<< LONG TIME BETWEEN NOW AND THE ELECTION ~ MAIN ~ OPINIONS UNWELCOME >>
DEVIL-CALLERS CALLED
The Age reports:
In parliament on Tuesday, Treasurer Peter Costello produced a copy of an online invitation which calls on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to visit Australia.
Costello made this excellent point:
“I would have thought that the leader of the opposition, who is so concerned about the US alliance, wouldn’t have his own senators inviting to this country a man who called the US president a genocidal killer and who went to the UN General Assembly and called the President of the United States the devil,” Mr Costello said.
Meanwhile, Age cartoonist Ron Tandberg imagines that John Howard’s recent criticism of Barack Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq is due primarily to Howard’s racism.
Now the only question is, which blog did he read it on first, here or Bolts??
Beautiful piece of work by the deputy PM, he may be getting his touch back in time for the election.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 13 at 10:46 AM • permalinkYou’d have thought after 90 years since Lenin, Trotsky & Stalin the left might have got the slightest clue about what’s wrong with totalitarian regimes.
You only have to study Chavez’s career plan as a dictator…
First you nationalise the means of production, then you nationalise the means of distribution, then you kill the rich and middle classes and steal their stuff. Then, when there’s no food and no means of production left, and widespread famine, you send in the troops and kill off the poor people or work them to death in labour camps. Then you ask the UN for famine aid. Then you bugger off to the Cayman Islands with the $900billion you stacked away in your private account.
Nice work if you can get it. Not so nice to know there are still true believers like Adams and Pilger who actually believe in this shite.
I emailesd Senator Stott-Despoja this morning on the petition she signed to bring Chavez in. I wondered how she could rationalise “warmly inviting” Chavez in a spirit of “frienship and solidarity” when she is the spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and matters of international human rights. By the standards of HRW and AI - people the Democrats will run to to falsely attack Gitmo - the guy is trouble…yet he is warmly invited to the country?
Give me a break.
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 02 13 at 11:21 AM • permalinkAlready tried that, #3, except it was a study on Vietnam’s economy (or lack there-of) in the 1980s. Sadly no grant, just a writer fee eventually from a travel mag.
btw, look where Vietnam is now thanks to a healthy dose of “commy” capitalism. The place is going gangbusters, racing along since the early 90s once the hobbles were removed.
Let’s see, Bush is worse than Hitler because he took out a genocidal murderer & rapist, and installed a proto-democracy. Plus he’s a dictator because the opposition party is in control of Congress.
Chavez is wonderful because he’s nationalizing the economy and shutting down the opposition media and gets absolute power.Sounds about right for Lefty Logic*
*contains no real logicOnce again, the left shows it is obsessed by race.
Other than them, who gives a toss? Can’t they move on?
Posted by Chris Harper on 2007 02 13 at 11:54 AM • permalinkApparently, in the minds of the Ron Tandbergs of the world, politicians (at least lefty ones) are immune from criticism in direct proportion to their level of melanin.
#3
You might have thought, except the Left doesn’t think, they feel.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 13 at 12:01 PM • permalinkObama’s Church - Affrocentric, Racist and Bush-Hating
Trinity United Church of Christ
About Us
1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.“I would strongly encourage the list signers to apply early to emigrate to the socialist paradise of Vz and escape the cappo oppression of Oz.”
That would raise the IQ of both countries.
Hey, what happened to Margo? Why isn’t her name on the list? I suspect foul play. We must search for her. I’ll start by looking under rocks.
I am rereading Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. He has a quotation of Adolf Hitler from a 1941 speech: “basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same.”
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 02 13 at 12:07 PM • permalinkMurtha speaks on Howard:
http://tinyurl.com/2nastcAnd Pace on Oz and the GWOT.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 13 at 01:11 PM • permalink#15 mareeS
Trinity United Church of Christ.-
“Disavowall of the Pursuit of Middleclassness”
You must be real rich or real poor, just not middleclass? And of course you must be black.
A black man who aspires to improve his station in life is an “Oreo”, a “race traitor” and has abandoned the “struggle”. They must all remain in the ghetto and “fight the white power structure.”
In other words, he is not really “black” unless he’s poor, ignorant and easily manipulated by race hustlers.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 13 at 01:40 PM • permalink“Disavowall of the Pursuit of Middleclassness”
You must be real rich or real poor, just not middleclass? And of course you must be black.
I suspect they mean “bourgeois”, but didn’t want to be so blatant. They may also be associating “middleclass” with “white”.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 02 13 at 01:42 PM • permalink#17, spiny norman, #18 Rob Crawford,
Oreos, lovely racist term from the brothers isn’t it, brown on the outside, white on the inside. So accepting of people who choose a more mainstream life.
One better from Oz: “watermelon” here means green on the outside, red on the inside, ie extreme socialist conservationist who murders people to save trees and marsupial rats.
Off topic, but this Gore effect is frightening.
It is snowing hard enough to shut down University of Toledo (Ohio) today, and we will be getting single digit temps (Farenheit) latter this week. So what is the top headline in the UTNews newspaper today:Doctoral student trains with Gore, ready to educate on global warming
“We have watched developments in Venezuela with great interest. We have been impressed by the great effort that your government has taken to improve the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans,” the invitation states.
Here’s just one way Chavez has improved those living standards:
When this wave of rural people came to the cities they found few jobs, no infrastructure and nowhere to live. There were no houses free so they built their own where they could. These were often on land owned by others. As a result, the barrios where created.
Crowded, chaotic, often without decent access to water or electricity, the barrios are where the majority of Venezuelans live. Often barrio houses are built on unsafe hillside land. Many are so poorly built they are destroyed when there is heavy rain.
So, did he build decent housing and move these Venezuelans out of the slums? Did he improve conditions by bringing electricity, potable water, indoor plumbing, sewage systems, etc into the slums? No and no. Here’s what he did do:
Then, on February 04, 2002 Chavez issued Presidential Decree 1,666 and the CTUs [Comites de Tierras Urbanas—Urban Land Committees] were born. The Presidential Order said that any family that could prove they had built their own home could apply to become the legal owner.
To do this they had to join with 100 to 200 other families to form a CTU. When this was done, each family could provide the details to the Technical Office for Urban Land Tenancy and Regularization (OTNRTTU) and become the owners of their own homes.
That’s right, he in effect told the slum dwellers “You now own your filth and degradation. You deal with it.” And did the people then cry “foul”? Why, no, not at all:
This very simple sounding suggestion from above has resulted in an amazing and widespread acceptance from below. In a short time there were hundreds of CTUs across the country.
In fact, many seem eager to take this policy to it’s natural conclusion:
The people of the barrios are taking ownership of land that technically belongs to someone else. However, CTU activists such as Andrés Antillano argue that there is nothing wrong with this.
Antillano, who is also a University Lecturer in Law, said, “these people have built on this land, developed it and been living on it, in some cases, for decades. In many countries in Europe they would already be the legal owners.”
Many might find no problem with this. Others can make the argument that any infringement of private property endangers it all. In Andres Bello Nidia Lopez’s suggestion of how to help the 23 homeless people would give fuel to this fear.
Lopez said there was a large mansion bordering the Andres Bello, which could house all of the families. She said that it had originally been built and used by military officers. Then a woman had come to privately own it.
There had long been suspicions the sale was corrupt and the house was technically still state property. Lopez said the CTU should try and prove the lady did not legitimately own the mansion. Then they could confiscate it on the behalf of the homeless families.
Not everyone is happy, though:
This fear is that with social organization and a legal mandate from the government the poor will start to turn their attention outside of the barrio. They might want to expand their property at the expense of the rich, invading their pockets of wealth and security.
Recent events cannot have made the fearful wealthy feel better about this. After mudslides that happened on January 5, 2006, groups of desperate homeless people took over abandoned residential buildings in the center of Caracas.
Really, the “wealthy” can be so bourgeois sometimes.
Now, don’t you think you can learn a thing or two from Hugs, Oz?
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 13 at 02:45 PM • permalinkKyda,
In the minds of the lackwit Left, anarchy at the expense of their perceived enemies (the middle and upper classes) is a good thing. 100 Million dead at the hands of socialists and communists simply wasn’t enough to convince us of the justice of their cause, apparently. We need more convincing…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 13 at 03:36 PM • permalinkInteresting information, Kyda. Apparently colonialism is OK so long as it’s “the rich” who are being colonized.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 02 13 at 03:39 PM • permalink#24 Pogria
Shades of Mugabe here.
Well, not quite. Bobby may be big on the confiscation of private land, but he dealt with his shantytown slums by bulldozing them.
;^)
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 02 13 at 04:27 PM • permalinkAny photos I can find of Michelle Barak show an elegant woman wearing fitting suits and jewellery. Maybe Tandberg can’t draw legs, nevertheless a shapeless hijab looking thing is either to further the view that Howard sees her as a Muslim, or Tandberg has made that assumption about Michelle.
To invent racism as a reason for Howard’s disagreement with Obama’s policy on Iraq is both without foundation and it is to belittle the very unpleasant and unacceptable nature of racism. There are many people who are the victims of racism, they must feel that their pain is irrelevant to the left when they see this parody of what racism is. Tandberg has reduced it to nothing more than a term of abuse to be directed at any whose views one disagrees with, nothing more.
Shame Tandberg.
Speaking of Tandberg, how far exactly does a cartoonist’s ‘licence’ run? Tandberg today has a cartoon (not online as far as I can see) of Howard standing against a background of American flag-draped coffins, saying “It’s a small price to pay for our freedom”. Howard is too smart to ever sue pondscum like Tandberg, but isn’t this libellous? When did Howard ever suggest that American troop deaths in Iraq were trivial or insignificant?
Would 1.618 be clean enough to be a Democrat presidential candidate, then, Dminor?
And maybe Hugo can give a reprise of his “Christ killer” speech if he addresses the ALP? It’d certainly keep the Ant et al. onside.
BTW, rbj1, I didn’t bother reading your link: is the UTNews the Utter Twat News?
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 13 at 06:15 PM • permalinkThank you 1.618 and a hug back to you.
Dminor
This will be, then, his last post for today. On the plus side, he’ll be nice and clean tomorrow. Maybe a bit wrinkly still, but very clean.
Ahhh yes, nothing like getting soaped with a set of large (or is that, a large set of?), pads, yeah pads, that’s it.
As for “Tim Tam”, I hope he has a good size… water heater. Yeah, water heater.
http://www.theage.com.au/cartoons/index.html,
Leunig, Howard as a snake in Osama.To keep a snake as a pet is not permissible. Rasulullah has commanded the killing of snakes. (Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim). Mirqat Vol. 7 Pg: 712 [Maktaba Haqqaaniyya]
Is Leunig that deep, or just plain ignorant.
It seems it is quite OK from the left’s point of view to assume that because Obama has an African heritage, then he can only be seen as a black person, and all that they are is black, so any other aspect of them, eg a socialist or a defeatist is made invisible by their blackness. Hence when a right wing person criticises them for being a defeatist all the left can see is their blackness, not an individual moral agent capable of being right or wrong. What is very clear is that it is not Howard that only sees a black man. Who are the racists?
Their logic is appalling, they deliberately confuse correlation and causation, they appeal to ignorance (it hasn’t been proven that deep in Howard’s mind was the fact that Obama was black, well its at the forefront of theirs) hence he is being a racist. They attack a Howard straw man, not what he is saying. As always their arguments are outstanding versions of false cause.
Hence It seems quite reasonable for me to assume that Leunig is saying that Howard as a snake in a Muslim context is both evil and should be killed
#38 It seems it is quite OK from the left’s point of view to assume that because Obama has an African heritage, then he can only be seen as a black person
The irony here is (particularly from the left point of view) that among African-Americans, there’s a substantial number who don’t think Obama, having a white mother, is black enough, or that, having an African father, he’s the right kind of black. These are the types who swoon over the ebonetically cadenced doggerel of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It’s a conundrum for the “unintentional” racists of the left.
Any criticism, of any type, against anyone who’s vaguely ethnic is of course racist:
Mr Iemma’s indecision has become the butt of parliamentary jokes. When Mr Debnam referred to him as “Premier Dilemma” in the “bear pit” last week, Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano asked that he “withdraw his racist slur”.
There must be a manual somewhere on how to be a Socialist Dictator (SD). Take a country that has not yet industrialised (apparently any country), gain control of the government by any means, start to kill the people one way or another, blame the US, get the support of leftie intellectuals in western countries.
I’m sure there are little regional differences but look at the record: Stalin, Mao, all the East Europeans thingies, Pol Pot, that dead(?) Cuban guy, Chavez. The similarities are so striking it cannot be a coincidence.
There’s always room for more irony where the Left is concerned. One of their favourite pass-times is accusing right-wingers of racism, or any form of discrimination. We’re judgemental, you see. And of course, they’re not.
Not by half! Any idea, ideal, culture, individual or group they disagree with comes in for the worst vilification they can drum up. As a rough rule of thumb, they rail against anything successful.
I’ll root for an underdog of my choosing. The Left, however, is tying itself up in knots by backing any underdog, anywhere. Even when one contradicts the other.
BTW, I’ve yet to see a racist statement on this blog. No one here criticizes blacks for being black, Arabs for being from the Middle East, and so on. We criticize what we see as backward, oppressive cultures, and at times we generalize about certain groups that contain relatively high proportions of undesirables. You can see by the comments of passing trolls how doggedly the Left refuses to acknowledge the distinction.
Sorry to drag cricket into the thread, but it’s just one example, along with the footy, where you will find white Australians - supposedly racist, supremacist bigots - cheering like mad for a player, be they Aboriginal, Indian or Negro, etc. That’s because we admire success in many forms, and don’t give a rat’s arse where it comes from. Lefties shrink from success like vampires from the sun.
Bloodsuckers, the lot of them.
The left is just completely deranged, and therefore dangerous. Completely lost touched with reality. They assume others think like them. They are racist, paternalist and anti-freedom, especially for non-western women.
They are just beyond the pale.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 13 at 08:36 PM • permalinkMeanwhile the non-productive sector of the economy just keeps getting bigger and bigger
30% more bureaucrats is not enough! We need more! Especially young ‘uns with arts-law degrees, who know fuck all about anything but still want to change the world!
#8
Get your lefty logic.
Get your lefty logic here.
Fell good. Posturize on things moral. Superiorize yourself. Masterbate that intellect and preen those moral airs.
Going cheap. Let others pay. Just add hysteria. No thought required.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 13 at 08:46 PM • permalinkI don’t know much about Barak Obama, but the last of his type (David Palmer) seemed to do a pretty good job.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 13 at 08:46 PM • permalinkTandberg paints Bush as a racist yet he has had two black secretaries of state, which is the pinnicle of a president’s advisers. Of course, the left sees itself as the champions of equality but think of this:
First Australian woman MP - Edith Cowan (1920), representing the conservative Nationalist Party in WA parliament.
First woman cabinet minister - Florence Cardell-Oliver (1947) - Liberal in WA parliament (it took Labor until 1980 to achieve the same milestone)
First woman in federal House of Reps - Enid Lyons, Liberal, 1943
First woman federal minister - Annabelle Rankin, Liberal, 1966
First Aborigine in an Australian parliament - Neville Bonner, Liberal, 1971
First Aborigine is a state or territory parliament - Hyacinth Tungutalum, NT, in 1974 for the Liberal-National Party. Same year Eric Deeral won a seat in the Queensland parliament for the Nationals. It was another three years before Labor put an Aborigine in a winnable seat.
First state premier born in a non-English speaking country - Nick Greiner (NSW), 1988, Liberal Party.
Labor like to talk the talk but when it comes to the crunch, Labor remains as racist and misogynist as it was when Arthur (two Wongs don’t make a white) Calwell led the party.
As a general observation, a big difference between Australia and Canada is that in Oz, the Liberals appear to be the conservatives while up here, the Liberals are the pseudo lefties. We do have an even further left party called the New Democratic Party, or knee-dippers for short. These latter want the socialist eutopia and out of NATO, redistribuition of other peoples’ property, etc.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 13 at 09:23 PM • permalink#58 - Yes, our Liberals are the conservative-lite party. Best of a pretty ordinary bunch.
We also have two mainstream oppostion parties. The Labor Party who are a collective of union leaders and The MSM, who are a collective of socialist, hate filled, swines.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 13 at 09:28 PM • permalinkI have my own take on it and in an upcoming post this week will go into the fact that racism and discrimination are endemic on the left these days, as well as why fascism can only be a product of the left.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 02 13 at 09:31 PM • permalinkCongratulations on the blog, Jack. May I selfishly suggest a racing section?
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 13 at 09:36 PM • permalink#61 - Thanks, Infidel.
A racing section might not quite be in keeping with the overt political sentiment of the blog. I also wouldn’t be able to post on racing all that regularly so it wouldn’t hold people’s interest, really.
I will be interested to see how Sandown R4#9 Sunburnt Land goes. He has been running around in much better company than this and I rate him as a good horse. If there’s any backing for him at all then I’ll get on board as the Ellerton boys generally know what they’re up to. In R3 I’ll be backing #7 Shinko Blue on a 1x2 basis if I can get $10+.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 02 13 at 09:49 PM • permalinkThank you and cid and lovely rebecca.
If I was with the Tim-ster, in my shower I’m thinking Warragamba would dry up( I forget to tell the world I enjoy long showers)
Hi my Valentine’s day favourite journalist….
:” “: ” “: ” : “: sparkles of love from your secret,gorgeous,funny,pretty,sometimes bad at vacumming but secret admirer most of all ssssssss and sometimes anoying but you know I hope you don’t mind..
^*^ cupid pinging you ^*^ <——ping ^I^
1.618, some day you’ll have to tell us all about how you came to develop your crush on Mr Blair.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 13 at 10:02 PM • permalinkNobody around here cares if Obama is black, half-black, not black enough, whatever. We care that he’s a liberal flim-flam man. A new kind of politics, right. Obama’s straight out of the Chicago Democrat machine.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 13 at 10:55 PM • permalink#63 - ha! surprise! maybe i’ll post the odd tip somewhere on there sometime.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 02 13 at 11:05 PM • permalink# 49 “know fuck all about anything but want to change the world”
sums up all socialist thought from what was it, 1789 on…
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 02 13 at 11:09 PM • permalinkThe allegation of racism is so freely bandied-about without justification that one might think that it has lost its sting. Perhaps in some quarters it has, but not in places like Universities, where the mere making of the allegation is damaging to reputation and consequently to promotion prospects, etc, and makes one liable to ostracism.
The common law remedy of defamation is useless, but in Victoria we now have a ‘bill of rights’ (the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006) which says:
section 13. Privacy and reputation
A person has the right-
… (b) not to have his or her reputation unlawfully attacked.Could one hope that a Human Rights Commission or such like publicly funded body might proceed itself against a powerful body such as The Age?
Well, probably not. A bill of rights is a political instrument, and will be employed for political ends.
#75
A public servant! Quick! Burn him! Burn him I say!
casanova we are not that doctrinaire (or at least I’m not). I didn’t mean to suggest that ‘bureaucrat’ is, in and of itself, a perjorative term. Plenty of terrific work is done by state employees. It’s the ballooning out of the state bureaucracy under Labor, paid for by windfall GST revenue, that I’m concerned about. Read Tony Abbott at #49.
“Meanwhile, Age cartoonist Ron Tandberg imagines that John Howard’s recent criticism of Barack Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq is due primarily to Howard’s racism.”
The cartoon I saw showed two guys looking at a Democrat and saying “We don’t want people like that running our country”.
That’s pretty much the way I see it too.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 02 14 at 01:15 AM • permalink#54
Calwell uttered “two Wongs don’t make a white” when defending the white Australia policy. He was immigration minister in the Chifley labor government at the time, so it would have been the late 1940s. He was also reputed to has said that there would be no “wogs, dogs or golliwogs allowed into Australia” but this has since been disputed as the left rewrites history. calwell, the most overtly racist politician in the past 60 years is now claimed to be a warrior against racism. HmmmmmmCalwell’s Wong statement was just him expressing the views of his masters at trades hall, who didn’t want productive Asian workers in Australia undermining union feather-bedding. Sixty years on and we have another Labor leader being controlled from trades hall. And we are seeing a public re-emergence of racism on the left, such as the Greens’ extraordinary suggestion that foreign workers will bring disease and prostitutes to Tasmania and the ACTU’s attacks on Chinese guest workers.
It is why I hate the left. They are everything they accuse others of being - racist, elitist, selfish and greedy.
#75- sorry to piss on your parade, but I don’t see “tax” paid by public employees to be tax as such, it is more a payroll deduction towards part of the facilities and services supplied with employment. Income tax can only really be paid by creators of wealth, as it is a tax on wealth.
-Libertarian pedantry off.
BTW, I was one of the loathed class myself for sometime, but got to the stage where I couldn’t justify my position to myself any more and jumped the fence- try it, it’s very self-satisfying, and a hoot being able to dump on all your old cronies for their parasitism.
#78- Artie definately made the “two wongs” statement, and local history had him lob into the Pagoda Room in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley shortly thereafter, where he was recognised by the patron and had a colander full of noodles dumped on his empty head, then was picked up and hurled out the front door into Wickham St, and rightly so.
Caldwell was giving voice to the attitude of the union movement* though, I doubt he ever had an original thought ever- but then again, it’s more hazardous when left leaning politicians do have original thoughts- that leads to the like of Herbie Evatt.
*Which hasn’t changed much with time.
State public services are one of the last great bastions of unionised labour, and state governments have a vested interest in their burgeoning numbers- it keeps the public sector off their backs, creates a sizable voting bloc and provides a cosy refuge if you get caught with your mitt in the biscuit barrel (or your willy in a boyscout for that matter).
Abbott however has a bit of a hide slagging off the states for their tumorous expansion of the public sector when the feds are also putting on staff like Phillip Adams puts on weight. Many are now contractors so union membership isn’t an issue, but they’re still paid from the revenues swiped from wealth creation, and are a drain on growth.
A pity Howard et al aren’t the heartless disciples of Hayek and Friedman that the ALP likes to portray them as.
(I also fail to see what benefit there is for the coalition in an expanded public sector- certainly a lot of it is pork barrelling and expanding social control, but surely there’s more votes in tax cuts rather than churning? Or maybe I’m just a dumb capitalist, who doesn’t understand the intricacies of fiscal flummery).Habib
P!ss all you like, for I too have worked out in wonderful private enterprise land and my folks were even small business owners, so seen it from all sides, crappy go no-where jobs in call centres and sales, small minded scrooge bosses who think every razoo they spent on any training or equipment was another dollar from their pocket… Clowns that didn’t want to pay you on time etc etc… Not exactly nirvana and I never felt quite like Kerry Packer either in terms of my wealth creation activities…
As for public servants, there are good and bad, like in private enterprise and everything else in the world…. Some Department’s are needed more than others(or appear to on the surface anyway), oppositions love to complain about government waste until they get in, do a quick draconian cut back and then slowly build it all up again…. And half the time later you find the savings were false economies anyway…
And that Libertarian tosh sounds suspiciously like the flip side of mindless anarchism, governments can’t tell me what to think, do, or take any of my money/assets etc…
I’d like to see just how much commerce and wealth creation went on without power, water, utilities etc, without an education system to produce half skilled workers, a police force to protect property and liberty, a court system to enforce private property and trading laws, a health system to look after people from birth to death… No planning for road or rail or ports built for distribution?? no infrastructure set up for establishing new industrial or residential zones??? No fair trading laws enforced??? You think the pixies run all this while we fat PS have long lunches???
The money for this isn’t printed out the back as you surely know so it has to come from somewhere and sorry we aren’t prepared to work for charity… And if the PS was gotten rid of being a stinking rich robber baron in the equivalent of the middle ages dying around 35 just doesn’t sound like much fun to me anyway… Just look how much Joe and Jane Average p!ss and moan when the health or education systems don’t operate properly…
Government is to effective business practice as Budweiser is to beer.
Simple fact - people will always spend their own money more effectively than someone else.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 14 at 02:55 AM • permalinkWith all due respect IT, that is simpleton crap…
With no laws and no police, who ever is the biggest and strongest will come and take your money, and probably give you a thick ear if you don’t like it…
And without effective health systems, I’m guess your just assuming you wouldn’t be one of the bubs lost in child birth, or lost from zero immunisations campaigns like used to happen…
A bit of proper analysis of how things used to be (and still are in most of the third world with zero or totally corrupt public services) is more useful than trotting out trite statements like that…
Outside of defence and possibly law enforcement/justice systems, what services currently provided by government can’t be provided privately? And I mean real private enterprise with competition, not the half-arsed “privatised” monopoly traders so beloved by all levels of government, which means they retain control (and the same level of shitful service) without the same level of scrutiny, and a handy board to parachute into if disendorsed or de-elected.
I think you’ll find if most government services dissapeared overnight not too many people would notice, except perhaps for the sudden plethora of readies in their pocket which they could invest or spend however they want.
I refer to Uncle Miltys four ways of spending for a simplified but accurate illustration of governments efficient deployment of resources.
(BTW, I’ve been invited back into the PS several times now but have declined each offer- free beer and the chance to punch Paul Keating in the face daily* wouldn’t tempt be back into that patronage-infested, talent-sapping, initiative and innovation ignoring morass of mediocrity, but each to their own).
*I fibbed about this, I don’t think anyone could turn down that sort of temptation.
#84 - Apologies for not providing a concise dissertation on the merits of libertarian and neo-classical conservative government models vis a vis centralist, socialist government models in two throw away lines. My bad.
However, if you don’t think our public service is a bloated out of control mess, then we’ll have to disagree.
BTW, it’s not the public services fault it’s a ramshackle. It’s the pollies who think that if they don’t introduce more stupid and unnecessary legislation everyday, they aren’t doing their jobs. For a far funnier view on this read here.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 14 at 03:20 AM • permalinkHabib, half the public service exists to provide services which are uneconomic (to provide at a reasonable price) and which private enterprise neither can wring a profit out of nor gives a shite about….
In WA here we have just had a big hoo haa about children being left in abusive families and being killed because of lack of oversight from responsible agencies, what private enterprise is going to look after that???? In WA we don’t have a toll free road, and after half the shite coming out of NSW about that f*ck up with your cross city tunnel etc, i pray we never do… Once again at a price Private Enterprise (PE) could provide this, but i don’t want to pay tolls frankly, like most West Aussies, so I am more than happy to leave it to government even it means we have fewer flashy shiny roads than you lot do…..
What about border security in terms of keeping out diseases, pests, i think people were rather glad when SARS or Bird Flu or Foot and Mouth and other pandemics were never about the place???
The fact is we live in a great country because of having a half decent public service for the last 150 years that has built up what we have around us, before private enterprise was willing to build dams and roads and all the other infrastructure crap…..
To say now we flick it off is rather cute (if it disappeared over night), hang on the next time we desperately need something, like SES services in a big storm or something, do we just flick it back on??? Oh oh, everyone is out madly creating wealth for themselves aren’t they, toooo bad….
Hang on, what business is going to enforce the fair trading rules??? Bit like having the fox minding the hen house isn’t it???
So yes, in a perfect world PE could provide most(definiately not all) services, if you are prepared to pay any price (wouldn’t the pigs start squealing then if everything was delivered at cost price plus profit)... Unfortunately we live in the real world where you can’t flick things off and on as you need them… And everything around us didn’t just pop up one night…. And if we had all these miners and manufacturers out providing expensive, dull public services, who would dig up all the minerals or do all the other whizz bang wealth creating stuff…
I suppose a profit run foreign affairs service would be really top notch too….
#87 I am not a union member (nor are plenty of PS these days), am far from saying any of the PS around Australia are perfect, and am glad of the influx of outside talent and thinking into the PS over here since it was opened up 10 years ago so it wasn’t such a protected species full of cardigan wearing fuddy duddies….
But to ignore the big picture and drop one liners, or put out simple models hardly does the argument/conversation justice… Its easy to knock the PS but we would all be a lot poorer off without it, you hardly notice it when things run smoothly and you just have the odd gripe, see how people would feel if it did disappear overnight or they had to pay full fees for unis, education etc, etc like they are starting to have to under user pays etc… Or full fees for medical procedures like over in the US….
Many of us are here these days because of the public health campaigns that stopped pandemics that use to kill millions, and still do overseas….
The SES is a volunteer organisation (my old man was the director in Qld, having left the army) and there’s no shortage of other volunteer organisations and charities that could pick up the slack (and whose funding would markedly increase with a decline in compulsory altruism); if you own a motor vehicle you fund road tolls through userous excise and registration charges; public hospitals and schools are viral disasters- who uses either by choice? I worked in a border security area, and if you think that’s in good hands now you’re seriouslt deluded, or have watched too much of the PR campaign that Ch 7 runs on Wednesday nights- why couldn’t it be tendered out? Same goes for policing, with more emphasis on personal responsibility- after all, in most cases all the cops do is tag and bag the bodies after the event, they have little if any (and shrinking) dfeterent effect. Crime could be slashed anyway by legalising all drugs, and if there is to be taxation maintain consumption (and thus discretionary) taxation, including excise on products now currently illegal but subject to high levels of demand and price.
Get rid of addiction as a reason for welfare as well, and subject DSP claimants to a rigourous testing procedure with continual review. What’s wrong with welfare being based on a voluntary insurance setup?
Why should you be able to draw on welfare now without ever contributing? And pls expalin why we need a foreign service? What’s wrong with telecommuting? Foreign Affairs is the most patronage-riddled waste of money out of a whole mess of the like- a retirement home for failed politicians who never actually do their job, which is to be rude to obnxious foreign regimes- instead they play footsie with them.And don’t let me get started on the Yartz and Fillums. Or the AB fucking C.
What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 14 at 03:50 AM • permalink#92 - Sweet Georgia Brown! You’re touchier than a perve on the Tokyo subway.
I’ll apologise to you in triplicate if you can prove otherwise that I know how to spend my money best*.
*I will admit that when I’m fuller than a fat chicks undies my judgment isn’t the best, but it’s still better than a politicians.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 14 at 04:09 AM • permalink#88
A good comparison is the US system, which may have private enterprise but is still very big on Govt regulation and Govt is still a big employer and trainer.
In my industry (ICT), the trend is towards vendor-provided training, but this can often be death-by-powerpoint waffle and not what the Dr ordered whatsoever.
Prolly like others here I have received Govt and corporate training, both here and in the US and so can make comparisons.If you’re such a big fan of government, why aren’t you hanging with all the hipsters at Quiggins and Lamberts? Two fine examples of public funding at work. And BTW- I think you’ll find my daffy ideas are pretty much like the ones that resurected the dying British economy in the ‘80s, likewise the US after the Cahtahh disastahhh. Public dosh is like a pub shout- great to be on the recieving end, not so flash to be the provider. Answer this honestly- if taxation was voluntary, would you pay? I haven’t found anyone yet to answer in the affirmative, including long term public fund hoovers. If it’s all so peachy keen good and efficient, such excellent value for the paltrey sums swiped, why does everone, even the most dedicated socialist, file dodgy claims on their tax returns and try to dodge paying duty on their excess booze and fags at the airport? Surely people would be adding a bit extra with their tax return, bacause it’s all so sagely spent.
I also make no claim to do anything to keep the country afloat, but if not for government interference I’d be able to buy a 360 Cabriolet for less than half the current asking price- the resultant sea level rise might actually contribute to the countrys sinking. Just as well government’s there to stop me than, and to keep me from putting my tongue in a light socket or ironing the cat. We’re far too stupid to look to our own affairs it seems.
#82
Slightly OT:
Costello is now using KRuddy’s link to Beattie as a bashing tool in Parliament: ABC RN News grab of Costello linking Rudd to Beattie’s running down of the State education system due to lack of funding ... Rudder’s key policy issue.Awaiting the KRuddster’s QLD dirt file to appear prior to the election.
No not really touchy at all… Just restating reasonably well argued points and then being told i can’t communicate is hardly endearing to me… Sorry if i took that the wrong way or if u meant something different…
Habib, probably half jokingly, did call us parasites, but i suppose i have been called worse…
As to your question about taxation Habib, yes to enjoy the standard of living we do taxation is needed and i don’t mind paying it… If everyone else got to not pay tax and i was the only one, then no, my contribution probably wouldn’t count and so there would be little point giving it and i would need every razoo to pay for every over priced service that was being flogged by all those caring private companies… As long as everyone else is willing to pay something (and it doesn’t all have to be the same), then yes i am willing to pay… So now your quest to find someone is over Habib…. Rest easy…
And when I read your piece Habib, I must say my first thought was this is just a word for word description of Britain today, and how did you think we could ever be so lucky to replicate what you have planned for us… As well for some, that last sentence of yours is not all together incorrect either…
I guess we could crack out the guns and head for the hills till society falls and we have the good old days back… You won’t have to subsidise bludgers like me then…. :o)
Habib, you are outta your mind!
“Crime could be slashed anyway by legalising all drugs,”
You have NO idea of the sheer cost and waste of this. Amphetamine type substances (‘ice’ shabu, MDMA etc)have a far greater cost to the health system (irrespective of public or private) than heroin or other narcotics. We are already getting 18-22 YO ice addicts and they are mentally screwed for life, violent psychoses requiring institutionalisation for LIFE because the dumb bastards never get better. Their dopamine systems are ruined.
Legalise this shit and you can kiss a goodly chunk of your younger generation goodbye.
The enormous ATS lab found late last year in Kuala Lumpur could produce tons of the highest quality stuff a week, and the low quality stuff is so cheap to make that in metro Manila (shabu country) they make huge profits off volume sales at 25c a hit. And the impact of shabu is pretty grim. That KL drug lab had upper end range profit potential of USD 450 million. A WEEK. AT wholesale prices, not retail. ATS is easy, cheap and simple to make, and if you legalise it you will lose a seious chunk of your population. What do you DO with, say, 250,000 extremely violent, hallucinating, uncontrollably psychotic people? And there are an estimated 1,000,000-2,000,000 ATS users (mostly MDMA, which is bad enough, and most MDMA (ecstasy) sold here is very impure. Normally, she’s a ketamine-methylamphetamine mix. Seriously bad stuff.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You have to have a balance. Public construction and ownership of fundamental inrastructure is what makes a civilisation. I am talking base load power systems, water supplies, defence and basic transport infrastructure like ports. Even here, much can be privately owned, but a critical mass of thjis basic stuff should be publicly owned.
MarkL
canberraIf someone’s dumb enough to fuck themselves up on crystal meth, whos business is it other than theirs? If they’ve got to pay for their treatment/ambo carriage etc they may think twice about using it. There’s no cost now, except for the minor risk of being pinched, and it has the added attraction of being naughty. If they’ve got to toddle off to the Meth shop and buy a jar of excise ice, it doesn’t have quite the same amount of deadshit cred. I spent 16 years in narcotics law enforcement, and it’s a collossal waste of time and money. And if the user hasn’t ther means to pay for their treatment etc, the bill should go to their family- they may then actually take an interest in what snookums is up to.
#98- you would honestly voluntarily hand half or more of your income to a pack of scoundrels, wastrels and pisspots*? Have I got an investment scheme for you!
*I refer in this case to the politicians who make the decisions regarding which toilet/black hole/hysteria du jour funds are to be tipped, not the minions who do the tipping, many of which are decent (if often misguided people). Politicians are about as good at “investing” money as I am at picking winning lotto numbers. Speaking of which, I had an idea a while back to replace income tax with a string of casinos, keno and pachinko parlours and other punt palaces- it’s volunary spending, and at least you have some (if very remote) chance of actually getting something back. At the moment I get three tenths of five eights of fuck all.
Back to topic, aside from the content Age cartoonist Ron Tandberg is a lousy drawer. I suggest the old cartoonists trick of having Howard and (I think) Bush carrying suitcases with their names and title emblazened on them.
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 02 14 at 08:48 AM • permalinkAnd on PS, the thing that Rudd can claim is the emergence of a vice like grip of public governance with a Central Policy Unit. All the States and Territories have followed. Premiers and Chief Ministers office’s are full with leeching policy operatives while infrastructure crumbles and basic services lack funding. However, the lunching and coffee economy in the immediate vicinity of these sheltered workshops are going gangbusters.
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 02 14 at 08:51 AM • permalinkAnd they’re invariably timeserving party apparatchiks*, with as much skill and experience in executive administration as a blowfly.
And about the same level of social skills and charm.
*The state judiciaries are being stacked with similar creatures, many of whom have either never or very minimally practised law, but are rated as competent to rule on points of same. Little wonder so many matters go to appeal.
It’s an old saying that you get the government you deserve- if this is true, we really must be a right pack of cunts.
Forget Caldwell, what about Whitlam:
“I’m not having hundreds of fucking Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political hatreds against us!”
By ‘us’ he meant the Labor Party.
And:
“These Vietnamese sob stories don’t ring my withers.”
And then there’s Keating’s maiden speech:
“The government hopes to offset the present population situation by immigration. It is time we considered the enormous cost of bringing migrants to this country. We must bear in mind this cost when we consider the cost of subsidising Australian families… These figures may sound high but they are not when we compare the cost of bringing migrants to this country. After all, the best migrant is the infant Australian”.
Oh well Habib, I don’t know what they did to you in whatever department you languished in (your colleagues kept nicking all the bickies on the tea trolley before it got to you???), but your contempt for the public service and politicians has drifted into the irrational i’m afraid… No use arguing anymore based on facts and logic…
If you can pick out a functioning country that has done away with its public service and pollies, i may give your thoughts some slight credence… And perhaps you should even consider moving there where i’m sure the wealth creation will be rocketing off the charts???
If you can’t name any, then i guess its either all the rest of the world that are clueless, duped twats and just you have the secret answer to utopia, or else everyone else does have a clue and…...?
* PS on the tax thing, how do you translate my answer of “yes i don’t mind paying tax to fund needed services in a decent society” translate into me wanting to give half my pay away??? Anyway good luck on getting your 360 Cabriolet, make sure you rub it into those dirty, bludging, parasitic PS types you know when you do… :o)
Re: Public servants and what good they do
From the editorial in the Australian today.
In June, [Mal Brough] described law and order in remote communities as a national disgrace, and said the commonwealth was willing to step up to the plate and work with state and territory governments to address the issue. More than six months later, not one cent of the $4.467 million first-year funding has been allocated. Instead, federal parliament was told that Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland were still undertaking bureaucratic reviews of how to spend the money.
I’m not stupid enough to believe that some level of government is necessary- after all, unlike lefties I don’t believe in the rationality and benevolence inherent in humans; in fact I believe a large number are arseholes. But how much is enough? Every level has been growing exponentially since WW2, and if evolution is correct humans should require less, not more state control and nannying; there are no countries that have done away with government entirely, as they cease to be countries- Somalia for example is a brawl with borders, but that has more to do with the previously mewntioned arsehole status, a prominent feature of Somalis.
Expansive government is a symptom, no more, of the growth of busybodydom- the idea a number of our fellow citizens have that they know far better what’s right for others, who shouldn’y be allowed out of the house without a keeper and certainly not permitted to operate a motor vehicle without a flagged escort and a klaxon to warm of the inherent dangers of velocipedes. The idiocy of traffic calming is the inevitable result.Compare if you will nations who have sought to limit government (but mostly failed) such as the USA with those that saw government as the central source of the state, such as Albania or North Korea.
Res Ipsa Loquitor.
having spent a bit of time in & out of the public sector, it is clear that australian public servants are at the lowest point for several decades. the buoyant job market means a new graduate economist can walk into a $120K job with one of the banks. those with a few years on the clock can earn double. so finance departments, the productivity commission etc, have seen their smart money people flee to the private sector & we now have utter duds running some of the largest corporations in the country (eg government is the largest enterprise in victoria, god help us). politicisation of the state bureaucracies is rampant - once again in victoria, there was a bit of blood on the carpet under kennett, but nothing like the purges of bracks. the overall size of the public sector has ballooned, & this is represented as getting nurses & coppers back on the books after the kennett slashings, but the really big increase has been in the number of hacks & political arselickers appointed to non-jobs like diversity management, the creators of glossy brochures & radio & tv ads that inform nobody of anything worthwhile but create the illusion of action, or the dolers-out of the largesse from the ever-proliferating pork barrels. a really offensive example is bushfire recovery funding: not the big dollars to help rebuild shattered communities, but money for crappy festivals to ‘heal the community’ & such tosh. i recommend this website for a daily dose of garbage from a woeful bunch of losers wasting our money on garbage
& thank you kk for the use of your account
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
But isn’t Obama a darkie?