I will leave you to your onanistic rhetoric.

I know you will enjoy yourselves… after all ignorance IS bliss.

BJ

or alternatively, perhaps this should be the only thread until after the election (which I’m suspecting David has prompted for a few days now.)

Has anyone seen or heard this announced in the media ??

At any rate, this is the surest sign we’re turning into a mini China. (without the cash)

“sentiment amongs Green Party members in favour of dictating not only how many–and what kinds of–migrants ought to be allowed into NZ, but also which parts of NZ they can live, and what industries they should be directed to seek employment in This is the kind of social engineering that would make Hitler proud”

My understanding this is immigration policy now (and has been going back to Norman Kirks time)

also – the Values party also advocated zero population growth

During my time as a Green Party member, I was responsible for developing Green Party Immigration Policy. Population policy was part of immigration policy in the early stages, and the Issue Group was dominated by xenophobes and social engineers. This remained the case even after population policy was developed separately.

I still remember the 2007 Green Party AGM in Rotorua where I chaired the discussion group on immigration policy. I began the meeting with an ice-breaker, and invited all participants to share with the group their reasons for being involved with immigration policy development. Over 80% of participants stated that there are too many foreigners in NZ, especially those who “spit everywhere”, “don’t speak fluent English”, “drive recklessly”, “buy up all our land”, “place more emphasis on materialistic pursuits” and “have no regard for our ecology”. (Yes, I took minutes at the meeting.)

I thought I had either entered the twilight zone or had been accidentally teleported to a NZ First Conference.

I have trawled through my e-mail records this evening, which revealed much sentiment amongs Green Party members in favour of dictating not only how many–and what kinds of–migrants ought to be allowed into NZ, but also which parts of NZ they can live, and what industries they should be directed to seek employment in.

This is the kind of social engineering that would make Hitler proud.

And in light of the above, I submit that it is the xenophobic undertone of some elements within the Greens that explicates why the Greens are so inimical toward population growth. Therefore, the Greens’ Population Policy isn’t just about stopping you from breeding; it’s also about closing the doors to migrants, under the guise of “sustainability”.

That is why a Labour-Greens-NZ First coalition will spell disaster for this country.

I don’t think it is in good faith to publish these aforementioned e-mail records – an act of courtesy the EPMU failed to afford me. But re-reading the correspondences within the discussion groups has reinforced my conviction in the necessity of challenging the big-state, nanny-knows-best mentality of the Left.

The Greens will have you believe that they are defenders of social freedoms, and stick up for the “little man”. Yet, they propose that the state dictates:
- The parameters of your political campaigning;
- How parents should discipline their children;
- What you’re allowed to have in your lunchboxes at school (and what a school can sell at tuckshops);
- How long you can shower;
- What kind of lightbulbs you should have; and now
- How many kids you should have.

David Farrar is spot on when he says: “The Greens are saying of course it will be up to each family to decide for themselves how many children they have – but nevertheless they want to run education programmes and awareness initiatives to help those parents make the right decisions.”

Of course, “education programmes and awareness initiatives” is a euphemistic phrase for “state-sanctioned indoctrination and propaganda”.

It must be remembered that when the Chinese government introduced the one-child policy, it knew how unpopular it would be; hence the extensive “education programmes and awareness initiatives” run nationwide, including in schools.

And then there are the uncanny parallels and inconvenient coincidences:
- China defends the one-child policy in the name of the “greater good”; the Greens’ Population Policy is promoted “for the sake of sustainability”.
- The Greens’ predecessor, the Values Party, explicitly advocated zero economic growth; compare that with the underlying “zero (net) polulation growth” thrust to the Greens’ Population Policy.

If you like the idea of politicians and bureaucrats entering your homes and tinkering with your lives, go ahead and party vote Green.

But if you’re a believer in a minimalist state that is restricted to the core functions of protecting our basic freedoms and ensuring law and order, your only choice is to party vote ACT.

chiz: Did you watch it?

Equivocation. The objective scientific evidence, in the sense you presumably intend, is the opposite. Personhood does not begin at conception. The antiabortion movement understand science about as well as creationists, or, ironically, given the context of your remark, the greens.

Here is a link to a video on youtube that everyone should watch, it is deeply disturbing (to everyone who still has a soul that is)
and it is happening on our watch.
If you want to keep your head in the sand about the reality of abortion I recomend you do not watch this video, as it will burst your bubble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLaai6o0O0A

Until this video or similar is shown to kids as part of sexual education there will never be full understanding of the abortion issue, after all its only cells right?

One of the things that needs to be understood at every level of society and taught to our children, is that socialism of the type that explicitly disinherits a sizeable proportion of the population, WILL BE of necessity A VERY VIOLENT regime. I cannot understand how anyone ever thought otherwise, or how anyone ever thought that these massive disinheritances were part and parcel of a movement that was going to be about “peace and justice”. This thinking involves such a deep character flaw that I would want to see considerable evidence of a person’s repudiation of it before I would regard them as fit to exercise any sort of leadership role in society again.

We have a serious problem when the few people who HAVE repudiated this past, like David Horowitz, are submitted to such ostracisation by the “mainstream” that it is akin to the government in Orwell’s “1984″ writing people out of the historical record or holding “5 minute hate” sessions.

Ari, if you visit this thread again, kindly tell me where you stand regarding “good intentions”: on the part of Bjorn Lomborg and Patrick Moore.

I feel quite strongly that the Green movement is actually having it too much its own way on what is “commonly believed” by the great majority of people……..like, for example, on air pollution and water pollution and deforestation……..there is actually so much GOOD news that people quite frankly are never told. There is actually a connection between these things and WEALTH; it is lesser developed countries that have the worst problems.

So much Green activism is based on the assumption that development and wealth increase per se, will be bad for the environment. This will certainly lead to unintended consequences, just like almost every natural assumption that was made by the “Planners” of the USSR was almost certainly WRONG. The real world is such a truly chaotic place, that it is impossible to tell what policies they adopted were right and which were wrong; but the overall result is not in doubt; they failed BOTH in economic growth AND in environmental destruction.

Yet if YOU were to look line by line at their list of policies, you would probably find yourself in agreement with all of them. I will give you just one example; relying on public transport and doing without cars altogether. YOU would say, wouldn’t you, that of course that had to be better for the USSR’s environment, there must have been other factors that negated the Soviets “advantage” in this area. I presume you would not dispute that there were serious losses in economic efficiency for them as a result of the inflexibilities that public transport impose.

We actually do not possess the omnipotence to decide this argument, but it will probably shock you that I believe that the Soviets use of a public transport based economy was WORSE for their environment in the final analysis, than a purely private-vehicle-based one. I believe this conclusion on my part is just as valid as your assumption to the contrary.

I believe that a Green-governed country would suffer the same problem with “unintended consequences”. You people are simply too blinded by your ideology to be able to grasp observable realities. But it certainly appears that Greens have no moral difficulty with worsening peoples quality of life IMMEDIATELY in efforts to address some alleged potential future greater loss of quality of life. The trouble with this is that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy; with steps taken BACKWARDS in economic efficiency, we kill the goose that lays the golden eggs: progress. Some modern day Orwell needs to write a “Green” “Animal Farm”.

I see. Well I do look forward to seeing more of this perspective around.

“sometimes international affairs are not black and white”

Terrorism is wrong. Which part of that do you find difficult to understand?

“there is no objective measure of whether an abortion is justified, or even at what stage a baby or potential baby might qualify as being “alive” or having a “right to live” ”

Bollocks. The first step in advocating mass murder is to dehumanise those you want to kill. Saying that your not sure what qualifies a human baby as being alive or having a right to live has, once again, proven my point about how sick you and your party are. The objective scientific evidence is that once conception has taken place we have a human being. Killing innocent human children is wrong.

The ideology that human population is growing out of control and must be reduced is an opinion, and when held strongly and promoted, a form of ideology. That does not make it wrong, but it does mean that you are in fact saying that your party wants its opinion/ideology promoted. Its not simply “information”.

Since finding out about this I have talked to over twenty women I know, 13 of them Labour supporters, and every one found the idea of being given this kind of “information” deeply obnoxious and offensive.

And thankyou for proving my point about Locke.

When the Communists came to power in Russia millions were murdered. When Mao came to power in China millions were murdered. It would not have taken a rocket scientist to figure out what would happen when the Khmere Rouge came to power. Your point that Locke expected something “humanitarian” only goes to show how extreme he is and how deeply unfit to be in the position he is in your party.

His excuse that “oops I got it wrong” after a million were slaughtered is pathetic.

I agree, but I would also say that those on the ‘pro-business’ end of the spectrum are the first to dump environmental measures in the name of being practical. Quite interesting to read about the farmer in The Omnivores’ Dilemma who calls himself a Christian-Environmentalist-Libertarian – fascinating character!

Chthoniid, the insulation is an environmental/health measure – you seem to be looking for a conservation party more than a Green party?

I don’t see that conservation issues are separate to environmental issues, and indeed, in most parts of the planet conservation departments are part of an environment ministry (not separate as in NZ). I just tend to use conservation examples more. I am a vegetarian largely for environmental reasons afterall.

Even the Chinese communists I’ve been working with understood that environmental measures cost money. There’s tradeoffs and they’re a lot easier to afford when you’ve got the money. Bringing back the Chinese alligator from the very edge of extinction would have been impossible in the China of 1990. We might yet succeed with the South China tiger.

I think it would be relevant to point out that Labour did cut DoC’s budget in either 2004 or 2005 (can’t remember which I’m sorry). Cutting spending when the public sector is actually expanding and the economy is growing is quite an achievement in political expediency- especially if you don’t have a weak economy as an excuse.

The realpolitik of environmental politics means that most policies that depend on Government support or financing, eventually fail. The West Coast Forest Accord lasted only so long as to the time when Labour decided that 50,000 green votes were worth breaking the agreement.

Could you paraphrase, I’m a bit pressed for time.

Propaganda is defined in much the same way as electioneering- it is information designed to support a particular group of people, or attack their opponents. There is no mention of issues in any definition I have ever seen of propaganda, and this policy is about education of the wider consequences of having more kids- which seems like an issue to me, rather than a person, faction, or group.

Lecturing usually implies a degree of power imbalance where you are compelled to listen. The policy does not advocate anything along those lines and people can be free to ignore any information they like. There is no compulsion involved.

I apologise if my statement was arrogant, but I will not be weak in advocating what I think is right for New Zealand and the wider world. I am asking for New Zealanders to consider EVERY consequence of their actions, not just the more immediate ones. If that isn’t an issue of responsibility, I don’t know what is. Talk of freedoms without responsibilities sounds equally arrogant to me. To be perfectly clear on this issue, I agree (and have never said otherwise) that ultimately, the choice of whether to have a child should of course rest with the parent(s) involved. One of the Green candidates made a press release to the same effect just recently, too. If you want to continue to chase a misinterpretation of our policy, then good luck to you.

Did Nandor take drugs? Yes, Nandor is a follower of a minority religion whose observance requires taking a marijuana, which as drugs go is one of the less harmful ones. (but still quite bad in the overall picture of harm from drug use, and worth doing whatever we can to minimise the harm its usage causes- and we believe that the best way to do that is to remove the criminal charge for possessing it and instead focus on black market dealers) As religious beliefs go, this is one of the less harmful ones, and I certainly take a lot less issue with it than some of the radical anti-contraception groups derived from more orthodox religious beliefs. I guess it’s just a matter of what you view as harmful- and to me, someone choosing to damage their own lungs as part of their religion, however hard I find that to understand, is a lot less harmful than someone who tries to control sexuality for their own purposes.

Did Keith Locke make statements supporting Pol Pot? No. It’s there on Hansard, (and therefore it’s also available on http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/) but Keith explained that like many people, he welcomed the new regime in Cambodia as an opportunity for change and humanitarian rule, but was sickened by the authoritarian crackdown and ethnic cleansing that followed. If you read what he said, I think you’ll understand just how hard a topic that is for him and that there’s some real lessons that have been learned there, especially about how socialism has its own imperfections.

What I find disgusting is that you have to resort to that level of hyperbole and misrepresentation in your personal attacks to say your piece instead of actually offering some substantive criticism.

As for our level of disagreement- I don’t care if it’s minor or major, either we can disagree respectfully or we don’t deserve to call ourselves adults. There is no need for either of us to make personal attacks or hasty moral judgements on each other.

Open Slather abortion? I’m not familiar with that term, but did find an article referring to “open slather on abortion”. Officially the kiwi Green Party isn’t pro-choice or pro-life, and whether or not the number of abortions in New Zealand has reached the millions yet, you certainly can’t pin that on the Party itself, having done no work to advocate availability or free choice in the matter of abortions. I found mention of the Green Party of Australia (who I have no involvement with and who don’t consult us or vice-versa on most national issues) being very pro-choice in Victoria, but that was about it. I’m not entirely sure what you’re going on about here to be honest. Even if we did support abortion on demand for third-trimester abortions, there is no objective measure of whether an abortion is justified, or even at what stage a baby or potential baby might qualify as being “alive” or having a “right to live” in a meaningful sense. It’s all subjective and it’s a very difficult situation where ALL the decisions seem wrong, and even when you save a life, you’ve often trampled over the autonomy of a woman and a mother, and even where you preserve free decision making, you’ve- at best- left a baby to die. (Well, I’m sure there’s people who would say leaving an embryo to die isn’t a moral evil, and some who think that it has the capacity to feel pain right from conception. Alas, it will be very difficult to prove ANYTHING) In that sort of situation, my instinct is to put the decision in the hands of the person most effected by it, in this case, the mother, assuming she is mentally capable of making the decision. But that’s only my personal view.

As for supporting terrorists- I suggest you look into the situation a lot more clearly and I doubt you’ll come away with such a cut-and-dry picture. International affairs aren’t like that, and often one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Even Osama has some convincing points about the oppression of imperial-like capitalism, but of course the minute he turned that into an attack on another country he lost any respect he and his ideas could’ve had in the rest of the world, and quite deservedly so.

As for whining- I apologise if I wrongly assumed that you’d support a higher standard of debate where we attack each other’s ideas before we resort to attacking each other’s character, but I think that if more people realise that politics is a subject with no absolute “right answer” for every situation, we’ll have a better and more informed society that can have respectful debate on our different ideas. I get the impression you just want to ignore me and find a way to dismiss me that satisfies you rather than think that your political opponents might actually have something worthwhile to say from a vastly different perspective which may have fundamental disagreements with your own, that perhaps, sometimes, can be bridged or resolved for the greater good. Don’t worry though, I’ll take my whining somewhere it’s appreciated for now and leave you to your comfortable echo chamber.

To everyone else who has left me a reply, thoughtful or just plain negative- thanks. I’ll get back to you later.

I’m not convinced of this. I’ve met a lot of people who are interested in the environment- from Chinese communists through to American libertarians. There is no peculiar affinity by socialists for the environment.

I agree, but I would also say that those on the ‘pro-business’ end of the spectrum are the first to dump environmental measures in the name of being practical. Quite interesting to read about the farmer in The Omnivores’ Dilemma who calls himself a Christian-Environmentalist-Libertarian – fascinating character!

Chthoniid, the insulation is an environmental/health measure – you seem to be looking for a conservation party more than a Green party?