The best interest of children should come ahead of the interest of militant homosexuals. This will no doubt draw nonsensical comments how children would be better off with a loving homosexual couple that a violent heterosexual couple.

I know poor people who’ve resorted to non violent crime (petty theft (from shops not other people), prostitution, a bit of benefit fraud (getting round the ridiculous restrictions on earning more than a pittance, so as to turn a casual job into a full time one while proving themselves, not to go on indefinitely bludging, and so on)).

They’ve got good values too, and I still count those I know as friends. I’ve pinched milk and bread from letterboxes as well as the beer crates I mentioned before (and I still feel bad about it) because the alternative was to starve.

But I take your point. Perhaps we can summarise our agreement as: “Most criminals are poor, but most of the poor are not criminals”. You just seem to define criminality a little more strictly than I do

And I will read Dalrymple. With a name like that, how could I not?

# PhilBest Says:
February 1st, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Suck on this, Roger Nome.

Theodore Dalrymple: “The frivolity of evil”.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html

I suggest that people tend to be both POOR, AND CRIMINALS, for similar reasons, rather than there being a causative relationship BETWEEN those two things. Plain LACK OF VALUES.

Rex Widerstrom Says:
February 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm

Thanks for reinforcing the “anyone who’s not a bleeding heart socialists hates the poor” stereotype there, PhilBest.

Despite a university education and what I’m told is an impressive CV, and a work ethic that’s even been remarked on in print, I’ve endured prolonged periods of unemployment.

I can recall scratching through the pockets of all the jackets hung in my wardrobe of a morning to see if I could pull together enough change to be able to send one of the kids to the dairy for bread and milk or whether we’d have to settle for one or the other.

Then there was the time the “justice” system we’re debating here led to my being dumped out of prison onto the street of a country where I knew no one, had no job and no home, with $110 in my pocket.

So I’ve been poor, but I’ve never been a criminal. Okay, to be honest at one point I was so poor I jumped the back fence of a pub and stole the wooden beer crates to take home and “furnish” my unfurnished apartment.

But I’ve never robbed or assaulted anyone Phil. And as is the case, when I’ve been down on my luck I’ve known people in similar circumstances. None of them did anything worse than pinch a loaf of bread or bottle of milk (when such things were delivered to the mailbox) either.

I’ve also been assaulted a number of times. Usually by someone who was clearly able to afford drugs and / or booze, a pair of brand name shoes and a brand name cap and shirt, or on a few occasions by young thugs in suits on the way home from a night on the turps.

So kindly stick your stereotypes back where they came from.

# PhilBest Says:
February 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Rex Widerstrom, sorry, you have a point, and you might not believe how acquainted I am with the sort of circumstances you describe.

I did not mean to say, and have never believed, that “all poor people are criminals”, which is what YOU have taken out of it. I DO mean to say that MOST CRIMINALS are ALSO POOR, BECAUSE OF LACK OF VALUES, which is a different thing.

YOU are not a criminal, and neither have you REMAINED on the bones of your backside, expecting handouts for the rest of your life for doing nothing, precisely BECAUSE of your VALUES. (And neither have I, because of mine).

I am sorry I have been absent for so long and couldn’t make this clarifying comment earlier on this thread. I disappear for long periods at a time because of working for a living, same as you.

Anyone got a theory?

I don’t find your claim that that change is the death knell for productive work to be very plausible. Besides which, an income tax cut from the taxation lost would be minuscule – I’m not going to work extra hours because my total weekly pay has gone up by a few dollars (likely less).

Third parties will take off in a big way when people finally realise that giving both of their votes to a major party (because the major parties request that via their campaigns of “two ticks [party-name-here]“) is voting for an FPP style of govt.

The purpose of mentioning this (aside from blowing my own trumpet ) is that the graph would look better if it showed that at one sorry point in their existence Labour even dropped below a third party.

Aside from that, what jumps out at me is that despite the promise of MMP, third parties have never really fired in NZ. Closest to a sustained level of support in excess of 5% have been the Greens, with Act a close second.

It’s good to get your opinion – however gambling is gambling. Tax cuts for horse racing (and not for income tax) are a clear signal that gambling is to be encouraged and productive work is to be discouraged.

Labour party policy (under the banner of Winston First)… as you would expect – who wants workers in NZ…. they just bitch about paying tax.

Makes the tax cut for the racing industry in 2006 loom a bit suspect. Hardly the “meaningful tax cut that will benefit the entire economy” as Winston First claimed.