Rick had these questions to ask about the smoking issues:

"Is it your body? Is it your health?"

Uhm, yeah. Which is why smoking is banned in bars. I'm sure Rick'll be more than familiar with Mill's Harm Principal, which in its essence states that

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Now, I don't entirely agree with this principal: I believe personal liberty is to be carefully weighted against collective utility, but the reason I support a ban on smoking in bars is stated succinctly in it. The harm caused by second hand smoking, foisted upon employees of public bars, outweighs the breach of the personal liberties of smokers.

I don't think it can be said that employees of public bars have implicitly agreed to be exposed to second hand smoke, or that they have an operative choice in the nature of their employment. As such, the freedom of the employees and the freedom of the smoker are in direct conflict. So, the resolution offered by smoking laws like New Zealand's is a pragmatic and practical one: a ruling in favour of an easy solution to the conflict by moving the smokers outside.

Taxation of tobbacco products is a different issue, and one to which the above argument obviously can't be applied to - some have tried, but it involves invoking the grim spectre of the public health system and gets messy pretty quickly. Out of interest, Mill had much to say on this matter too:

Among luxuries of general consumption, taxation should by preference attach itself to stimulants, because these, though in themselves as legitimate indulgences as any others, are more liable than most others to be used in excess, so that the check to consumption, naturally arising from taxation, is on the whole better applied to them than to other things.

In this case, however, I must directly disagree with Mill. In fact, I'm pretty staggered to even find this in Mill's writing (didn't we just read that the moral good of the person is not sufficient warrant?). Another argument for the taxation of tobacco is that economic protection as much of it is imported: while I'm for some forms of economic protection I find this to be unconvincing.

I have to say, I find the taxes levied on tobacco (and alcohol too) to be perplexing. They really seem to be moral judgements disguised as taxes, which is, as Rick would put it, disgusting. I'm certainly, for instance, no fan of ALAC - a moralistic temperance society pretending to be a regulatory body.

In the end, I think the problem of smoking in bars isn't actually a problem with smoking at all. The only reason there's a 'conflict of liberties' is because we have a private business with liabilities to the public under the alcohol licensing system. Thus, if bars were allowed to be private and still sell alcohol the problem would be resolved: if you wish to smoke and drink indoors there would be sure to be a private bar that would cater to your needs. Blah, blah, blah, the market decides and all that wonderful libertarian stuff.

Yesterday I put reason above partisanship. Today I show you how virtuous I am by defending Benson Pope!

As we know, the Government Minister's school teaching past methods have come back to haunt him. Allegations of his 'teaching style' are, everyone agrees, about to put an end to the ex-Otago PE instructor.

But over there at New Zeal and Bastable I've been thinking we're all making a big mistake. Back around then (1997) I was on camp too, not as a 14yo but as one of the senior student leaders helping to run the show. Nothing like 'The Benson Pope affair' happened at our camp, but I do have insight into how these things go.

The situation is that you've got a bunch of unruly kids let loose in a camping situation where dicipline needs to be gained and kept anew. It's not an hour in the classroom anymore, it's 24hrs a day for several days. There's a big programme to get through, learning to be done, and rules to follow for safety's sake. The kids have to hunker down, the leaders responsible need to be organised and in control. The students need to be ready and in their place on time, that means not staying up late so they're out of bed for breakfast ready for the day. If you don't get the brats "on task" it will be a huge waste of time, money, and resources and you may as well have stayed at school with the books. Benson Pope was in charge of seeing to all of that.

Nobody is saying Pope is some kind of sexual pervert. It is admitted he saw nothing, he never entered the shower cubicals. He only entered the girl's changing room after all attempts and shouting and banging on the door failed as warnings. Indeed, from all I've seen the "crime" is unstated. The allegation is merely that he broke a politically correct taboo. A professional adult woman in his place would make this a non-issue. It's only wrong because political correctness tells us so; because he's a bloke.

The girls were calling him out! Are we so politically correct that a male school teacher can't take responsibility for teenage girls anymore? But how can this teacher do his job if his authority is subverted by the missused power of woman's space?

If they get away with it on the first day that's the whole camp blown and what the girls have learned from camp and apply to their lives is that ultimate power in our society has its source in the power of a woman's body over all men. All else folds before it.

A responsible campmaster only needs to do what Mr Pope did once, and effectively, to break that bullshit spell once and for all. Nothing could match Mr Pope's voice comming from the other side of the screen wall of the girl's shower room to show who was bluffing who. That would end the farce once and for all. Authority that must endure brinkmanship, especially the unwinnable sort, with 14yo girls is no authority at all.

Now THAT is what I've been convinced is the truth of things. And a speech to this effect is all that can save Pope's bacon. But it's a defense he can never use. Not only are we all too much PC brainwashed but his own Government is the champion of PC. The PC brigade has put friendly-fire rounds into its very own Minister.

So don't be too happy about Pope's demise because the PC brigade is still out there and still armed and still aiming for the Not PC. Hurting Labour, cetus paribus, is a good thing. It's too late to stop it now, in 30mins the House will be in session and we'll see PC triumph again.

Napoleon Bonaparte may as well have been speaking for the forces of political correctness that rule us when he said "I may lose a man, but never a moment!"

New Zealand did it. Queensland has done it. Tasmania too. That's just off the top of my head. And now Victoria (where I am now) will join the club of states to ban smoking in bars, but this not until 2007.

On March 1st, however, smoking in the workplace (a bar isn't a workplace anyway?) is a no-no.

Is it your body? Is it your health? Hand over that kind of thinking on the Victorian boarder pal! Steve Bracks takes the liberty away from your lips and lungs these days!

Who needs the Maori party to ban smoking anyway when the industry is already under government's thumb? And why ban such a great tax revinue cash cow?

Here's an origional compromise by the State of Victoria. This here pic is one of the 4 that will be covering 60% of the surface of all cigarette packets from this tomorrow until the Libertarian Revolution (I'm not sure what the date for this latter is as yet). There's also one with a dead foot, broken arteries and a repentent on the telephone.

If you can control a product to this outragious and disgusting extent who doubts that you could ban it if you wanted to? But no, there's tax to be had.

It's enough to make you vote libertariaaa....ah but you can't. It's Australia.

Hi there. My name's Rick.

I'm an Aucklander from Canterbury who's living in Melbourne. But I'm not an expat! This is my traditional Kiwi O.E. and they take as long as they take. I'll be back.

I'm a paid up member of ACT New Zealand. I'm one of the right-wing "lunatic fringe" who has sold his soul to the whole of pure clean Libertarian philosophy. If you don't get it then I think you must be a corrupt evasionist at worst or sadly uninformed at best. Like Dominic though my first allegiance is to good premises, to rigourous argument. Reason first. I'll drop everything else I believe in for that. I've thought too long and too deeply for such a thing to happen now but try me- I always listen- and let the truth come as it may and cost what it will.

My philosophical conclusions are teleologic, they're axiologic, they're systematic, they're hydromatic. Why, my philosophy is greese lightnin'! So best you be careful where you stand in the storm, huh?

<- Click for full-sized image

Hi there. My name's Dominic. I don't know you, dear reader, and you don't know me, but hopefully we can both get to know each other. Or some other sentimental crap like that.

Seeing as this is my first post for NZB3, I thought I would spend it in examination what I believe; something that's a lot harder to do than I thought. I must say I'm somewhat intimidated by Rick's torrent of posts so far. I was intending to reply to some of his points, but without an introduction anything I could have said would have seemed, to me at least, impertinent. Ah well, this should put things right.

By way of full disclosure: I'm a paid up member of the New Zealand Labour Party. One of those filthy social democrats who just can't quite get the beauty of the whole pure-clean Libertarian philosophy into their thick skulls. But I'll tell you what: I try my darn tootin' hardest to understand whatever political arguments are thrown my way, and if they're good enough I'll be convinced. Problem is, I'm convinced they won't be good enough. See, my political position isn't a result of some deep-down inexpressable belief. Rather, it's the simple sum of what I see and what I value. There's nothing stopping me from being of any other political persuasion — I'm not SocDem because it feels good (it does, but that's beside the point).

And anyway, I believe the gulf between modern Socialism and Libertarianism is smaller than an advocate of either group would admit publically. That, mind you, is for another post.

Next post:

• RMS, not ESR.
• John, not Paul.

Lewis over there at Holden Republic blog is
thinking bicameral thoughts.

As a libertarian I think, in general, the less government we have the better! If the power of the state is properly "bridled" there's really bugger all to vote about or politic about. When liberty is law the organisation of parliamentarians and, indeed, sufferage itself becomes a rather inconsequental matter to ponder.

If it didn't have OUR rights to scrap over government could form itself into a cheerleader's pyrimid and hold its sessions at the beach- who would care?

"..if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder -- is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?"
- The Law, Frederick Bastiat

This is why you don't see libertarians in public law. Bastiat's paragraph supplants anything a university PhD could clutter your brain with.

, two days ago a song came into my head that I neither listen to nor even know. This happens to me all the time and I'm not good for much unless I get hold of the offending music and listen it out of me.

But that's with songs I'm familure with, this time my subconscious mind has prodded me into one I can't even remember hearing before! But I knew the riff and I knew it was Pearl Jam and with a bit of concentration knew it was called "Dissident". I didn't know any of the lyrics, let alone what they ment or why I had to have it. But I've just figured it all out.

Yesterday I downloaded Limewire, and through that the track in question. That solved my nagging trouble but didn't explain what my brain was trying to tell me. Only when I downloaded the lyrics did it all suddenly come together and make perfect sense.


Oh, a dissident, a dissident is here

This is a song for Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair when she's faced with the cruel alternative of either betraying her duty or betraying Steve McQueen. It's a song about the look on her face when she folded, selling the man she loved to the state and realising she had lost him forever.

And that's half the reason I've got Dissident in my head, because I watched the film last week. The other half is because I've been thinking back to how the last Census changed my life forever in 2001. I was the dissident then and I was the one sold to the state. So I left that town.

I'm not done talking about the Census yet.

If Maia can't down a dose of this she'd better stay very well clear of Generation XY, that's for damn sure...

Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty: Pro-Women; another comment deleted!


Maia, in my dictionary, indeed The Dictionary, this is censorship of the ordinary sort. The word does have an ordinary meaning apart from a political one.

I'm the guest and I'm not required to like your hospitality or endure it. I have no privilidges for you to revoke and I've nothing but respect for your authority here.

However, I am surprised you haven't choosen to answer my case. Maybe you don't think I'm intellectually sincere? Try me.

Over there at Capitalismbad blog I have suffered in silence long enough!

Blogger Maia has been "amazed" by what I consider a pathetic slave-mentality cult of victimhood.

In the name of "Feminism" she contemplates 'women and patriarchy,' where she asks the question "who can I blame for my oppression?" Can we sisters blame women too? Or just all the men? How about we collectivise all women as "sisters" except Jenny Shipley and people like her? Who's oppressing me? Who can I blame for my troubles?

I kindly commented that anybody with the wit to contemplate their "oppression" so intellectually and extendedly as this is surely evolved enough to refuse to be a victim and take responsibility for their own will.

Also expressed the opinion that the difference between those who do reject this blame-game exercise and those who let it consume them is the difference between maturity and pettiness.

Maia deleted my comments because she doesn't "think there's useful place in this discussion for anti-feminists (and because it was low-level abusive)". I don't think that's the only reason nor enough reason for her to flee from the challenge. However, she's right to detect my disrespect and she's right that individual responsibility has no useful place in such a doctrine.

Of course she can't answer for herself! Such vampirish second-hand self-esteem-through-victimhood is sent flying through the window by one blow from my enormous fists!

Trevor Loudon is watching out for all of us at New Zeal blog by asking the question What is Hutchison Whampoa?

CCC want to get down with this puppet of Chinese Totalitarianism (what business in China isn't a puppet?) to take over the Lyttelton Port Company. No objections on grounds of free trade but Hutchison Whampoa is more than just a trader so it raises the issue of strategic defense.


It's enough of an affront to libertarians that Garry More and the Christchurch City Council are using the taxation robbery game to fund business ventures, but that's not the only issue.

I think we should do the deal with the tiger but remain vigilent, only when someone does cross the line and endanger national security should we respond. Meantime- watch and have that response ready to roll.

But I'm not kidding about the vigilance stuff. Often the best and only time to kick somebody out is before they've ever gotten their foot in your door.

ps The tiger is an old tracing I did of a David Lowe cartoon. All artists are beggers and thieves...me especially.

I'm all about Objectivism. However, one serious point of departure I have with philosopher Ayn Rand springs from her essay 'The Ethics of Emergencies.'

The NotPC blog has recently backed up its position that the right to free-speech is universal- unless there's some emergency! It's as if when the going gets tough, Objectivism calls it a day. Emergencies are not "metaphysically significant."

What a load of cobblers!

We've a Universe of challange to cope with by the instrument of our philosophy. A Universe, I say. It is no mere summer holiday in peace time or well-supplied wintering season for which we must prepare ourselves but a Universe!

Predicate your philosophy on a Universe of peace and calm without factoring in hell and chaos? These are the times that test and prove philosophy, they tell you your wisdom is fit for a Universe and not some calm spot therein!

My philosophy is made to last, not to be surrendered in times of accident and emergency. I'm ready for peace AND I'm ready for war. My principles last longer than the next emergency and all the emergencies yet to come. It is only because it is a Universe of Reason that makes such a philosophy possible, desirable, necesssary.

And you fair-weather philosophers who confine your scope to the best of times would call my philosophy contingent!? Fuck off with that!

The powers that be and regular citizens who
want criminal justice to apply to vices piss me off!

A vice is a personal bad habit, it's something you inflict on yourself. Smoking cigarettes, watching Shortland Street, and listening to Country music are bad habits. All of these things are distinguished by the fact that any harm is self-inflicted, there are no victims here. Liberty means, amoung other things, the freedom to be the master of your own habits- be they good or bad habits- and nobody, no government, can force you to follow their standards against your will. In libertarian society there are no victimless crimes.

And it goes to show, doesn't it, how far short we are of the full liberty
we deserve when it's the Beehive that gets the final say about where and
when you can buy and sell and smoke and eat and grow and wear and throw and chop down and read and say and play and watch. If the Beehive didn't choose to police our private lives in so many ways I'd be far less pissed off.

But still I wouldn't be satisfied! Because what REALLY makes me red-hot angry is the way the haughty self-assured bossy-booted self-appointed dictators of my habits (and yours!) conduct themselves. The self-rightious conceit of socialist films like
The Corporation put Rick-sized holes in the roof, and me into orbit.

Even though the fascist bastard is ramming his standards down our throats he dresses it up with out-of context statistical manipulations ("12 Kiwis prematurely die a day from smoking") and the pretense of jurisdiction. Those in the media cooperate by clothing the will to enslave and dominate our every-day lives by whipping us with sober voices, biased camera angles, selective research, and carefully placed melodramatic music! Do they really think they can fool us into believing anything they like by wrapping it in these airs and graces?

That's why watching what this New Zealand short film exposes is such a relief to me.
click on picture-link above

My local Member of Parliament, Rodney Hide, has been getting a tough time from Labour. Not content to flex the intimidating muscle legally afforded him by Government, Shane Jones responded to Hide's letter to his Finance and Expenditure Select Committee on Thursday by tearing it up!

The code of professional conduct is apalling. Thousands of New Zealand businesses every day have to line up to dot the i's and cross the t's OR ELSE. But here, at the highest level, a parliamentarian flouts his duty like some kind of autocratic Krusty The Clown. Handle your paperwork with care or the IRD will come down on you like hellfire. But Labour can get off scot free because Speaker Margeret Wilson's just fine with that.

Come's Friday, and not willing to let them get away with it, Rodney takes Margeret Wilson's letter to him and TEARS THAT UP.
See here

Now Wilson's in a bind. RNZ News, as Rodney Hide's blog also points out, could get no comment from her. What can she say? If she complains about her letter being ripped up that's double standards. All she can do is pucker up and take the hit!

I think Rodney's going to be merciful and leave it at that, but why should he? Labour are between a rock and a hard place- complain and make themselves hypocrites or shutup and take as much of a beating as the opposition can muster!

I think every opposition member of parliament should go into the house tomorrow and rip up Labour correspondence until it makes the news from here to Turin! Exterminate the epistles!