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That is the extent of Nick Smith’s Wet Green vision: more government and less freedom; more rights for trees, rocks and mud puddles, and fewer rights for human beings. Maximum controls, and the avoidance of The Great National Party ‘unnecessary’ freedom. A “consensus” achieved by wholesale sell-out – a Environmental competition as to who can shackle industry most effectively – such Sellout is the extent of the Wet Bluegreen is the new ‘wet’ Green vision. -Peter Cresswell, page 10 ALSO in this issue: NOT Darnton Vs Clark update! • Civil War In New TAXPAYER Zealand? • The Australian Who Is Too Liberal! FUNDED Editorial Lindsay Perigo Stepping Down ... and Stepping Up! Lindsay Perigo says goodbye!

Twelve years and seventy-one issues after He was alluding to a pattern here: several of reason-and-freedom advocacy to American launching it, I have decided to step down as years ago I anointed him Libertarianz leader airwaves for the fi rst time. Whatever, FreeRad editor of The Free Radical. in my place … and one of the projects on my editor or not, I’ve no intention of being idle for agenda now is a Lanza bio to coincide with my second fi fty years! When I say, as I often do, that The Free Radical the 50th anniversary of Mario’s death in 2009. is the world’s sassiest, ‘KASSiest’ Objecti- I’ll be doing this in collaboration with Lanza’s The future will be interesting for Mr. Cresswell libertarian magazine, I mean it. It is. It has a son, who’ll be granting me access to hitherto too. My fi rst assistant-editor David Cohen grunt and humour lacking in all the others. It unseen and unheard archival material for the went on to become an all-purpose iconoclast is, in George Reisman’s words, “a magazine of purpose. And no, I shan’t be relinquishing this at National Business Review. Damian Christie rare courage and intellect.” It is, in Paul Holmes’ project to Cresswell! is now a reporter for TVNZ’s Close-Up words, “angry, funny and intelligent—just like its programme. Deborah Coddington became an editor.” I am inordinately proud of my baby. So Nor shall I be retreating from Sense of Life ACT Member of Parliament. Chris Sciabarra why am I relinquishing fatherhood? Objectivists (SOLO). Au contraire. SOLO went all Brandroid on me. Peter Cresswell is the fi rst assistant-editor to linger for long enough to become the editor. Lord knows where that Twelve years and seventy-one issues after launching it, I have decided might lead! to step down as editor of The Free Radical. I would be remiss not to single out for honourable mention Graham Clark, FreeRad’s is now the baby of whom I’m most proud. long-standing and long-suffering designer. Simply, I have reached a stage in life where I Several months ago, Jason Roth, fresh from When I launched the thing in May 1994, out of want to focus on doing my own polemics rather a skirmish with robotic Randroidism, pleaded Wanganui, I laid it out myself in Quark Express, than pooling that of others. Of course, one can for Objectivism sans anal-retentiveness. It had, with the guidance of my then-partner, graphic do both—one can and one did. But in middle and has, perhaps escaped Jason’s attention designer Tom Eslinger. It was then tweaked age—and, as I perceive it, at the height of my that that’s exactly what’s on offer at SOLO. Part by the local Wanganui printers to whom we powers—I want to be ruthlessly selective in of me is surprised that in all the time I’ve been entrusted it. Later, we gave the operation to how I use those powers. I don’t wish to spend eschewing “anal-retentiveness” some Randroid Kale Print, where eventually Graham took time on what I call “fi ddly stuff” of the kind that makes up much of an editor’s workload.

That’s not to denigrate the job or diminish the I wish Peter Cresswell bon voyage. I know it’ll be one hell of a ride for importance of fi nding a suitable successor. In all concerned. Make no mistake, I’ll be there for it, more visible and that regard, I’m delighted to announce that Peter Cresswell has agreed to step into the rambunctious than ever. breach.

PC has been something of a revelation to me—possibly even to himself. For several hasn’t popped up to call it an “anti-concept” charge of it. He was a leftie at the time. After years I thought that beneath that gruff, blokey, or “arbitrary” or some such. But part of me is being exposed to FreeRad articles for months unsophisticated contrarian exterior was … not surprised. Anyone who’s been around the on end in the course of his work, he became a gruff, blokey unsophisticated contrarian. Objectivist movement for any length of time has a convert, and is now one of New Zealand’s His early writing efforts for FreeRad were encountered precisely the referents in reality most active freedom-fi ghters! graceless and tangent-ridden—so much so to whom it refers, and knows that their grim, that then-assistant editor Deborah Coddington prim repressiveness is to be avoided like the I should also mention the invaluable back-room and I would roll our eyes and groan when plague it actually is. SOLOism is Objectivism support of Ken and Shirley Riddle, along with we received them. But he persevered, and with the courage of its convictions … and of the front-room support of all my writers, without became brilliant (or rather, revealed a brilliance the resultant emotions. Objectivism with its whom the magazine would not exist. that was quite startling). He started his own inescapable ‘KASS.’ I’ll be breathing fi re for it blog, and his brilliance exploded all over the with my last gasp! Over on SOLO, and also I wish Peter Cresswell bon voyage. I know it’ll screen. Perhaps, in a typically Kiwi way, the here in FreeRad, in my capacity as venerable be one hell of a ride for all concerned. Make bloke had been embarrassed by the reality editor emeritus! no mistake, I’ll be there for it, more visible and behind the exterior—the closet NEM (New rambunctious than ever. To paraphrase Enlightenment Man), the exceptionally acute One of the benefi ts of the Lanza project is Richard Nixon, there’ll soon be even and versatile (possibly genius-level) thinker, the that I’ll be spending more time in America— more Lindsay Perigo to kick around! sensitive esthete—but then fi nally decided to specifi cally, California, where I shall be able to let it all hang out. Perhaps my own teasing and keep an eye on those SOLO scallywags James Fear not, Free Rad readers. Lindsay may be taunting had something to do with it! Whatever Valliant and Casey Fahy, who’ve become gone from the editor’s chair, but not from these the explanation, The Free Radical can only among my dearest friends on earth. I certainly pages. As Lindsay says above, his fearless benefi t from the editorship of PC in full bloom. intend to be at the next SOLO Conference in prose will continue to feature here, and will more San Diego in February, 2007 [as should you regularly grace the web pages of his website for On accepting the mantle, PC joked that it would be, Dear Reader, Ed.]. I might also be able to Sense of Life Objectivists, solopassion.com, and not culminate in his writing a Lanza biography. pick up media work, and bring the Linz brand he will continue as Editor-at-Large. THE FREE RADICAL - Tested & Guaranteed Is it enough to say you stand for “the issues Contents 100% Free of Bureaucratic Nonsense that matter to mainstream New Zealanders”? What goals, what direction, what political principles or social ideals do those “issues” Inside Cover Lindsay Perigo 28 Graham Clark encompass? What solutions and what Stepping Down and Stepping Up Henry Marshall – Inventor intellectual values do they represent? What Lindsay Perigo says goodbye! Graham Clark highlights another native might we expect such leadership to deliver? genius, the ‘Bert Munro’ of heating. – Peter Cresswell, p.9 3 Bernard Darnton Darnton Vs Clark Update 30 Marcus Bachler As Ayn Rand pointed out, conservatives Bernard Darnton updates progress on his Thank You For Smoking! have a disposition towards compromise case against the Government’s pledge card “It would have delighted Adolph Hitler. that delivers more to freedom’s enemies spending. Thank you Scotland.” – comedian Mel than those enemies could otherwise hope Smith. to expect from their own efforts alone. 6 INTERVIEW - Jamie Whyte, Libertarians are not conservatives – they are Naughty Thoughts 32 Craig Ceely radicals for freedom. – A self-confessed obsessive about truth Walter Duranty Lives, and Writes Encomia to – Peter Cresswell, p.9 interviews another self-confessed obsessive Castro about truth. Truth is the winner on the day. Bilious sentiments about one of the world’s For the blood-soaked voices from the Stone son-to-be-departed dictators. Age the free and prosperous west is a 9 FEATURE: personal affront; their war on the west is the Rational Environmentalism V National’s 33 PC last gap of the Dark Age they’ve submitted Environmentalism My Favourite Conspiracy Theory … to themselves and wish to impose on the rest of the world. Peter Cresswell 34 Russell Watkins – Peter Cresswell, p.20 Conservatism: A New Obituary Voluntary City Why conservatism does not mean limited Thinking libertarian, acting locally – that’s Judged by the words of its own Prophet, government. the Voluntary City Project Russell Watkins is Islam cannot be compared to other belief taking on. systems. It would be hard to fi nd a more Peter Cresswell hateful, intolerant collection of writings than ‘Blue Green’ is the New Wet 35 Mark Tammett that contained in Islamic scripture. National’s ‘Blue Green Vision for New Property Rights and Land Use - Rueben Chapple, p. 22 Zealand’ is a Wet Green wet dream. Do we have “a right to landscape”? Mark Tammett says “No!” This is an instance of retrogression, of the BONUS: fl aunting of primitivism as merely a “cultural CUT OUT AND KEEP AL GORE POSTER: 36 MUSIC - Edward Cline: difference.” Among this country’s black ‘The Real Inconvenient Truth!’ Why the Music Died youth the results of this value negation have been especially sad… The great black 15 Prodos 37 COLUMN - George Reisman: musicians who contributed to American Too Liberal for the Liberals! The Looming Lactation Station Crisis and culture, eg., Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, The Australian Liberal Party confronts a real Other Insanities Lionel Hampton and Louis Armstrong, have classical liberal – and is shocked! been disowned in favour of the malevolent

42 ARCHITECTURE - Peter Cresswell: “dissing” and droning of “rap.” 18 Phil Howison – Edward Cline, p. 36 Civil War and Other Pessimistic Predictions What Architecture is All About New Zealand is one of the most peaceful What actually does help explain the rise countries in the world. Or is it? 45 EDUCATION - Carol Potts: Montessori: The Three-Year Cycle in profi ts at the expense of wages in today’s highly interventionist economy is 20 Peter Cresswell environmental legislation. In essence, this Appeasement 47 EDUCATION - Philip McDonald: A Surgeon’s Tale has served to create an artifi cial scarcity of The long, long trail of appeasement of land and natural resources relative to labor Islamic totalitarianism, Western capitulation and to elevate the income derived from their 48 BEER- Neil Miller: and death. ownership relative to wages. Beauty From the Bay – George Reisman, p. 39 22 Rueben Chapple – Limburg Brewing Company. The Truth About Islam I ask you do you want your surgeon to know 49 HEALTH - Shaun Holt: “Fringe extremists” are not giving a bad the difference between your Adams apple Natural Health Review name to a peaceful religion. Islamic and your aorta or someone that has had terrorism is a problem rooted within the formal training in how to smile sweetly whilst 50 COLUMN - Susan Ryder: Muslim religion itself. lying through their teeth? Defi ning Insanity – Philip McDonald, p. 47 24 Richard Goode 51 COLUMN - Rex Benson: New Zealand’s National Drug Policy So, how angry are you feeling today? If DomPost = Compost Drugs don’t cause harm, governments do. truly beside yourself, please feel free to Drugs are good. move from window smashing to bashing up 52 HUMOUR old ladies. Whatever takes your fancy, be 26 Kiwi Bloke Save The Humans! assured that the good chaplain of Porirua will LABOUR’S PROBLEM-SOLVING WALLCHART be there to “understand your rage.” You too can have a wallchart like Heather 53 LAST WORDS - Lindsay Perigo: – Rex Benson, p. 51 Simpson’s. Perfect for all the family! Declaration of War!

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 1 Contributors Big Shoes Peter Cresswell

These are exciting times at the affected you, and maybe which editor’s desk of The New Free article or issues of the magazine Radical, and the new editor of have been particular favourites, PETER CRESSWELL LINDSAY PERIGO BERNARD DARNTON this magazine has some very big or, dare I say it, have changed shoes to fi ll. your life. Send your tributes to me at [email protected], The times are exciting because and the best responses will we have a new editor. Me. The receive a free copy of Deborah shoes need to be fi lled because Coddington’s biography of Lindsay Perigo, your editor for Lindsay Perigo for yourself or a MARCUS BACHLER SUSAN RYDER CAROL POTTS the last 71 issues, has just left friend. the building -- as he explains in Stepping Down … and Stepping And this issue has another give- Up (see Inside Cover page), he away. I’m inviting debate on Phil is moving on to new challenges, Howison’s Civil War and Other and starting with this issue your Pessimistic Predictions (page new editor is accepting the 18). The four best contributions challenge he leaves behind. will receive a free copy of David EDWARD CLINE JAMIE WHYTE NEIL MILLER Slack’s book, Civil War and Other But don’t be afraid he’ll be Optimistic Predictions to help you gone from these pages. He refi ne your arguments for fi nal will remain on what we at Free publication. Don’t delay! Radical House laughingly call the payroll as Editor at Large, I’d also like to invite all of you and he will continue to grace its to get behind The New Free pages with articles and opinion Radical with letters, contributions, CRAIG CEELY KIWI BLOKE GRAHAM CLARK pieces showing the wit, charm articles, advice, suggestions for and penetrating intelligence he articles and interviews, or just has shown since this magazine’s good old-fashioned abuse (the birth. better and more old-fashioned it is, the better!) Send them all to Setting up and guiding this me at [email protected]. magazine through twelve years of turbulent political and social I look forward to your thoughts, PRODOS PHIL HOWISON RUEBEN CHAPPLE commentary, and always with and to your company for seventy a consistently-held editorial more issues! line in favour of freedom, is a remarkable achievement. I’m Cheers sure you will join with me in paying tribute to his achievement, and to wishing him well in his new career. REX BENSON GEORGE REISMAN SHAUN HOLT In fact, I invite you to pay tribute. Over seventy issues of this magazine Lindsay has teased, Peter Cresswell entertained, educated and EDITOR, infuriated – I want to know how THE FREE RADICAL this amazing achievement has

RUSSELL WATKINS MARK TAMMETT RICHARD GOODE

Editor: Peter Cresswell Articles, Comments and Letters to the Editor, email the Editor at [email protected] Editor at Large: Lindsay Perigo Thanks to the resources, help, advice, encouragement and contributions from around the Assistant Editor: Sean Kimpton blogosphere, including the brilliance of Pacifi cEmpire.Org.NZ, Generation-XY.Blogspot. Design: Graham Clark (The Tomahawk Kid) Com, Latitude45South.Blogspot.Com, WhaleOil.Co.NZ, TeenagePundit.Blogspot.Com. Business Administration Manager: Shirley Riddle. P.O. Box 96-103. Balmoral, Auckland The opinions expressed by the writers herein are not necessarily those of the editor, or Advertising: Contact Shirley Riddle on [email protected] of each other. Subscriptions: Visit or email Shirley on [email protected]

2 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz BERNARD DARNTON PLUNDER

Darnton Vs Clark Update Bernard Darnton updates progress in his case against the Government.

The gloves are truly off in Wellington. The furore over the pledge card affair has pressured Labour into showing just how ugly they can be. STOP PRESS

As reported in the last issue of The Free television. Usually, she wouldn’t consider us Paying It Back Isn’t Radical, in June I launched my lawsuit worthy of any consideration. Enough, Says Darnton against Helen Clark and other members And the main event, the trial, is still to come. of the Parliamentary Labour Party over the misappropriation of public money to pay for In July, the Labour Party turned ninety years Libertarianz leader Bernard their pledge cards. Since then the Auditor- old. It has not been a happy year for them. Darnton welcomed Labour’s General has produced a draft report on the They’ve come a long way from representing spending, calling it illegal, and Labour, rather the downtrodden and oppressed to behaving promise to repay the money than admit fault, has proposed retrospective like feudal lords, clinging at any cost to power they misappropriated for their legislation to make the problem go away. for power’s sake. election spending but noted that In New Zealand there is no constitution to prevent this kind of legislative mischief. Things really got heated in August when the paying it back isn’t enough. contents of the Auditor-General’s draft report People in positions of respect, both in New on the election spending was leaked. Caught Zealand and overseas, have condemned up their elbows in the till, Labour got nasty “As the Speaker points out in Labour’s misuse of the money and their with Finance Minister Michael Cullen making her report on the matter, paying subsequent plans to pass retrospective veiled threats to the New Zealand Herald the money back doesn’t make legislation; documents have come to light that that they should toe the party line or think raise questions about many of Labour’s claims about hefty tax bills and bovver-boy Trevor the spending any less illegal,” surrounding the affair; and, most obviously to Mallard threatening the opposition that they said Darnton. anyone following the story, Labour has done would “dish the dirt,” exposing details of MPs absolutely anything it can to divert attention personal lives - a threat subsequently carried away from the real question. Much of Labour’s out. “The real problem here is not diversionary activity is around changing really the amount of money the electoral spending rules, with ominous Labour’s primary tactic has been obfuscation, implications for freedom of speech. muddying the waters with tabloid gossip, misspent. It’s the fact that the constant references to the Exclusive Brethren The case has brought unprecedented government thinks it is above Church’s support for the National party, and publicity for Libertarianz. I’ve lost count of the law. The government pumping speculation about how “a little right the number of times I’ve spoken on the radio wing (sic) outfi t like the Libertarianz” could needs to know that there are about this case, we’ve had many newspaper afford to hire QCs. articles (including several front pages in the consequences for breaking NZ Herald, Otago Daily Times, and Sunday They’ve tried to change the subject by talking the law. The public needs to Star Times, and Helen Clark has been ruffl ed about state funding for political parties, as show that they will not tolerate enough to have a go at us on breakfast if the answer to being caught stealing fi ve law-breaking from their elected representatives.”

“MPs should remember that they are the servants of the public, not our masters. The public elects members of Parliament and Parliament votes on how the government is allowed to spend our money. When members of Parliament decide that they don’t want to obey the rules they are no longer good servants. They should be fi red.”

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 3 Bernard Darnton: Part of His Leaders’ Address to Libertarianz Conference, 2006 The front of every Libertarianz brochure produced in the last decade has been graced with this quote from Ayn Rand: The source of the government’s authority is ‘the consent of the governed’. This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government, as hundred thousand dollars is to demand the their behaviour. They say that New Zealand’s such, has no rights, except the rights poor taxpayers pony up a couple of million international reputation as a low-corruption delegated to it by the citizens for a instead. country is at risk if the government can pilfer specifi c purpose. They’ve raised the prospect of rationing free public funds and then change the law in speech by allowing only approved groups hindsight for their own benefi t. We’re about to prove that we mean it. The ideas represented by that quote are what to criticise the government during election Bernard Robertson, editor of the New divide slave nations and the prosperous campaigns, ignoring the fact that it isn’t Zealand Law Journal agrees. In his west. people promoting their own views with their September editorial he said, “If a government own money that’s the problem, it’s the theft can knowingly and deliberately break the law of public money to fi nance Labour party These ideas are what is represented in the and then ram through retrospective validating propaganda that caused all this. great documents of liberty, including the legislation then it can do anything. We have a Magna Carta, the 1688 Bill of Rights, the They’ve proposed cracking down on government composed of people who simply Declaration of Independence and the US anonymous donations to political parties, do not recognise the concept of government Constitution. again ignoring the fact that it isn’t people under law.” spending their own money that’s the problem, it’s the stealing. The past few weeks Labour initially assumed they could get away The money appropriated to fund this card have been a perfect illustration of exactly with anything, that no one would hold them was intended by parliament to help run her why people want to keep their donations to account, and even if somebody did point offi ce, not to run for offi ce. anonymous. People don’t want to wake up out their wrongdoing that nobody outside “the beltway” - a somewhat aggrandising I don’t believe in a cap on election description of Wellington’s political circles spending. That’s a free speech issue. - would care. Fortunately, not being politics What I do have an issue with is my money “Paying it back does not impose a groupies, no one outside the beltway knew being spent on the Labour Party’s election sanction for breaking the law and what “outside the beltway” meant and so campaign. acting immorally.” didn’t know they were being instructed not to take an interest. A recent New Zealand At issue here are our country’s very basic Herald opinion poll showed that 81% of constitutional arrangements. the population, including 75% of Labour supporters, believed that they should pay When money is appropriated by parliament one morning to fi nd Trevor Mallard sniffi ng back the money. There has even been a it is appropriated for a specifi c purpose. It through their rubbish bags just because song released by a group calling itself “Vast is not intended legally to be used for any they’ve dared oppose the government. other purposes. Right Wing Conspiracy” called “Pay It Back” They’ve cooked up stories suggesting - a remake of the Rolling Stones’ classic Helen Clark is not above the law. She is some grand conspiracy between National, “Paint It Black”. Libertarianz, and several ultra-secretive about to have a reminder of that. golf clubs (you can’t make this stuff up), As Libertarianz deputy leader Julian Pistorius ignoring the fact that it doesn’t matter who’s has pointed out though, paying it back isn’t I fi rst became angry about this way back contributed to funding this court case – we enough. He says, “Paying it back does not before the election when every day I found raised our money voluntarily. How is Labour impose a sanction for breaking the law I had to walk past a bus stop ad informing funding their defence? Shamelessly, from the and acting immorally.” Helen Clark and her me ‘You’re better off with Labour.” With same fund they’re accused of raiding in the cronies have shown that they’re not fi t to the parliamentary crest. Paid for with my fi rst place. govern and should resign or more honest money. It made me literally see red! Labour members should force them out and The ultimate act of guile from Labour has Fed up with just yelling at the telly, I’m now been the suggestion that, even if it’s found reclaim their party. going to yell at the country until they all get that their actions were illegal, no worries The heart of this court case is the idea the message that this Government—any – they’ll just pass a retrospective law to make that the government is not above the law. Government! -- is not above the law … it all OK. The whole point of my case is to Members of Parliament are employees of show that the government is not above the the people of New Zealand. They are not our law. Labour clearly thinks they are. Bernard Darnton is leader of the slave-masters. The Crown can not just do Libertarianz party, and litigant in The suggestion of retrospective legislation whatever it likes and get away with it. And the case taken against Helen Clark, has been noticed overseas. Transparency Libertarianz is here to remind them of that. Parliamentary Services and forty International, the global anti-corruption Labour MPs in the matter of their watchdogs, have warned Labour about Details of the case, with frequent updates, election spending. can be found at DarntonVsClark.Org.

4 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 5 JAMIE WHYTE INTERVIEW FREE RADICAL Budget Special Naughty Thoughts —Jamie Whyte, Philosopher Interviewed by Marcus Bachler

I have always been a great admirer of those basis. They combined ignorance—in this TFR: Well, individual rights were a main who defend objective truth. Ayn Rand, who case, of economics—with an air of assumed concern of hers. To quote Ayn Rand, proclaimed that reality is knowable, that A=A righteousness. I don’t like “goody goods.” individual rights are “the conditions of and that existence exists. Richard Dawkins, existence required by man’s nature for his who points out that there is no evidence TFR: In your Times column, you often proper survival.” What is your defi nition that God exists or that the mystical claims of take what would be considered very of individual rights? religion are valid. He calls faith, a process of libertarian-type views on political issues, JW: There are no rights outside of an enforced non-thinking. Or George Orwell who thought such as your arguments against the legal system. “Human rights” or “natural rights” evil the notion that history or the meaning criminalization of drugs, taxation and the are shorthand for the rights of a good legal of words could be changed for purposes redistribution of wealth by Government, system. Otherwise the concept of “natural of propaganda. That indeed, freedom from positive discrimination, the minimum rights” would just be metaphysical nonsense. tyranny is the ability to stand up proudly and wage, social security contributions and The big question is this: what makes any proclaim that 2+2=4. They all defended the bureaucrats and politicians generally system of rights the right one? Which set of notion of an evidence-based objective truth meddling in our lives. Do you consider rights, ought to be instituted? Property rights and that reality was self-evident. And so it yourself a libertarian? are a good idea because private ownership was with delight that I recently discovered the JW: That is not quite right. I am not against has good effects. Without private ownership writing of philosopher and fellow NZer Jamie the redistribution of wealth, but I do dislike incentives for investment and work are very Whyte, who is a self-confessed obsessive public services. I think all redistribution of weak and people end up poor. about truth and has declared that the modern wealth should be done in cash transfers. The world is a noxious environment for those of us state should not provide services that can be TFR: Ayn Rand claimed that there was bothered about logical errors. He has devoted provided privately. only one right and that is the “right to two self-help troubleshooting books to life.” All other legitimate rights, such as exposing the common fallacies in reasoning, “right to property” are extensions of this. TFR: What do you mean by “cash and writes a regular column in the London She disagreed strongly with such bogus transfers”? newspaper “The Times” debunking politically rights often touted nowadays as the JW: I favor the maximisation of welfare. You correct thinking on topical issues. “right” to a job, housing, education etc. see, the question arises, “What is so good In reply to these bogus rights she would about liberty?” That is the difference between TFR: What was it that fi rst started you always pose the question, “at whose John Stuart Mill and Robert Nozick. According on your quest to defend objective truth? expense?” to Nozick, liberty is an absolute good. JW: Initially as an atheist I was quite hostile JW: Yeah, this is the so-called “positive rights” According to Mill, liberty’s goal is welfare. I am towards Christians, especially those I met at versus “negative rights” debate. It sounds like a “utilitarian,” but I think many utilitarians have school. I felt that they had no understanding Ayn Rand is making a “minimalist” claim on the wrong conception of welfare. Welfare is of reality, nor did they want to understand it. rights. I do like the simplicity of that. The right only what individuals value. Individuals know However, I was passionate about it. That is to life imposes on others only a duty not to kill better than the state what they value. I agree what I really disliked in anyone, but especially you, not the duty to positively keep you alive. with Friedrich Hayek about what utility is and Christians, a mixture of willful ignorance mixed Negative rights have the theoretical advantage what will lead to its maximisation. with an air of assumed moral superiority. of avoiding confl icting claims. “Positive rights” make such enormous demands on those who TFR: One of your books is called “A TFR: You mean that you follow the ideas must pay for them that they can never all be Load of Blair,” and in your previous book of John Stuart Mill? simultaneously satisfi ed. too, “Bad Thoughts,” you gave many JW: Yes, I often explain to people that my examples of how politicians seek to ideas are close to those of John Stuart Mill. I TFR: However, she would fundamentally evade or obscure the truth. Do you have think of myself as a “radical liberal.” Liberty is disagree with your argument that a specifi c interest in politics? valuable as a means to the end of maximizing the goal of rights and liberty is the JW: As a teenager growing up in NZ I was welfare. And, for many people, it is also part of “maximization of welfare.” Although, already interested in politics. It was fueled in welfare. That is to say, people value liberty. I think your defi nition of “welfare” is part by my father, who was an entrepreneur probably quite different from the usual and was frustrated by socialism. He told me TFR: What is your opinion of Objectivism one. about how bad things were. You had to apply as a philosophy—have you ever looked JW: That is a fundamental problem I think to the Government for an import license in at it? many people have with it. They use an over- order to bring anything into the country. It JW: No. Not Ayn Rand’s philosophy. I have specifi c concept of “welfare.” They think it was a like a criminal racket. On some days never read a word. I know about libertarianism is health, or happiness, or fi nancial wealth of the week, you were allowed to buy paint mainly through the writing of Robert Nozick. or something in particular and then try to for your house, but not an undercoat. You At university, Ayn Rand’s philosophy is not maximize that, whether or not it is what were not allowed to buy margarine without taught, nor is it widely known in mainstream individuals actually value. a prescription from the doctor. I discovered philosophy; it is mostly ignored. I once talked that statist politicians were similar to religious to a university professor who told me it had TFR: One point that you have made people. My frustration with them had a similar something to do with the “heroic man.” regarding rights however, that I think

6 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Ayn Rand would agree with you on, TFR: Yes, Dawkins calls “faith” a JW: Look at what happened at last year’s is your argument that the “right to an process of “non-thinking.” election. National proposed tax cuts. Michael opinion” is bogus. Can you explain this? JW: I wouldn’t be as polite about it as that. I Cullen argued against them on the ground JW: Any right that you have entails duties. would call it something far worse. that National MPs and journalists reporting Your “right to an opinion” could not seriously the election would benefi t from them. He imply a duty for me to agree with you or to TFR: I put forward your argument to meant to imply that the policy was motivated listen to you. When people talk about having some fellow-Objectivists and was by greed. But so what if it was? It might still “a right to an opinion,” what they usually accused of intrinsicism. I probably didn’t be a good policy that benefi ts the people mean is that you have a duty to let them keep frame your argument well though. I tried of New Zealand. You cannot refute an idea their opinion. They mean that you have a duty to point out that something cannot be a by exposing the motives of those who hold to not change their opinion. However, if you matter of opinion if a standard is agreed it. Political journalists like to promote this believe that someone’s opinion is wrong, upon. fallacy because it is easier to speculate on you ought to try and change it. It would be JW: All serious questions are answerable. a politicians’ motives (which are, of course, condescending and uncaring not to. Suppose Once you clarify the meaning of the terms always corrupt) than to engage in serious I saw you walking across the road and your involved. This glass is green. People differ on policy analysis. They turn policy analysis into a opinion was that there was no danger. But I where we draw the line on greenness. You and sports commentary, i.e. “was it a good political can see that a car is coming to knock you I would probably differ on our exact defi nition move?” rather than analysing the economics down. It would be uncaring of me not to try and perception of greenness. However, if we of it, “what will its effects be?” and change your opinion and alert you to the had perfect agreement on that, we could danger. Or say you believed in God and I knew solve the dispute. TFR: Keeping on the subject of fallacies, your belief to be false. It would be dishonest I see that you are cited in Wikipedia as and unkind of me not to try and convince you TFR: That’s what appealed to me—it being the inventor of the expression of that. is very much like science. In science “hooray words” as an alternative to the you start with given assumptions and term “virtue words.” What are they and TFR: You wrote in “Bad Thoughts” then carry out an experiment under a why are they so bad? that, “when [you] say something is defi ned set of conditions. You must set JW: Everybody is in favor of hooray words. not a matter of opinion [you] mean it the standard in order to defi ne and then Politicians like to use them constantly. For quite literally, facts do not depend on answer the question. example the word “fairness”—that sounds opinions…” You further explain that a JW: I think that science is very much the way good. Everybody will hear it and think “that’s statement can only be considered true to proceed in politics too—you would get the good.” But what is the difference between fair of false if there is a standard agreed clarity. Scientists are genuine seekers for the and unfair? The politician doesn’t tell you. upon in the fi rst place. What did you truth. That’s why you need political freedom Some people think that fairness is based on mean by this? around scientists. That clarity is what is lacking progressive politics, whereas others have a JW: There was a TV program a few years in philosophy papers. Too many philosophers conservative notion. However as a politician ago in the UK called “Great Britons.” British attempt to obscure their reasoning. I will get people to agree with me because of viewers voted between different fi gures in the words I use. Hooray words like “justice, history as to who was the “greatest” Briton TFR: That is the problem I fi nd creeping fairness, leadership, security or liberty” are of all time. Different celebrities argued over into science as well. For example, constantly used to rally support because who was the greatest, but the program never the distortions you get of science for politicians know that no one will disagree with addressed what the real point of debate was. political reasons with research on Global them, whatever they mean by them. Not a debate about any of the characteristics Warming and passive smoking etc… of the different Britons being voted for, but JW: Yes. When I fi rst arrived in the UK there TFR: One fallacy you mention, that I what constitutes “greatness.” Therefore, you was a general hysteria about AIDS. The feel many Objectivists and libertarians had Britons that were considered “great” for message was put out by the media that AIDS I encounter could be accused of, completely different reasons. There was a was going to kill us all. I had a friend that including me, is what you call “morality leader, historian, engineer or princess. The carried out research on HIV. He knew that fever.” That is especially the case when arguments for and against the different Britons AIDS was killing relatively few people in the I get so frustrated with politicians that I all illustrated completely different notions of UK. However, he said that the publicity was start comparing them to Hitler or Stalin. what was meant by “greatest.” They hadn’t good for him because he would get massive Could you please explain this and why agreed upon a standard for what constituted funding. I think that there is a religious you think it is bad? “greatness” in the fi rst place. sentiment behind all this scaremongering. The JW: I would never dream of comparing a message is that “we have sinned and that we politician to Hitler or Stalin, if only because you TFR: I often fi nd that people don’t will punished.” ought to be able to say what is wrong with realize that they are applying different their actions without resorting to this cheap standards. TFR: You present twelve fallacies ploy. However, I think you are asking me more JW: Yes. I couldn’t believe all the communities of reasoning in your book, “Bad about whether it is OK to get upset about of faith coming together holding hands after Thoughts.” Some of these are very politicians. I think it is bad not to get upset! the 911 bombing, supposedly all applying well known among readers of The Free Take Catholics for example—they believe the standard of “religious” tolerance. Their Radical, such as the Authority Fallacy, that the soul joins the embryo at conception. coming together had in fact nothing to do with Inconsistency, Equivocation, Begging They must think that abortion is murder. So, religion. All of those different religions preach the Question and Weasel Words. in England, they must know that mass murder that members of other religions should burn However, some of them may be less is going on, on a daily basis. Nevertheless, it in hell. However, they conspire to ignore it. well known such as the “motive fallacy.” doesn’t seem to bother them in the least. I They just sealed it off in their minds in order to Are there any examples of this in NZ think that is because they don’t really believe appear as if they were in agreement. politics? the doctrines of their religion. On the whole,

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 7 getting worked up about something is not They seem to expect a good tone about all TFR: I think you would also be criticized a moral failing. If you put morality ahead of things. One thing I did consciously in the book for not being pragmatic enough. reason and use that to arrive at a conclusion, was to combine serious rationality with an Ironically the implication is that only then that would be wrong. However, it would obvious emotional engagement. I let it show pragmatism corresponds with reality. be complacent or false not to get upset when through. JW: I have great contempt for pragmatism. something is wrong. It is just a nice word. It is basically about TFR: The principle of individual rights doing what gets me elected rather than doing Ayn Rand denied that there was a and their application is very dear to what is right. Doing what keeps me in power. reason/passion dichotomy. Do you think me. As you have pointed out in your People often accuse me of cynicism, but it is passion is a good or bad thing; does it books, politicians do not like to talk only because I care about truth and reason cloud judgment or reason? about principles. A spokesman for Tony that I expose nonsense and get riled about it. JW: I guess what I just said. Passion is Blair stated once that he did not answer That is the opposite of cynicism. Most people ambiguous. “Passion” can mean histrionics, hypothetical questions as a matter of nowadays couldn’t give a fl ying fuck. They are and in that sense it is probably silly, if not policy. Doesn’t this make you angry? the cynics. positively bad. But passion can also mean JW: It really irritates me. What am I voting for? something important and serious. I knew a It has become very unclear under the current TFR: Yes, you call your book “Bad lecturer in the “philosophy of science” who proportional representation system in NZ, Thoughts” a self-help guide. I think that was very dry in his presentation. His students because policies are traded away after the you illustrated that we expect people to thought that he was not “passionate about the election anyway. What I want to know about automatically learn how to reason and subject” and he got low marks on his student in order to vote for them is what this politicians think properly for themselves. However assessment report. He was not passionate principles are. How does their economics we don’t expect them to automatically about it in the histrionic sense. But he was work? What principles are they based upon? learn other things they need to live, like upset that his students could think that, They won’t come clean about that stuff. In my basic mathematics. How realistic do you because he had devoted his whole life to the personal experience of politicians, many just think it would be to teach basic logic subject and it was very important to him. You don’t care. Either they haven’t given it enough and reasoning even at primary school hardly meet a scientist who isn’t like that. thought, or they are being deceptive. It puts level? me off entering politics. JW: You could easily teach pupils things such TFR: On SOLO we often have problems as critical thinking and formal logic. I think with Americans who are like that. They TFR: What would happen if you you would start to teach them from about think if you get too angry with someone entered politics and spoke about your the age of 13. Mathematics is more easily for saying something that is wrong, principles? taught at primary school because it starts with you need to have “anger management” JW: I would be slaughtered. If I told them that quantities. Formal and informal logic does not therapy or something. drugs ought to be legalized journalists would deal with relations between quantities—which JW: Yes, there is something about Americans. report that there was some crazy politician are easy to understand—but relations of My book “Bad Thoughts” was released in the who says that cocaine ought to be sold entailment between propositions, which is a US as “Crimes against Logic.” In reviews of in shops. In order to defend myself I would slightly more abstract notion. Unfortunately, my book on Amazon UK, readers seem to be forced to argue only in principles—and there is a lot of crap pedaled through the take for granted my “slightly irritated” tone. then I would be labeled an “ideologue” and education system at the moment. However, on the American website, they a “maniac.” I would be considered a very complain about it. What is it about Americans? dangerous ideologue too. TFR: Will you be warning NZers, as to the dangers of logical errors and faulty reasoning soon? JW: Yes, I hope to start publishing my work in NZ. I haven’t really tried yet. I couldn’t really write a book like “A Load of Blair” about Helen Clark. People are not as interested in politics in NZ as they are in the UK. Think how much you hear about politics in England, it’s in the news every day. In NZ, you can sometimes go for weeks without hearing a word. I am working on a new book at the moment, but I don’t want to say too much about it. My next book will be about freedom and the encroachment of liberty.

TFR: Well, I hope you will read some Ayn Rand as part of your research. JW: Yes, I will take a look at it.

8 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Rational Environmentalism National’s Environmentalism Investigating National’s Environmental Sell-out

Introduction: Conservatives always sell out of Representatives and the Senate for That’s the crucial question, isn’t it, and the fi rst time in forty years. This ascent as the long day of Labour rule looks to be CONSERVATISM: Literally, the doctrine of to power gave Newt Gingrich and his waning in New Zealand and the pendulum conserving the status quo because it is colleagues the opportunity to launch their swinging slowly to the right, it’s just as crucial the status quo – hence the bestowing of “Republican Revolution” with its signature to answer that question here. Here’s part of this appellation on such seemingly unlikely “Contract with America” platform. The Rand’s answer back in 1960: bedfellows as Ronald Reagan and hardline election was said to mark the end of an Communists in China. era—the era of big government liberalism It is generally understood that those who support the “conservatives,” expect them to uphold the system which has As Ayn Rand pointed out, conservatives have a disposition towards been camoufl aged by the loose term of compromise that delivers more to freedom’s enemies than those enemies “the American way of life.” [“Mainstream could otherwise hope to expect from their own efforts alone. Libertarians New Zealanders” anyone?] The moral treason of the “conservative” leaders lies are not conservatives – they are radicals for freedom. in the fact that they are hiding behind that camoufl age: they do not have the courage More commonly, the term applies to those that had dominated American political to admit that the American way of life was who defend capitalism on religious/ altruistic life since the New Deal. After struggling capitalism, that that was the politico- grounds – i.e. they say it promotes the general for almost half a century to gain political economic system born and established welfare ahead of individual self-enrichment in power, the conservative movement fi nally in the United States, the system which, accordance with godly ethics – and confi ne seemed to have reached the political in one brief century, achieved a level of their advocacy of freedom – if at all -- to promised land. freedom, of progress, of prosperity, of the economic realm. Conservatives typically What has been the result of that “Republican human happiness, unmatched in all the favour the criminalising of drugs, prostitution, Revolution,” that historic “victory of the right”? other systems and centuries combined-- pornography, homosexuality, abortion, etc. What did the conservative movement’s and that that is the system which they are ascent to the commanding heights of now allowing to perish by silent default. Laws that still exist in some parts of the government deliver? Well, it certainly hasn’t United States against oral sex, for example, are favoured by conservatives who happily defend the free market in economics, and Is it enough to say you stand for “the issues that matter to mainstream are completely oblivious to the inconsistency. New Zealanders”? What goals, what direction, what political principles Margaret Thatcher, for another example, did or social ideals do those “issues” encompass? What solutions and much to free up the British economy while introducing repressive censorship laws. what intellectual values do they represent? What might we expect such leadership to deliver? In the battle for freedom, conservatives at best provide only a breathing space, a been limited government. Conservatives slowing of the momentum of the statist have been in control of all three of the If the “conservatives” do not stand for advance, and often the result has been much executive branches of American government capitalism, they stand for and are nothing; worse: empowering the statist juggernaut as for years, and the result of all what’s now they have no goal, no direction, no political a means of “outfl anking” their opponents. As called “compassionate conservativism” principles, no social ideals, no intellectual Ayn Rand pointed out, conservatives have a and “neo-conservativism” is to have made values, no leadership to offer anyone. disposition towards compromise that delivers American government bigger now than it more to freedom’s enemies than those ever was! Andrew Sullivan observed in Time What do New Zealand’s conservatives stand enemies could otherwise hope to expect Magazine two years ago that the result has for? Is it enough to say you stand for “the issues from their own efforts alone. been more accurately characterised as “Big Government liberalism with religious-right that matter to mainstream New Zealanders”? Libertarians are not conservatives – they are moralism. It’s the nanny state with more What goals, what direction, what political radicals for freedom. cash. Your cash, that is. And their morals.” principles or social ideals do those “issues” encompass? What solutions and what The conquest by American conservatives of all three branches of American Government This analysis is predicted in Ayn Rand’s 1960 intellectual values do they represent? What in recent years provides an opportunity speech ‘Conservatism: An Obituary’ (published might we expect such leadership to deliver? to study conservatives in what they see in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal). as their natural habitat: power. Writing in Looking at what Rand had to say about the Analysing the electoral victory of American ‘The Objective Standard’ Professor Bradley conservative movement in 1960, it quickly conservatism ten years on offers some idea becomes apparent that not much has really Thompson picked up the opportunity with of what conservatism might deliver here. And changed in nearly half-a-century. In that gusto. In his article ‘The Decline and Fall of analysing policy announcements coming from American Conservatism’ he writes: speech Rand pointed out that “the meaning of the “liberals” program is pretty clear by now. local conservatives, such as the Nat’s recent In 1994, American voters elected But what about the “conservatives”? What environmental offerings, can be as sobering Republican majorities in both the House is it that they are seeking to “conserve”?” as reading those coming from America.

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 9 Rational Environmentalism National’s Environmentalism Investigating National’s Environmental Sell-out

Water PETER CRESSWELL Water has become an issue here in Godzone - dirty lakes in Rotorua; rivers full of didymo and industrial effl uent; falling lake levels in South Island hydro lakes; rising demand for limited river water for agricultural irrigation. Why ‘Blue Green’ All of these problems have been caused either largely or in part by either non-existent or insuffi ciently clear property rights in water – this is a Tragedy of the Commons problem, is the New Wet and one that can be solved by recognising and protecting the property rights that inhere The hallmarks of conservative ideology can be characterised in the water ‘commons.’ This much is partially recognised even by the Clark Government as being compromise, “me-tooism” and an embrace of one’s who have spent the last three years putting together a scheme for tradeable water rights, opponents’ aims -- the only change being the claim that and by Rotorua Maori who are just beginning to talk about property rights as a means of conservatives will deliver them better. This, to conservatives, is protecting the water quality in their local lakes. called “heading off the opposition.” To a conservative, you see, it’s It’s easy to get too excited about this. The general manager of Rotorua’s Ngati Whakaue not so important what is done so much as who is doing it. Tribal Lands Trust is not yet ready, it seems, to call for clear property rights as a means by The practical consequence of the application to the ‘Watermelon’ end of environmentalism. which Rotorua lake water can be protected of this ideology has been to deliver socialism Authoritarianism is an ineluctable part of in common law, but it’s what is needed there. just as quickly, if not more so, under ‘Watermelon’ environmentalism -- it is no And the cabinet paper on tradable rights was conservative governments than under that coincidence for example that a search of prepared by David Benson-Pope and Jim of their erstwhile opponents. Conservatives the Greens website for appearances of Anderton, hardly friends of the market, and call this “practical.” Those with principles the word “ban” attracts 530 “hits.” When a whatever emerges from their deliberations will not unfortunately be full property rights, call it “selling out.” The result is the same. problem is identifi ed by a Watermelon the but another government-driven halfway immediate response is to call for a) a ban, house. It is, as they say, just a start. The National Party’s Nick Smith provides the b) government funding, and c) government most recent example with his suggestion the action. Such also is the approach of The reason it might be a good start is that Nats should look to “outfl ank” the political Smith’s Wet Greens. No wonder Smith, to a recognising and securing property rights opposition by “softening its environmental libertarian like Lindsay Perigo, is “a man with a gives people the ability to cure the Tragedy of the Commons, giving owners and rights- message.” As Vernon Small summarises the tongue so forked you could hug a tree with it.” holders incentive and legal standing to Smith slop in The Dominion Post: protect, conserve and to maintain what is The Wet Greens are “outfl anking” Labour and theirs – incentives that just don’t exist in an Softening the environmental message, seeking Green support by the time-honoured un-owned commons, where the incentives [Smith] hopes, will peel away some of that method of conservatives everywhere: by are all short-term. Unlike the commons, a soft Labour vote while happily making a embracing their opponents’ policies but with system of property rights acts like mirrors, refl ecting back to you the results of your own deal with the Green party that much more the added promise of even greater funding actions. Very few people, for example, like credible. More to the point, if National and more “effective” management. The to dump raw sewage on their own land or cannot hug the trees and the Greens, or “effectiveness” is always to be taken on trust, in their own water – but they can and do edge them into a neutral position, then it but the added spending is always a promise. dump it in the commons. Dump it on your may be trying in the long term to hug them neighbour’s property however and when his to death. The ‘Wet Green Vision for New Zealand’ rights are secured he has an action against offers 32 pages of turgid slop. Identifi ed are a you. What, in real concrete terms, does “softening number of environmental problems, for each And say for instance that your fi shing right, or the environmental message” mean besides of which a proposal for more government ‘boating right’ or ‘access right’ in the Rotorua giving authoritarian environmentalists funding is the ‘solution,’ along with a stated lakes or the Tarawera River was protected in everything they’re after? No difference at all. desire for “consensus” around “up to 20 law and your right was somehow diminished The “softening” Smith proposes are a sell-out national environmental goals” to ensure that or degraded by the action of others, then on Kyoto, “a signifi cant funding package to authoritarian environmentalism is cemented the law would recognise an action in tort and damages against those who did the promote tree planting, cleaner air and water, in for some years to come. Every single one damage. and help for community conservation.” Not of the Wet Green solutions takes property just selling out, but selling out so wetly. rights away from land-owners, shackles local As the Canadian organisation Environment industry and agriculture, and looks to bigger Probe has pointed out and campaigned on for If Nandor’s mob were Wild Greens, then and more authoritarian government to solve many years, a system of clear property rights Smith’s ‘Blue Green’ Tories are Wet Greens. the problems identifi ed. and common law protections of property rights offers the best long-term security for water and those who rely on it. Make no mistake that the sell-out here is to That is the extent of Smith’s Wet Green vision: the authoritarian wing of environmentalism – more government and less freedom; more

10 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Rational Environmentalism National’s Environmentalism Investigating National’s Environmental Sell-out rights for trees, rocks and mud puddles, and In ‘The Rise and fall of American Privatise the Parks! fewer rights for human beings. Maximum Conservatism,’ (published recently in controls, and the avoidance of unnecessary ‘The Objective Standard’) Professor Brad A recent study has apparently put a dollar freedom. A “consensus” achieved by Thompson analyses the bankruptcy of the value on the returns to the local economy from Fiordland National Park - NZ$228 million per year wholesale sell-out – a competition as to “conservative vision”: in revenue, to be precise. Given that it only costs who can shackle industry most effectively $9 million to run, this makes the land extremely – such is the lost opportunity of this Wet Never mind “the vision thing” -- about valuable. No wonder the Libertarianz’ policy is to Green vision. which George Bush Sr. agonised -- privatise the park. It makes sense that the national give yourself over instead to absolute parks should be in the hands of those who value And it’s just not necessary. Politicising the rule, and let the other side seek them the most, and as our policy states, this can environment and destroying property rights out new visions. That’s the neocon be done by recognising easements and profi ts a is neither necessary nor likely to be effective. ticket. The three most important prendre for existing users, and issuing tradeable ’shares’ in state-managed parks and forests, This document and the Wet Green policies rules for absolute rule: Compromise, allowing those who value particular areas or are a lost opportunity because the chance compromise and compromise. The was there to grasp with both hands the particular rights to swap, share, club together or fourth rule: if visions arise that are going trade in order to get either a property right in a success and sophistication of property-rights to happen anyway, then just roll over park, or to sell their share and get a cheque. based solutions to environmental problems and make sure you take the credit. to genuinely outfl ank opponents, and to 593,000 people visited Fiordland NP last year - that attract real and long-term support from If liberals launch a national campaign for is a huge market. And contrary to irrational fears, rational, pro-freedom environmentalists. socialized medicine, Republicans should private ownership would not result in exploitation steal the issue from the Democrats and pollution but precisely the opposite - pollution would breach the property rights of those with A rational approach to the environmental and advocate a system of universal rights in the park, and as the most profi table use problems identifi ed would be far from wet, health care but one that allows people and entirely consistent with stated National to owners of rights would be as a pristine tourist to choose their own doctor or HMO. If attraction, there would be signifi cant motivation Party principles – which do actually talk of liberals commence a public campaign amongst owners for protection. That’s the beauty “maximum freedom, and the avoidance of against the profi ts of “big business” of allowing the free market rather than the state, unnecessary controls’ -- and unlike the many or the salaries of their executives, to protect the natural environment: it’s all about expensive failures of the central planning Republicans should neutralize liberal incentives. approach to environmental management pretensions by encouraging “greedy” and all the “unnecessary controls” entailed, Property rights solve the tragedy of the commons and “profi teering” corporate executives environmental polices based on “maximum and remove politics from decision-making, putting to voluntarily donate their profi ts to freedom” would actually work, and actually land in the hands of those who value it. charities. If radical environmentalists would outfl ank their opponents. launch a public relations campaign Private national parks are not unprecedented. against global warming, Republicans NGOs like Ancient Forests International and I’m talking of course of environmental should encourage American companies philanthropists like Douglas Tompkins have protection based on the recognition and to hire environmentalists as advisors... been instrumental in setting up private parks protection of property rights in common throughout the Americas, notably in Chile. Parque law. There is seven-hundred years of Pumalín covers thousands of square kilometres, As Thompson points out, and as Ayn Rand sophistication and success with that and is the largest park of its kind. It is located approach – success in securing both liberty pointed out before him, moral appeasement at a similar latitude to Fiordland NP, with similar and superior environmental values. Drawing of this sort serves only to embolden the primeval Gondwana-remnant forests. And in an on that sophistication and replicating that conservative’s opponents, “a lesson that effort to overcome local opposition, Tompkins success should have been a no-brainer for conservatives seem constitutionally unable has attempted to integrate the park into the local a party in favour of “maximum freedom and to learn. They fail to grasp that compromising economy: Small farms with productive activities such the avoidance of unnecessary controls,” but one principle inevitably leads to hundreds of compromises in practice. In this relationship, as animal husbandry, cheese making, eco- instead a no-brainer is the way to describe tourism, wool handicrafts and organic gardens liberalism will always have the upper the man in charge of the development of are simultaneously park stations and visitor hand and will always dictate the future...” National’s environment policy. information centers. In this way both conservation and a productive Instead of drawing up policies that would If Smith and the Nats were to spike the contribution to the local economy are achieved. refl ect and protect the long time horizons authoritarian guns not with compromise and characteristic of an environment of secure appeasement but with a ringing declaration If in the future Pumalín makes a $228 million property rights, we have instead policies that of freedom and liberty and property rights -- contribution to the local economy, the opposition refl ect only the short-term time horizons of and with it a clear and forceful demonstration and the fear for “sovereignty” will probably melt away. I suspect the park will be better managed politics and politicians. They talk of “future of how the exercise and protection of than Chile’s state run parks, too. While I don’t property rights leads to both superior generations” but their eye barely goes agree with Tompkins’ radical “deep ecology” past the next election, or the next caucus environmental values and to maximum philosophy, I wish him all the best with his plans. reshuffl e. freedom -- then I would be right behind them. And I hope New Zealand policy makers recognise the success of such private conservation Such is the Wet Green “vision for New But that’s about as likely as Smith ever initiatives. Privatise the parks! Zealand.” growing a spine.

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Why are the chain saws out? Cue Card Libertarianism:

Here’s a question for you: Why do you think removed. By contrast, if a value can be Common law the residents of Boiling Spring Lakes, North extracted from hosting these creatures (by Carolina, have embarked on a wave of logging? farming for export perhaps, or selling tickets COMMON LAW arose in England almost by “Since February,” notes AOL News, “the city to come and visit them and learn about them) accident, but much of the English-speaking has issued 368 logging permits, a vast majority then the property-owner has an interest in world has benefi ted from its property-rights without accompanying building permits.” protecting the habitat instead of destroying it. based solutions to otherwise complex problems. The reason? The federal Fish and Wildlife If you want to protect wildlife, in short, you Service issued an edict in February that need to recognise the property rights that What began in the late twelfth-century as a all habitat supporting the red-cockaded land owners have in their property, and formalisation of existing customary law, was woodpecker (pictured left) will be protected, look too to recognising a property right in to become a century later under the reign of and began issuing maps indicating which wildlife. Eat them, skin them, and save them. Edward Longshanks -- King Edward I -- a way particular habitats are to be effectively nationalised by this protection -- property Graham outlines in a paper for the World of dealing in an ordered, uncomplicated way around Boiling Springs Lakes was a prime Conservation Union, ‘Conservation And with the legitimate concerns of his subjects. target, and those property-owners have Sustainable Use Of Wildlife - An Evolving been quick to move to protect what is theirs. Concept,’ this proposition that recognising a Traditionally, subjects would petition the property right in animals makes for ‘sustainable king in person, but King Edward, known It’s a result about which no-one is happy, (and conservation’: as ‘The Hammer of the Scots,’ preferred to just another result brought about by our old ...An increasing body of conservationists be up north hammering Scots rather than friend the Law of Unintended Consequences believe local people should not be treated sitting at home surrounded by his subject’s -- the law of human life and human affairs as the enemy of conservation (Hutton and chickens, about which an inordinate number that “illuminates the perverse unanticipated Dickson 2000). They should be active of complaints were commonly raised, on all of effects of legislation and regulation”). partners, at the frontline. To achieve and which he was expected to adjudicate. sustain this, they need to receive tangible, The residents aren’t happy, because they’re sustainable benefi ts for their efforts. In most Edward reasoned that a system of courts losing the stands of trees that helped make the cases, the only sustainable way of providing common throughout the land could easily place a good place to live, but they’re doing those benefi ts is through using wildlife the only rational thing in the circumstances. for economic gain. That is, conservation sort such complaints using principles of through sustainable use (CSU). customary law common to them all. For The lovers of the red-cockaded woodpecker instance, the easiest way to resolve disputes (however many there might be) aren’t Graham’s own crocodile park outside about neighbours’ chickens damaging a happy because the habitat for their hero Darwin, Crocodylus, is a great example of plaintiff’s vegetable garden was to determine has diminished, but as yet they haven’t his putting the idea into practice. The private 1) whose chickens; 3) whose garden; and 3) paused to reconsider their scheme. conservation projects here in NZ and the what damage. various Southern African private wildlife And presumably the red-cockaded parks are other good examples of private Thus common law became property-based, woodpeckers previously resident in the ‘sustainable conservation’ that succeeds by and was focussed on specifi c harm or trees around Boiling Springs Lake aren’t eschewing the idea of protecting non-existent damages – it focussed on determining the happy either, but unlike their human ‘intrinsic values’ and instead by answering the rights in a property, and on fi nding remedies defenders they’ll never be able to understand question, “Of value to whom, and for what?” why their homes have been cut down. to damage caused by specifi c Nuisance In short, if you want to save wildlife, you need or Trespass. Common law held that those But it’s all an entirely logical and predictable to be able to ‘farm’ the wildlife and recognise who had rights in property were entitled to result of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service’s the property rights that inhere in them. The the quiet enjoyment of that property; that a authoritarian wildlife protection policy, and one alternative is setting people against wildlife, man’s land and his house were his castle, long predicted by more enlightened wildlife and there’s not only no need for that, it’s and that protecting it from harm was his right. advocates such as Australia’s Graham Webb. counterproductive to both. Common law was case-based rather than Webb points out that if you want to protect statute-based, and was tied by precedent: wildlife for people who value them, then those decisions made in cases using these guiding who own the habitat in which the wildlife in question reside need to be able to extract principles were made common to all similar some value from that fact. Conservationists cases by the principle of stare decisis, so that need to recognise the property rights of those decisions were consistent across the country, who host the wildlife they want protected. and over time.

As Webb said in the case of a rare variety of Common law was simple enough that Australian cockatoos, if you simply declare the principles determined in these cases them protected then every farmer who were quickly codifi ed by Writs that allowed fi nds a red-tailed black cockatoo on his property-owners easy access to the land is going to knock off the whole family protection of law for common causes of before any wildlife agency gets a sniff, and action. By the eighteenth-century the laws the ownership over his land gets effectively Bird Sanctuary. NOT! of nuisance and trespass were already highly sophisticated, and were to become more so

12 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Rational Environmentalism National’s Environmentalism Property Rights In Defence Of Nature as the industrial revolution and the railway Further, unlike statute law, common law Cue Card Libertarianism: age took shape. Rights to light, to air, and always has a plaintiff or victim – there are no to support were widely recognised as being ‘victimless crimes’ under common law. Finally, Pollution a part of the peaceful enjoyment of land; it is the pre-eminent law to protect both POLLUTION: The transfer of matter or rights associated with water and protections environment and property, and unlike zoning energy to the person or property of another against noise, smell and other pollution were laws, anti-pollution statutes and the Resource without his consent. As such, a violation of clear and in place; remedies for trespass and Management Act it has over seven-hundred rights, properly to be proscribed by law. nuisance were well-known and based on the years of sophistication in actually doing so. principle that a defendant should acquire no If a man creates a physical danger or harm to value thereby. English common law brought real property others, which extends beyond the line of his rights into the world and made all Englishmen own property, such as unsanitary conditions, The principle of ‘Coming to the Nuisance’ equal before the law – in doing both it helped or even loud noise, the law can and does was established (and then sadly in some make England and her colonies wealthy and hold him responsible. jurisdictions dis-established); as was the free. Noted Adam Smith in his Wealth of – Ayn Rand principle of a ‘bundle of rights’ being Nations: “The security of the tenant is equal associated with land, and some of those rights to that of the proprietor.” He concluded that Contrary to the view of most being acquired over time by ‘prescription.’ “Those laws and customs [of the common environmentalists, the best antidote to law], so favourable to the yeomanry, have pollution is the extension of private property Easements over land and voluntary restrictive perhaps contributed more to the present rights, not the destruction of them. People care about what they own and will not covenants that attach to land in favour of grandeur of England than all their boasted themselves pollute it or allow someone else particular neighbours were recognised; these regulations of commerce taken together.” are registered with title, and can be traded to pollute it; property rights set up mirrors which refl ect back our own behaviour – we and removed. You might for instance agree Unfortunately the “boasted regulations” of do not readily soil that which is our own; to protect a neighbours’ view over your land today have turned Smith’s insight on its head, individuals and companies who pollute can (a ‘view easement’) in return for the neighbour and removed many of the rights that common more easily be sued when it is clear that keeping a large tree on his that you like (by law once protected. someone else’s property has been defi led; either a restrictive covenant or ‘conservation government departments which pollute are easement’). In this way a ‘net’ of rights is diffi cult to sue, and in a mixed economy are voluntarily built up refl ecting the values of often in cahoots with private polluters. We the right-holders rather than that of the now know that state-run industries in the legislators. former communist countries were about the worst polluters of all. Much of the apparent confusion in the common law was made simple by eighteenth-century The way to go is not to nationalise land, as legal scholar William Blackstone, who with the Resource Management Act has done a few simple principles explained “the mass in all but name, but to privatise, or at least of medieval law” in England. Blackstone’s defi ne property rights in respect of, land, Commentaries on the Law of England were to rivers, sea and air to the maximum extent become the bible of English-speaking law for possible, and thence to rely on the protection more than a century – a young circuit lawyer of common law, which has a seven-hundred in rural Illinois called Abraham Lincoln would year record of sophistication and success in carry a copy in his saddlebag as the only legal dealing with issues of pollution and property text he needed in his work. rights.

Many aspects of common law are now regularised as a part of tort law, but the Suggested further reading: review English and American legal history explosion of statute law in the last fi fty years to show the environmental protections • Property Rights in the Defence of available to individuals. “Those who has meant that duties imposed by statute now Nature, by Elizabeth Brubaker. This book allowed something noxious to escape encumber and complicate what was once the draws on cases from England, Canada, their control and invade the property of simple but remarkably sophisticated realm of and the United States, showing how others could be held accountable for common law. the common law of property has for their actions through private litigation,” centuries been a force for environmental they write. “Eventually, citizens will Common law is not just simpler than statute protection, while contemporary statutes recognize that the common law, law, it is also immune to political hijack have allowed polluters to foul private bolstered by local regulation, can protect – one particular reason for its popularity lands and public resources alike. the environment more effectively and with libertarians and its unpopularity with big fairly than can statutes and bureaucratic government advocates. Rights are protected • The Common Law: How it Protects regulations.” in practice, not just proclaimed on parchment the Environment, by Roger E. Meiners or ignored altogether. and Bruce Yandle. Meiners and Yandle

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 13 14 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz PRODOS AUSTRALIANC POLITICS

Too Liberal for the Liberals! Interviewer, musician, founder of the worldwide Celebrate Capitalism™ The Reaction Party members, the mainstream media, and movement, Prodos is an out an out Objectivist and an energetic and the public were very supportive. enthusiastic classical liberal. So what happened then when classical The members: At every Party function liberal Prodos stood as a candidate for the Australian Liberal Party? Why I attended, fellow Party members would come up to me and say how refreshing it wasn’t it a match made in heaven? Listen to his tale. was that someone “different” was having a go–someone who wasn’t the usual suit and tie. Interestingly, the women in the Party were Prelude The Liberal Party is Australia’s conservative especially eager about my Preselection. I’d been working with others for some months, party–similar to the National Party of New Zealand. It’s not a purely free-market party, campaigning for the repeal of the Australian Young Libs would come over and chat with but it’s the best we have. (Actually, I was Labour Party’s ‘Racial and Religious Tolerance me, pleased about a free-market supporter speaking with Dr Don Brash recently and was Act (RRTA).’ rising to the occasion. Telling me they’d mighty impressed by his substantial support downloaded my song “Privatize the ABC” for free-market thinking.) What’s the RRTA? Well, recently under this (PrivatizeTheABC.Com) and had passed law, Catch the Fire Christian Ministry was it around to all their friends. (The ABC is found to have vilifi ed and mocked--mocked!- At a branch meeting one day my branch Australia’s state owned TV and radio network. -the Muslim community after they presented President, Sunny Duong, asked whether Privatize the ABC is my own project.) a seminar which exposed the many violent, there was anyone who’d be interested in oppressive (and ridiculous) passages of the campaigning for Richmond in the coming Members would tell me they’d seen me on Koran and Hadith and other authoritative state election. He explained – as he often does TV or in the papers and were pleased about Islamic texts. Their seminar included lots of – that the Liberal Party is open to everyone. how well I came across. And the local branch direct quotes from these texts. Any member is welcome to put their name of Richmond was 100% behind me. Things forward as a candidate. It doesn’t matter their were looking good. At one point during the court case, a Catch race or colour or how they dress, he said, The Fire minister quoted from the Koran, looking straight at me. The media: A colleague told me never to and was told to stop doing that or he’d be forget that “the media are the enemy.” But So, in jest I replied “Even someone who looks found guilty of further vilifying Muslims. Do that wasn’t my experience at all. In fact I got like me?” you get that? Reading out of the Koran vilifi es a lot of coverage from the mainstream media Muslims. Go fi gure. and all of it presented in a reasonably fair, Let me explain. I’m an “unconventional” honest, and positive light. I got along well with looking chap, and not typical of Liberal Party the journalists. For instance, here’s some of And how about this: The complaint against members. I wear tights, big fake fur coats, what they told me, off the record: Catch the Fire was put forward by the pointy shoes, lots of rings and bling-bling, “moderate” Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV). and a top hat with a double blue ribbon “Prodos, I hope you DO get into Parliament. The very same ICV that recommends a and Star of Sara around it (symbols of the It would be refreshing to have someone REAL website called Islam Online (IslamOnline. Celebrate Capitalism™ campaign). And, as for a change.” This from a political reporter of Net) that openly advocates the murder of of a few months ago, I started going around our most leftwing newspaper, no less. apostates. everywhere carrying a big 5 foot by 3 foot Aussie fl ag. Furthermore I don’t have a typical “He does have a certain je ne sais quoi!” For his fearless defence of free speech, the job. Writes a certain leftie gossip columnist. Melbourne Celebrate Capitalism™ team presented Pastor Danny Nalliah, head of I survive on donations and gifts, which means “Prodos, I like you!” Declared one of Catch the Fire, with the Melbourne Capitalism I’m quite poor. I earn less than someone on Australia’s most hard-nosed political television Award 2006. the dole. As well as running an internet radio reporters. show, The SOLID VOX™ Network, and the (Aside: Shortly after the Award was given, Celebrate Capitalism™ campaign, my main “Prodos, I’ve never looked at capitalism that two of my Australian Celebrate Capitalism™ focus is working with my American wife, way before. You’ve really got me thinking!” coordinators (both Objectivists) resigned Sydney Kendall, to write a musical “Fairytale From a left/green journalist working for the because, they said, we’d presented the for Geniuses.” And, of course, to top it all off youth radio arm of the ABC. Award to an “anti-capitalist.” But that’s I’m a goddamned Objectivist. another story.) I told one of the reporters, “I thought you were ”Everyone is welcome, Prodos!” said Sunny. supposed to be the enemy!” The Journey Begins For about 3 years now I’ve been an active I thought this would be a perfect opportunity “Nah! It’s just our job to get to the facts – member of the Richmond South branch of to further expose the stupidity and injustice of especially when we sense someone’s trying the Liberal Party of Australia here in the state the RRTA. So I did it. I signed up and put my to hide something,” he replied chuckling. of Victoria. name forward. “That’s why they don’t like us.”

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 15 AUSTRALIANC POLITICS

The public: People would stop me in the Twenty minutes after I fi nished my call with street and tell me they usually vote Labour the DSD, I received a call from a fellow Lib, or Green, but this time they’d vote Prodos. who’d been contacted by another Lib, who’d People driving past would toot their horns and been contacted by someone within Party HQ shout “Go Aussie!” recognising me because of who’d told him that the DSD was walking the big Aussie fl ag I carry with me everywhere. around the offi ce, off his bloody rocker and Strangers would slow down and shout from screaming that Prodos had treated him with their car: “Good luck, Prodos!” disrespect and that “Prodos had started it!!”

On various Aussie blogs and message boards I then received inside information that certain that took to discussing my Preselection, I did people within Admin were claiming that I had my best to join the debates and clarify my “racist links.” I called for an investigation into views. And where they were saying untrue or this and for a reassessment of the DSD’s stupid things about me I’d slap them around position, plus I demanded an apology from all a little. concerned. The main negative response was from The SP did not cooperate with any of this. Australia’s biggest online magazine, Crikey, who ran a smear piece about me. Instead he made further unsubstantiated, vague, and truly absurd claims about me– Winnable! An unconventional looking chap . . . unsupported by any evidence. Naturally, I have challenged and rebutted every single Despite the overwhelming support I was one of these dumb claims. getting, it was also made clear to me by now became even more interested in my the Party that Richmond was considered Preselection. Whilst attending a Party meeting at HQ one un-winnable. I disagreed strongly. I believe evening, I was taken aside by the State in winning. I have great faith in my fellow The state Party leader was asked on prime Director (SD) and calmly told that they were citizen and his good sense and benevolence. time Channel Seven news why Prodos was concerned that due to my “connection” with I believe that the main reason the Left had being rejected. It was an awkward moment the media, I was “sucking the oxygen” from been winning Richmond was that the “Right” for him. Journalists kept phoning me and the State campaign. Huh? was so vague, and so bloody boring. This phoning Party headquarters to fi nd out what could be rectifi ed. was going on. Because of Party rules, I wasn’t allowed to speak about it. But the journalists Then I was told that the Party was concerned I began putting together a rip-snorter hit started providing ME with inside information about my websites and what I might post on squad to help me tear Labour and the Greens on what was actually going on behind the them. to shreds, and to sell my free-market and scenes and about various levels of foul play. free-speech message to the good people of Prodos: “Have you looked at any of my Richmond. When I contacted Admin to ask what the websites?” problem was, the Deputy State Director (DSD) A Surprise Enemy spat the dummy. Here is an excerpt taken SD: “No, but I will!” Suddenly, an unfamiliar and surprising creature from the formal complaint I lodged about him Others were told to pass on the message to reared its head. Let’s call it the “KroC” faction. to the State President (SP) of the Party: They currently dominate the Victorian Liberal me, that Admin was concerned about my Party’s Administrative Committee. … At approximately this point [DSD] started long hair and my appearance. I responded speaking to me much louder and using that I recently received the Australian Adam Being the only person who’d applied to run for the “F-word” with great frequency and Smith Club Achievement Award, dressed Richmond and since I had the full support of force throughout most of his subsequent pretty much the way you see me right now. my branch, ordinarily, after various formalities, statements. it would have meant my acceptance as the That I coordinated the Local Business Liberal Party Candidate. He told me that if the media contacts Roundtable in Richmond, representing over me I have to tell them the following … 200 businesses at local council meetings, Not so fast. Two days before this was all [something to the effect that: as they looking the way I do. That I ran corporate fi nalised, a letter arrived from Admin informing would understand I’m not able to discuss workshops on lateral thinking, dressed just me they’d “directed that applications for my pre-selection.] like this. And that people in Richmond like the endorsement for … Richmond be re- way I look. Isn’t that what counts? Isn’t the advertised … [so that] … additional potential He then demanded that I “f---en” repeat Liberal Party the party of individuals? Isn’t it? candidates should also be considered for this this phrase. Throughout our conversation District.” he made this demand several times using ABP the same colourful language. On one This was unprecedented. Usually it’s a struggle occasion when he told me to “F---en” I think I was meant to throw my hands up and to fi nd anyone at all willing to contest a Dead repeat verbatim what I should “f---en” quit in disgust. Since I didn’t the KroCs went Red seat like Richmond. To my knowledge, say if and when any media contact me, I into ABP (Anyone-But-Prodos) overdrive and in the history of the Party, the Preselection said: “You want me to f---en repeat what I found two people to stand against me. choice of the local branch in Richmond had should f----en say?” never been rejected or “re-advertised.” The next thing they did was make use of … Early on, when he started sprinkling the a clause in the Party’s Constitution which Just this time. F-word throughout his talk, I said to him: allowed them to remove the voting rights of “Hey! What’s with all this ‘f--- this’ and ‘f-- the local branch and have the Preselection Knowing this even better than I did, the media - that,’ mate? Convention run entirely by Admin. 16 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz AUSTRALIANC POLITICS

So it happened that I was thrown out of the And she talks about all the support she’s Is it any surprise that we Liberals have been running and the endorsed Candidate for getting from the Filipino community and her getting thrashed by Labour and the Greens? Richmond was appointed. Who is she? joy in sharing the traditional culture of the How can a Party that treats its own members Philippines. But Richmond doesn’t have a like this and then expect to be trusted by the The new candidate was granted a “special Filipino community to speak of. I checked general public? It’s a big problem. dispensation” by the Party in order to make the stats on it. Her supporters are from the her Preselection Application legal. This was Western suburbs. Far, far from Richmond. The Aftermath required because she had only just joined the Personally, I have no great sense of loss or Party a couple of weeks before applying for The KroC controlled Admin has now also disappointment in not winning the Preselection. Preselection and was not yet a fully fl edged foisted upon the local branch an unknown I’m as busy as ever within the Party and am member. campaign manager (rather than enlisting helping others with their campaigns. the support of locals). Again, bypassing The new candidate has no connection with and undermining the local branch. That’s a But the whole fi asco has had a curious effect the Richmond District. She has never lived across the Party. The Kroc’s manipulations and or worked here. She is a strong advocate of shame because the Richmond South branch, mistreatment have been so starkly exposed in multiculturalism and has bragged about how though smallish, is one of the most successful this fi asco, it’s had the effect of bringing to the she’s campaigned against the “racist” views of fundraisers in the Party. surface–across the whole Party–a great swell Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party. In of discontent. fact One Nation has never put forward “racist” One Party Two Cultures views. It did put forward lots of silly ideas, but What we see here is that there are two People are starting to come out of the racism wasn’t one of them. completely different “cultures”–maybe woodwork to tell me their own stories of universes–within the Party. That of the rank- treacherous treatment. What Pauline Hanson did do–of which I greatly and-fi le membership and that of Admin. approve--was to challenge the taxpayer- In the universe of the members, we fi nd Support for me within the Party continues funded multicultural industry. Lefties like to principles, dedication, and engagement with to grow. I have been offered assistance with brand this as “racist.” the community. future campaigning and funding from every level of the Party membership. To top it all off, the newly appointed candidate has just published her fi rst glossy full-colour In the universe of the current KroC dominated no-expenses-spared campaign newsletter. In Admin however, we fi nd legalistic power Next Step it she refers to Richmond as a “Marginal Seat”. plays, bending of rules, autocratic trampling That’s why I plan to contest the even bigger I.e. one in which a small swing is required to over the members’ democratic rights, Dead Red Seat of Melbourne next year in the win. Fact: In the last election, only one in fi ve outright rudeness and lack of respect, and Federal election. people voted Liberal. That’s why it’s known as a very strong push to place KroC compliant a “Dead Red Seat.” candidates in all the Seats. War is good.

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Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 17 PHIL HOWISON FUTURE CHISTORY Civil War and Other Pessimistic Predictions Future History

New Zealand is one of the most peaceful countries in the world. the country ‘extremist’ groups of the nutter fringe have been gaining in popularity. However, and unlikely as this may sound to those who live in this We’ve seen racially motivated attacks by a “Switzerland of the South Pacifi c,” violent unrest is a defi nite possibility revitalised National Front, and the entry of the Destiny Church into politics with a chilling, in the near future. Globalisation and communications technology have 10,000-strong, fi st-waving, black-shirted demonstration on the steps of Parliament. At made extremist groups more capable, even as political tensions and university, the Worker’s Party and other radical violent crime fi gures rise to ever more dangerous levels. Combine this groups have been more active than ever, with posters expressing support for anti-US and with increasing public distrust of the government, and the future looks anti-Israel terrorists, and promoting bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories. In my opinion, this dark indeed. rise of extremism means we face the highest risk of civil strife since Muldoon’s time. In a recent column in the Sunday Star Times, in to its knees by internal confl ict and perhaps which he defended the charges of corruption civil war as a direct result of this bill.” Piripi’s Unrest during the Muldoon years swirling around the Clark Government, Chris controversial remarks were dismissed by the Trotter warned: government at the time, and protestors against Based on the book Smith’s Dream by CK the bill were called “haters and wreckers” by Stead, the 1977 fi lm Sleeping Dogs is a [If National had won the election] New Helen Clark. thinly fi ctionalised version of the dictatorship Zealand would now be experiencing civil and civil war which leftists feared during strife on a scale not seen since the 1860s… Yet the left resurrected these tensions during Robert Muldoon’s time as Prime Minister Social peace for a paltry half-million dollars? the 2005 election campaign, with some - orchestrated terrorist acts, secret police, Strikes me as the most courageous and bloggers and columnists predicting “blood in communist rebellion, and n Vietnam-style forgivable kind of corruption. the streets” if the supposedly racist National American intervention. party won the election. And so according to While Muldoon was wildly popular with Trotter is partly right, but he has the threat Chris Trotter, the threat of civil war justifi ed conservatives over most of his reign, he reversed. His warning of a threat to social corrupt tactics by Labour during the election did alienate large parts of the population. peace in New Zealand is far from hyperbole campaign - odd if you consider that the His belligerent ridicule and accusations of but the corrupt Labour Party is not the cure, it warning of civil war actually followed a Labour homosexuality as a political tactic raised is the cause: Under threat and believing itself to Party bill! tensions in Parliament, and heavy-handed be above the law, this government has simply The discussion in Slack’s book ends on an police action against protestors and dawn abandoned any pretence at accountability and optimistic note. The 1913 waterfront strike raids against immigrants alienated the left transparency. Its actions threaten to undermine and 1981 Springbok tour protests are used while playing to what he saw as his support the legitimacy of the state, something that will as examples of situations that could have base. have dire consequences for New Zealand. escalated into civil war, but didn’t. Trotter When he passed the SIS Act in 1978, giving the Let’s get some historical context. New Zealand argues that this was “sheer dumb luck,” while government increased powers of surveillance, last saw major confl ict in the 1860s, when the Slack disagrees: thousands of protestors surrounded the SIS country was still being born, but sporadic Perhaps we’re not inclined here in New headquarters, damaging them to the extent confl ict continued on a minor scale up right up Zealand to that kind of reaction. Perhaps that they had to be abandoned. The 1981 to and even into the 20th century. Incidents we tend to choose governments that Springbok tour was marked by anti-apartheid famously included the passive resistance at manage to hold the extremes and maintain protests, which degenerated into riots as Parihaka in 1881, and the narrowly averted the peace. And perhaps no one has too protestors were brutally beaten by police. “Dog Tax war” in Northland in 1898. The early little to lose. Soon the protestors were wearing helmets years of the 20th century saw industrial strife and wielding plywood shields with nails in. that culminated in riots, attempted bombings I’m not so optimistic. I think NZ’s current and gunfi ghts during the failed Wellington There were also a few terrorist incidents. government has encouraged the extremes waterfront strike of 1913. The last Maori- Terrorism is practically unknown in New and struggled to hold the ‘centre.’ Pakeha confl ict was as recent as the 1916 Zealand, but two fatal incidents happened raid on Maungapohatu, in which three Maori Think of the divisive and extreme rhetoric during Muldoon’s time. In 1982, anarchist were killed. recently from within and around Parliament punk Neil Roberts obliterated himself while – Brash calling Labour corrupt; Clark calling attempting to blow up the “Big Brother” David Slack’s book Civil War and Other Brash “corrosive and cancerous” and the police computer centre in Wanganui, Optimistic Predictions includes a chapter entire Labour caucus demonising a minor causing Muldoon to warn of a (non-existent) about the civil war controversy in 2005. When religious sect; and that ‘master of diplomacy’ national anarchist conspiracy. And in 1984, the government responded to Maori coastal Foreign Minister Winston Peters chiming in a bomb killed a caretaker at the Trades Hall land claims by passing a law nationalising the calling Brash “evil.” in Wellington, during a major union meeting. foreshore and seabed, deep racial tensions The Labour Party linked the bombing to “anti- were exposed. Senior civil servant Haami And while the temperature and invective union hysteria” stirred up by Muldoon, but the Piripi warned: “This country could be brought rise inside Parliament, outside and around culprits were never identifi ed.

18 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz FUTURE HISTORY

order take? Here are some ideas:

• Riots. These would play out very differently today. Consider the situation in Sydney’s beachside suburbs last year, when text messages inspired 5000 Australians to join a spontaneous demonstration against Lebanese immigrants. After the situation turned violent, revenge attacks were also coordinated via cell- phone. In Paris, cell-phones enabled small groups to torch thousands of vehicles without police interference.

• Ethnic violence. Initially this could take the form of occupations or sieges, like the ‘non- violent’ Moutoa Gardens occupation, or the violent Oka Crisis in Canada. The situation warned against during the foreshore and Is this NZ’s future? seabed controversy was that any death during an occupation could cause a violent The impact of globalisation discovered during raids on methamphetamine escalation. Meanwhile, the National Front distributors. What if such weaponry comes Globalisation and communications technology have been trying to stir up hatred among into the possession of extremist groups? have caused a relative increase in the power immigrant communities… While tensions may not be as high now as and capabilities of small groups. during Muldoon’s time, extremist groups • Crime. Extrapolating from current In 1981, about 40% of the population opposed have far more potential to arm and organise trends, we will see a further increase the Springbok tour, and many people risked themselves due to globalisation and improved in violent crime, a continuing failure injury or even death to protest (no deaths communications technology. to effectively combat gangs and their occurred, but the severity of injuries meant lucrative drug distribution networks, and a death was always a possibility). Only one concomitant proliferation of illegal weapons. game was called off, after protestors invaded The current government-losing the fi eld. The police were highly successful in legitimacy? • Assassination. As political debate has controlling the protests, using barbed wire, My worry is that the apathy of the wider public become increasingly personal, there has barricades and batons to keep protestors out and the actions of the current government been a lot of hatred directed at particular of test venues. Better communications would will empower violent extremists, removing political fi gures - Brash is “evil” and have prevented this. Imagine if the protests the possibility for problems to be resolved “cancerous”; private investigators and had been coordinated via text message, with in a peaceful way. The current government “golfers“ are allegedly smearing Clark email used to distribute information about has shown itself to be corrupt and bent on and her husband, etc. If a supporter police positions. Furthermore, the media remaining in power at all costs. They have of one side took matters into their own was controlled to some extent. What if blogs attempted to stifl e all opposition by whatever hands, it would be unprecedented and had existed? Cell-phone cameras? The true means available. They have demonstrated unfortunate, certainly, but not impossible extent of the brutality was not widely known a willingness to use legislation as a weapon to extrapolate from present trends. at the time, but blogs could have distributed – removing the union exemption for the shocking images. I doubt the government Exclusive Brethren, for example, and • Terrorism. Even as radical Islam is would have survived, let alone win the promoting retrospective legislation to legalise identifi ed as the primary threat, domestic subsequent election. their misappropriation of taxpayer’s money to terrorism is a possibility which should not be Also, the increased volume of trade now makes buy the election; to have opponents silenced, ignored. This could come from either left or it virtually impossible to prevent traffi cking in such as Tim Selwyn, imprisoned for sedition right. The effect of targeting tourists would arms and drugs. This year, several caches of after he distributed an anti-government be particularly bad, if not catastrophic. pamphlet; to attack the neutrality of civil explosives and automatic weapons have been servants (eg the Auditor-General). • Sabotage of vital infrastructure. In my They have even seriously proposed opinion, this is the worst long-term threat, banning dissent during the election given our aging infrastructure and reliance campaign, suggesting legislation to control advertising and spending on foreign trade. around elections that amounts to Keep these fears in mind. Consider making nothing more than what American preparations for an emergency. And if free-speech advocates have called the bullets do start fl ying, blame the Clark there “speech rationing. Misuse Government and its apologists who have of taxpayer funds and attempted substituted power for principle, at the cost of cover-ups of ministerial scandals a dangerous loss of legitimacy for the rule of have further damaged public trust law in this country! in the very job of government.

The consequences of a more Philip Howison is a student in general loss of legitimacy would International Relations at Victoria . . . or this? be dire. What form might a loss of University, Wellington. Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 19 PETER CRESSWELL ISLAM

Appeasement The long, long trail of appeasement , capitulation and death • Riyadh Bombing (2003) • Beheading of Paul Marshall Johnson A piece written in memoriam on September 11, 2006. beheading (2004)

We are at war. We, the people of the west fi elds developed and owned by British and • Murder of Theo Van Gogh (2004) are at war with people who wish to destroy American companies -- and the subsequent • Murder of Fabrizio Quatrocchi (2004) us. It’s a different war than we’re used to, capitulation of Truman and Eisenhower an asymmetric war -- a so-called fourth- (1940s and 50s) • Beheading of Nick Berg (2004) generation war -- so it’s one some people • Seizure and nationalisation of Suez • Beheading of Eugene Armstrong (2004) still don’t recognise (or still don’t want to Canal, and the subsequent capitulation of recognise) but we are under sustained attack. Eisenhower (1956) • Beheading of Jack Hensley (2004) • Seizure of US Embassy and taking of That’s not scare-mongering. That’s just the way • Beheading of Kim Sun-Il (2004) hostages in Tehran, and the craven it is. Like it or not, ignore it if you wish, but we capitulation of Carter (1979) • Beheading of Kenneth Bigley (2004) are at war, and our enemies aren’t going away. • Shooting of police-woman Yvonne Fletcher • Beheading of Shosei Koda (2004) We didn’t start this war, but a litany of from Libyan Embassy in London (1984) appeasement by those under attack has • Madrid bombing (2004) fanned its fl ames, encouraged the attackers • EgyptAir 648 hjacking (1985) and emboldened the growth of violence. It’s • Sharm-el Sheikh bomb (2004) • Bombing of Beirut's marine barracks not been caused by the war in Iraq, or US (1983) • Murder of Margaret Hassan (2004) foreign policy or oil. It’s caused by Islamo- totalitarians who by their own admission • Bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie • London tube attacks (2005) “worship death” as we in the west worship (1988) life; who want the prosperous, freedom-loving • Cairo bombing (2005) • The fatwah on Salman Rushdie (1989 to west dead, as dead as their own dark souls; present). • Ongoing Threats and who see the cowardly west as easy prey. • EgyptAir 990 (1990) • Plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners On this last point at least, they’re right. • World Trade Center Bombing (1993) • Ongoing Iranian plans for nuclear weapons, There is a crucial difference between the • Embassy Bombings (1998) and two fi ngers to UN nuclear inspectors, essentially individualistic, prosperous, Israel, US and entirety of western world freedom-loving civilisation of the west and the • Indian Air 814 (1999) • Ongoing Iranian-supported Shi'ite bombings stone-age culture that has declared war on it. • Project Megiddo (Dec 31, 1999) Said Osama bin Laden on behalf of those who in Iraq declared war: “We love death. The [west] loves • USS Cole (2001) life. That is the difference between us two.” • Ongoing Iranian funding and supply of On that, we also agree. Each of these direct attacks on the west Hezbollah paramilitary organisation was met with appeasement, apology and It’s not a matter of the western countries or capitulation. Each of them resulted in further In the name of those of us who do love life western leaders deciding to declare war on escalation, and the (correct) assessment that and who do treasure the life-loving civilisation Islamo-totalitarians. It’s a matter of recognising the west was morally weak, and that there of the west, on this anniversary of the most that the west, like it or not, is already at war would be no negative consequences for either visible attack on the west and all it stands with Islamo-totalitarians. They attack and perpetrators or supporters. The attacks on for, consider all that led to it: a series of attack and attack, and those under attack September 11 and after saw the culmination snubs, trial balloons and atrocities, the tepid are only beginning to realise this is real. of this attitude, and an outbreak of massive, and pathetic response to most of which Fighting back against these warmongers violent and orchestrated attacks on civilians. emboldened those who love death to even isn’t a matter of law enforcement however, greater atrocities, and the supporters of the • Anthrax attacks (2001) with all the strings around such a battle; it is death-worshippers to even greater support, a matter of war, and we’re already in it. As • Richard Reid (2001) both fi nancial and logistical. Appeasement led SOLO Chief executive John Gagnon noted only to escalation. Both the perpetrators and • Dirty Bomb Plot (2002) recently, “The words of Patrick Henry are the succourers smelt the fear and they smelt as applicable today as they were in 1775: the cowardice, and if they know anything it is • Charles Bishop (2002) ‘Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace – but what fear and cowardice smell like. These are • French Tanker (2002) there is no peace. The war is actually begun!’” scum who feed off cowardice, and for over fi fty years they have had an awful lot of food • Bali bombing (2002) How to fi ght such an ‘asymmetric war’ against to sustain them: • Morocco bombing (2002) an enemy such as this? • Consider this: No terrorist organisation • Seizure and nationalisation of American • Daniel Pearl (2002) can survive without the oxygen of fi nancial, and British oil fi elds in the Middle East -- oil • Ricin threats (2003)| logistical and materiel support. They need

20 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit the website: www.DarntonVsClark.org for updates on this trial weapons to deliver, places to train and in most of the west is undercut by the voices • And consider this too: Is it already fi ve recruit, and money with which to fund their of “useful idiots” from the academies who use minutes to midnight in that particular war? campaigns. It takes a government either the freedom of the west only to attack and And fi nally, meditate on this; “All that is willing to help, or willing to turn its back undercut it. A principled, rational, consistent, necessary for evil to succeed is for good to provide this. It’s hard to track down philosophical defence of the ideas that support men to do nothing.” Wilful blindness terrorists, but not so hard to identify those freedom and western civilisation is long is not an argument. It’s an evasion. who give them succour -- what’s hard is overdue; the ideas of reason, of individualism, having the balls to so something about of property rights and capitalism must be And evasion hasn’t worked. it once you do while the terrorists’ ’useful defended against their ideological attackers, Never has. idiots’ and other allies bleat at home about but how many even know where to start? anything that’s done. As Ayn Rand pointed out in • Consider this: this is as much an ideological defending those ideas herself war as it is an actual hot war. For the blood- so eloquently, “A political battle soaked voices from the stone age the free and prosperous west is a personal affront; is merely a skirmish fought their war on the west is the last gap of the with muskets; a philosophical Dark Age they’ve submitted to themselves battle is a nuclear war.” It is and wish to impose on the rest of the world. a battle that her philosophy Their own ideology has failed at everything of Objectivism makes the but the production of penury and death, philosophical warrior very well- and now it’s all they have left. “They know equipped to fi ght. But time’s how to die.” a’wasting -- as the antics of Ahmedinijad make clear Meanwhile, the ideological war on behalf of enough, a real nuclear war is the west has yet to even be fully engaged, and not entirely an impossibility. Learning from History

• The Industrial Revolution shows that reason the lesson that trade and capitalism are applied to production leads to an enormous better than totalitarianism and bloody increase in human welfare, (and from it also conquest. comes the further lesson that reason is man's unique means of survival). • From the rise of the Asian Tiger economies comes the lesson (again) that freedom • That the Industrial Revolution happened and prosperity are directly and inextricably fi rst and most spectacularly in Britain shows linked. that a legal environment protecting freedom and property rights is necessary for such a • From the Fall of the Berlin Wall comes the revolution to happen and to endure. lesson that non-freedom and poverty are also and inextricably linked. It’s said that “Those who fail to learn from • The relative success of the US Constitution history are doomed to repeat it.” It might also shows that if you know what you're about • The continuing fatwah on Salman Rushdie; be said that those who are either unable or that it's possible to tie up the government to the murders of Theo van Gogh, Daniel Pearl, unwilling to learn from history cannot honestly protect freedom and property rights at least Nick Berg and Paul Marshall Johnson; the expect to have their ill-formed and baseless some of the time. deaths of September 11 and the bombings opinions taken seriously. History has many of Bali, Madrid and London -- between lessons for those both alert enough to identify • From two World Wars and a century of them the lesson is there that war has them and honest enough not to evade them: slaughter comes the lesson that totalitarian already been declared between barbarity state worship is not the route to human and civilisation... • From the Dark Ages comes the lesson that happiness. taken together faith, mysticism, an ethic of All these lessons are there for those who blind sacrifi ce and a focus on some non- choose to open their eyes and learn. Taken • From the bloody failures of collectivism existent other world leads to dirt-poor together, the lesson from the events of history comes the lesson that 'from each according misery in this one. (The same lesson can be is that reason, individualism and capitalism are to his ability, to each according to his need' learned either from the thousand years of a recipe for health, wealth and happiness in this is a recipe only for human sacrifi ce and the Western Dark Ages, or from what looks world, and their polar opposites a prescription bloody slaughter. to be at least a thousand years of Islamic only for death, misery and destruction. Dark Ages.) • From the rise of Nazism comes the lesson And there’s one more lesson to learn from that appeasement rewards the aggressor; • The Inquisition and Islamic jihad between history that I could add now, one from that all evil requires is for good men to do them show the truth of Voltaire’s dictum Richard Nixon’s disastrous presidency that nothing. that those who believe absurdities tend to should be a particular lesson for all political commit atrocities. • From the Holocaust comes the lesson of “strategists”: the lesson that the real damage the banality of evil, and the evil of blindly from Watergate was not the burglary, but • From the Enlightenment comes the lesson following orders. the cover up. That’s a point that those that between them reason and a focus responsible for stealing “books” of emails and on this world provide a way out of the • From the spectular post-war economic for misappropriating taxpayers’ money might darkness. successes of Germany and Japan comes give some thought to today.

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 21 RUEBEN P. CHAPPLE ISLAM

The Truth About Islam Western academics and media commentators wedded to the If one “messenger’s” message was the opposite of the other’s then they couldn’t fashionable doctrine of multiculturalism continue to peddle the lie that have been speaking for the same God. Islamic terrorists are a handful of fringe extremists giving a bad name Compare Muhammad’s violent, expansionist world view as set out above to Christ’s words to an otherwise “peaceful” religion. as recorded in the Gospels, “I say unto you: Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto By thinking in their own cultural terms and bodies to those who sit (at home). Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer instead of researching the true nature of each has Allah promised good, but He prefers also the other; and him that taketh away thy Islam, they have allowed themselves to Jihadists who strive hard and fi ght above cloak forbid not to take thy coat also … And be persuaded by glib Muslim apologists those who sit home. He has distinguished his as ye would that men should do unto you, do that the word “jihad” means nothing more fi ghters with a huge reward.” ye also unto them likewise.’” (Luke 6: 27-31, than a “spiritual struggle against sin.” KJV) Koran 9:44 confi rms that Muslims cannot Our governing doctrine of multiculturalism and escape their jihadist obligation: “Those who Islam is not a “live-and-let-live” religion looking its underlying assumption that violence always believe in Allah and the Last Day do not ask to peacefully win converts. It seeks instead to arises from rational grievances obscures the for an exemption from fi ghting with your goods impose itself on unbelievers by force, though fact that Islamic terrorism is a problem rooted and persons. And Allah knows well those who it is not yet suffi ciently well established in within the Muslim religion itself. do their duty.” most Western countries to openly pursue this objective. As such, it is a terrorist manifesto. Allah’s Book, the Koran, lacks context or Koran 9: 68 describes those failing in this duty chronology. To understand it readers must as “Hypocrites,” warning that they will suffer Why do Muslims continually say otherwise? rely on books written several centuries after the same fate in the afterlife as unbelievers: Islam explicitly condones lying to non- the Prophet’s death to provide the missing “Allah has promised the Hypocrites, both men Muslims for strategic advantage and entering chronological and contextual account of and women, and the unbelievers the Fire of Hell into treaties with them that one never intends Muhammad’s life and the formation of for their abode: Therein shall they dwell. It will to observe. Muslims call this “holy deception.” Islam. Together with the Koran, these works suffi ce them. On them is the curse of Allah, and As Bukhari: V4B52N268 informs us: “Allah’s make up the body of Islamic scripture. an enduring punishment, a lasting torment.” Apostle said, ‘War is deceit.’” And at Bukhari: V7B67N427: “The Prophet said, ‘If I take an While there are undoubtedly many peaceful Koran 5:33 expounds further upon the fate oath and later fi nd something else better than Muslims, any Muslim who adheres closely of unbelievers and Hypocrites: “Those who that, then I do what is better and expiate my to Islamic doctrine is far from peaceful. wage war against Allah and His Messenger oath.’” Koran 9:3 is similarly explicit: “Allah Muhammad’s own words as they are recorded [refuse to accept Islam] and who do mischief and His Messenger dissolve obligations [if this in the Koran and other Islamic scripture disclose [non-Islamic behaviour] in the land … shall furthers Islam]” as is Koran 66:1 “Allah has that unceasing warfare against non-believers be killed or crucifi ed, or their hands and their already sanctioned for you the dissolution of is a key pillar of mainstream Islam. Bukhari: feet shall be cut off on opposite sides, or they your vows [if this furthers Islam].” V1B2N25 makes clear that next to “Islam” or shall be exiled. That is their disgrace in this submission to Allah, the highest Muslim duty world, and a dreadful torment is theirs in Hell.” Contrast the Koran’s “ends justify the means” is to “jihad” or holy war. “Allah’s Apostle was endorsement of duplicity and falsehood with asked, ‘What is the best deed?’ He replied, ‘To The above passages are not quotes taken the Bible’s 9th Commandment: “Thou shalt not believe in Allah and His Apostle Muhammad.’ out of context to malign a religion followed lie” (Exodus 20: 2-17) then ask yourself again The questioner then asked, ‘What is the next by over a billion people. They provide a brief if the God of the Koran is really the God of best in goodness?’ He replied; ‘To participate sample of the repeated exhortations in Islamic the Bible as Muhammad wants us to believe. in Jihad, religious fi ghting in Allah’s Cause.’” scripture calling upon believers to engage in violence and terrorism in Allah’s cause. As It is clear that the establishment of Islam Muslims are ordered to fi ght and kill until Islam the Koran and its associated commentaries in the West is fundamentally inconsistent is the only religious and political institution. make clear, such behaviours are based on with Western institutions and values, and Koran 8:39 enjoins: “Fight them [non-Muslims] core Islamic doctrine. It is Muslims favouring must be resisted with every means at our till all opposition ends and the only religion is peaceful co-existence with other religions disposal. Our ongoing failure to grasp the Islam” and at Koran 9: 5: “Fight and kill the in secular, plural democracies who in fact nature of this doctrine that turns men into unbelievers wherever ye shall fi nd them.” merit the title “radicals” and “extremists.” deceitful killers means such men could eventually destroy Western civilisation in Koran 4:95 excuses Muslims whose Judged by the words of its own Prophet, the service of their totalitarian religion. circumstances (age, gender, infi rmity) mean Islam cannot be compared to other belief they can’t actively engage in jihad, though systems. It would be hard to fi nd a more If Western culture is not to fall to militant they still have a duty to fund it. Jihadists, hateful, intolerant collection of writings Islam, Islamic terrorism must be recognised however, are accorded the greater status: than that contained in Islamic scripture. as part of an undeclared war of religious “Allah has granted a rank higher to those who Yet Muslims continue to insist that the ideology, one not of our own making. We strive hard, fi ghting Jihad with their wealth God of the Koran is the God of the Bible. have essentially two choices: Either Islam

22 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz must be quarantined, or it must be destroyed something that cannot be abided, nor allowed With every new baby born to a Muslim and replaced with a religious philosophy under Islam, which is full acceptance of the family in the West, the threat of Islam that is genuinely conducive to peace. equality between Muslim and non-Muslim.” grows, while the hope for democracy and freedom dwindles. Each new Muslim birth Both options involve hard choices, but The number of Muslims living in the in the west increases the pace of that threat quarantine must be regarded as the better West is increasing rapidly, not just from exponentially. This threat should be taken and by far the more peaceful course. It immigration, but because Muslim families more seriously than the threat of terrorism. would involve ending Muslim immigration, are reproducing almost three times faster restricting travel to and from Muslim countries, than Westerners. Current birth rates mean We should also be aware that there is a bigger outlawing Islam as a hate organisation that in a few decades, Muslims will swamp picture. Militant Islam is being used by Russia, in Western nations (just as most Muslim us demographically. This is why Islam is the China, and North Korea to wage a proxy states outlaw Judaism and Christianity), the world’s fastest-growing religion, not because war against America, Israel, and Western immediate deportation of convicted Muslim hordes of non-Muslims are converting to it. culture and values. It is these countries that terrorists and their families, and ending supply Muslim states with their armaments, our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Even if we win some kind of military victory in the and their terrorist groups with training. war on terror, we will still almost certainly lose The second option involves nuclear weapons the “population war.” Our ultimate challenge Modern Islamic radicalism traces back and catastrophic consequences for hundreds is the Islamic demographic explosion, which direct to the Islamic Brotherhood (a front of millions of people. If Iran gets the bomb threatens to overrun the already dwindling for Marxist-Leninist agitprop amongst Arab and uses it, the second option may be in play. populations of many Western countries. university students), which was set up in the late 1920s after Stalin identifi ed Islam A more subversive strategy of Islamic jihadists is Sina warns: “Once the Muslim population as a force that could be harnessed and for Muslims to migrate to non-Muslim countries becomes a majority or even a near-majority directed to serve Soviet regional aspirations. for the purpose of spreading Islam. Their within any nation, they no longer will ultimate goal is to destroy the West and bring have to accept, nor seek compromise, in The Communists later recognised that Islam it forcibly into the Islamic world. Such migrants upholding human rights of non-Muslims or could be mobilised into a dialectical confl ict have no intention whatsoever of integrating in maintaining equality with the non-Muslim with Western culture and values on a far or adopting Western values and culture. population. At that point, once they have broader stage. If your goal is a one-world achieved political dominance and secured Socialist state, you can march a long way As former Muslim, Ali Sina confi rms in his power, they would be expected to move beside those whose goal is a one-world global book Islam and Understanding the Muslim quickly to terminate all freedoms. Non- theocracy before you must part company. Mind: “Muslims will never assimilate … for to Muslim citizens, living in their own native do so would mean they would essentially have countries would be relegated to second- to relinquish their faith, to compromise for class citizens, or worse, be persecuted …”

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 23 RICHARD GOODE DRUGS New Zealand’s National Drug Policy I often hear it said by libertarians that people should be allowed to make the body’s enzyme systems, fl ooding the bloodstream with toxic acetaldehyde and mistakes, that taking drugs is one of those mistakes, and that drugs are highly dangerous oxidative breakdown BAD. I have a totally opposite view, I think drugs are GOOD (or, at least, products called free radicals... resulting in an increased risk of cancer or cardiovascular some drugs are good). disease, premature skin wrinkling, cataracts, liver damage, brain damage... In fact, alcohol causes more deaths in this country than all Let’s go back in time... Let’s go back 10,000 than Neolithic technology. illegal drugs combined, and it’s second only years to the beginning of the Neolithic era, to tobacco as a harmful drug. also known as the late Stone Age. The But there’s one area in which we hardly seem Neolithic is when humans quit the hunter- to have progressed at all, and that’s in the Over 20 years ago, I read a book entitled gatherer lifestyle and took up farming. technology of recreational mood alteration. Life Extension, by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, in which they describe how to Technologically, we have come a long way You see, at the start of the late Stone Age, minimise the harmful effects of using alcohol since the start of the late Stone Age, 10,000 a newly discovered drug was rapidly gaining by taking various nutrients and antioxidants. years ago. popularity, and we’re still drinking the stuff (Life Extension, Warner Books, 1983.) today. It’s called alcohol. We know this In terms of materials and manufacturing because archeologists have unearthed what There was a passage in this book which technology, there was a good reason it they take to be late Stone Age beer jugs. jumped out of the page and stuck in my was called the Stone Age, although some mind ever since, and it’s this one. These scholars have suggested renaming the Now, alcohol, like all Stone Age technology, authors say, era the Wood Age. Pretty much everything is most charitably characterised as “crude was made out of wood, or stone, or crude but effective”. “An ideal solution to the alcohol problem pottery. The potter’s wheel and kiln had yet would be to develop new recreational drugs to be invented. But today we have a huge But, I put it to you that alcohol is more crude which provide the desired alcohol high choice of materials to work with from metals, than effective. without the damaging side effects.” through plastics to carbon nanotubes. Technologically, we have come a long way Alcohol produces disinhibition and facilitates And then they go on to say, since the Stone Age. social interactions. It eases pain and anxiety and aids relaxation. It’s indispensable for the “There is, in fact, such a drug. It was invented What about weapons technology? Stone Libertarianz leadership selection process. by Alexander Shulgin, synthesized, and tested Age fi ghters had maces and axes and Best of all, it causes euphoria (which is what in humans (test subjects couldn’t distinguish other varieties of rocks for bashing people all drugs should do). between the drug and a few martinis).” attached to wooden handles. They had the bow and the arrow, and the sling. Today, we But it has a huge range of unwanted side Well, this piqued my curiosity, and I had a wee have handguns, tasers, cruise missiles and effects. look on the World Wide Web, and Alexander anthrax. Technologically, we have come a Shulgin is famous, as I already knew, for long way since the Stone Age. A blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of having synthesised, and tested (on himself) 0.1 grams of alcohol per deciliter of blood literally hundreds of novel psychoactive What about transport technology? In the causes slurred speech, and impaired ability drugs, principally drugs in the tryptamine Stone Age, it was Shanks’s pony all the to perform complex tasks, such as driving. and phenethylamine families of chemicals. way. There were no roads in the Stone Age. His most famous work is called PIHKAL or The oldest so-called road dates from 3806 Higher doses, such as 0.2 g/dL, cause Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved. or 3807 BC. It was in fact a walkway over confusion and impaired ability to perform a peat bog in Somerset, England. Although simple tasks such as walking. So, Shulgin, of course, self-tested his Neolithic people had domesticated the horse, proposed alcohol substitute and he described they hadn’t learnt to ride it. They hadn’t 0.3 g/dL causes stupor, 0.4 g/dL causes a “mild, pleasant intoxication.” It produced invented the wheel. But today we have motor coma, and 0.5 g/dL is liable to cause “free-fl owing feelings” that he likened to “the cars, mag-lev trains, space rockets and the respiratory failure and death. second martini.” Believing he had indeed Segway. We have come a long way since the found a synthetic alternative to alcohol, Stone Age. Have you ever wondered why you feel so shitty Shulgin brought it to parties, holding up a the day after a good night of hard drinking? little baggie of white powder he called “a low- What about communication technology? Why you feel like you’ve been poisoned? It’s calorie martini.” Testing among his research Strictly word of mouth. No alphabet, no writing, because you have been poisoned! Not by group, however, revealed the full range of no printing presses, no telecommunications. alcohol, but by acetaldehyde which is what warmth and euphoria of the new high. It Not even smoke signals or carrier pigeons. an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase evoked in most people feelings of empathy But today we have the World Wide Web. converts alcohol to in the liver. This and self-acceptance. Shulgin’s test subjects dangerous acetaldehyde is quickly converted lovingly nicknamed the new compound Now, I could go on with many, many examples to a harmless substance by another enzyme “empathy” and thought of it as “penicillin for of how today’s technology is so much better but if we drink too much we can overload the soul.” (Playboy, March 2004)

24 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz DRUGS

New Zealand has had a National Drug We say that the government should not seek Policy since 1998. The policy sets out to save people from themselves, but most the government’s intentions, policy- and certainly should not harm its own citizens. legislative-wise, for tobacco, alcohol, illicit And when it comes to harm which individuals and other drugs. infl ict on others without their consent, such as thefts, assaults and rapes, well, there are already laws in place to deal with that and Recently I attended a consultation meeting whether such criminal acts are drug-fuelled organised by the Ministry of Health, where I or not is beside the point. put forward a libertarian viewpoint, and I put in a written submission for the second National One of the greatest harms of the War on Drug Policy, which is the government’s 5- Drugs™ is the way it’s stopped research year-plan for 2006 to 2011. into Better Living Through Chemistry. All of Alexander Shulgin’s new psychoactive drugs Now, New Zealand’s National Drug Policy has are illegal in New Zealand and most other an overarching goal and that goal is this: countries, proscribed by the Analogues To prevent and reduce the health, social and Amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act. What is this drug, and what happened to it? economic harms that are linked to tobacco, Well, I won’t tell you what it is just yet, but I alcohol, illicit and other drug use. Now why would you, as a drug company think you already know what happened to it, or as a research chemist, spend thousands or at least you can guess. In New Zealand, it My view is that, if we as libertarians want of dollars developing designer drugs which was made Class B in 1986. to infl uence drug policies, we must engage will be criminalised as soon as they go to with this fundamental goal, which is harm market? This is a major harm in my view, Now I’ll tell you a bit about another drug, one that’s quite often overlooked. It’s this minimisation, and I believe we can do this in which is totally unrelated chemically to this stymieing and stifl ing of research into new a limited way. one. It’s a recreational drug which offers a and better recreational drugs, research pleasant, alcohol-like, hangover-free high which would bring us forward from the Stone We must fi rst, however, distinguish between with potent prosexual effects. Most users Age to the 21st century, which is one of the fi nd that the drug induces a pleasant state three main kinds of drug-related harms. greatest but most overlooked harms of the of relaxation and tranquility. It induces Firstly, there are: War on Drugs™. remarkable hypotonia (muscle relaxation). Harms which individuals infl ict upon Frequent effects are placidity, sensuality, themselves, or infl ict upon others with their I think you’re all familiar with the other main mild euphoria, and a tendency to verbalise. consent harms that the government infl icts upon us, Anxieties and inhibitions tend to dissolve into in the name of the War on Drugs™. a feeling of emotional warmth, well-being, A good example of this is smoking a cigarette and pleasant drowsiness. The “morning- in a pub. You are harming yourself—tobacco There are two main ones. There are the after” effects of this drug lack the unpleasant is a harmful drug—you are also harming the punishments they hand out to individuals and debilitating characteristics associated other patrons, because second-hand smoke unlucky enough to be caught, apprehended with alcohol and other relaxation-oriented is moderately harmful, but the thing is that by the government for using or dealing drugs drugs. (Smart Drug News, vol. 3, no. 6, 1994.) no-one is actually there, breathing in the and these can be pretty severe, ranging up to a sentence of life imprisonment, which I smoky air, as a result of coercion, they are all Over the years, numerous researchers have think is incredibly unjust. These people are there of their own free will, they don’t have to extensively studied this drug’s effects. It is entrepreneurs, basically. They’re seeking be there, they can leave, they choose to be has come to be used in Europe as a general to meet a demand in the market. They’re there. So when libertarians say, oh look, it’s anaesthetic, a treatment for insomnia capitalists and I think their activities should and narcolepsy, an aid to childbirth, and ok if you do this because you’re not harming be legitimised. a treatment for alcoholism and alcohol anyone else, that’s not actually the crux of it. withdrawal syndrome, and has been called If you are harming other people, that doesn’t And that brings me to the other harm that the “almost an ideal sleep inducing substance”. actually make it wrong, as long as they don’t government causes us by prohibiting drugs, Small doses produce relaxation, tranquility mind! and that is that it hands the entire industry, and drowsiness, which make it extremely easy which is worth millions of dollars, to the to fall asleep naturally. Higher doses increase So that’s one kind of harm, the harms which criminal underworld, on a silver plate. the drowsiness effect and decrease the time individuals infl ict upon themselves, or upon it takes to fall asleep. Take a suffi ciently large others with their consent. And of course, So I think we can talk to the drug legislators dose and you will be asleep within fi ve to ten there are: on their own terms, which is in terms of harm minutes. And the most remarkable feature of Harms which individuals infl ict upon others minimisation, by pointing out that the harm this drug is that physiologically the sleep it without their consent they are doing is as bad, at least, as the harm causes resembles normal sleep. (Ibid) which individuals do to themselves—which, of course, we don’t think is any business of such as if you murdered someone in an Well, what is this other drug and what theirs anyway. alcohol-fuelled or methamphetamine-fuelled happened to it? Well, I won’t tell you what it is just yet, but you can guess what happened rage. And then, lastly, are: to it. A few years ago it was made Class B. Harms which governments infl ict upon their citizens *The fi rst drug is MDMA, also known as I’ll come back to this train of thought in a ecstasy, and the second drug is GHB, also moment*, but now I want to tell you a bit and this is where I believe that we can known as fantasy. (One of them is better about New Zealand and its National Drug infl uence drug policy and engage with the than the actual description makes out, and Policy. harm minimisation principle. one of them isn’t as good.) Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 25 26 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 27 GRAHAM CLARK HEROES

Henry Marshall - Inventor Henry Marshall is an engineer. He has also been a motorcycle There is nobody who can match this man for knowledge in this area of expertise and yet mechanic, a truck mechanic, and spring-maker. He has his quarry this amazing system is sitting going to waste master certifi cate, and his explosives ticket, but above all these as Henry does not have the capital to develop it any further. things, he is an inventor. This latest invention by Henry Marshall could potentially save families hundreds of dollars A few years ago I would have been surprised On January 8th, 1946 Henry landed in New every year in reduced power bills, but unless if there were a dairy farmer in the North Island Zealand where he continued his work as a he can get an investor this work of genius will of New Zealand who had not heard of, if not mechanic. Henry married at the age of 25 to go begging. used on a daily basis, the Marshall Water a New Zealand girl, and Peter - the fi rst of his Heater - a solid fuel and solar-powered water 8 children - was born in Kaeo in Whangaroa, I have a Mark 1 version Marshall Heater in heater invented, designed and manufactured Northland. It was from here that he answered my house that I purchased second hand. It in Tauranga by Mr Henry Marshall. Henry an advert for a job in Tauranga as a mechanic heats my water for endless hot showers, invented his heaters to supply an endless and welder, for a man called Don Robbins. hot washes in the washing machine and supply of hot water to milking sheds and other dishwasher, and centrally heats a 3000sqm commercial and domestic installations. His Come the early 1960s Henry started out on home whilst having a power bill of little heaters are in countless houses and motels his own as a spring-maker and engineer, more than $120 in the middle of winter. This around the country, not to mention marae and purchasing a property in Grey Street, Tauranga system is a dinosaur—the model A Ford many adventure camps and camping grounds. where he fi rst designed and manufactured version. Meanwhile, Henry is in possession Henry also claims to have invented the fi rst his emergency door-opening system. Also of the plans for the Rolls Royce version! emergency exit door double-bolt release whilst at these premises he invented another system frequently seen on fi re exit doors thing that was to bring him to the attention of throughout the world. I cannot substantiate many New Zealanders—the Marshall Caravan this claim, but that is not the topic of this story. Stabiliser, an ingenious device designed to stop trailers, boats and caravans swaying and If anybody would like to fi nd out more about Henry was born on the 5th May, 1925 in bouncing whilst being towed. Henry made Henry Marshall and his amazing invention, please Labasa, the biggest town on Vanua Levu, thousands of these things over the years, until contact me at: [email protected]. I will put you which is one of the two major Islands that a new invention started to take shape in his in touch with Mr Marshall—he would love to make up Fiji. He left school at the age of 15 mind—the Marshall Water Heater. hear from you. and travelled across the island to the west coast town of Savu Savu, carrying with him his Henry designed the Marshall Water Heater worldly belongings in a cardboard box, and a 39 years ago, after watching the fl ames of tin chest—the cardboard box he tells me, an open fi re shooting up the chimney, and came to grief during one of the river crossings, thinking that there must be a better, more due to the fact that there were no such thing economic use for all that wasted energy. He as bridges in Fiji at the time. He had to swim— successfully manufactured and marketed boxes and all. Upon reaching Savu Savu, he his heaters throughout New Zealand and Fiji commenced work in the engineering workshop for over 37 years, all the time improving and at the goldmine there, learning the basics re-developing, and adding new models. At of his many skills in vehicle and motorcycle 83 years old, he no longer owns the rights mechanics, welding, and general engineering. to the Marshall Water Heater Company, although it still continues to operate. This Around the early 1940s, the war in the Pacifi c little hiccup has not stopped the man from was hotting up, and when the Japanese continually developing and refi ning the landed in the Solomon Islands, the goldmine system he invented almost 40 years ago. in Savu Savu was closed down, and Henry, with nothing better to do, headed for the big Today he has incorporated a solar heating city lights of Suva—the Capital City. It was here system that is more than 3 times more effi cient whilst walking down the street, that he was and more versatile than any other solar water accosted by the Military Police, and virtually heating system in production. A system that press-ganged into the 4th battalion of the will heat your water, central heat your house, Fijian army, as an engineer, fi xing motorcycles and air and dry your clothes. Not to mention Henry Marshall and trucks. The 4th battalion were camped in the optional extras of a portable cooking tents on the shore of Suva, ready to head off centre that incorporates a built-in wok, hot to the Solomons at a moment’s notice, when plate and oven, all of which requires absolutely RIGHT: The heat ducting system in news came of the atomic bomb being dropped no electricity to function. This system is my lounge and dining room. It also on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fortunately a work of genius, developed by a master extends the length of the hallway, for Henry, signalling the end of the war. heating engineer over a period of 40 years. branching off to all the bedrooms

28 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz U

TOP LEFT: The Solar heater Henry designed 20 years ago. The entire surface collects the heat as opposed to copper pipes sitting on a collector plate. Seen here installed at ground level, and working on the thermo-syphoning system - no electric pumps required. TOP RIGHT: Inset - Swimming pool heater.

ABOVE L to R: Marshall booster - designed to heat water for heating systems - shown here in the basement of a 3-storey restaurant. The fl ue is completely surrounded in water, so no heat is wasted in just going up the chimney - it’s heating water all the way up. The fi rst fl oor branches off the fl ue for underfl oor heating. CENTRE RIGHT: 150 gallon copper, uninsulated water heater - radiates heat to help warm the room as well as contain a large volume of hot water.

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 29 MARCUS BACHLER SMOKING

Thank You For Smoking “It would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Congratulations, Scotland.” unwanted body odours and trampled toes in night clubs—which should be of no concern So declared British comedian Mel Smith upon learning that Scottish anti- to the government. No one has yet proposed smoking laws prohibited him from smoking a cigar in Edinburgh while a legal ban on uninhibited dancing in confi ned spaces; the very idea is absurd. If smoking acting the part of Winston Churchill in a play. smells are really enough to keep customers away, then the market will respond, as indeed it has through voluntary ventilation systems and On stage during a photo call, a day before the So, what is the cause of all this draconian no-smoking areas. However, governments do play was due to begin, Mel Smith smoked a and often-hysterical prohibition of smoking in not care for self-regulation of industry; it may cigar in front of journalists and announced that, the Western World? Generally three reasons give voters the impression that many activities are given, all of them completely bogus and “A third of a Romeo & Julieta will be smoked of bureaucrats are actually as pointless as during this performance. If you fi nd that completely beside the point as to whether or they appear to be. offensive, fuck off!” It seemed Mel Smith was not a “public” smoking ban is justifi able. about to take a heroic Churchillian Smokers in Denial stand and blow smoke in the faces of Scottish anti-smoking Nazis. The second reason given for a smoking However at the last moment, a visit ban is that it will cause smokers to from Edinburgh’s environmental give up smoking. However, the fl aw offi cers to the venue with a threat in this reasoning is the assumption that they would shut the theatre that smokers do actually want to give down if he smoked, made him up, that they mainly smoke in “public change his mind. It was a sad spaces,” and that they will not give up sight to see Mel Smith cave in like by choice but only when bullied by the that to bullying by Scottish state government. Although governments offi cials, but at least he did make have engineered dodgy statistics trying Churchill’s famous “V” sign to to support their case, many media cameras blowing a plume of cigar commentators in those countries with smoke out of the theatre window bans have only noted an increase in after the performance. the number of people who are now littering footpaths with their discarded Since their fi rst inception in the stubs and the rise in smoking at home year 2000, in US states, laws around young children. Another false enforcing smoking bans in so- assumption behind this reason is that called “public spaces” such as it is for the government to decide pubs, restaurants, clubs, sports whether or not a smoker should want venues and bus shelters have to give up. For some smokers though, been spreading like wildfi re the pleasure of smoking greatly around the Western World. Some outweighs any health risks there may of the states that have introduced be. The government falsely believes the legislation have been typical that the costs and benefi ts of smoking strongholds of anti-smoking to all smokers are equivalent. We probably all puritans and interfering bureaucrats, such as California, Washington, Sweden, Norway Stinky Smokers know stories of chain-smokers who have lived and New Zealand. However, other states The fi rst reason given is that some people long active lives, including cigar-chomping that have enforced a ban have been more don’t like smoky environments —probably Winston Churchill. To quote actor Jeremy surprising, such as New York, Italy, Scotland even a majority if you believe the statistics Irons (58 years old): and Ireland—due to their past reputations for bandied around by politicians. Recently while free indulgence in drinking and smoking. visiting New Zealand I was told by some I love smoking. It gives me such pleasure. I’ve middle-aged friends that this smoking ban been smoking since I was 15. I fi ght against Over the past few years, a debate has been is wonderful because it means that they being made to feel a pariah. I have a big chunk raging in England too over a proposed smoking can now go out to pubs again and come of anarchism in my make-up and get pleasure ban in “public” that has this year culminated home without smelling of smoke. However, out of doing what people think I should not be in a Health Bill being passed in Parliament to I wondered why they don’t mind coming doing. I’ve always suspected these statistics effectively ban smoking in “enclosed spaces.” home from a pub smelling of alcohol or in people put out about cancer and smoking. The details of the new law are currently under an inebriated state. They should realize that And now that people are stopping, they still public consultation, but are expected to cover the indulgence in pleasurable activity can get cancer. The male side of my family has the vast majority of “public spaces” and always be accompanied by unwelcome always smoked. My mother has a friend who workplaces, including company cars. consequences, such as the production of grew and smoked her own tobacco in Greece

30 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz SMOKING and died at the age of 101. I think it’s the Smokers’ Rights and clubs it’s fanatical smoke-haters who additives that are harmful. Despite all these nonsensical reasons given are the minority. Nevertheless the hospitality by governments and anti-smoking groups industry is making great progress in voluntarily When the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was for legally enforcing a smoking ban, the providing better air-cleaning systems and in his mid-40s, doctors told him that he was smokers themselves and some supportive more choice. going to die if he didn’t give up drinking and non-smokers have not done themselves any smoking. He believed them for a while and favours by their counter-arguments either. We call on both government and the media stopped for 7 years, but eventually started Often their arguments amount to arguing to de-escalate the tension on this issue and up again because it helped him work. He is that some restriction on smoking in “public” let common sense and the free market decide the future of British social life. quoted as saying later, “All the doctors who is necessary, but that the legislation hurts ordered me not to smoke or drink spirits are the economy and that there needs to be long since dead. But I go on living.” He lived choice or more tolerance for smokers. Some Right to Life. until the age of 92. smokers claim that they have a “right to There is no specifi c “right to smoke” in public; smoke” in public or even that this legislation the only true right is the right to one’s own So, why encourage all smokers to quit will destroy their Bohemian lifestyle. The life and property. Any “right to smoke” is a smoking, when clearly some get more benefi t problem with all these counter-arguments is subordinate to one’s own “right to life” and than harm from it? Potential benefi ts from that they address the issue on exactly the cannot be considered to be at the expense of same terms as the anti-smokers want you to smoking have been completely ignored by other unwilling participants or their property. address them—namely, that only the details the anti-smoking lobby and government. As the letter above states, “to smoke, to of the claims are important and not whether associate with smokers, or to operate a According to them, all smoking by all or not governments may pass laws that can venue in which smoking is allowed should all smokers is detrimental and therefore must be over-rule your individual rights. be matters for individual choice [rights], not restricted. state coercion.” However, in 2004, a group of 14 British Dangerous Smokers celebrity supporters of the “Freedom It is not essential to individual rights whether What is considered by far the strongest Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking or not passive smoking is in fact damaging to Tobacco” (FOREST)—including Bob Geldolf, argument for banning smoking in “public” your health. There are many voluntary activities Stephen Fry, Simon Cowell, Anthony Worrall is also supported by the weakest evidence: that could be damaging to your health, such Thompson, David Hockney, Boris Johnson as drinking alcohol, eating fatty foods or using that is, the claimed harmful effects of passive and Chris Tarrant—signed a very eloquent industrial power tools. Even though these are smoking on non-smokers and workers in the letter published in The Times rejecting the all active pursuits, passive smoking is not any hospitality industry. Indeed, the Government proposed smoking ban that did at least more involuntary than sniffi ng petrol. Unless gives an offi cial estimate that 12000 people address the key argument of individual rights someone has forced you to do it, it is your per year die in the UK of the effects of passive in part. choice whether or not you expose yourself smoking! However, the biggest-ever study, to tobacco smoke. If you don’t like it, then by Professors Enstrom and Kabat of UCLA, Sir, We would like to raise our voices against just don’t do it. Vote with your feet, or tell published by the British Medical Journal in calls to ban smoking in pubs, clubs and your publican you don’t like it and will only 2003, found no evidence of substantial harm. restaurants (report, September 24). Claims frequent smoke-free pubs from now on. Do According to Professor Robert Nilsson, Head that the US hospitality industry is doing better not tolerate it on your own property and avoid of the Department of Toxicology and Risk since the New York ban was introduced those who do. Assessment at Stockholm University, passive are based on the recovery of the whole smoking is less risky than drinking naturally- city economy since 9/11, and by including Of course, if on the other hand you do enjoy occurring arsenic in tap water, or eating everything from McDonald’s to liquor stores. smoking and value it in your life with a passion, Japanese seafood. But in bars and clubs the ban is widely then please smoke away. You will fi nd that hated. the like-minded smoker will place Of course, any researchers who arrive at a notice on his wall that reads, the wrong conclusion (as in the case of According to a new independent survey of “Thank you for smoking.” Global Warming) are always accused by anti- its fi rst year, it has also cost 2,650 jobs, $50 smoking campaigners of being secretly paid million in earnings and $71.5 million to related businesses. Claims that the Irish ban is a by “greedy” companies desperate to distort success after six months are equally dubious, the data for their own ends. In fact, they have considering that anyone defying it faces fi nes famously labelled any research that draws of 3,000 or three months in prison. conclusions they dislike as “tobacco science.”

However, even Richard Doll, a pioneer Many people believe that the dangers of researcher in studying the health effects of smoking and passive smoking are currently cigarette smoke and the fi rst to publicly point being exaggerated to the point of hysteria. to a causal link between cigarette smoking The risks of passive smoke have never been and lung cancer in 1950, when asked about proven beyond meaningless levels in a small passive smoking discredited the idea that minority of studies; wildly varying “estimates” it was harmful. On Desert Island discs in of hundreds or thousands of deaths are 2001, he stated, “The effects of other people based not on body counts but statistical smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t projections. worry me.” It is beyond credulity to believe that Richard Doll, who was the fi rst scientist To smoke, to associate with smokers, or to to warn the public about the cancer causing operate a venue in which smoking is allowed effects of cigarette smoke, would be in the should all be matters for individual choice, not pay of tobacco companies. state coercion. Smoking is legal, and in pubs

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 31 CRAIG CEELY OBITUARY IN WAITING Walter Duranty Lives, and Writes Encomia to Castro Published on SOLO - Sense of Life Objectivists (www.solopassion.com)

Why, oh why do we not appreciate the saviors who walk “When my father had reached a depth of around 60 feet, he realized that Fidel was among us? down there with him, that he had descended “His brown eye is exceedingly kindly and gentle. A child would without a tank and that there he was with a knife in hand prying sea urchins off the ocean like to sit in his lap and a dog would sidle up to him.” fl oor, grinning.

“Back on the surface, they feasted on the raw Know who Ambassador Joseph Davies is minorities of man, he fi rst set Russia on the sea urchins, seasoned with lime juice.” describing there? That little passage from road to conquer race prejudice and make one 1940—infamous today --”describes” Joseph nation out of its 140 groups without destroy- Nothing but credibility in that passage, eh? Stalin, of course. How could you have missed ing their individuality.” I’m sure I believe it all, and I’m impressed. that? Don’t you just wish, more than anything, that Maybe, just maybe, the spirit of Stalin lives on Now, before you go thinking that Ambassador we had a Stalin today? And that we had men in Fidel, for we have testimony from the arts Davies was just covering for a fi gure of the willing to take pen in hand and note his great- in Fidel’s behalf, this time from Gabriel Garcia international ruling class of which he himself ness? Marquez: was a junior member, you should be aware that artists admired Stalin as well. Here’s sing- Ah, but fret not, friend: we do. For in the land “His devotion to the word. His power of se- er Paul Robeson, on the occasion of Stalin’s of sugar and cigars we have the Comandan- duction. He goes to seek out problems death: te, Fidel Castro! Let’s hear, fi rst, from Alexan- where they are. The impetus of inspiration is dre Trudeau, son of the former prime minister very much part of his style. Books refl ect the “Yes, through his deep humanity, by his wise of Canada: breadth of his tastes very well. He stopped understanding, he leaves us a rich and monu- smoking to have the moral authority to com- mental heritage. Most importantly - he has “I grew up knowing that Fidel Castro had a bat tobacco addiction. He likes to prepare charted the direction of our present and future special place among my family’s friends. We food recipes with a kind of scientifi c fervor. He struggles. He has pointed the way to peace had a picture of him at home: a great big keeps himself in excellent physical condition - to friendly co-existence - to the exchange of man with a beard who wore military fatigues with various hours of gymnastics daily and mutual scientifi c and cultural contributions - to and held my baby brother Michel in his arms. frequent swimming. Invincible patience. Iron- the end of war and destruction. How consist- When he met my little brother in 1976, he clad discipline. The force of his imagination ently, how patiently, he labored for peace and even gave him a nickname that would stick stretches him to the unforeseen. As important ever increasing abundance, with what deep with him his whole life: “Micha-Miche.” as learning to work is to learn how to rest.” kindliness and wisdom. He leaves tens of mil- lions all over the earth bowed in heart-aching “A few years later, when Michel was around 8 You want to know more, don’t you, now that grief.” years old, I remember him complaining to my Fidel is 80 and recovering from surgery and mother that my older brother and I both had perhaps not long for this world? And intellectual W.E.B. DuBois: more friends than he did. My mother told him that, unlike us, he had the greatest friend of “He requires the aid of incessant information, “Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other all: he had Fidel.” well masticated and digested. His task of in- men of the 20th century approach his stat- formative accumulation is a priority from the ure. He was simple, calm and courageous. Wow, Fidel as the greatest friend of all? moment that he wakes up. He breakfasts with He seldom lost his poise; pondered his prob- Frankly, I think a whiner like Michael doesn’t no less than 200 pages of news of the entire lems slowly, made his decisions clearly and deserve a friend like this: world. During the day he is sent urgent news fi rmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly wherever he is; he calculates that he has to refrained from holding his rightful place with “His intellect is one of the most broad and read some 500 documents, to which one has dignity. He was the son of a serf but stood complete that can be found. He is an expert to add reports from the offi cial services and calmly before the great without hesitation or on genetics, on automobile combustion en- from his visitors and anything that might inter- nerves. But also - and this was the highest gines, on stock markets. On everything. est his infi nite curiosity. proof of his greatness - he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate. “Combined with a Herculean physique and “Responses have to be exact, given that he is extraordinary personal courage, this monu- capable of discovering the most minimal con- “Stalin was not a man of conventional learn- mental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he tradiction in a casual phrase. Another source ing; he was much more than that: he was a is. of vital information is books. He is a voracious man who thought deeply, read understand- reader. Nobody can explain how he fi nds the ingly and listened to wisdom, no matter “He is something of a superman. My father time or what method he uses to read so much whence it came. He was attacked and slan- once told us how he had expressed to Fidel and with such rapidity, although he insists that dered as few men of power have been; yet his desire to do some diving in Cuba. Fidel he doesn’t have any special ones. On many he seldom lost his courtesy and balance; nor took him to the most enchanting spot on the occasion he has taken away a book in the did he let attack drive him from his convictions island and set him up with equipment and a early hours and by the morning is comment- nor induce him to surrender positions which tank. He stood back as my father geared up ing on it. He reads in English but does not he knew were correct. As one of the despised and began to dive alone. speak it. He prefers to read in Spanish and

32 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz is prepared to read a paper that comes into his hands at any hour. He is a good reader of My favourite conspiracy theory literature and follows it with attention.” Beginning our series of favourite conspiracy to get America entangled in the war, even Hmmm...hours of gymnastics every day, plus theories editor Peter Cresswell shares his as he was telling voters the exact opposite. 200 pages of news and 500 other docu- own favourite. ments, plus swimming. Amazing. For at least two-and-a-half years FDR tried For my own favourite conspiracy theory you to provoke either Germany or Japan into have to go all the way back to 1938, when Of course, Fidel is a politician, so, since he “fi ring the fi rst shot” and declaring war on US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt doesn’t have to worry about working for a liv- the US, and for at least two-and-a-half was in a hole and desperate to get out. ing, perhaps he does manage to squueze all years he failed. As Secretary of War Henry of that into one day. But I’m not sure that has Stimson confi ded to his diary on November Elected two years before in a landslide after occurred to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 25 1941, “The question was how we should ‘fi xing’ the depression with four years of maneuver them [the Japanese] into fi ring the motivating, meddling, and pouring historically So it appears that we have, perhaps, a rein- fi rst shot without allowing too much danger unprecedented amounts of cash -- huge carnation of Joseph Stalin. And, perhaps, of to ourselves.” Walter Duranty. Here’s more from Alexandre gobs of Other People’s Money! -- into make- work programmes, bizarre schemes and Trudeau: Finally on 7 December 1941, after years of outright vote-buying, FDR found in 1938 provocation that included US blockades that his party was almost completely set “Without a doubt, Cuba without Castro will of Japan, US oil and steel embargoes on against him, and the depression was even not remain unchanged. Japan (a country that had neither), the total worse than when his meddling and taxing freeze of Japanese assets in the US, ‘small and spending and crop-burning began. “But Cubans will continue to be subjected to boats’ placed in harm’s way in the hope Castro’s infl uence. Whether they like it or not, they’d start an incident, and the placing of they will continue to be called out by his voice, His budget was blowing out, his schemes the US Pacifi c Fleet like a sitting target at by his questions, by his inescapable rational- and nostrums were being struck down by Pearl Harbor … after all of this and more ity, which, whether they heed its call or not, the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, he succeeded in provoking Japan into a demands they defend the integrity of Cuba and unemployment -- 11,586,000 in 1932 surprise attack that was less a surprise to and urges them to seek justice and excel- when he took power -- was now back up some in FDR’s Administration for its timing lence in all things. at 11,369,000 with a further 19,648,000 than for its unexpected ferocity. After the on relief (a fi gure 3 million more than when attack, Stimson confessed that “my fi rst “For a generation to come, they will be haunt- Roosevelt took power). feeling was of relief . . . that a crisis had come ed by the vision of a society that never existed in a way which would unite all our people.” and probably never will exist, but which their Worse, he was now almost totally out of once-leader, the most brilliant and obsessed answers and becoming petulant about it. All That’s the conspiracy theory, in which there of all, never stopped believing could exist and the quack remedies had been tried, and all is a reasonable degree of inference, yet in my should exist. had failed him and had served only to make view it is inference well justifi ed by the facts. the depression worse. In an unguarded In my view, FDR wasn’t directly complicit “Cubans will always feel privileged that they, moment he threw a tantrum at his Cabinet, in planning the attack (how could he be? and they alone, had Fidel.” shouting: “I am sick and tired of being told -- that was done by the Japanese) but he by Henry [Morgenthau, the Secrtary of and his aides did have a pretty fair idea it I urge you to check out the full statements. the Treasury] and everybody else what’s was coming, and he and his Administration You’ll want a bucket. the matter with the country while no one did conceal important information from the suggests what to do!” The great conjurer commander of the Pacifi c Fleet Admiral It needs to be said: Gabriel Garcia Marquez had no tricks left up his sleeve, and he was Husband E. Kimmel and the Hawaiian and Alexandre Trudeau, you are syco- looking at a richly deserved place in history army commander Lt Gen Walter Short, phantic pieces of shit. as a fl ake and an abject bloody failure. who were to become the scapegoats for the un-preparedness of the defence. He resolved right then and there to get himself out of the hole the way that statists What genuinely surprised Roosevelt and throughout history have got themselves out others I think, was not the attack itself but of such holes at such a time: he resolved to its ferocity and the destructiveness. Patrician take advantage of the storm clouds brewing America had seriously underestimated internationally and go to war -- at one stroke the ‘yellow race’ they had been baiting to unite the country and its propaganda for so long, and the sea of death and services behind him, and to fl ood the country destruction that were the result of their with government-printed money to spend his frank underestimation did shock them. You way out of the hole he had spent his way into. can hear that shock in FDR’s famous ‘Day of Infamy’ speech to Congress, responding His problem was two-fold: 1) Americans on the day of the attack, but his Cabinet didn’t want to go to war; and 2) he had colleagues report he was nowhere near promised voters over and over again “on as shocked privately as he was in public. several stacks of bibles” that “he would not send American boys to die in foreign wars.” So there it is. That’s my own favourite No problem for a manipulator like Franklin conspiracy theory. The very infamy he you would think (and here’s where agreed condemned so eloquently is something facts are left behind and conjecture and which Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself inference really begin) who did his very best deserved to share.

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 33 RUSSELL WATKINS LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Voluntary City I’ve been campaigning almost non-stop for eight years—I have stood about 60% and have congestion contained by an off-peak on-peak pricing structure. in most elections going in Tauranga. The only increase in support The bridge would be under the management for Libertarian ideas, in Tauranga, has come form my local council of a consumers company. Therefore taking ownership off the council and putting it in the campaigns. hands of the users. We offered a property rights solution that took the burden (and booty) off the council, and gave the users a cheaper In my fi rst election attempt, for the Western are about. Thereby allowing the citizenry to more effi cient self-funding enterprise. Bay Council, I secured 600 odd votes; my see that what is wrong with council is what second campaign secured me about the is wrong with central government. Once this Unfortunately, back then, we were to new to same. However the third time round I upped fact is revealed, it will contribute a large part to the game and I suspect we scared the hell the anti and stood for two different councils at our electoral success and our ability to get the out of them. But it gives you an idea of what the same time—while standing for mayor of libertarian message into Parliament. practical activism I have in mind. Graham Western Bay Council I also stood as a council Clark and I propose to create a satellite candidate for Tauranga City Council (TCC). To achieve this requires an organised effort organisation to the Libz that we hope will Total vote this time was approximately 1700 to build a strong local government campaign. spread across the country, with other towns votes for Western Bay Mayor and 4500 votes One that campaigns year round, taking all and cities developing their own Voluntary City as councillor for the TCC. the opportunities that council presents, to Projects. We aim to establish a charter and campaign against them. Fortunately, local mission statement that refl ects our pro-liberty On the other hand my general election vote government issues get a lot of local coverage. stance on local body issues. Ultimately we decreased from 150 votes to bugger all. So just by expressing an intelligent view on a wish to employ three or four researchers and So I asked the question; why will the voters local matter your chance of being reported is policy writers, while fully utilising the skills and give me signifi cant support to reduce the surprisingly high. Additionally, local papers are talents of our own Graham Clark, who will size and activities of their councils but get hungry for letters about these issues as they double as our media and design man. shaky come general election time? There are love to show their readers commenting on the obviously many reasons, but two particular stories they cover. We will challenge everything that the council reasons stand out. Firstly, voters seem more proposes and offer the council and the ‘courageous’ when asked to bring to a halt The overall idea is to create a solutions public our policy alternatives. We will raise big council than big central government. orientated policy think-tank. One that not the profi le of our ideas by showing the voters They see that council spending on museums only passionately campaigns against council how our ideas will practically benefi t them. and art galleries is wrong. Yet seem unable spending and supports other groups as We will show them how to get their rates bill to recognise central government’s wasteful appropriate, but one that creates and lobbies down, show them how to reduce the size of spending on welfare, Americas Cup Regattas for alternatives to current council activities. their council and show them how a city can and all the myriad of other things that central Consider the following: Some years ago the attract private enterprise to build all the things government gets away with. Voters get TCC was forced by a lobby group to cease a vibrant city needs. Ultimately we will have hysterical at having their council fund a new the tolls on the Harbour Bridge. As the them demanding that the council does less swimming pool ($10million), but shrug their council had promised to stop this practice and less, until the day of its demise. When this shoulders when the government bails out Air some years earlier, when the bridge was paid occurs, we will fi nally be in a position to take New Zealand ($1billion). for, they were in a bind. They had collected on Wellington. $120 million more than the bridge cost and of The other reason is that during local election course had incorporated it into their budget. campaigns voters get much more exposure The council realised that local ill feeling had to our ideas, simply for the fact that the other risen to an untenable extent and that they’d candidates don’t have any ideas or principles be out on their arse. In their rush to save to speak of. One councillor stated that before I their own arses they hadn’t considered the came along, the council candidates didn’t see consequences of their actions. It simply did ideas as being important. He and others of his not occur to them, that removing the tolls (i.e. elk, have by way of campaign material only making it ‘free’) would lead to over-use and ever banged on about how may kids they’ve therefore much more congestion—a classic got and how long they’ve loved Tauranga. case of The Tragedy of the Commons.

So, what does this all mean? Well I have an Well that’s where the Tauranga Libz came in. idea. I need to build on the strong support We put together a policy that would get the my council campaigns have garnered. I must council off the hook and not lead to over-use. harness it, develop it, and grow it. Every time We proposed a pricing system that would I get closer to becoming an elected offi cial only need cover the cost of the bridge’s up I gain credibility, I gain attention, I gain the keep (including such things as depreciation, opportunity to show the voter what it is we maintenance and a future-fund for a new stand for. I believe that this, over time, will give bridge or extensions) we estimated we could the voter a clearer understanding of what we get the price down for all bridge users by

34 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz MARK TAMMETT PROPERTY RIGHTS

Property Rights And Land Use In a recent ‘Perspective’ piece in the Christchurch Press, So as I see it, Ms Egoz is essentially saying this: She doesn’t like to see rural land changing quickly Shelly Egoz suggested: (it adversely affects our “collective identity” she says). And because, she asserts, the so-called “right to landscape” over-rides the rights of the “One of the main aims of the Resource Ms Egoz may protest that she’s not actually owner, “we” need to take action to limit property Management Act (RMA) was to protect the saying we can “demand” anything; that all rights, urgently! In other words, people like her, public assets when we can prove they offer a we’re entitled to is to “have a say.” But what who’ve invested nothing into the land, and have wider public value, in which case “the public does she actually mean to “have a say”? For no responsibility for it–but perhaps enjoy driving good” can have prominence over private instance, does she just mean the right to express past it on the way to work each day--should have property rights. your opinion--to go up to the farmer and say, more say than the person who owns it, works it, “Hey, I’d really appreciate it if you don’t put up pays for it and is responsible for it. “Landscape, unlike land, is not privately that fence, because it’s going to spoil the view owned. We all have a right to landscape, and from my house?”–with it being up to the farmer There’s a name for a political system in which as such we should have a say on the amount whether to take your views into account or not. the façade of private property is maintained, but of desirable change.” Clearly not. By implication, she’s talking about all power over the property resides in the state, legislative force, the power to force the farmer to on behalf of the public. It starts with an ‘F.’ It’s To this I ask a simple question: Why? Why do we bend to her wishes–perhaps not directly, but via called Fascism. We fought a war against it just “all have a right to landscape”? From where do the government. over sixty years ago. we derive such rights? What exactly does this right entitle us to? And why does this supposed The other objection she could make is that The truth is that the public’s so-called “right to right (when it offers “a wider public value”) take she’s not talking about minor changes to the landscape” and private property rights–real, prominence over private property rights? landscape like putting up a fence, but major tangible, fully-protected property rights--cannot changes, such as building houses (i.e. when “we co-exist in a meaningful way. These are issues she did not address. But for can prove there’s wider public value”). But who Private property rights are the foundation of a moment, let’s accept those assertions as a or what decides what changes are “minor” which are “major.“ Who decides whether it’s a “wider civilisation. Without them, society cannot live given, as Ms Egoz obviously does. Let’s try and public value” or not? How do we “prove” it? peaceably. If you want to see what happens make sense of what’s being said here, and see when property rights are stripped, look at the if these ideas can be applied to reality in a non- For instance, to Ms Egoz the wider issue is: “The chaos and looming famine in Zimbabwe. contradictory way. physical continuity of the farming landscape and its rural villages contributes to the well being of Every human being is different in some way. Firstly, what is this thing called “landscape” we all our collective identity. An accelerated landscape We’re not like a colony of ants, all striving for a have a right to? Ms Egoz cites pastoral farms in change means irreversible loss of heritage, both common purpose. Every individual has different rural area around Christchurch being converted tangible and intangible.” values, aspirations, and goals. To be human to dairy farming as an example of “profound means to have freedom; to cooperate with changes to the physical landscapes.” She cites I think there are a lot of people who wouldn’t people we choose to, but to do our own thing an even more “dramatic” change, being the care too much about the “well-being of our when choose to as well. If everyone has a stake conversion of farmland to housing. By implication collective identity.” Some for instance might care in what happens to a piece of land, with no clarity then, landscape is anything to do with how the more about fi nding an affordable home to live in over what we are and aren’t entitled to, there will never be consensus, and there will always be land looks. (which a strangulation of land supply available confl ict over land-use. for housing development will only make more But what does it means to have a “right” to diffi cult). I think there’s even more who wouldn’t Property rights have to be clear, unambiguous, landscape? The only explanation can be a right even have a clue what the above paragraph and inviolable. to determine how the land looks--a right “we all means. But obviously she’s convinced in her have.” So presumably each and every one of us mind, so property rights need to be sacrifi ced! has the right to demand that all land (after all, it’s This doesn’t necessarily mean that different rights can’t overlap on the same piece of land. part of “our landscape”) look a certain way–and The other objection she could make is that For instance it’s conceivable that one party could that such demands can over-ride the owners she’s not talking about her personal wishes, have the right to farm land, while another may rights. but the wishes (or what she thinks are the have rights to hunt or to fi sh or to tramp, while wishes) of the public. But even if a majority of the public might also have the right to access But any use of the land at all affects how it people understood and sanctioned her position, some part of that land for recreation–provided looks. A farmer putting up a fence or applying so what? A true right, if in fact it is a right (for all these different rights are clearly delimited and fertiliser is changing the landscape. How does instance the right to life) cannot be voted away. defi ned. he do this without violating our collective “right to True rights are inviolable. If it only applies some landscape”? If everyone has a right to landscape, of the time, when a majority of people allow you But there’s no room for vague, poorly defi ned what do private property rights actually mean? the time and space to exercise them, then it’s terms like the “right to landscape” (which Does the owner have to seek permission from not really a right, is it? It’s more like a favour. everyone supposedly has over everyone else’s “the public” for everything he does? If the public land). Such concepts have no basis in reality, refuses does the owner of the land--the person As Ayn Rand explained: “Since there is no such can’t be defi ned, and if tried to be taken who’s bought it, maintained it, and probably entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely seriously, only act to weaken legitimate invested a lot of his life into improving it–does he a number of individuals, the idea that ‘the public property rights and provoke confl ict. have any rights at all? If his rights can potentially interest’ supersedes private interests and rights be over-ridden by everyone and anyone who has can have but one meaning: that the interests and Mark Tammett is a civil engineer, a “wider interest” (which could be anything) then rights of some individuals take precedence over project manager and Director of a land clearly he does not. the interests and rights of others.” development company.

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 35 EDWARD CLINE MUSIC FREE RADICAL Budget Special

Why the Music Died Today, one often hears the question asked—sometimes despairingly, evoked in the composer....Liszt’s ‘St. Francis Walking on the Water’ was inspired sometimes jeeringly—that if classical music is so wonderful, uplifting, and by a specifi c legend but what it conveys timeless, why is it no longer being composed? The stock answers are is a passionately dedicated struggle and triumph—by whom and in the name of numerous, but unconvincing. what, is for each individual to supply.

It was fashionable among early twentieth One is that classical music is peculiar Among the many demerits of the politically century composers to write melodic music to a period of European history dating correct Webster’s II New Riverside University punctuated by stretches of dissonance. approximately from the Renaissance through Dictionary (1994), is its defi nition of music: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copeland, the nineteenth century, and thus is not the “The art of arranging tones in an orderly Charles Ives, and Virgil Thompson all “voice” of our age. But that classical music sequence so as to produce a unifi ed and interspersed orchestrated “folk” melodies remains valued by so many people in this age continuous composition.” This defi nition is with dissonance. Even Edward Elgar, in his belies this assertion. a step backward from “The science or art later work, resorted to the practice. They all of incorporating intelligible combinations of helped to make madness and the irrational tones into a composition having structure Another argument claims that classical respectable. Copeland’s “Symphony No. 3,” and continuity,” which is the defi nition composition has “evolved” beyond harmony, for example, uses his well-known “Fanfare found in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate tonality, and melody to a “new plateau” of for the Common Man” as a melody around Dictionary (1969). The Riverside defi nition which he weaves screeches, drum rolls that herald nothing, and other chaotic noise. And A musical composition is an identifi able sum of its parts… A composition none but the musicians who must play it can remember the full score of Samuel Barber’s of jumbled sounds “represents” merely the modernist fi xation with pseudo- “Adagio.” “Don’t set out to raze all shrines aesthetics and artistic fraud —you’ll frighten men,” says Ellsworth Toohey, the critic and arch-villain in Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead. “Enshrine mediocrity—and the atonality. A variant of this argument charges replaces the key term intelligible with orderly, shrines are razed.” Toohey offers that advice in which can mean virtually anything, and the that the public “ear,” so habituated to the term structure with unifi ed, which can also the course of explicating, for one of his willingly traditional forms of musicality, suffers from a mean virtually anything. One can imagine duped victims, his method of inculcating and sort of evolutional, tonal lag because it has that the next edition of the Riverside will promulgating collectivism in men’s souls. He not kept pace with the ever-evolving musical shed the self-conscious air of its ambiguous could have added: Elevate incompetence, avant-garde, purportedly representative of an qualifi ers and offer an au courant, fashionably and competence is irrelevant; sanctify the advanced species of humanity. Thus, the ear “deconstructed” defi nition: “The art of irrational, and the rational is emasculated; must be trained or “conditioned” to plumb the arranging tones in a sequence to produce a praise noise, and music is silenced. The reputed depths of jumbles of random sounds, composition”—which, of course, could be principle behind Thomas Gresham’s law that or, in some cases, no sounds at all. This is applied equally to Beethoven’s “Symphony bad money will drive out the good is equally applicable to art and music, especially in the complaint of the modern artist who sneers No. 5” or to the gruntings and squeals of a pig a culture that is in a state of philosophical that the public cannot appreciate his abstract sty. A musical composition is an identifi able disintegration, and in which the destroyers are rendering of, say, Perseus and Andromeda, sum of its parts. A composition that has no blithely sustained by the destroyed. Indeed, as a canvas of blots, drippings, and sprinkled- structure, that seems to fl y apart, or worse, the idea that our culture, in its present state on metal shavings. The public, with the seems to be notes and rhythms randomly of anarchy, could generate classical music notable exception of an aesthetically superior fl ung into the air to fall where they may on a seems almost oxymoronic. minority, is philistine, perhaps even artistically blank music sheet, has no sum, no identity, “reactionary”; it is confi ned to a reifi catory, and no theme but chaos and madness. A bourgeois aesthetic prison, and insists that composition of jumbled sounds “represents” “Doctors have this theory that if you play art be—Gads! Can you credit it?—intelligible merely the modernist fi xation with pseudo- classical music for infants, they’ll understand and that music be compatible with its aesthetics and artistic fraud. complex relationships, like math. They don’t inchoate psychology. Modern “formal” music, know what effect rock-and-roll would have. like modern art, is devoted to addressing a Well, we fi gure the world could do with In her explanation of the purpose and “higher” consciousness, using a “logic” that one fewer accountant.” This message was demands of music, novelist-philosopher Ayn transcends syllogisms, proportion, time, spoken by a post-adolescent male voice in Rand wrote: space dimension, sense perception, and a smarmy drawl in an ad for a popular radio other Euro- and/or logo-centric “constructs.” station, accompanied by a series of jerky, In short, reality. It requires that listeners revise It is in terms of his fundamental emotions— time-lapse close-ups of a smiling infant rolling their expectations, discard the “prejudice” of i.e., the emotions produced by his own its head back and forth on a pillow in seeming the various centrisms, and passively receive metaphysical value judgments—that enjoyment of the dissonant “rock” being logically ineffable droplets of pure essence, man responds to music....The theme of played in the background. The commercial’s or pure being—or deliberately unintegrated a composition entitled ‘Spring Song’ is message is clear: It is not necessary for sense data. not spring, but the emotions which spring anyone to understand “complex relationships

36 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz MUSIC like math,” or to develop much skill in any audiences. Surely conductors know the explain that his insistence on a black theater fi eld of mental labor. It is okay to raise a child difference between Camille Saint-Saëns’ was not limiting.” “Why is white experience to be a cognitive troglodyte, unable to raise “Phaeton” and Fritz Kreisler’s “String Quartet.” assumed to be universal, he asked, and black his consciousness beyond the immediately They must suspect that people attend live experience somehow particular? Why are perceptible, impatient with music that demands performances for many reasons, but that black artists expected to become universal by transcending race and moving beyond black themes?” Grimes added: This is an instance of retrogression, of the fl aunting of primitivism as merely a “cultural difference.” Among this country’s youth the results of Black Americans, Mr. Wilson said, want to this value negation have been especially sad… The great black musicians enter the American mainstream, but not at who contributed to American culture, eg., Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, the price of shedding their African identity. Black artists have a duty to preserve Lionel Hampton and Louis Armstrong, have been disowned in favour of the and promote the thoughts and values of malevolent “dissing” and droning of “rap.” their ancestors, including their African ancestors. ‘If we choose not to assimilate... this does not mean we oppose the values conceptual integration or that addresses a voluntary submission to what amounts to an of the dominant culture, but rather we wish soul he may never recognize he possesses, enervating, auditory Rorschach test is not to champion our own causes, our own or could have possessed, indifferent or hostile one of them. Whatever rationalizations have celebrations, our own values.’ to anything that “makes sense.” Whether or been offered by defenders of the practice, not there is any scientifi c truth to the theory it is as purposeful as art galleries exhibiting that a particular genre of music can aid in kitsch or non-art together with genuine art. Mr. Grimes did not broach such questions as: (or arrest) a child’s mental faculties, the ad The unstated purpose of these exercises What is a “black theme”? What is it that Mr. implicitly endorses the stunting of children’s is to “enshrine mediocrity,” to subvert and Wilson wishes to perpetuate? Is it only black minds. Accountant doubtless is used as a destroy values, to undercut man’s capacity to “angst”? It is merely “white” experiences generic pejorative for all professionals who formulate or sustain values, and to introduce that the playwright wants segregated from deal in facts, which includes the universe of doubt in their minds about the values they do the mainstream, or is it Western values in Western science and technology that allows hold. general? Are the concepts of individual rights the intellectually slothful to exist in relative and independent minds too universal or too opulence and without having to exert much peculiarly “white” to apply to blacks? How can One regularly exposed to this practice, if he mental effort. The ad is distinctly anti-mind. one support individual freedoms, yet uphold a does not maintain the conviction that what tribal (i.e., collectivist) consciousness at the is being committed is a fraud, will begin to same time? “Separatism” may be achieved, Anyone who regularly attends classical music think: “Perhaps there is something here, but an “ethno-culture,” burdened with such concerts must be familiar with the practice something important about these lead pipes phenomena as “Ebonics” in language, will of conductors or music directors of inserting welded together to make a stick man. It’s right not send probes to Mars, invent open- “new” (or even old) atonal compositions there next to Canova’s ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ heart surgery, or grow corn. The great black between “traditional” ones in a program. An Perhaps I’ve missed the boat, and shouldn’t musicians who contributed to American orchestra might begin with, say, Mozart’s be so smug (or certain) about these things.” culture, e.g., Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, “Impresario Overture,” end with Prokofi ev’s This individual will not stop seeing the stick Lionel Hampton, and Louis Armstrong, have “Classical Symphony,” and sandwich in man as a bunch of pipes welded together, apparently been disowned in favor of the between them something like Peter Warlock’s nor will he begin doubting the artistic value malevolent “dissing” and droning of “rap.” “Capriole Suite.” The practice ensures that of the Canova, but he may begin to doubt concertgoers hear something of the “new the evidence of his senses, the certainty of plateau” genre whether they want to or not. his mind. Some part of his implicit certitude Armstrong and company are now no more And they will hear it, chiefl y because most concerning right and wrong, good and bad, revered among Afro-centrists than are Thomas concertgoers believe it would be rude to rise beautiful and ugly, reality and fantasy, will turn Sowell, J.C. Watts, Walter Williams, or Ward en masse, leave the hall, and return when the to mush, the certitude progressively softened Connerly among thinkers, economists or noise has subsided. Modern “formal” music by the miasma of a subjectivist, value-negating educators, black or white. Composers of fi lm is played to audiences held hostage by their artistic nihilism. scores inherited the mantle of classical music own civility. If an orchestra were to advertise composers. There is little distinction between an all-Warlock, or an all-John Cage, or an all- what moved the latter and what can inspire This is an instance of retrogression, of the Schoenberg concert, attendance would be the best creators of fi lm scores: a story, a fl aunting of primitivism as merely a “cultural embarrassingly thin. Why conductors or music legend, an image, a tableau, a play, a need to difference.” Among this country’s black directors continue the practice of subjecting express some inner conviction or truth. Once, youth the results of this value negation have their audiences to aural torture is a matter of much fi lm music approached the symphonic been especially sad. The enormity of the conjecture. Perhaps they feel duty-bound to or classical level. Many scores by composers evil perpetrated on them by their parents be “fair” to the newer composers; perhaps such as William Walton, Arthur Bliss, John and teachers defi es description. “Cultural they feel obligated to play the compositions of Barry, and Miklos Rozsa are as evocative and separatism” shares the same corrupting end government- or foundation-subsidized artists. memorable as any opus from the nineteenth as atonal “formal” composition: to be both A century, and can stand alone apart from their and non-A; that is, to live in a country whose original inspiration. Walton’s score for Henry The last possibility has some interesting high standard of living is made possible by V, Maurice Jarre’s for Lawrence of Arabia, implications. How many orchestras remain Western values, but to hold conscious values and James Horner’s for Glory come to mind wholly supported by private donations and that are hostile to or inimical to the West and as instances of what is possible. receipts, free of the pressures exerted in by civilized living. Walter Grimes, reporting on the Byzantine mazes of public arts funding a highly publicized debate between August bureaucracies? Very few. That they must Wilson, the Pulitzer-winning black playwright The best fi lm scores were those written resort to this brand of extortion underscores and Robert Brustein, drama critic for The for grand-scale, larger-than-life epics. But the bankruptcy of what they foist upon their New Republic, wrote: “Mr. Wilson tried to such epics are no longer being produced. Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 37 MUSIC

Great music cannot be written to dramatize either its composers or listeners. Its continual music. These schools, such as the Peabody in triteness, or about psychotics, functional “thumping”—in popular music and even in Baltimore, the Curtis in Philadelphia, and the illiterates, criminals, perverts, predatory aliens, television commercials—is used to arrest one’s Julliard in New York, are turning out talented whales or dinosaurs. And great music cannot attention, deaden thought, and metaphorically soloist musicians, but their philosophy of be indefi nitely appropriated to accompany beat listeners to a stupefi ed pulp. On dance composition is governed—if modern “formal” and elevate the depiction of the superfi cial, fl oors and in bars, it imposes a nihilistic gestalt music is any kind of gauge—by the likes of the witless, the stupid, or the banal, such as on everyone and everything it touches. It is Arnold Schoenberg, or worse. Consider the in Woody Allen’s Manhattan. The preferred not joy or happiness or even sorrow that this spirit of the nineteenth century, and one will understand the reasons why so much great music was written in that era. Consider the Bass, once considered a single musical element, has come to dominate spirit of our time, and one will grasp the “pop” music because this type of music requires the least amount of signifi cance of music as a litmus test of general thought or imagination by either its composers or listeners. cultural well-being or decay. A culture takes its cues from the top—from the universities, from the intelligentsia, from the trendsetters of ideas. And if the message from the top is and broadening cesspool of subject matter kind of bass seeks to evoke, but a temporary that anything goes, then all that is good will of most fi lmmakers today cannot serve as state of annihilation. Bass is also employed go. The rubbish, bile, and nihilism that pass the genesis of magnifi cent, or event pleasant now as a weapon against civilized existence for music today cannot be legislated out of music. Popular fi lms have become little more by those who install expensive “mega bass” existence. than vehicles for “special effects”; their stories amplifi ers, “woofers,” and speakers in their are superfl uous appendages, fl imsy excuses vehicles. It is easy to name the motive of the to exhibit the technological repertoire of their owners of these throbbing machines: pure, Conservatives such was William Bennett, computer graphics artists and incendiary unadulterated malice. The blasts that emanate the former Secretary of Education, have experts. “Serious” fi lms today, such as Love! from these vehicles are distracting not merely proposed silencing the barbarians and Valour! Compassion! and Female Perversions because of their volume; their peculiar, frauds and nuisances, but even if they could (dealing, respectively, with homosexual offensive, intrusive nature penetrates one’s be repressed or muffl ed, the appearance of relationships and feminist existentialism), consciousness as a disruptive, often painful a new Verdi, Brahms or Chopin will not be are not rich material for great music, either. force. It is not joy that the perpetrators of the the consequence. What is true of politics is Film scores are written now to be heard and “mega bass” phenomenon wish to share with true of aesthetics. Just as a free nation will promptly forgotten. random passersby or residents, but hatred collapse into statism when the most rational and the chance to torture without physically elements of the political philosophy on which touching anyone. What such creatures are it was founded and sustained are subverted A word about bass in contemporary popular saying is: We’re a revolting nuisance, but or negated by elements of their antipodes, music. Were this a separate article, its title we’re here, we’re pumping up the volume, the best in aesthetics will vanish when the could well be “Technology in the Hands of and there’s nothing you can do about it. irrational, the atonal, and the unintelligible Barbarians.” The stress on “mega” bass (of 120 decibels or more, crowding the 180 are given equal time and equal approbation. decibel range of a NASA rocket launch) “Rap,” of course, cannot even be considered The sad truth is that we should not expect is especially revealing, for it confesses an as music. Taking together its belligerent tone, greatness in music to emerge from a decaying, attempt to compensate for vapidity of content its monotonous, metronomic beat, obscene rudderless culture. in what passes for contemporary popular and homicidal “lyrics,” and confrontational delivery, it is simply a species of malevolence. music. Bass, once considered a single Revised. Reprinted courtesy musical element, has come to dominate “pop” ruleofreason.blogspot.com. music because this type of music requires the Students attending the best music schools are Originally published in The Social least amount of thought or imagination by no longer taught how to compose “classical” Critic, Summer 1997.

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38 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz GEORGE REISMAN THE ROARFREE SPEECHOF REISMAN The Looming Lactation-Station Crisis and Other Insanities Highlights from GeorgeReisman.Com/Blog The Looming Lactation 1. The government should immediately to stop calling for the use of guns against order the closing of all corporate-fi nanced people, whether in connection with lactation Station Crisis and lactation stations. That way, there will be or anything else. no 2-class system. There will be only one How to Solve It class: the class of those who do not have A new crisis may be brewing, even though access to such stations. Competition, European Style until very recently it appears to have been The New York Times reports that the Euro- known only to very few people, possibly just 2. Legislation should be enacted compelling pean Commission has “ordered Microsoft to to a single New York Times reporter and her the installation of lactation stations in all disclose secret code in Windows XP needed editors. But on September 1, it was made of Starbucks’ coffee shops and within by rivals to allow them to write programs that public knowledge, when the Times published a convenient walking distance of every work properly with Windows. And it required the story on its front page. Here is the gist of nursing mother wherever she may be, the company to introduce a second version the Times’ report: such stations to afford the same degree of of Windows XP with its audio and video comfort and convenience as the one the player removed.” When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ Times reporter observed at Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after headquarters. The European Commission is also reported to maternity leave, she learns what is behind be drafting a ruling that will require the world the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation 3. The Times should stop publishing stupid tennis champion Roger Federer to share the Room.” articles whose sum and substance is a secrets of his play with rivals, to enable them, pathetic metaphysical whine at the fact that for example, to better integrate their returns Whenever she likes, she can slip away from some people are better off than others. It with his serves. her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush and the rest of the left should fi nally learn to recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through live with the fact that if everyone is free to In still another development, the European InStyle magazine as she holds a company- pursue his (or her) own happiness, virtually Commission is reported to be contemplating supplied pump to her chest, depositing her everyone will succeed, and do so to an barring the sale of automobiles and other breast milk in bottles to be toted home later. ever greater extent, though never equally. motor vehicles equipped with radios, CD They should learn that there is absolutely players, or video players. The ruling is held to be necessary to preserve the separate markets of the suppliers of these devices and not allow them to be monopolized by In fact, there’s a further lesson for the Times and the rest of the left automakers. to learn here. Namely, they need to apply their alleged support of “gun control” to themselves and the programs they advocate. Intertwined Insanities In the Middle East, young men, inspired by religious fanaticism the likes of which have not been seen since the Dark Ages, blow But if the mothers who staff the chain’s no injustice in this, “social” or otherwise, themselves up in order to murder innocent counters want to do the same, they must but that there is profound injustice in the victims. At the same time, their leaders claim barricade themselves in small restrooms only other alternatives that they leave open, that their murderous Islamic creed is morally intended for customers, counting the minutes namely, preventing the success of the more superior to the values of the West. left in their breaks. . . . successful (as in 1, above) and in forcing some people to provide for others at the In the West meanwhile, another religious point of a gun (as in 2, above). . . . as pressure to breast-feed increases, a creed, one that harks back to the Stone Age, views Man as just another “biota” along two-class system is emerging for working In fact, there’s a further lesson for the Times with snail darters, spotted owls, and worms, mothers. . . . It is a particularly literal case of and the rest of the left to learn here. Namely, all with equal “rights.” Again and again, it how well-being tends to beget further well- they need to apply their alleged support seeks to sacrifi ce the interests of Man to the being, and disadvantage tends to create of “gun control,” which they trumpet ad alleged interests of the “environment”—an disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s nauseam, to themselves and the programs environment comprised not only of all the milk, or lack thereof. they advocate. Those programs invariably rest of the Earth’s “biota” but also of swamps, come down to having the government point jungles, deserts, and rock formations, all of This should be enough to give everyone the its guns at innocent people. About half the which allegedly possess “intrinsic value” and idea. time it’s in order to compel them, against their therefore must not be destroyed by Man. will, to do something they do not want to do but which the Times and the rest of the left I don’t want to say how much sleep I’ve lost Both creeds hate human reason, the individual want them to do nonetheless. The rest of the in my efforts to fi nd a solution for this newest freedom that reason inspires and requires, time, it’s a case of forcibly preventing people and the science, technology, and economic crisis of what the left describes as “social from doing something they do want to do progress and prosperity that it makes injustice.” But I have come up with a solution, but which the Times and the rest of the left possible. Because these values have become in fact, three solutions. Here they are: don’t want them to do. The Times et al. need so closely identifi ed with Western culture, and

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 39 THE ROAR OF REISMAN at the same time threaten the mindless rule theft of the foreign investments that had Middle Eastern lunatics will go on blowing of the Islamic clergy, the West, in the view of developed them would not by itself have been themselves up in order to gain an alleged contemporary Islam, is Satan. suffi cient. It would not have been the source reward of seventy-two virgins in the afterlife. of suffi cient wealth and income to enable What will enable them to do so is Western In the view of environmentalism, Man is very many of those who would still have been lunatics urging the destruction of industrial Satan. Man is Satan, environmentalism holds, virtual starving beggars to put on an air of civilization in order to manipulate the average because his reason, science, and technology, modernity and think themselves fi t to pass mean temperature of the world and the height that enable him ever more to adapt his of sea-levels in future centuries. environment to himself, equivalently destroy the alleged intrinsic values present in nature before Man’s intervention. Strictly speaking, If the grip of environmentalism could be broken in the West, what from the perspective of the doctrine of the has aptly been called Islamo-fascism would likely fall of its own intrinsic value of nature, Man is a destroyer weight in the Middle East , because those who fi nance it and when he leaves his footprints in the sand: he has destroyed the alleged intrinsic value of advocate it would justly go back to starving until they found a the undisturbed sand; he is a destroyer when productive way to live. he breathes and converts preexisting oxygen molecules into carbon dioxide, thereby destroying the alleged intrinsic value of the oxygen molecules. But so long as Man is judgment on the world that feeds them. What incapable of acting on a scale much beyond made that possible was the vast monopoly that of other animals, his alleged inherent profi ts handed to Arab countries by the Incitement to Class War at destructiveness can apparently be tolerated environmental movement. The paralyzing grip The New York Times/Pravda by the environmentalists. It is when his reason, of the environmental movement on economic science, technology, and freedom allow him policy in the United States has served to The lead article in today’s New York Times/ to act on the vast scale of modern capitalism, protect the members of the Arab-led OPEC Pravda is titled ”Real Wages Fail to Match a scale incalculably beyond that of which any oil cartel from the competition of the American a Rise in Productivity.” The piece is a other species is capable, and to transform energy industries, which has the potential denunciation of capitalism and its offshoot nature accordingly, that he is damned. radically to reduce their wealth and income. “globalization” for allowing such a thing to happen. In the print edition of the newspaper, The insanities of contemporary Islam and of Represented by government offi cials who the subhead ominously declares, “POLITICAL environmentalism are connected. The one is might as well have been Senators and FALLOUT IS SEEN.” the father of the other. Representatives from districts in Saudi Arabia As the means of providing a thinly veiled or Iran, rather than in the United States, statement of the doctrine of class warfare, the For several centuries prior to the 1970s, supported by infl uential newspapers that article quotes the publisher of “a nonpartisan hardly anything was heard from Islam. It might as well have been headquartered in political newsletter”: was the religion of impoverished people in Riyadh or Teheran rather than in New York or impoverished countries. It was obvious to Los Angeles, the environmental movement “There are two economies out there,” Mr. everyone with intelligence and education that has been able to prohibit the production Cook, the political analyst, said. “One has such countries must throw off the shackles of of additional American oil. It has blocked religious superstition and enter the modern been just white hot, going great guns. Those oil production in Alaska, offshore on the are the people who have benefi ted from world. Only then might their people prosper. continental shelf, and in the vast areas set This was the knowledge on which modern globalization, technology, greater productivity aside as wildlife preserves and wilderness and higher corporate earnings. Turkey was founded. It was the knowledge areas. In addition, it has prevented the that guided the last Shah of Iran. construction of any new atomic power plants “And then there’s the working stiffs,’’ he for several decades, and has greatly restricted What changed this and fostered the revival of added, “who just don’t feel like they’re getting the mining and use of coal as a source of Islam as a cultural force has been the fl ood ahead despite the fact that they’re working energy. These measures have substantially of money that began to pour into leading very hard. And there are a lot more people in held down the supply of oil and, by restricting Islamic countries in the 1970s and which has that group than the other group.” the availability of substitutes, increased the continued until the present day. This money demand for it, making oil much scarcer and has come in not because of any positive The main “expert” cited in the article is an more expensive than it needs to be. This in productive accomplishments on the part of economic illiterate employed by the Economic the countries concerned but on the basis of a turn has greatly increased the revenues and Policy Institute, a leftist “research group.” He combination of circumstances to which their incomes of the Arab oil-producing states and opines, “`If I had to sum it up,’ . . . `it comes contribution has been merely one of good thus their ability to fi nance poisonous religious down to bargaining power and the lack of fortune. They have had the good fortune to propaganda around the world, the purchase ability of many in the work force to claim their possess vast petroleum deposits. These and production of modern weapons, now fair share of growth.’” Apparently, this “expert” petroleum deposits became a source of wealth including atomic weapons, and acts of believes, as does the Times and the left in and income to them after foreign geologists international terrorism. general, that the relationship between profi ts discovered them and foreign oil companies and wages is determined by some form of provided the capital and the technology to If the grip of environmentalism could be “bargaining” and that whatever goes to profi ts develop them—foreign economic progress broken in the West, what has aptly been is at the expense of what goes to wages and having already established a demand for the called Islamo-fascism would likely fall of its wage earners. oil abroad. The only further contribution of own weight in the Middle East, because those these countries was to then steal the foreign who fi nance it and advocate it would justly go The fact, of course, is that the number investments by means of abrogation of back to starving until they found a productive of workers employers seek to employ is contracts and nationalization. way to live. determined by the wage rates that they must The possession of oil deposits and the Until the grip of environmentalism is broken, pay, and is the larger, the lower are wage 40 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz THE ROAR OF REISMAN rates, and the smaller, the higher are wage details, please see my July 24 article ”How pay wages and buy capital goods. (Infl ation rates. (This relationship goes under the name Environmentalism Raises Profi ts at the can provide everyone with more money. But “demand” and is typically illustrated by means Expense of Wages.”) it cannot provide enough additional money to of a downward sloping line called a “demand enable business fi rms to replace their assets curve.” The Times and its “experts” should Government budget defi cits are also a factor. after paying taxes on the overstated profi ts attempt to make themselves familiar with Such defi cits represent government spending that it causes.) the concept.) In a free market, wage rates that is fi nanced with funds raised at the must simultaneously be low enough on the expense of private capital spending, which Finally, whoever wants to raise the wages of demand curve for labor, to make possible spending includes both wage payments and the average worker must oppose the massive the employment of all those able and willing expenditures for capital goods. The effect of and ever-growing body of government to work and high enough to limit the amount the defi cits is not only that wage payments in regulation that serves to raise costs of of labor sought by employers to the supply of the economic system are smaller, but also that production. Contrary to the naive view of the labor available. profi ts in the economic system are artifi cially left, increases in costs do not come for very increased. This last occurs because while long at the expense of profi ts. If they did, Attempts to force wage rates higher, through business sales revenues in the economic profi ts would long since have disappeared. “bargaining,” i.e., the coercive “collective system remain the same, with government Instead the general rate of profi t remains more bargaining” of monopoly labor unions serve spending taking the place of private spending, or less the same. Increases in cost serve either to raise prices or to reduce wage rates, or only to cause unemployment, by reducing the the costs that business fi rms deduct from both. They are the enemy of the standard of quantity of labor demanded below the supply their sales revenues end up being less than available.

Often, the unemployment caused in this way in a given line of work, can be offset What actually does help explain the rise in profi ts at the expense of by expanded employment in other lines of wages in today’s highly interventionist economy is environmental work. For example, skilled electricians and legislation. In essence, this has served to create an artifi cial carpenters who are prevented from working as electricians or carpenters because of scarcity of land and natural resources relative to labor and to the artifi cially high wages imposed by their elevate the income derived from their ownership relative to wages. respective unions, may very well end up being employed in other, lesser lines of work. But when they are, wage rates in those lesser lines have had to fall, in order to absorb the they otherwise would have been. Costs are living of the average person. Ignorant fanatics increase in the supply of labor resulting from less because the expenditure that gives rise who are responsible for causing them in the the reduction in jobs offered in the unionized to costs—i.e., precisely the spending for pursuit of this or that allegedly benevolent lines. Or, if these lines are unionized too, or if labor and capital goods by business—is less. social reform—whether it be safety legislation, their wage rates simply follow union scales, The defi cits take funds away from business day care, maternity leave, or whatever—are and so cannot fall when the available supply spending and thus later on from the costs that in fact the enemies of the average worker. In of labor increases, then the employment of refl ect prior business spending. In this way, the last analysis, they cause him to earn less the displaced electricians and carpenters their effect is to make profi ts higher as well as and pay more. shifts the unemployment to other workers. making wages lower. When it comes to economic understanding, In sum, the formula of the Times and the rest Whoever wants to raise the wages of the average the mentality of The New York Times and of the economically ignorant left for raising worker should not be advocating monopoly of the left in general is one of soft, mushy wages relative to profi ts is to cause either labor unionism and the unemployment and ignorance encased in an impenetrable shell of unemployment or arbitrary inequalities in wage higher prices that it causes, but the repeal super-hardened self-righteous ignorance. It is rates among different occupations. In both of environmental legislation, which raises on the basis of such a mentality that it seeks cases, the further result is less production, land rents at the expense of wages. And, of to foment class warfare. higher prices, and a lower standard of living. course, in addition, he should be advocating the end of government budget defi cits and This is not the place to address the numerous the repeal of all other legislation that stands further fallacies that center on the belief that in the way of saving and capital accumulation what goes to businessmen and capitalists as or otherwise undermines the productivity of profi ts in a free economy is at the expense labor. Saving and capital accumulation both of what goes to wage earners as wages. This article is copyright © 2006, by Those fallacies must be the subject of future raise the demand for labor, and thus wage George Reisman. Permission is hereby articles. rates, and also serve to increase the supply granted to reproduce and distribute it of consumers’ goods and thereby reduce electronically and in print, other than I remind readers that what actually does help their prices. (They increase the supply of as part of a book and provided that to explain the rise in profi ts at the expense consumers’ goods by equipping the average mention of the author’s web site http:// of wages in today’s highly interventionist worker with more and better capital goods, www.capitalism.net/ is included. (Email economy is environmental legislation. In which increases his ability to produce.) notifi cation is requested.) All other rights essence, this has served to create an artifi cial reserved. George Reisman is the author scarcity of land and natural resources relative The principal obstacle in the way of saving and of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics to labor and to elevate the income derived capital accumulation and thus the rise in real (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) from their ownership—income which the wages is government welfare-state spending. and is Pepperdine University Professor classical economists called land rent—relative It is what necessitates the taxes, budget Emeritus of Economics. to wages. Land rent, of course, appears in defi cits, and infl ation of the money supply that the economic statistics as profi t. (For further deprives business of the funds with which to

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 41 PETER CRESSWELL ARCHITECTURE

What Architecture is All About Here’s a brief meditation on what architecture is all about. In fi ve We need buildings to shelter us, and not just in the physical sense of shelter. We need a words or less: giving meaning to our lives. To quote the late Claude place that is a home: our place, wherein we Megson, “If it doesn’t have meaning, then you’re just wanking.” For a see ourselves and our own values refl ected back, including the value of the home itself. few more words on the subject, read on... Good architecture then is not just functional on the bare physical plane. We’ve been out When Hillary and Tenzing reached the top of and sprawls like; it is here that we begin to of the caves long enough to do much better Everest for the fi rst time, the story goes that fi nd the meaning in architecture: the meaning than that. “A house is a machine for living,” Tenzing fell to his knees and gave thanks to resides in how it makes its home for man. declared Le Corbusier on behalf of today’s the spirits that had helped their journey; he cave dwellers. “But only if the heart is a prayed to each of the four winds, and he In the act of making and placing our buildings suction pump,’ responded Frank Lloyd Wright. carefully placed in the ground a small stake in the world, we make decisions about Architecture is not just shelter; it is not just on which prayer ribbons were attached. While what’s important in the world. What values ‘marking a spot’: its function is also to delight. he was doing this, Hillary stuck a fl ag in the need to be ‘built in’ and made concrete. ground, unzipped his fl y and took a piss. What should we include from around us? Bread and water nourish our stomachs; we need also to nourish our souls. Thirteenth- What should we keep out? Early morning We each mark our territory in very different century Persian poet Muslih-uddin Saadi sun is good; later afternoon sun isn’t. Gentle ways. But we do each mark our territory. Shirazi offered this wisdom: breezes are good inside the house; heavy rain is not; views of the lake and the trees We make buildings to keep the rain off, and If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft and the beautiful hills about us are wonderful in doing so we raise a crown over our head And from thy slender store – views of the local slaughterhouse are not. and mark out from the world our own space Two loaves alone to thee are left below; we mark out for ourselves a place Sell one, and with the dole Some of these things are highly contextual. in the world by building a campfi re that we Buy hyacinths to feed the soul. keep burning and around which we make Early morning sun is good in Reykjavik, but comfortable for ourselves, or by raising high not always in Dubai in mid-summer. Later But only if your heart is not a suction pump. our own totem that seems to say “here I am!”; afternoon sun is bad in most parts of the we recognise the important rituals we’ve built world, but in Murmansk, inside the Arctic What good architecture does then is to deal into our own lives by making these rituals Circle, “late afternoon” extends for several with the totality of a human existence, to concrete, literally making them concrete, and months, and is always a welcome guest. provide at one level the support structure to by doing so we are saying, “This is important.” Gentle breezes in Hawaii are welcome; in make human life possible, and at another We erect buildings to perform some useful Siberia they’re called a draught. A view of much richer level to express back to us what function, and in the act of erecting them the local slaughterhouse from your lounge it means to be human by giving a sense they unavoidably perform another crucial window might be highly prized if you’re of place to all our occasions, by building useful or symbolic function for us: they … okay, I’m stretching on this last one. in all our important rituals, by connecting embody our values. They tell us we exist. us to what is meaningful in our lives: To The fact remains nonetheless that the choices sunrises and sunsets; to the sharing of Buildings are a concrete expression of we make about how we build our shelter, food together; to relaxing with friends; to values – the values of the people who mark our place and decide what functions having time and space for contemplation designed, erected and occupy them. our building serves for us defi ne something and for conversation, and for rest, and both about us, and about the place we make for sex -- and for rest and contemplation Like every art, architecture is a shortcut to our -- and about the context in which we make it. (and conversation) after (and during) sex. philosophy. In building architecture we erect an armature that will support ourselves and our WE NEED TO BUILD. Animals adapt That’s about as important as a job gets, right? important values, and offer us as well a place themselves to nature, and they’re already from which to look out on the world around us. Writing about Ferraris, PJ O’Rourke expressed adapted to do that. Humans can’t. We adapt Amongst the myriad of ways this can be done, it this way: “Only God can make a tree, but only nature to ourselves. We must. Unlike animals we choose the one that does it for us. It is a man can drive by one at 250mph.” THAT is the with their multiple defences against the world, shortcut to our philosophy – which is why our feeling good architecture should communicate! our means of survival is our reasoning brain: choices are often so personal to us. The way We take the material that nature provides, and on its own this offers no physical defence it does that is as an extension of ourselves. the needs that we have, and those moments against predation, and no guarantee of where we say to ourselves, “Ah, this is what “Architecture,” as Aldo van Eyck once said, survival: we learn to use our brain to plan, to being alive is all about!” and we give those “is about making a ‘home for man’.” The invent, to create; to understand the nature of needs wings and we build in and celebrate space we build is space for human life, for the world around us and to make sense of it those moments, and by doing so we express us to inhabit, and from which we can emerge and to adapt it to ourselves, to make of it a our lives, and we help bring meaning to them. to ‘do battle.’ It is a place that expresses place in which we are protected, and in which what a home for man looks like, smells like we can feel ourselves at home. What could be more important?

42 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz ARCHITECTURE

PC’s Top Five: ‘Bavinger House,’ by Bruce Goff

The fi rst posting here in a series of PC’s atheist. He worked through the war years as feathers) but mostly remain open to the own favourite architecture. Seen here is an army engineer, delighting in using found whole glorious space in which they hover. the masterwork of Oklahoma architect materials and ‘borrowed’ structures to do Bruce Goff. things with them for which they were never A small jewel-like masterpiece. As this intended, such as this simple chapel built on web description of the Bavinger house Architect Bruce Goff never designed to the cheap using Quonset Huts. In later years concludes: be published in magazines or to attract he was to use all manner of ‘found objects’ Goff once wrote, “Beauty bursts forth when the bright lights, he never designed to be -- his favourite story of this was to tell of it must, because the Artist feels the drive fashionable (he worked in Oklahoma, for an ophthalmologist client who insisted that within . . . and no amount of discouragement Galt’s sake!), and he never designed to fi t the after looking at eyes all day he didn’t want can stop him.” From America’s heartland, ‘malatropisms’ of the so-called intellectual any circles in his house: Goff designed him Goff transcended traditional ideals and elite, whom he shunned as if they carried an angular house, with a wall interspersed proved to the world that architecture is an plague -- which of course in a sense they did with small, thick diamond-shaped clear extension of nature, and the elements of (and do). Bruce Goff spent his life designing glass panels. These were square one-dollar sky, earth and water, its realm. and working simply to delight himself and Woolworth’s glass ashtrays Goff had bought his clients. And so he did. No two Goff and set on-point in the house’s entrance wall. Bruce Goff’s Bavinger House: Defi nitely one buildings were ever even remotely the same. of my own personal top fi ve. Goff’s best work is this house pictured here, I was introduced to him inadvertently by the Bavinger House. Built in 1955 for a young means of a wise-cracking insult by locally family in Norman Oklahoma, it brings together fashionable architect Ian Athfi eld, who had locally quarried ‘ironrock,’ mine tailings, come up the hill to critique student work at coal rejects, glass cullets, airplane wire Wellington’s Victoria University. Seeing my and a used oil-rig drilling pipe for the mast. own project he gave a snort of derision, muttered something about me and Bruce The result is astonishing. The outer wall -- Goff which brought the house down, and and in fact there is only one wall performing moved on to look at something more many functions -- seems to grow out of post-modern from the student next door -- the ground before moving out and around whereupon I left to fi nd out about this chap I to surround and enclose a garden and an was supposed to be channeling, even if only adjoining living area before spiralling in an in jest. What I discovered was that anyone up to form and fi x the climactic vertical channelling this guy was my kind of architect. pylon from which the roof and fl oor ‘pods’ are hung. The ‘pods’ are hung off the Goff was apprenticed to an architect at wall as it ascends, providing withdrawing, twelve, and by eighteen had designed his bedroom and study space that can be fi rst church. Not bad going, even back in closed off with curtaining (don’t ask, some those laissez-faire days, especially for an writers suggest something about goose

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 43 ARCHITECTURE

44 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz CAROL POTTS EDUCATION Montessori: the Three-Year Cycle Montessori Education has a unique individualized and non- This concept needs an educational approach with an extended time frame competitive approach, designed to respond to the developmental within which the individual child has room needs of children from the ages of two and a half to six years old. A to grow at her or his own pace. In accord with this thinking a Montessori crucial component of the Montessori Philosophy is what is referred school program, including the to as “the three year cycle.” In New Zealand, the effi cacy of this developmental learning aids and the work activities which go with it, is sequential and concept, and the many benefi ts that come from awareness of it in meant to be experienced over a three-year a learning environment, are hampered by a traditionalist adherence time span and not in individual, successive, one-year capsules. While a child may to the idea that children should start “school” at the age of fi ve. gain much from attending a Montessori program for any length of time, full benefi ts “School,” say Montessorians, is what their children have beginning at are likely to require extended exposure. age two-and-a-half… For instance, the three R’s, which are not so much taught as they are learned, require progressive build-up for successful fl owering. The same can be said for such Montessori’s philosophy is based on the The younger children learn from the older acquisitions as personal work habits and identifi cation of the “absorbent mind,” which ones - they see what is ahead of them, social consciousness; these too require from birth to three years of age operates in they understand that reading and maths are time for internalization. an unconscious manner - the child effortlessly something that they too will do when they absorbs everything from their environment. are big. They benefi t by having learnt from One of the major obstacles to this benefi cial From the ages of three to six, the child the older children they look up to, by having continuity is the social expectation in New consolidates all that has been previously learnt role models and mentors, they learn from their Zealand that children must start Primary – those three years are one phase of growth, peers as well as adults, and they see older School on their fi fth birthday. Some Primary with physical, intellectual, and psychological children doing advanced work and strive to Schools expressly require all children to be characteristics common to that whole period. do the same. with them by the age of fi ve. There are various reasons for this insistence, often reasons of Each Montessori class is composed of children funding, or the school wanting all children within a three-year age span. This is based on In their book, Children Teach Children, to be introduced at the same time for the the philosophy of the family unit. Just like in a Gartner, Kohler and Reisman give many convenience of the teacher and school. Such family environment where younger members statistics which show that the older child reasons may have validity for the school, but learn from the experience of the older ones, benefi ts very much from the experience of it is putting the focus in the wrong place; children in a multi-age group setting learn helping a younger child as well. The older child during this fi rst 6 years your child should be from each other. Children learn to negotiate, develops self-confi dence and leadership skills, the priority, not a school’s funding quota. co-operate, and accept ideas other than their they feel needed and proud to help someone Many schools in Europe have deferred the own. The expectation is that the younger else, they practice what they already know compulsory schooling age until after the child children might learn from older ones who, in - therefore reinforcing their knowledge, learn has turned six. This is also the case for some turn, have come up from “the ranks” and are patience and kindness toward others (one of schools in New Zealand. well on their way to being self-directed. the hardest things to learn), and experience In the Montessori child’s fi nal year of the pre- being mentors and role-models. primary class, when they are fi ve, they begin to take a leadership role. The cycle of learning These experiences and results are extremely in this sensitive period must be completed to important for those who may be the youngest gain optimum benefi t. This is the year in which or only child in the family. everything comes together for the child – all It is necessarily hard to achieve these benefi ts the sensorial preparation, concentration, and though where there is frequent and substantial practical skills begin to bear fruit. The children are what Montessori calls “normalized” (or class turnover. If a child leaves the Montessori what we might now refer to as “integrated”) Cycle at fi ve, not only does this take the top — able to “hold their own with confi dence.” off the Montessori class and deprive the child It is the year when blending sounds leads to of taking his natural developmental role, but it reading (though this may start before), they puts him in a class of others where he takes begin their maths operations, and they want his place on the bottom rung of the ladder, to write beautifully and creatively. If they have and is often treated as the newcomer to the had a strong foundation in the fi rst two years class. In a Montessori classroom, he would of the cycle, they are now ready to build on have been treated with respect as an individual Dr Maria Montessori: One of the working towards attaining his potential, rather that foundation, and this in itself contributes true geniuses of the Twentieth to independence, self-confi dence, and self than one who is just starting at the beginning. Century esteem. As Paula Polk Lillard explains it:

45 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz EDUCATION

in their last years: The older children in the afternoons refi ne their reading and language skills through lessons that include parts of speech and word study (compound words, use of adjectives, verbs and nouns) and doing more advanced projects and group work such as the reading folders, advanced sewing samples, making continent maps, making fl ags of countries, learning math facts, doing complex sums with four categories of the decimal system, and working with fractions. During the third year at Montessori schools the fi ve to six year olds can compute complex sums, write poetry and stories, and create more advanced artwork (like our introduction of watercolours), and conduct scientifi c experiments by utilizing and building upon the skills and understanding gained from their earlier days in the Montessori environment. This last year in the cycle is the ‘pay off’ year for the earlier two years. Child being introduced to the concept of tens On a social level, the mixed ages create a Another obstacle that needs to be overcome behind. Quite the contrary, for a Montessori small society of children. When not occupied is the notion of “big school,” a phrase that we child this can be a frustrating year in a regular in their own work the older children can be fi nd children often use in reference to Primary Primary School, particularly in maths he will found reading stories to others, organizing School. Children absorb the language of what probably be quite ahead of other fi ve year a small group or teaching others what they is around them - “big school” is what they olds. Surely we do not want our children to themselves already know. It is here that hear from others (of whom the most guilty are, in any way suppress their potential. Indeed, leadership can begin to develop. sadly, grandparents and concerned friends). children who stay until close to six should then A further issue that arises for parents is We take the approach, and point out, that go into the second year at Primary School. how children adapt at six after a Montessori they are at school already and will be moving beginning. Adapt they do; with the confi dence onto another school. To give you some idea of the level of that develops within that third year they are comprehension and skill of a Montessori able to adapt to new situations much more Some parents feel that if they do not put their educated child, consider the following readily than if they leave at fi ve. Children cope child into “big school” at fi ve, he or she will fall capacities and activities of a Montessori child well with change as they soon realise that they are not as free to choose their activities anymore, and they adapt because they have developed their skills of independence and problem-solving – they feel good about who they are, they don’t constantly need external praise or external motivation. It is important when a parent starts to think about a suitable time for their child to move on that they consult the expertise of their Montessori Educator. Some children are ready and need to be with their next age group before others. When a child reaches this point of development, Montessorians believe that the child has achieved the necessary skills and experiences to prepare him or her for Primary School though much more importantly, laid a foundation that will last for the rest of the child’s life. This is why we believe it is imperative that children be encouraged to stay for a third year in the Montessori 3-6 environment which so consciously nurtures all aspects of their personality and development. Carol Potts is the Head Directress of Titoki Montessori School, Torbay, and Trustee of the Maria Montessori Education Foundation of New Zealand (MMEF).

46 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz PHILIP MCDONALD EDUCATION A Surgeon’s Tale Published on SOLO - Sense of Life Objectivists www.solopassion.com

I am an Ophthalmologist. I trained for 13 years to be one. It was not it anonymously. You were examined strangely enough on all sorts of details about the eyes easy time then, its not easy time now, but I love my work and would and vision. not have it any other way. If I wanted easy I could have been a quality Guess what? That entrance exam has also control clerk in a cheese factory. I see 400 people every month and fallen. Even at a Medical College level, after for the majority I either ease their pain, help them develop sight (kids university, the malaise has spread. are fun), make them see again or stop them going blind. The replacement of exams and objective assessment is with “interview” and internal assessment processes. Where there were I operate with scalpels, sutures and lasers, was the student who scored the best overall workshops and courses for the teaching generally under a microscope where failure in his subjects. specialist medical knowledge required to is measured in microns and millimetres. It is pass the specialist entrance exams, there are satisfying and challenging work. Literally in my Medical training took 6 years of graded now courses run by psychologists in interview wildest dreams I did not imagine helping so exams. It was also simple, you had to pass technique. These courses are tailored to every subject every year. If you didn’t pass a many people so much and so profoundly. specifi c interviews. They train you in what to subject, you did the year again. You failed a say and how to say it. Sadly for those young doctors following me year twice you washed out. things are quite different. High schools have I ask you do you want your surgeon to know dumbed down the academic syllabus, the After medical school and two years slaving the difference between your Adam’s apple external exam process has become politically as a House surgeon (Read House of God and your aorta or someone that has had correct so students feelings are never hurt for a taste) if you wished you could sit the formal training in how to smile sweetly whilst by failure. Sadly this punishes those with the entrance exam for Ophthalmology. It was lying through their teeth? desire and ability to stand apart and pursue tough. Most doctors attempting it studied success. night and day(whilst still working full-time) for at least two years. It was designed to weed I am not saying such processes do not have a My House surgeon (a junior doctor on my people out. It had a 10% pass rate. However place as well. I just mourn the lost of objective team) is considering pursuing a career in it was fair, everyone sat the same test and sat academic assessment that rewards merit. surgery and possibly ophthalmology. He has the right stuff, good communication skills, well organised, motivated and a very fast www.organonarchitecture.co.nz learning curve. Given the knowledge required to became safe let alone excel in my fi eld the last attribute really is important. Only time will tell if his hands are good.

He reported to me last week, in rather dejected tones, Doctors now graduate medical school without proper grades, just meaningless nonsense like distinction and pass. His entrance interview for surgical training was looming and he was one of the many hoping to become one of the few. The Statist politically correct process has invaded our university system as well. His future access to training schemes just became random because there is not a proper assessment and grading process. That would be young surgeon does not have the right grades, not through any fault of his own, but because they no longer exist.

The change in our education system is both recent and profound. I am only 37 years old. When I went through high school the fi nal year bursary exams gave proper grades, A B C etc and scores in percentage terms. It PO Box 108054, Symonds Street, Auckland was simple, medical school took the top 4%. Tel / Fax 09 631 0034. Mobile 021 120 9443 Scholarship exam took the top 2% and Dux

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 47 NEIL MILLER BEER The Beauty from the Bay - Limburg Brewing Company The Free Radical Beer Column

Neil Miller from RealBeer.Co.NZ continues his regular column on the with a touch of spice and blackcurrant near the end. The beer itself is fruity—reminiscent of pleasures of one of mankind’s fi nest creations: Beer. orange and grapefruit marmalade—followed by a gentle citrus hop fi nish. Like many New Zealand craft brewers, it was enjoy New Zealand’s amber lagers with my a visit to Europe which started Chris O’Leary friends. That is when my dream of being a Limburg Witbier down the path to brewing. brewer was launched,” he explains. is a Belgian style wheat beer. Hoegaarden is the most famous example of this style though “When I went to Britain to do my Masters He started brewing for friends and family it is sadly fading under corporate control. Degree, I discovered real ale in the English over a decade ago. He left the corporate The Limburg Witbier uses raw wheat in the country pubs and freehouses. I also visited world (after “a difference of opinion” with his brewing as well as coriander and Curacao Europe where I launched myself into Belgian, employer) and honed his skills at the Rooster’s orange peel. Slightly cloudy, the Witbier is German and Dutch beers. Sitting in a café brewery. In 1999, Chris took the plunge and golden with a sweetish aroma of oranges with over 400 beers to choose from on the opened the Limburg Brewing Company (www. and spice. The strong orange and coriander blackboard was a defi nite buzz,” he says with limburg.co.nz) in the Hawke’s Bay. fl avours are often complimented by a clove a smile. note to produce a refreshing and spritzy Critical and commercial success came quickly beer. “This experience really got my passion for as the Limburg range struck a chord with great beer started. The so-called premium drinkers despite initially being predominantly Limburg Weissbier lager I was drinking when I left New Zealand unfamiliar wheat beer styles. Chris says “it is a cloudy German style wheat beer called seemed more like malt fl avoured fi zzy drink confi rmed to me that the big brewers had it Hefeweizen where some of the yeast is left in compared to what most Europeans were wrong. Kiwis do enjoy beers stacked with the beer for fl avour and texture. The powerful drinking. On arriving back, I struggled to fl avour and difference.” nose has plenty of banana and bubblegum. It showcases the traditional fl avours (bananas, The brewery name of cloves and Juicyfruit gum) and adds distinctive “Limburg” refers to a Dutch toffee, cinnamon and apple notes to the mix. province which borders both The beer ends with a refreshing, slightly tart Belgium and Germany. The fi nish. name refl ects the strong European infl uence in Chris’ Limburg Czechmate Pilsner. brewing style. The province of A personal favourite is the Limburg Limburg is famous for its beer Czechmate Pilsner. In keeping with his and periodic heavy tank traffi c. philosophy of using the traditional ingredients, Chris has imported Moravian malt, Czech Affectionately nicknamed hops and a Czech yeast. Only the water is “Father O’Leary” for his ability local. The result is an appealing pale golden to take brewers confessions, beer with a rich white head. The nose is Chris is at the vanguard dry, grassy and spicy while the beer has the of the microbrewery classic Pilsner balance between a juicy sweet revolution with malt middle and a crisp clean fi nish. Chris his European- says there is “a big focus on drinkability for a infl uenced range broader appeal.” of beer. Rounding out the range are the Limburg Limburg Porter—a new silky smooth dark beer with Hopsmacker roasted and chocolate characters—and his is based on an seasonal monster Limburg Oude Reserve— English Pale Ale an aged ale with a warming vinous character style but with and a true depth of fl avour—though both can what Chris calls be harder to obtain (particularly for our valued “a Kiwi Irish twist”. American readers!) Hopsmacker pours a slightly The only way a small brewery can compete cloudy marmalade in the market today, according to Chris, is colour with a small through fl avour, quality and cutting edge fl uffy head. It passion. Limburg has plenty of all three. throws a lovely big citrus fruit nose Email: [email protected]

48 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz SHAUN HOLT HEALTH

Natural Health Review Many people are interested in “natural health” products, but how do you know what works? Natural Information on the internet is hit-and-miss, mostly miss. Natural Health Review health publications are generally designed to promote the products is produced by they sell and the media do not have the skills to decide what is Tauranga Doctor and good research. Libertarianz Party member Shaun Holt. It’s free to receive What I would want to know is: which of these products work and describes the evidence just go to products have good evidence from research behind them. Readers can click on a web link www.naturalhealthreview.co.nz to demonstrate their safety and effectiveness? to see the full research details if they want to With this in mind we have launched “Natural check themselves. The content is independent Some extracts from the Health Review”, an independent, free, monthly of any product manufacturers or suppliers, so electronic journal which shows which natural the information can be trusted. current issue are below:

Green tea and Yoga for Regular exercise Fish oil for coffee: Can they back pain delays onset of bipolar prevent diabetes? The Facts: dementia in elderly depression • Over 100 people with The Facts: persistent lower back pain The Facts: The Facts: • Drinking green tea or coffee did yoga classes, a standard • This study looked at changes • Dementia and Alzheimer’s may reduce the risk of exercise programme or used a in different clinical depression disease are common in elderly developing type 2 diabetes self-care book for 3 months scoring systems • Over 17,000 people were • After 3 months people who people and are of major • Fish oil in the form of ethyl- involved in this 5 year study did yoga classes had better concern in an increasingly eicosapentaenoic acid was • The risk of type 2 diabetes fl exibility and were more easily aging population. able to perform tasks involving assessed in patients with was lower in people who • 1700 people aged 65 and over consumed 6 or more cups of back movement than the bipolar disorder were involved in the American green tea or 3 or more cups of others • Fish oil supplementation study to see if exercise could coffee per day • All groups continued to was effective at lowering experience discomfort at the delay dementia • Women and overweight men depression and had few side end of 3 months, but after a • The results showed fewer benefi ted most effects further 3 months people in cases of dementia and yoga classes reported less Dr Shaun Holt: In this enormous Alzheimer’s disease were seen pain than those using Dr Shaun Holt: Bipolar disorder, questionnaire study, green in people who exercised at which used to be known as tea, coffee and caffeine were Dr Shaun Holt: Low back pain least 3 times a week. associated with a reduced manic depression, is a serious is very common and has many chance of getting diabetes. psychiatric condition, causing different causes. 90% of adults Given the epidemic of diabetes Dr Shaun Holt: This was a very depression and severe mood have back pain at some stage well conducted study, showing swings. Medications and that we are seeing in many in their lives. Yoga is a spiritual yet again that exercise and fi tness countries, these are important Hindu practice originating in psychological treatments are the fi ndings. Green tea is popular India, where it is seen as a means are hugely important to health. best way to control the condition. in China, Japan and the Middle to enlightenment. It may also be Nobody wants to have problems A good sleep schedule and East and has had little oxidisation the means to less back pain. with memory, language, problem- avoiding excessive amounts of (chemical reaction with oxygen) The results from this large well- solving or attention when they are caffeine are also recommended. during the processing. This is conducted study suggest that older and these fi ndings strongly The results from this small study different to the tea commonly yoga is better than conventional consumed in Western countries back exercises or following the suggest that exercising at least are very promising and it would (black tea) which is more heavily instructions in a self-care book three times a week may help to be worth patients taking a fi sh oil oxidised. for back pain. prevent these problems. supplement to see if it helps Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 49 SUSAN RYDER SUSAN THE LIBERTARIAN

Defi ning Insanity Sober alcoholics often describe their drinking habit as insane. The television ad campaign ran for a couple of months. It was nauseating, consisting of Prior to sobriety they will tell themselves: “I’m not going to get drunk numbers of Maori up and down the country today. I’m just going to have one drink, and then I’m going to stop. urging people to enroll on either the general or Maori roll. Well, not really. It all but screamed Today, I am not going to get drunk.” Famous last words and ‘insane’ ‘ENLIST ON THE MAORI ROLL!’ in true state propaganda style—paid for by the tax-victim because they would do the same thing over and over again, but in true state propaganda style. God only always expect a different result. knows how much that cost us, but that could be one reason as to why there’s “no money” for Herceptin. You don’t have to look far to fi nd other State housing tenants are causing millions examples of insanity. In fact all you have to of dollars of damage to their properties with Anyway, the upshot of the campaign saw a do is watch the media for a day–pick one, any no recompense. What’s that, you say? Their reported increase of 11,000 on…the Maori one–and examples abound. Enough for a properties? Well, there’s your problem. If the roll! There was no mention of any increase column even, so here we go. homes were privately owned, we wouldn’t to the general roll. You know, the roll with all be having this conversation. If they owned other New Zealanders on it. However, I guess What better way to start than with our old mate, public health. Old, ailing and incompetent. In their infi nite wisdom, health bureaucrats have decided to not fund the breast cancer drug, But here’s the thing that always gets me. I wonder how many proponents Herceptin. In explanation of the move, the of the continuing existence of the Maori roll so vociferously and sanctimo- big cancer herself, Helen Clark, was quoted as saying “the money’s not there.” Well, no; niously opposed a handful of football matches twenty-fi ve years ago be- that’s not altogether right, is it Helen. You and cause the touring team represented a country that adopted a policy called your personal banker, Michael Cullen, have ‘apartheid’, meaning ‘separate development.” got plenty of our money. Our money. You’re positively drowning in money. You’re just not choosing to spend it on Herceptin. their own homes mistreatment would result in this will mean a call to raise the number of Now, I don’t know whether Herceptin works or decreasing value, directly affecting their back racist (sorry, Maori) seats for the next election, not and, unfortunately, neither will the women pocket. If they rented privately-owned homes, currently affl icted with breast cancer who and increasing the size of government with no mistreatment would result in their quick are forced to both fund and rely upon public subsequent improvement in public services is eviction which means they would repeatedly health. But here’s the kicker. If those women a hallmark of the Clark government. misbehave to their continuing detriment. But didn’t have a large percentage of their money once again, no. In gloriously statist ‘Nanny stolen from them in the fi rst place to prop up But here’s the thing that always gets me. I knows best’ New Zealand, the rest of us keep a third-rate health system that excludes them wonder how many proponents of the continuing on insanely paying for these cretins to wreck while telling them how bloody lucky they are existence of the Maori roll so vociferously and one publicly-owned home after another. to have it, they might just have the money to sanctimoniously opposed a handful of football matches twenty-fi ve years ago because the touring team represented a country that If those women didn’t have a large percentage of their money stolen from adopted a policy called ‘apartheid’, meaning them in the fi rst place to prop up a third-rate health system that excludes ‘separate development.” them while telling them how bloody lucky they are to have it, they might Say that again? Separate development? You just have the money to insure themselves to enable the treatment of their mean like having a separate roll for some choice. citizens based on something as spectacularly unimportant as one’s DNA? But that would be insane! Wouldn’t it? insure themselves to enable the treatment of And speaking of cretins, let’s fi nish on the most insane New Zealand chestnut of all, our their choice. So what’s insane about that? Public health. Public housing. Race-based old mates, the racist (sorry, Maori) seats. The Under the gloriously statist ‘Nanny knows bureaucracy. Expecting the state to change government has just ended a public campaign best’ system of all paying to all get treated, the habit of a lifetime and work for once? to, it stated, “get more Maori enrolled to vote.” (All paying? All treated? Whoops! Change Expecting it to fi x the very problems it has (Did you spot the government doing its usual that to ‘some’!), Nanny’s got their money, but trick of speaking collectively with regard to created in the fi rst place? Wanting more of Nanny’s not fronting up with the drug. ‘Maori,’ as if all Maori think and behave the what doesn’t work? same way? Of course you did. It’s an old What was that about ‘all paying’? That reminds trump that statists, particularly racist statists, Defi nitely insane. Welcome to Nanny Knows me of another old mate, public housing. routinely play). Best New Zealand.

50 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz REX BENSON REX’S RUMINATIONS FREE RADICAL Budget Special

DomPost = Compost Having dusted off a few old fi les and folders, I have noted that the last amused for some time, but I stopped chortling a day later when I opened that morning’s Herald piece of mine to grace these pages appeared in TFR #44 in the year and found exactly the same piece staring up at of de lawd 2000. I will not here delve in to the reasons for the ensuing me. quietude, except to say that I noticed I had actually started on another Yes, one thing is sure: Creationists and/or supporters of ‘ID’ will receive a warm welcome ‘rumination’ following that issue, but it never saw the light of day. On to the DomPost Letters section. I think I’ve reading it, however, its import seems to me to be as germane now as it penned half a dozen missives on this subject with nary a one being printed. At fi rst I tried the was then. blunt approach:

“It was predictable that proponents of “Intelligent Design” would react en masse to My friend John Iorns had died at the age of Whatever takes your fancy, be assured that the piece by Bob Brockie on that subject. I do 57, and although I hadn’t seen him for about the good chaplain of Porirua will be there to not know why they bother however, as it merely 30 years, I went to his funeral, as one does. “understand your rage”. He had been a lecturer in the philosophy exposes their philosophical naivety, which must be embarrassing for them.” department at VUW, but at some point had The above rumination was sketched out over thrown all that in, moved out to Pukerua Bay fi ve years ago, and I see no evidence that This having failed to gain a sympathetic ear, I and taken up glasswork. He had become, matters have improved since then. Nor are then went for brevity... apparently, a most accomplished craftsman, they any better in respect of a favourite target and had set up a small business. The funeral of mine, that abominable rag formerly known as “I was wondering if someone could explain to was held at the chapel at Porirua hospital, and the Dumb Onion. You will recall that The Evening me what Unintelligent Design might look like.” as it went its course I noticed and admired on Post in Wellington ceased publication and was one side a large abstract stained glass window merged with its Wellington sister. In the course ... this, if it had appeared, would have been of considerable beauty. It transpired that this of this, and in a reversal of expected behaviour, was in fact one of John’s pieces, and had been my shortest ever published letter, and making gifted by him and his wife to the chapel.

A few weeks after this sad occasion a report in So, how angry are you feeling today? If truly beside yourself, please feel the Dominion brought news that the chapel had free to move from window smashing to bashing up old ladies. Whatever been vandalised, and the window irreparably takes your fancy, be assured that the good chaplain of Porirua will be there smashed. This wanton destruction saddened to “understand your rage.” me, as it seemed to besmirch John’s memory and the worth of his contribution. My feelings on the matter then became considerably more agitated, for as I read further on I saw the bosses pensioned off several long-serving a serious philosophical point too. Following the reaction of someone who you or I, in our bods to the provinces, and retained the worst the failure of this tactic I decided to go for the innocence, might have thought of as being a of both old newspapers for the new organ, jugular again: kind of guardian of the window, namely the commonly referred to by the irreverent as The “The creationists must be desperate if they seek Porirua hospital chaplain. This is what he had DomPost (rhymes with ComPost). Actually, my to gain comfort from the apparent ‘conversion’ to say: view is that things at the DP really took a dive when airborne containers full of copies of The of Anthony Flew, a philosopher who has been around for so long that I’m surprised to learn “They must have been very angry and stirred NZ Herald began to fl ood Wellington dairies and that he is as young as 81. More like a case of up ... I can appreciate any rage the people who supermarkets. In an inexplicable fi t of myopia, someone losing their marbles if you ask me.” destroyed the artwork might have.” DP management failed to grasp the fact that the best way to combat this threat to their local Of course it eventuated that Flew had never Well, bully for him. I remember thinking at the market was to establish a quality newspaper. undergone any such conversion – he had time that this wretched sentiment perfectly merely expressed misgivings about certain Despite the apparent competition, the more illustrated why this country was descending presentations of Darwinian Theory, a fact paranoid of us now wonder if there is not into the mire, a slide which I date, incidentally, that went unreported. I think that the most some conspiracy among the press barons to from the day New Zealand was taken over by unforgivable example of their suppression the Aoteoroans. push with a concerted voice certain points of policy, however, was the refusal to print a short view. Not long ago in the DP there appeared letter of mine on another subject, and one that So, how angry are you feeling today? If only a lengthy piece on the founding of the world’s corrected a blatant untruth. You may have mildly outraged you might consider wandering fi rst Creationist Museum (sic) in the USA, where heard of Inspector (and later Superintendent) on to a rugby ground and exerting your moral else. This was not just a few column inches, but Roderick Alleyn, the protagonist in all 30-odd superiority by disrupting a footie match; if truly at least a half-page spread, with descriptions detective stories written by Ngaio Marsh. beside yourself, please feel free to move from of eye-catching dioramas of children playing Would it surprise you to learn that he was a window smashing to bashing up old ladies. with dinosaurs, and so on. This piece kept me Maori? Read all about it in the DomPost!

Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz September - November 2006—The Free Radical — 51 JASON ROTH

Coming Together To Ban Lube On Airline Flights

Well, it looks like it’s natural lubrication only to anybody. Who the fuck says you can’t is that today's war requires some small level for the mile high club. Fortunately for me, I buy a book on Islamic porn in privacy? of abstraction which these truly anti-rights have less hair these days that would benefi t • You have a "right" to commit acts which assholes are incapable of achieving. from hair gel. I have no doubt that I could obstruct government's ability to protect its smuggle a two- or three-day-sized gob onto citizens' lives. It's easier to ignore the fundamental issues an airplane inside a secret compartment in • Your "rights" will magically be protected and focus on water bottles and library books my cell phone. But I can see it now. All the without a government that can protect when there's no annoying rocket's red glare hotel administration websites will be raging them. in your eyes. All rights depend upon the with discussions about how to handle • Your "rights" to commit acts while you're fundamental right, the right to life. During a the overwhelming number of requests for alive are more important than your existence, war, an emergency situation by defi nition, toothpaste. If I owned a convenience store, which enables you do any fucking thing. government must take action that it would I’d send someone immediately to every • You're going to buy the goddamn Islamic not normally fucking take. But it must take nearby hotel to set up a mega-liquid toiletry porn, and you're going to curse off every these extraordinary actions for the purpose distribution deal. motherfucker who tells you they want to of protecting that thing which makes all rights know what you've bought. possible. Yes, we need standards, even if People will be complaining about their lost different, for how government should act in “rights” to possess liquids on airplanes. Gone Congratulations, you're living in your own such circumstances. Yes, it's plausible that are those beloved bottles of lube, Listerine, impossible dreamland, you want everybody government can assume tyrannical powers and Poland Spring. For the time being, anyway, else to move in, too, and you're going to in such circumstances. But it's irrational these things have gone the way of those make it impossible for everybody else to live and fucking idiotic to assume that the same dearly beheld rights to buy books on Planning in this lowly, shitty, materialistic place we like standards of legal conduct would apply in war Your First Suicide Plot, Non-Metal Explosive to call "reality". You call yourself an advocate time as they do in peace. The fact that people Devices for Dummies and Islamofascists, and of privacy? Here's a little something public: don’t get this boggles my fucking mind. (The that big book of hot, naked, Muslim chicks Fuck you and the pretty, little unicorn you only reasonable disagreement against “no with guns. It’s been a real bummer amongst rode in on. Hopefully, your next jump over the liquids on airplanes” is that “it’s fucking stupid the “privacy advocacy” community that a rainbow in that dreamland of yours will send and won’t work, asshole”.) government at war knows about some of you off a fucking waterfall and splattered all their trips to the library. over the goddamn rocks. Try not to land on To be an “advocate” for the protection the pot of gold, will you? of secondary, conditional rights, without Let’s look at the implications of their advocating the need to protect man’s reasoning: If "privacy advocates" could see people fundamental right, his right to life, is to be an • You have a "right" to commit acts which, shooting guns outside their own windows, advocate for the destruction of all rights. It’s to when viewed in aggregate with other similar they'd probably keep their rarely private be a little, crying baby, whining that you “just acts, make it diffi cult or impossible for mouths shut. If the government should want” your rights, mommy, because your terrorists to be apprehended. Sure, your impose a curfew under such conditions of stomach says so. Left to your own devices, book on Islamic porn is perfectly legitimate, war, there would be relatively few complaints. you would suck the proverbial teat until your albeit embarrassing, but you’re not a threat The reason for the complaints we hear today fucking stomach exploded.

Ten Things Americans Know About New Zealand

1. Hobbits live there. 5. You can never pull the wool over a New 9. New Zealand has a long, brave history Zealander’s eyes. Chances are, he’s of participation in the fi rst and second 2. New Zealanders are a tenacious bunch. already pulled it over his willy. World Wars, leading the world in They’ll walk for kilometers across dozens 6. Small, island nations have continent envy. women’s suffrage, rugby mastery, of rolling hills before shagging a single That’s why they take it out on those poor and whale hunting. With any luck, the sheep. sheep. bastards will succeed in conquering the kiwi. 3. New Zealand is basically the Australian 7. Normally, you’d expect another sheep joke right about now. Unfortunately, Canada. Except that when there’s a draft 10. New Zealand’s most famous actor is there’s nothing funny about an entire in Australia, no conscientious objector an Australian who attacks people with country with their willy’s up a bunch of ever wants to escape to New Zealand. sheep’s asses. telephones and its most famous hot chick used to sleep with Rod Stewart. 4. If it’s not an important enough country 8. The lack of human sexual relations leads a Even a list of ten things Americans for Disney to include as an Epcot Center high percentage of New Zealand women to “know” about New Zealand requires pavilion, it’s not important enough for our enter politics. Americans can identify with Wikipedia research. Can’t you guys hire history books. this. Her name is Hillary Clinton. a fucking PR agent?

52 — The Free Radical—September - November 2006 Visit ‘The Free Radical online’ at: www.FreeRadical.co.nz LINDSAY PERIGO ISLAM

Declaration of War (from SOLOPassion.com)

As the fi fth anniversary of the attack by Islamo-Fascist fi lth on western “KASSless.”* They for whom Objectivism is the philosophy that dare not speak its name. They civilization approached, President Bush reminded his countrymen for whom the term Objectivism is “intimidating.” they are still at war. “Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their These milksops are the most contemptible of all. Their name is The Atlas Society. intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is `Will I declare war on those for whom Objectivism we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?’” is masturbation in an armchair in a cellar hermetically sealed off from the real world. While they fi ddle with themselves, reason and Tragically, inexcusably, vast numbers of men I declare war on those who say Iraq was not freedom burn. and women throughout the Free World are a right war because it wasn’t the right war. intent on answering, “No!” There are any number of wars America might I declare war on those not on fi re for reason legitimately fi ght; Iraq is one of them, Iran and freedom—those for whom Objectivism Inexplicably, some of these traitors to the very assuredly another. freedom to say “No!” claim to be Objectivists. has a post-script that says, “And I don’t mean it.” They are worse than those whom I declare war on those who say America has Ayn Rand called “social ballast.” Ballast at That SOLO for Sense Of Life Objectivists is no business fi ghting a war beyond its own least serves a purpose. Those not on fi re are hostile to this variant of treachery—Saddamy, borders at all. This is the real premise, of a waste of space. They deserve the tyranny as I choose to call it—should be obvious course, of those who backstab the troops in to which their uselessness condemns those enough to anyone who visits my SOLO Iraq. They don’t want the troops in Iran; they website. But as September 11 draws near, who don’t. I want to declare offi cially that SOLO is at war with appeasement—and everything that The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser underpins it, including what I shall henceforth who unleashed them on mankind. refer to as “Pomo-Objectivism.”

SOLO is unashamedly at war, of course, with don’t want them anywhere. They evade the I declare war on those who blindly worship the enemy without—with Islam, Christianity, fact that, unlike the situation in Jefferson’s pygmies like the Brandens while denigrating and all other forms of witchdoctory; with time, threats from other nations can materialize giants like Ayn Rand. On those who denigrate Political Correctness, moral equivalence, within minutes, and America has every right to true hero-worshippers as blind followers, “true relativism and all other post-modern eradicate them pre-emptively. superstitions; with Unreason in all its guises. believers” like themselves. On those who But the appeaser, the enemy within, is the one sanction those who “blacken goodness in its I declare war on those who argue that because who makes possible the victory of any one or grave” … while whitening badness above the America made mistakes in the past it has no all of these. ground. right to act correctly now. “The truly and deliberately evil men are I declare war on cowards. The afore- I declare war on those who preach that civility a very small minority; it is the appeaser mentioned slimeballs who slink and skulk is more important than justice, that only civility who unleashes them on mankind; it is the in dark, backstage corners, too gutless to matters in life, that plain speaking is to be appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites expose their perfi dious turpitude to sunlight. eschewed because it might hurt someone’s them to take over. When a culture’s dominant On those who—worse—agree with this feelings, that calling the appeaser what he is is trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win Declaration but stay mute, afraid of what “offensive.” It is the appeaser who is offensive, over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders others might say. and the more often he’s told it the better. fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the I declare war on those who condemn legitimate I declare War on Pomo-Objectivism. Pomo- thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When anger but sanction its trigger. On those who Objectivism is the totality of all the above. the ablest men turn into cowards, the average Quintessentially postmodern—nihilistic, men turn into brutes.” (Ayn Rand.) quail at the use of the term “Saddamite” while being indifferent to Saddamy. On those who sneering, gutless … and ultra-respectable. “Pomo-Objectivism” is a contradiction in terms— I declare war on the unleashers, the abdicators, object to “insults” regardless of their validity, but that fact doesn’t daunt its advocates. the vacillators, the cowards, the enablers of just because they’re “insults.” On the effetely evil, in our midst. genteel for whom good manners should be extended to the vicious … for instance, to SOLO is at war with all of them. It encourages them to take their true place on the battlefi eld I declare war on those who say America them, or to Jihadists and their apologists. I tell should not have toppled Saddam Hussein their ilk, with a mixture of pride and frustration, of ideas … the enemy corner … because the ultimate outcome may yet be that no “insult” I personally have devised for that it, SOLO, may help slaughter a democratically-elected dictatorship. It may them comes close to expressing my contempt them, and rid the world once and for yet not be—and the latter, not the succouring for them. all of their pernicious, life-negating of Saddam or the undermining of American infl uence. troops, is what every liberty-loving human I declare war on the KASSless sissies who being should be promoting. wail and gnash their teeth over being called *Kass = “Kick-Ass” Editor: Peter Cresswell Articles, Comments and Letters to the Editor, Editor at Large: Lindsay Perigo email the Editor at [email protected] Assistant Editor: Sean Kimpton Thanks to the resources, help, advice, encouragement and contributions from around the blogosphere, including the brilliance of Pacifi cEmpire.Org. Design: Graham Clark (The Tomahawk Kid) NZ, Generation-XY.Blogspot.Com, Latitude45South.Blogspot.Com, WhaleOil. Business Administration Manager: Shirley Riddle. Co.NZ, TeenagePundit.Blogspot.Com. P.O. Box 96-103. Balmoral, Auckland Advertising: Contact Shirley Riddle on [email protected] The opinions expressed by the writers herein are not necessarily those of the Subscriptions: Visit or email Shirley on [email protected] editor, or of each other.