tonight to petrol-bomb a Labour-Party office!
September 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Max Call “Also wondering when DPF is going to write a comment on National/Bill English planned sell-off of SOEs after they win election…”
I’m wondering when the Herald will run a ‘your say’ page on “Do you think it’s right for Labour to regulate political expression during a full election year”?
I say this not to defend the SOE selling thing (which is another thread, and deserves a whole other emphasis) but to raise the question about how prominantly this EFB issue has been discussed by the MSM.
Seems amazing that this policy is right out there the second it’s mooted, yet yhe EFB is dealt with as an esoteric issue of minor importance to joe public. Or am I being paranoid?
September 24th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Lee C said “Seems amazing that this policy is right out there the second it’s mooted, yet yhe EFB is dealt with as an esoteric issue of minor importance to joe public. Or am I being paranoid?”
No you’re not being paranoid at all Lee. As DPF notes in his thread on asset sales, this policy has been around for a while, and English talked about it on Agenda at the weekend. Naturally, Labour has climbed all over it, as one would expect. Even Clark has jumped on the bandwagon now saying Labour will NEVER sell state assets. She has a short memory, being a Cabinet Minister in a previous Labour government which sold everything it could get its hands on! Ditto Cullen, ditto Goff. Reminds me of that great Split Enz song…..”History never repeats, I tell myself, before I go to sleep……”
September 24th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
A REAL PRESENT THREAT.
As usual all the bulls**t under the sun from the left trolls but no credible argument to justify this outrageous assault on a legitimate legal law abiding section of our diverse NZ population.THE EB’S
THE ONLY GROUP WHO HAD THE GUTS TO STAND AGAINST THIS PERNICIOUS INVASION OF DARK COMMUNISIM.
This is unashamed religious persecution and bigotry from the facist “dykocracy” that is Mugabes Helengrad.
WHY ISNT THE MSM WAKING UP TO THE DANGEROUS PATHWAY SHE IS TAKING OUR BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY!!!
September 24th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I suppose what heartens me most about this thread is to read all the die-hard Tories lining up to defend the rights of a minority group in this country. No more “we’re all one New Zealand” nonsense. Seriously, it really shows how far the Party and its adherents have moved away from the Don Brash Orewa divisive politics. It’s just so heartening to see so many Tories making heart-felt pleas for minority rights. I see a Maori Party/National Party alliance is no longer just a fantasy. It’s a real possibility.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
cafeful Castafiore…. you’re sounding like D4J. Hmmmm
September 24th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
DDD sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know. Still, keep peddling the EB thing, it’s really working.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Jeez Duck, you’re so damn infinitely stupid- the Maori issue was a race issue.. but even so, in its basic terms no different to this, in that nobody should receive special treatment from government, either benevelent or threatening.. all should be regarded as the same, regardless of race creed or religion. (did you really need that explained to you? FFS..!!)
September 24th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
“Tories”- has to be another damn pommie immigrant… Jeez it was a mistake to let all of those commies in.. rooted their own country and too stupid to learn from that, want to do the same to this one..
September 24th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
“another damn pommie”…oh, how precious…
And, Red, thanks for the clarification that the Orewa speech was essentially driven by racial considerations (“was a race issue”). Brilliant!
September 24th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Well, I gotta admit Duck, as twisted, irrational, incoherent and inconsistent as your thoughts always are, you’ve exceeded yourself on this occasion. I wouldn’t have a clue what your point is.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
The Parallels with the early beginnings of the Holocaust are sinister.
Anti-Semitism in the Nazi State and the Holocaust
As part of the agreement that brought the Nazis to power as part of a coalition government and Hitler as chancellor (January 30, 1933), Goering was given responsibility for the Prussian police. This was fatal. Quickly the Nazis began to take over and to turn this body (subsequently becoming known as the infamous Gestapo) into an instrument of domination and ultimately of terror.
- also, the S.A. (the brown shirts) had virtually a free hand to intimidate, harass, and attack opponents and now the police were being used to help.
- the Reichstag fire on Feb. 27, 1933 was used as an excuse by the Nazis to demand that the Reichstag immediately pass a law giving Hitler emergency powers. This enabling act gave Hitler dictatorial powers. In effect, the law was suspended and henceforth, the law became whatever the Nazis said it was. Old laws could be changed or ignored and new laws come into existence simply by issuing a decree. Public opinion exercised some restraint, but increasingly, the nazified police did pretty much whatever they wished.
- still playing up and exaggerating the threats revealed by the fire, the Nazis began to round up and incarcerate their opponents and anyone they disliked.
Anti-Jewish Legislation in Germany
The Nazis wasted very little time after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor on 30 Jan. 33. The first 2 laws were issued on 7 Apr 33 excluding “non-Aryans” (i.e., primarily Jews but it could also include others, such as Gypsies) from the civil service (including teachers) and from the legal profession. A similar law regarding physicians was promulgated on Apr. 22nd. These initial laws often provided for some exceptions for ‘privileged non-Aryans’, mostly because suddenly excluding all Jews would have been disruptive and left many people without anyone to provide these services. However, subsequently, the exemptions were canceled.
It clearly isn’t as bad as this became but never forget that blood poisoning generally starts from a seemly innocuous cut into the normal skin ( i.e normal fabric of society which respects free speech)
September 25th, 2007 at 8:29 am
DDD FFS STFU
If promoting the concept that the right of the EB to have their say in the same way as any other person or group can in any way be construed as anything other than promoting equality, you have completely lost the plot.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Castafiore: A timely reminder. We already have a Police State – A muzzled media – A tame Governor-General. Next step – Suppression of Freedom of Speech.
And all this conjured up by our elected and non elected representatives? MMP has a lot to answer for?
September 25th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Sonic says the EBs phamplets are the same as others overseas.
Maybe because the NZ Greens promote the same stupid policies other Green parties promote worldwide.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Dead Duck Dux Says:
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 pm
You want to believe in magic and have a big invisible friend, that’s your business. But when your religious beliefs start rolling into the secular world and start negatively affecting others – well, then I say it’s open season. This whole concept that people’s whacked out nonsensical views are beyond discussion is bullshit. The EBs did what they did because of their extraordinarily weird beliefs.
That is complete nonsense, the EBs only weirdness is in living closeted away from wider society. Most of what the EBs believe as Christians is practically the same as what other churches believe.
I’d put it to you that probably about half of the population of NZ at least nominally believes in the basic tenets of Christianity as a religion, there, all of a sudden it’s not extreme, is it?
Labour’s hatred of the EBs and mentioning them in every second breath is essentially an appeal to the hard core of the left of the party, on whose back they expect to get re-elected, since anyone with intelligence has left them long ago as the polls show. clark has mastered MMP and figured out how to buy off the small parties – practically all of whom are left-leaning or ideologically bereft or corrupt.
If I find your views offensive, maybe I can get the government to legislate against you – do you really believe this is justified? Yeah right!
September 25th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Dead Duck Dux Says:
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Burt
You’ve obviously glided over my many descriptions in this blog of the deficiencies of the EFB. I think it’s awful b-grade legislation that’s anti-democratic, poorly drafted, bad public policy. I can’t see how someone can’t say the EB is a dangerous and manipulative cult
In what way is the EB dangerous?
September 25th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Dead Duck Dux Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Aw, jeez, Burt, I am so pleased to have your permission. The EFB, for all its faults, is not about targetting a particular religious group. One of the major faults of the EFB is its all encompassing coverage. It certainly may have been motivated by the EBs sub rosa campaign – but the Bill applies a ginormous sledgehammer to deal with that particular pistachio.
Well actually, I think it is not just the EB that are being aimed at with this. It is really all those “new right” bogeymen that Labour can cite with their appeal to the hard core of lower intelligence party faithful, the people who always vote Labour no matter waht. The 36% of whatever identified in all the recent polls. And that particulart sledgehammer will also crack a good number of other Christian groups that Labour hates but just aren’t being mentioned at the moment because they havent stuck their heads out for the chopping block
September 25th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Reg Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Interesting thread going here folks, conducted as usual with all the enthusiasm the typifies the Great KiwiBlog tradition.
I think the point is sonic that the holocaust didn’t suddenly occur in 1943.
At some point in the early 1930s National Socialist MPs began making “a few comments on parliament”.
So lets compare a few comment made about both groups:
Jews:An International Conspiracy.
EBs : “The same campaign was run by members of the EB all over the world”
Jews:Posters showing exaggerated racial features
EBs: “Chinless Scarf Wearers”
Jews: Hitler offered to pay Roosevelt to take the Jews.
EBs: Geogina Beyer wanted EBs dragged out of the country.
Having said this I agree with Andrew W that the checks and balances in our democratic system should hinder further progress toward the abyss of totalitarianism. The worry is we are in the process of tampering with those very checks and balances.
Whatever you may think of the EFB, it is not intelligent. All of which begs the question who Labour is appealing to with this Bill and the constant attacks on the EBs.
As I have said in other comments, it all seems to be political cannon fodder for the target audience, the hard core of socialism in NZ. Let us also remember the same arguments against the Jews and minorities were not just heard in Nazi Germany. They were also transplanted to Soviet Russia and continued to be employed right up until the fall of communism.
At its core Clark rebuilt Labour into a covert socialist party weeding out the deadwood from the Lange-Palmer years. As long as Labour needed wider support to win elections Clark was wise enough to insist the hard left factions keep themselves in check. Now the party is down to this core of support there is nothing lost from letting those people loose and getting them to do all the dirty work of getting Labour back into power next year,
September 26th, 2007 at 12:04 am
tim barclay Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Helen Clark is practising religious bigotry against the sect. Substitute jews whenever you see EB in the speeches of Labour politicians and you can see straight away the slippery slope the Labour Party is on. Where this ends I do not know but they Labour Party is proposing a series of very harsh laws with the specific intent of removing the participation of the EB sect out of politics in NZ.
As others have said – the EBs are a convenient target
Its a mass appeal to the party faithful who actually believe all that nonsense, lap it all up like the words of CHairman Mao.
For that hard core anyone with money, anyone international, anyone religious or anti-feminist or who hates gays or unions or is opposed to any of the socialist causes is a legitimate target.
Note NZ First has been bought off, they also mutter darkly about international financial conspiracies yadda yadda
September 26th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
DDD says: “This whole concept that people’s whacked out nonsensical views are beyond discussion is bullshit.”
No one says their views are beyond discussion. People should be able to attack the EB’s views all they like. And the EB should be able to respond.
What is wrong is the STATE deciding that some people can speak and others can’t. Everyone should be able to speak and everyone’s views should be able to be discussed – the EB’s views and the Labour Party’s views, both of which are “whacked out” and “nonsensical”.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
All this talk about how sad it is that people governments or whatever have villified the Exclusive Brethren to me is just hysteria in itself .Its no better than the labour government useing them as a reason to put this bill forward in the first place .Did anyone twist the arm of this cult which is supposidly meant to be a church and so supposidly focussing on the truth and what is truthful , to take part in a campaign which it is obvious to be so undercover and deceitful ? .If not i suggest they villified themselves ! and to those who suggest they were just poor misguided people , i suggest think again they knew full well there campaign would have a negative effect if people knew who were behind the pamphlets .How can poeople be so gullable or more to the point ! expect people to be so gullable , to believe that people such as the exclusive brethren who do so well in business etc ! just were poor misguided people who didnt know what they were doing ? .Yes i agree the poor things didnt quite know how to be deceitful enough to totally hide it all ! but they knew full well what they were trying to achieve .And that was to influence the elections by deceit !! .
Yes this bill is not right ! it has flaws etc , i totally agree.But before we go blaming anyone dont forget these lovely Christians ran a deceitful campaign that brought it on .And really something needs to be done to make sure these things dont happen .
For those who try to compare this cult with the Jews as being those that are persecuted , what a load of codswallop this cult has been persecuting by so called Christianity for years ! and i doubt the Jews or any decent Christian would want to be placed in bed with them . And thats why no group of these good people are rushing to side along side them , we hear but a few squawks from just a few other so called christians that also agree with the barbaric so called christianity they adhere to and try to peddle .
And for those who are so gullable to think this was all put into motion by just seven i say get your head out of the sand ! you believe people who deal and do with such obvious deceit ? .If you dont feel you have enough evidence look to Austrailia where they are investigating also false names and addresses as well as $10 companys that quickly turn in $300,000 that were quickly closed to try to deceive and hide evidence.How much evidence does one need to atleast see that there was some type of conspiracy happening ?? , surely people we New Zealanders are not that gullable ? dont tell me that once again our Ozzy cousins are leaving us in the dust floundering around like fish out of water .And who gets the last laugh ? the exclusive brethren that work through deceit cause heaps of trouble only to come out smelling like roses as the persecuted ? .Those that have persecuted their own familys for years ? .
Yes the bill is a stuff up ! but keep it real .
September 30th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Unbelievable.
Kill the bill.