Justice Herdman meted out to the prisoner in the dock, Hohepa Tanu Pomare,  a six month prison sentence including hard labour.  Sounds a bit light, especially for the times and given the ostensible depravity of the offending. But here is Justice Herdman’s account of how Pomare’s sentence was determined:

“If you were a European I would have given you a long sentence, but you are a Maori, and I suppose I must consider your peculiar ideas of morality. You will be imprisoned for six months with hard labour.”

WTF? By “your” “peculiar ideas of morality” His Honour clearly refers not to Mr Pomare’s own highly dubious moral values, but to those of Maori as a whole! He’s saying that the crime was abhorrent, but (in effect) the moral decadence and turpitude of Maori assuages his personal guilt. So much so as to qualify for him for a substantial discount on his sentence! Ninety years ago a judge could effectively treat Maori as so debased as a people that to Maori who commit incest are (far) less culpable than Pakeha who do the very same deeds!

Of course, despite the huge variation in mores across all cultures, incest taboos are universal. But to think that even given the backward attitudes ingrained in colonial minds at the time a judge could get away with this! It just beggars belief.

I have read the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography entry for Justice (later Sir) Alexander Herdman. No surprises there. A right-wing anti-unionist Freemason who despite his own mediocre legal background appointed himself to a cosy judicial post on retiring from politics, maintained a “tough-guy” stance on law and order issues….and saw Maori as sick and twisted savages who had such peculiar moral standards that their culpability for despicable sexual crimes was reduced….

What has changed? And what has stayed the same? (I leave for homework the connection between Freemasonry and Social Darwinism..)

Now, I want first of all to consider what could possibly make someone lazy or become possessed of a slothful attitude. I then want to consider whether there might be reasons for thinking that the individual who really is lazy (as opposed to having some inconspicuous psychological disorder which manifests itself as apathetic inactivity) is not ultimately responsible for his or her failure and unwillingness to “do her bit”.

Human beings are by our very nature productive, creative, and social beings. We have deep atavistic needs for fellowship and society with one another, and also basic immediate material needs: for sustenance, shelter etc. In human beings’ essential condition work is the project of fulfilling both our immediate physical needs and our broader social and cultural needs. With the former met and the latter unmet human beings suffer by their inherent creativity being reduced to a mere functionality. With the former unmet human beings simply perish. As social beings we depend on each other for mutual advancement, friendship, solidarity, and practical help. And ultimately this means that a) our social nature requires that we “lend a hand” to one another in going about our respective physical work; b) that we collaborate in those “broader sociocultural and intellectual endeavours and c) that we look out for one another at a basic emotional level. Each individual person depends totally on the support of others in each of these three respects; and failure to give in these ways as we ought involves taking from others and not giving back.

The idea that I wish to advance here is subversive in modern capitalistic society: the notion that in fact the individual who does this not only harms society around him but also harms himself directly. No man is an island; and an obstinate refusal to work, to support, and to collaborate demonstrates a blindness to what human beings require. The lazy person requires analgesic support by various recreational or pharmaceutical means. Inactivity is soul-destroying. Who would really want to spend ones life without having produced anything significant or made any lasting contribution to the world? Of course, such a contribution may not be rewarded by pecuniary remuneration. Late capitalism cons us into believing the blatant anthropological lie that production is about the acquisition of money/financial wealth. Human beings, as Marx recognised, thus become alienated from not only the fruits of their labour, but also from their active,creative, and productive “species essence”.

How perverse is it when a Prime Minister of a country can go on national television, as I saw Helen Clark do once here in New Zealand, and say that once Gross Domestic Product reaches appropriate high levels all parents will be able to “choose” to withdraw from the care of their small children and employ others to do this for them? Unpaid work raising children becomes seen as a form of inactivity! How utterly bizarre that human flourishing is seen just in terms of financial productivity. Ultimately all increases in financial profitability come from either increased use (depletion) of natural resources, more efficient use of those resources, or profit at the expense of some other individual, entity, nation, etc. The only ways that any entity, including a national entity, may increase its financial wealth without depleting scarce natural resources are by taking wealth from elsewhere (perhaps the “elsewhere” here is a “sector” of the economy- witness housing capital gains on the strength of capital flows into property at the expense of (e.g.) manufacturing), or by increasing the efficiency of production.

Efficiency is the most paradoxical of capitalism’s economic constructs. Efficiency means producing more for less, than by less is meant less cost; ultimately less labour cost. Efficiency  is the production of more by fewer. It is the progressive redundancy of labour. It is the source of indolence. It is the mechanism by which labour and production become  aimed at their obsolescence. It is the mechanism by which I am robbed of the satisfaction and fulfillment of my endeavours. Without this drive to increased consumption, production and efficiency, how could anyone not want to contribute to the work of the community around them? Such a person would be an anti-social creature and to that extent deserving of pity. Under today’s economic system, nothing is different except that the cause of laziness perhaps is to be found more in atomising and demoralising social structures than in an individual’s psychology, despite the fact that the laissez-faire individualism which condemns the unemployed and the “unproductive” as lazy thrives on the myth of the self as a self-enclosed subject. Herein lies another paradox. The source of inactivity in modern capitalism is large and structural; and yet that source is perpetuated by the myth that every man is an island.

I leave it to the reader, if there is such a creature, to apply this thesis to the debates surrounding social security and “individual responsibility”. But in closing I want to address one important objection to what I have been arguing: that competition is natural and healthy. It is innate to human beings. It has shaped our evolution.

All this is true and important. But true competition arises out of a contest in which the aim is the true flourishing of the individual, not of capitalism’s efficient creature. What is the true end for human beings is ultimate success in community, and thus genuine competition is aimed at the individual’s success in attaining the holistic ends proper to her individual nature and interests in right relation to others. To suggest that competition requires capitalistic individualism is to deceive oneself as to what is good for human beings.

having a baby in new zealand
having a baby
having twins
having a baby in australia
having an affair
having an affair with a married man
having a baby in nz
having six sides
having a baby games
having trouble sleeping

Gives one an insight into what people are searching for and thinking about. Yes, the Internet really does provide exciting new sociological data.

Submission on Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill

My name is [spose] and my address is [sposeland]. I may be contacted by [blog] at [isuppose.wordpress.com] or by telephone on [sposeland phone no]I do wish to make an oral submission to the Committee in support of this submission.

I believe that the Bill’s failure to enshrine in statute specific competences, powers and functions of local boards constitutes a serious deficiency in the legislation as currently drafted. A requirement should be imposed on the Auckland Transition Agency and on the Auckland Council once established to take into account the views of existing local authorities with respect to which non-regulatory powers ought to be delegated to local boards upon the establishment of the Auckland Council. It would be entirely feasible for the present legislation to codify and clarify specific powers vested in local boards without nullifying the provisions of section 17 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, which in fact merely impose caveats on the Auckland Council’s discretionary power to determine which of its non-regulatory powers are to be delegated to local boards.

In considering this submission, it is important to note the significant threat to the decision-making control and democratic influence of local communities to determine their own affairs and represent their own interests posed by centralisation of municipal power into a unitary regional territorial authority. Whilst Parliament has already provided for the disestablishment of the existing Auckland regional governance structure as provided for by the Local Government Act 2002, the single-council model to be introduced could in fact provide for significant control of local affairs at a community level, if local boards are given a wide yet feasible legislative mandate. Without this, the ability of local communities to influence issues of special concern to them will be substantially assuaged and limited to negligible representation on a council comprised of members from throughout the region. Furthermore, it is inevitable that should the Auckland Council adopt a loose interpretation of the criteria specified in section 17(2)(b) of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, the intention and overall ideological vision of the majority of councillors will determine decision-making on issues of particular relevance to particular geographic communities.

Likewise, consideration should be given to amending the present Bill so that some presumption in favour of wider delegation of powers (other than those of which delegation is prohibited by section 32 of the Local Government Act 2002), is created. It is particular vital that local boards receive authority to make on behalf of geographic communities decisions pertaining to planning issues, especially relating to local infrastructure and community services. Thus, a presumption should be made in favour of the delegation to local boards of certain functions of a local authority reserved to Auckland Transport insofar as such delegation is appropriate.

It is instructive in this context to take note of sections 10 and 11 of the Local Government Act 2002 which set out the purpose and role of local authorities respectively:

The purpose of local government is—

(a) to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and

(b) to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities, in the present and for the future.

Role of local authority

The role of a local authority is to—

a) give effect, in relation to its district or region, to the purpose of local government stated in

(b) perform the duties, and exercise the rights, conferred on it by or under this Act and any other enactment.

In view of these broad definitions, it is apparent that particular care must be given to ensuring that local boards have the widest feasible influence over the entire spectrum of duties and functions performed by local government in Auckland. Given that the ‘brief’ of a local council, including the new Auckland Council is in essence enabling and indicative rather than prescriptive , legislation should ensure that local boards have some measure of control over which particular activities are assumed by local government at all within their area boundaries. The Auckland Council may, for example. desire to divest itself of involvement in the provision of community housing in a particular area, or close a local library, against the wishes of the relevant local board and community. Whilst obviously fiscal considerations must limit to some extent the autonomy of local boards, the Bill should be amended to appropriate statutorily to local boards the ability to influence decision-making of Council as to which specific roles local government is to fulfil in the community. Furthermore, a broad statutory function for local boards would ensure that significant funding is granted to local boards, thus guaranteeing their genuine power and authority to make decisions on behalf of the communities they respectively serve.

Section 35 of the Bill as currently drafted empowers the Minister of Local Government to make initial appointments to the boards of directors of Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) of the Auckland Council and for the Ministers of Local Government and Transport to make such appointments to Auckland Transport. This would represent an unacceptable incursion into the control of Auckland’s public financial interests by central Government and therefore it must be amended. Power to make initial appointments to these entities ought to be vested in the Auckland Council once established. This would require either the deferment of the inception of Auckland transport and/or the various Council Controlled Organisations, or that the Auckland Transition Agency has power to appoint directors whose term expires only after the expiration of a brief transitional period.

The new section 35G of the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act 2009 inserted by clause 24 of the Bill enables the Governor-General by Order-in-Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Local Government to create Council Controlled Organisations of the Auckland Council as provided for by the Local Government Act 2002, and to charge the Auckland Transition Agency with the placement of core business and functions of the Auckland Council in the hands of these organisations. While the establishment of CCOs may well be opportune, the power of central Government to entrust core Council business to these entities is repugnant to local democracy and risks enforcing a preordained structure and arrangement of functions onto the new Council. There is no reason, given that the business and functions assumed by CCOs is essentially held originally and substantively by the Auckland Council, for these to come into existence concurrently with the Council. The establishment of CCOs and allocation of functions to them must be reserved to local authorities alone, except perhaps in relation to Auckland Transport, which has a unique role and character set out by the Bill.

Section 83 (1)(a) currently requires the Auckland Council to make its first determination of representation arrangements “no earlier than after the completion of the 2013 triennial general elections but no later than 8 September 2018”. This imposes the arrangements made for the elections in 2010 on Auckland communities at least for the 2013 election, and is unfair and contrary to democratic principles. It is essential that Auckland Council has the same ability to determine ward boundaries etc. as any other local council. Otherwise Aucklanders may have to suffer the consequences of having inadequate or inappropriate ward boundaries for more than one lection, even against the will of elected representatives. The word “2013” in this clause should be amended to read “2010”.Likewise the ability of Aucklanders to effect a switch from the First Past the Post system for local elections to a system of proportional representation after the 2010 elections must not be denied. Thus, a corresponding amendment should be made to clause 60 of the Bill.

Clause 71 should be amended so as to guarantee Council control of Watercare Services Ltd indefinitely, and not merely until 2015. Watercare is a vital public asset providing an invaluable utility service and thus must reamin under the purview and reasonable statutory jurisdiction of elected local government.

Campaign spending limits for elections specified in Schedule 3 to the Bill are manifestly excessive and potentially confer on those with significant financial backing inordinate ability to influence voters. The region-wide territory of the Auckland Council does not warrant this. A better formular would be based on aggregation of the present spending limits applied under existing legislation to those who sought election to the various existing local councils at the last local body elections.

These campaigns show more very clearly just to what extent popular conceptions of God (including some popular conceptions within the theistic traditions!) conflict with the very traditions which with they are commonly associated. And they reflect how the rampant individualism of capitalist society shapes our thinking about pretty much everything.

Think for a minute about the Christian tradition. How has fear of God traditionally been understood within that tradition? In orthodox Christianity, fear of God is inextricably tied to the moral condition of a believer’s soul (the notion of soul being itself closely tied to moral sensibility!). “Fear God” standardly functions as an exhortation to live a life of love; keeping watch “for you do not know when your Lord is coming.” In that regard, fear of God is to some extent different to fear of powerful individuals. My fear of powerful individuals is a product of a (warranted or erroneous) belief that they may exert power over me and do me harm.

In the case of God, who is Love, there is no question of his letting me down or abandoning me, for his love is steadfast and unyielding. Thus fear of God cannot fail to have everything to do with my moral consciousness, and nothing to do with being subject to the capricious and subordinating power of an authority. So, if I cease to fear God, this must simply mean that I cease to have regard for the external consequences of my moral behaviour. This, of course, does not mean that any morally sensitive individual fears God, even if they do not believe in God. But it does mean that from the believer’s perspective regard for her objective moral standing is what constitutes fear of God.

Stop worrying and enjoy your life? Cease to fear God and be merry? Well, if merriment involves simple self-gratification, maybe. But, from the standpoint of the Christian believer, that’s false happiness. Jesus himself says “I have come that you may have life, and live it abundantly” (John 10:10). And Christianity’s claim is not that true life involves submission and obeisance to a celestial Superpower. It is that power corrupts, and that true happiness and power is found through rejection of the false promises of the world. It is not, as the Gnostics thought, that the world is debased and corrupt. It is that true life involves living a mystery of love which involves rejecting domination of things and people.

Now if religious ideas and discourses are to have any intelligible sense at all, they must have some analogy with secular (or, better, non-religious) ideas and discourses. And here is a point where the Christian notion of fear of God can be grasped by the infidel. By secular eyes, is true happiness really to be found in not worrying about the way one lives one life? And does one even need to be, or even have ever been, a believer to find the notion of God something other than frightening? Many an unbeliever thinks finds it otherwise Perhaps if anyone, believer or otherwise, finds it so, then they are either labouring under a crude caricature of the concept of God or recognising the deficiencies in their moral state. Or maybe both.

In any event, these campaigns really involve just a waste of time and money.

Thank the Lord Jesus Christ for that!

So, I hope to post on a range of philosophical, political, theological and miscellaneous topics over the Christmas/New Year break…and beyond. Watch this space, if anyone’s there!

But I have known of a good many children and young people (including me in my early adolescence) who have various and sundry problems, seek professional advice as a consequence, and emerge with a tentative diagnosis of AS. And in every case it has been apparent to me from my knowledge of and reading about AS that they do not suffer from this condition.

One example: myself. I have suffered all my life from a co-ordination disorder. It’s caused me a lot of problems, as such disorders typically do. And I never really “fitted in” as a child; I was always just “a bit different”. But I have never had any problem, unlike most AS sufferers, with relating to, and socialising with, other people. Indeed, my natural disposition (which has to some extent been vitiated by the harsh experiences of life) is that of a very gregarious person. Yet  more than once have I been suspected by various ‘experts’ of having AS.

I recently applied for information from my hospital file. And in response I was provided with a paediatrician’s report from when I was 12. It stated that its author suspected I may have AS. I had an appropriate sense of humour, so that didn’t quite fit. But, the document reported, I had trouble making friends and interacting with others, and had done ever since I was a preschooler. False, as anyone who has known be since childhood can attest. And as a child I had “particular and unusual interests”, like maps. Well all my life I’ve loved maps. I still do. They fascinate me. I’m interested in people and their natural environments. That’s why I love maps. Google Earth-ing is a favourite pastime of mine. AS sufferers typically have obsessive interests which do not translate into an interest in the broader context of the topic of interest. Example: a sufferer might be fascinated by bus timetables; but not buses or transport modes. My interests have never been like that. And, as even this doctor noted, they’ve never been to the exclusion of other things.

I don’t have AS. I remember looking it up online after this specialist consultation at age 12, and knowing for certain that I didn’t have it. The ‘suspicion’ that I might have AS was developed through the persistent questioning of my mother and me, using loaded questions. Enough about me, though.I’m not complaining. The question however is: how many young people with unusual characteristics are being branded as AS after tendentious professional inquiries, however innocent and well-intentioned? I’m not blaming anyone here; after all, the recognition of AS has yielded wonderful results for people. It’s important that sufferers are diagnosed.  We can excuse the clinicians. They’re just trying to do their best, even if when it comes to possible AS cases, they exhibit excessive diagnostic zeal.

However, I have been acquainted with a number of children and young people with various psychological, developmental, physical or emotional issues who’ve been referred for specialist assistance from professionals, who’ve emerged with a tentative AS diagnosis, where it is apparent to the informed lay personnot caught up in the ‘excitement’ amongst professionals who work with young people engendered by the recognition of AS. And the worry is that this (mis)diagnosis may be leading young people and their families astray; preventing them from addressing the real difficulties they face. The worry is that anyone who doesn’t quite “fit the mould” might find themselves unable to seek clinical support from a doctor or other professional without facing the ‘AS examination’ 

I want to hear from clinicians about this. Do my observations accord with the reality they see in their working lives? And I want to hear from anyone else who has  been themselves, or has a child who has been, diagnosed with AS, and who is certain that the diagnosis is or was erroneous. How do they feel about their AS clinical experiences?

Firstly, I do not believe that the rulers of this world will allow capitalism, with all the power and illusory luxuries it appropriates to the powerful and greedy at the expense of the masses, to fail any time soon. The Great Depression provides one historical example (barely!) within living memory of a very grave global economic system failure. But the governments of that time believed that contractionary fiscal and monetary policy together provided a panacea for a capitalist economy’s ills. They thought that by deliberately suppressing and constraining economic activity (notwithstanding existing deflationary pressures) an economy would be rescued.

The rationale behind this was plain and, frankly, stupid. It was thought that a deflationary fiscal policy package would cause prices to fall at a faster rate, and, eventually, the pace of price reduction would outstrip the pace of nominal aggregate economic output and (oh yes!) wages. So people would in real terms get richer again; and the economy would regain its equilibrium.

It didn’t work. Instead, it made an existing problem worse. The crisis was caused ultimately by the inherent instability of capitalist economic cycles; specifically, manifested in a frenzied worldwide investment of resources into global stock markets and the inevitable concomitant collapse; set into motion by the collapse of an Austrian bank. Eventually, the Savage government here in New Zealand got its people out of the hole by borrowing to pump stacks of dough into public works, job creation programmes, and handouts to ordinary people. They adopted capitalism Keynesian-style; and it worked like a charm.

We now know enough about how capitalism works; how its evil machinations operate. We know how to keep the system afloat during its inevitable crises. And there is no indication that with counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy being implemented by all capitalist governments and central bankers, that this current malaise will not right itself. Eventually it will be ensured that money is printed to stimulate demand for goods, capital investment in industry and enterprise. And of course we have seen how readily the apostles of neoliberal free market ideology will swallow their ideological rhetoric when it comes to bailing out large conglomorates.

All will be well for capitalism for a long time yet. I am a young man; but I will probably, even given the pace of change today, never see the destruction of the system and way of life I detest. And this, I think, in turn suggests why we ought to demur at the claim that the present economic malaise vindicates Marxism. Marxism is vindicated during capitalism’s ostensible triumphs as much as it is during its times of doom and failure. For economic growth in capitalist societies visits upon society members, communities and indeed the natural environment the most grievous indignities. Someone’s gain is always another’s loss. Capitalism is tragic when it is flourishing; and it is tragic during its failures. Growth often is accompanied by low wages, poor working conditions, depletion of natural resources, and the general shallow, hedonistic promises of a mechanistically materialistic lifestyle and culture. One important caveat, however: economic downturns are always accompanied by increased joblessness.

But we know that low unemployment is only a transitory state of affairs in a capitalist society; particularly in a context in which international trade conventions and agreements impose uniformity in trade turnover fluctuations; such that no economy is really immune from the constant threat of economic battering. Capitalism is always and everywhere an affront to human dignity, creativity and flourishing. And the present downturn is witness to that just as is the (associated) earlier economic progress which precipitated it.