We almost certainly haven’t seen the last of Ardern. No doubt a plum job at the United Nations, the World Health Organisation or some other ghastly supranational body beckons. Nor have we seen the last of the elitist politics that she came to represent. It’s high time we had a reckoning with this ‘kindly’ authoritarianism.
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Samizdata quote of the day – a pox on antipodean authoritarianismJanuary 20th, 2023 |
 13 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – a pox on antipodean authoritarianism |
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Prime Minister Ardern seems to make the international establishment more comfortable than Prime Minister Trudeau – whose extremism some of them find disturbing, although he only takes fashionable ideas to their logical conclusion – so if some of the international establishment find that disturbing, perhaps they should reconsider the ideas themselves.
Prime Minister Ardern did take the opportunity an Australian mass murderer gave her, to push more restrictions on Freedom of Speech and private firearm ownership, but the restrictions were not as extreme as some people wanted and the lady did present the restrictions politely – “as a farmer’s daughter” the lady made it clear that she was not against all private firearm ownership (or, at least, so the lady said).
The future? I do not know – as the lady may sincerely be tired (as she claims) – although a more plausible reason for the resignation of Prime Minister Ardern may be that the lady thought her party was going to lose the next election.
I am told there is a housing problem in New Zealand – that puzzles me as the country is about the same size as the United Kingdom but with less than a tenth of the population, so land prices (outside the leading financial centre – Auckland) should not be that high. I do not know what has gone wrong in this regard.
As for Covid – well if an isolationist policy was going to work anywhere it was going to work in New Zealand (which is surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean), I do NOT believe that such a policy would have worked here – as the channel is only a few miles, and the government seems unable (or unwilling) to keep out migrants.
Covid now seems to have evolved into less dangerous forms (something that is normal with viruses), but we still do not know how many people will die from the injections. Politicians (of all political parties) who trotted out the line that the injections were safe, must be feeling rather concerned right now. If the casualties are modest then they can be covered up – but if a lot of people die, well then politicians (again of all political parties) are going to be in trouble – indeed the whole system may become discredited. We just do not know yet.
Paul, I think you are assuming that if COVID vax jabs end up causing “a lot of people” to die, and this can be proven, that this will be published by leftists/democrats/media (all the same, pick your label). It will not. It will be denied and those trying to counter it with facts, expert testimony, whatever will be shut down, probably violently (imprisoned) if it comes to that. At least the latter is more likely than the leftists fessing up. Voters will be unaware…at least enough of them.
The globalists have won! Decisively!
I’ve not read anything on this blog to convince me otherwise…I just read the occasional wishful thoughts.
As I’ve said before, this all leads to one thing (among others): the population must be disarmed so that the future the globalists want can be enacted.
GregWA – a grim view indeed, I wish I could think of counter arguments.
On Covid I did hope that Senator Ron Johnson would lead the investigation, but due to election rigging (election rigging denied by the “free market” Wall Street Journal newspaper) the Democrats retained control of the United States Senate – whether there will be a proper investigation by the House of Representatives I do not know (clearly the United Kingdom Parliament is not going to do anything – many of the MPs know, but they are not going to do anything or even publicly admit that they know, a grand total of TWO Members of the House of Commons have spoken out).
The public seem to be rejecting leftist propaganda in mass entertainment – but that is not stopping the propaganda.
For example, the Economist magazine led with a lead article and feature article on the Disney Corporation this week. The central problem that Disney faces is public rejection of the Frankfurt School “Woke” doctrines it pushes in its films and television shows – yet both articles totally ignored that. The Elephant in the room – and the Economist magazine just ignored the matter.
The Economist magazine and the Wall Street Journal (let alone the openly leftist media) are not going to tell the truth about Covid either – they care about Corporate Interests (keeping the flow of Credit Money flowing) and not much else, their de facto support for election fraud shows this.
As for an armed population saving the Republic – that is indeed starting to seem like the dreams of the Emperor Majorian, who got rid of centuries of legislation banning civilians from having military arms and training, and got rid of a lot of other legislation as well – dreaming of restoring the Roman world.
It was all too late, much too late, Majorian ended up being tortured to death.
Is it entirely out of the question to suggest that should Donald Trump receive the Republican nomination for 2024 the worlds media will do an about turn by blaming him personally for hundreds of thousands of deaths arising from the rushed vaccine development and premature release?
I’m sure Dr Fauci would be willing to come out of retirement to offer his opinion of where the fault lies,
Actually, a position at the UN seems the ideal way for New Zealanders to get to shot of Ardern. What more useless and ineffectual organization than the UN could you possibly imagine?
As for my own country, getting a UN sinecure for Canada’s Only Blackface PMTM at the UN will be well worth the expense to taxpayers like myself if it gets rid of him.
Paul Marks: “I am told there is a housing problem in New Zealand…”
Probably because everyone wants to live in Auckland.
NZ has a housing problem because of:
rapid population growth driven by immigration;
strict rural-urban boundaries limiting the availability of land;
nimbyism;
complex resource management rules;
rising government requirements for building standards and safety standards during construction;
increased public expectations of the minimum fit out of a home;
inefficient council systems for building permits;
unwillingness to permit alternative building materials used in other countries;
fear that any defects in new builds will see the permitting council sued;
escalating costs of transporting overseas house components to a small,, distant market;
the widely held belief that the safest long term investment is a house;
changed debt rules for the government housing provider allowing it to outbid private buyers when buying property.
Writing the previous comment, I thought of but then forgot to include a major factor – a gush of very low-interest borrowed money from the Reserve Bank after Covid struck, which made investing in anything by individuals more sensible than saving money, quite unmatched by production or productivity improvements.
Most of the problems listed by David Lenny are common to most if not all Western countries.
What is more, these problems are what has led to several housing booms+busts.
Population growth in NZ has always been rapid, because we have always had high immigration. There’s nothing new about that, and yet we haven’t had the housing problem until recently.
Also, factually, NZ population grown has dropped in recent years. https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/population-of-nz . Stubborn things, facts.
The other things are true. Also, many of our cities are badly placed and hard to build because of geographic constriction — Auckland and Wellington in particular.
And here I thought that NZ had lots of barren mountains and even some active volcanoes- something you never hear Britain as having!
“Probably because everyone wants to live in Auckland.”
Have you been there? It’s like Reading. Awful place.
Interesting comments on housing in New Zealand – by JJM, David Lenny, Snorri, Chester Draws, Nicholas Gray and Jim. A lot to think about – so thank you for your comments.
There are mountains in the United Kingdom (although not volcanos) – indeed much of the land in Wales and Scotland (and even England – although less so in England) is just not suitable for housing.
The Auckland thing – that smells like a Credit Money bubble thing to me. The great “financial centres” of the Western world tend to have terrible prices for housing.
They are places to avoid.
“Do you include London in places to avoid” – most certainly, house prices in Credit Money Bubble London are insane.
When the Credit Money financial system crashes (and it will crash) some of these international financial centres will burn, and all of them will hit very hard times.
My guess is that New York City and Chicago will both be a sort of “ground zero” of the massive international financial bust – that they will be the worst hit cities of all, worse than the other great cities of the Western World.