"The state keeps pretending we are a nation of 'two peoples.' But that’s not true."

"There’s a quiet word baked into New Zealand legislation that’s been doing a lot more damage than people realise: bicultural. ...
    "It’s the linguistic gateway for race-based privilege, mandatory consultation with iwi, spiritual red tape like karakia and 'wairua health,' and culturally enforced obligations that ordinary citizens are expected to obey — often at a financial or legal cost. ...
    "It’s apartheid by paperwork. It's not inclusion — it’s a soft form of segregation, dressed up in government branding. The state keeps pretending we are a nation of 'two peoples.' But that’s not true. ...
    "Anthropology makes this obvious. New Zealand law does not."

~ John Robertson from his post ' Why the Word “Bicultural” Needs to Be Erased from New Zealand Law'

Seymour's Bill is frightening the luvvies so much they can't read

DAVID SEYMOUR'S REMARKABLY TEPID Regulatory Standards Bill is getting frightened and bewildered luvvies to put down their lattes and type indignant emails to their MPs.

Fuel for many of this outraged commentariat (Anne Salmond was the first; Brian Easton is the latest) is provided by a book-length screed by one Quinn Slobodian called Hayek's Bastards, "The premise of Quinn Slobodian’s new book," says the bookplate, "is that authoritarian right-wing populism is a mutated version of classical liberal economics." A version labelled "neoliberalism" by its opponents.

A counter-intuitive thesis to be sure, So I checked on some actual classical liberals to see what they thought of the book. (Pointless asking Trump followers, since we know none of them can read. Or "neoliberals," none of whom actually exist.)

Phil Magness, an economic historian  who most recently convinced over 150 economists and scholars to sign a declaration opposing Trump's economically harmful, constitutionally dubious tariff policies, wonders aloud at the absurdity of the book's central thesis. Which is Slobodian's apparent conviction "that Trumpism traces its intellectual origins to the Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises." This would undoubtedly astonish all three. 

Slobodian's attempts to link the three suffers, Magness says wryly, "from a lack of clear evidence for the parentage. Undeterred, Slobodian supplies the links by making them up."

As they say, if you have to lie to make up your criticisms, it suggests you probably don't have any.

Slobodian of course relies on the fact that few if any of his credulous readers will bother to actually read Hayek or Mises. (Easton for one would benefit hugely from the experience.) But if you want a candid study of how to quote somebody to say the precise opposite of what they say — in this case Mises quoting others to denounce their racial prejudice is used to suggest their vile views are his own — then Magness's review is a good place to start. 

This is not even sleight of hand. It's a conjurer simply assuming his audience are too dumb to notice. "Deliberate deception" is how another commentator describes it. It's a consistent pattern. Here's Slobodian in 2015, for example, showing how to get Mises to support something he was writing to oppose:

Slobodian demonstrates his pattern of ripping quotes from their
context to give the opposite impression of an author's intention.

It's complete dishonesty: a "scurrilous  ... slipshod attempt to taint and tarnish the reputation of one of the leading economists of the 20th century, and one of the most consistent and outspoken defenders of the classical liberal ideal of political, social and economic liberty and the free society," says Misesian Richard Ebeling in his response to the deception.

We live at a time when one of the worst accusations that can be thrown at someone is the charge of “racist.” Have that word tied to your name and it not only results in moral condemnation, it potentially throws into discredit almost anything and everything that person has said or done. That makes it a serious matter when an individual never identified with such racist views or values has that accusation attached to them. ... The actual facts show this is a fundamentally baseless accusation that attempts to taint and tarnish the reputation of one of the leading economists of the 20th century ...

[O]ne of the most embarrassing observations that can made about an author’s work [is] being slipshod scholarship. Professor Slobodian has 93 footnotes in his article. Over 50 of them reference Mises’s writings or correspondence. Looking them up, I found many instances in which the page reference to a paraphrase of a passage or a quote in one of Mises’s works was not to be found where Professor Slobodian indicated it to be.

In some instances, this was not simply being off a page or two; the page referenced turned out to be in a portion of one of Mises’s works that had nothing to do with the theme or idea that Professor Slobodian was referring to....

In addition, there are instances in which Professor Slobodian asserts or implies views or states of mind held by Mises at some point in time. But the footnoted reference sometimes refers to some other scholar’s work that when looked up did not refer to or imply anything about Ludwig von Mises. For example, at one point (p. 4), Professor Slobodian says, “But for Mises, a war had shaken him the most. Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905 brought about a non-white power into the elite white club of empires. The event resonated with the rhetoric of the ‘yellow peril’ widespread at the turn of the century, understood as both a racial demographic and commercial threat.” And he footnotes a[nother author's] work about Asian intellectuals in the period before the First World War.

Professor Slobodian then says, “Mises’s response was different but no less radical,” and then references how Mises [allegedly] saw the economic significance of increased global competition from Asia ... The juxtapositioning of these two ideas, one following the other, easily creates the impression that Mises, while having a “different” response, was part of the group worried about a “yellow peril.

There is nothing to suggest in Mises’s writings actually referenced that he held or expressed any such race-based fear in the wake of the Japanese victory over Russia. But the implication is easily left in the reader’s mind.

Slobodian is fundamentally dishonest.

Christopher Snowdon has more:

The first two chapters find Slobodian searching for hints of racial prejudice in the work of Hayek and Mises. For the former, the best he can manage is a reference to ‘the Christian West’ in a 1984 speech. For the latter, who may well have been Austria’s least racist man in the 1930s, it is an even greater challenge. 

Slobodian revives two articles he wrote about the lifelong supporter of open borders in 2019 that have been heavily criticised by Phillip W. Magness and Amelia Janaskie for ‘inverting Mises’s meaning in a light that erroneously casts him as sympathetic to racism or colonialism.’ 

One does not need to be an expert on Mises to see that Slobodian is guilty of selective quotation. One only needs to read the whole paragraph from which the quote is taken. For example, Mises is quoted as writing in 1944: ‘There are few white men who would not shudder at the picture of many millions of black or yellow people living in their own countries.’ Slobodian puts this in a context that implies that Mises shared this revulsion and cites it as evidence that Mises had ‘partially legitimised closed borders for nonwhite migrants as a near-permanent feature of the world order.’ But the very next sentence of Mises’ text reads: ‘The elaboration of a system making for harmonious coexistence and peaceful economic and political cooperation among the various races is a task to be accomplished by coming generations.’ It should be obvious that Mises was not endorsing the prejudices of the majority, but merely acknowledging the existence of such prejudices and hoping that they could be overcome.

And here's Slobodian's problem, and the reason he must so transparently mis-quote: "There is simply no through-line from Mises or Hayek to the alt-right." 

By referring to right-wing populists of the present day as Hayek’s illegitimate offspring (‘bastards’) Slobodian allows himself a certain amount of wriggle room, but if a student believes the exact opposite of the teacher, can he really be portrayed as a follower?

The fatal flaw in this book is that Slobodian has clearly started with his conclusion and worked backwards. An author who was interested in writing about the roots of the current wave of right-wing populism would start with the right-wing populists and study their words and deeds.

Which is what Misesian Jeffrey Tucker did many moons before Slobodian even thought about slithering into print — "the most important political book in recent memory" is what my own reviewer called it.

BUT THIS BRIEF GLIMPSE  into a fetid authorial swamp was not just to alert you to a shitty book from an author too incompetent to even formulate real arguments. It's to show you how bereft of clothing are the nakedly insubstantial objections to Seymour's bill, that so many rest their objections on a ad-hominem without even a home. As Richard Ebeling says so tellingly in a recent article, "“Progressives” Blame F. A. Hayek for Everything They Dislike."

That so many of these "progressive" objections to a fairly unobjectionable Bill rest unthinkingly on Slobodian's animus and deception — for a historian used to checking sources, Anne Salmond's was an example of one of the most dishhonest — suggests the same thing said of Slobodian's book could be said about the objections to the Bill: if you have to lie to make your arguments, then perhaps you don't really have any.

I only wish they were right that it is something they need to be scared about.

The separation of church and state is being ignored by laws that officially reference Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews

The separation of church and state is a principle established back in the Enlightenment era, one recognised in the US Bill of Rights. Establishing "a wall of separation between Church and State," Thomas Jefferson explained the principle in a famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

The principle rests on this compelling point: "that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions," so that neither the Danbury Baptist Association nor any other religious-based group need fear government interference in their right to expressions of religious conscience. 

This was a historic change from centuries of religious persecution. This is a point now unfortunately lost on New Zealand's legislators, who for decades have routinely inserted into law concepts emanating from Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews, i.e., Māori religion. 

Law, we should be reminded, is a description of the way in which a government proposes to exercise its monopoly on force. As such, we should demand precision, objectivity, and concepts based on protecting individual rights. Instead, as a result of this departure from proper principle we have been delivered law that is imprecise, and riddled with bogus concepts based on a particular religious worldview.

Author and researcher John Robinson lists 35 New Zealand laws that officially reference Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews — using terms like tikanga, mana whenua, mauri, wairua, and more. Among them are many that might surprise you:

Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA)
Terms: Te Mana o te Wai, kaitiakitanga, mauri, wairua, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Gives legal status to Māori spiritual values when assessing environmental impacts and resource consent.

Water Services Act 2021
Terms: Te Mana o te Wai, kaitiakitanga
Context: Water regulation must consider Māori spiritual views on water’s life force and guardianship.

Local Government Act 2002
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Requires councils to involve Māori in decision-making and give weight to their cultural practices.

Conservation Act 1987
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Māori beliefs must be considered in conservation efforts and land access.

Waitangi Tribunal Act 1975
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles
Context: Empowers Māori customs and grievances to be judged by Māori cultural norms.

Environment Canterbury Act 2016
Terms: mana whenua representation
Context: Mandates tribal representation in regional governance based on ancestral authority.

Oranga Tamariki Act 1989
Terms: whakapapa, mana tamaiti, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori child welfare decisions must respect spiritual ancestry and cultural norms.

Education and Training Act 2020
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles, mana whenua
Context: Embeds Māori values and customs into the public education system.

Climate Change Response Act 2002
Terms: tikanga Māori, kaitiakitanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Context: Climate planning must consider Māori spiritual guardianship of nature.

Crown Minerals Act 1991
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty principles
Context: Requires consultation with Māori based on cultural and spiritual claims to land and minerals.

Biosecurity Act 1993
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Disease and pest control policy must consider Māori views on spiritual and land connections.

Public Health and Disability Act 2000
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana motuhake, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Health services are required to reflect Māori beliefs and autonomy.

Wildlife Act 1953
Terms: customary rights, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Spiritual and cultural practices are recognized in hunting and wildlife protections.

Forests Act 1949
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Forest use and protection must consider Māori customs and Treaty rights.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014
Terms: wāhi tapu, wāhi tūpuna, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Sacred and ancestral Māori sites are protected by law.

Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022
Terms: tikanga Māori, Māori Health Authority, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Establishes a parallel Māori health system based on cultural values.

Kainga Ora–Homes and Communities Act 2019
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty obligations
Context: Housing projects must align with Māori cultural values and Treaty-based consultation.

Land Transport Management Act 2003
Terms: mana whenua, Treaty principles
Context: Māori cultural considerations must be included in transport planning.

Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Spiritual guardianship and cultural relationships must be respected in marine planning.

Walking Access Act 2008
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Access to land and tracks must consider Māori spiritual and cultural significance.

EEZ and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles, mana whenua
Context: Deep-sea resource use must consult Māori cultural and spiritual perspectives.

National Parks Act 1980
Terms: kaitiakitanga, wāhi tapu, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori spiritual values influence park management and access.

Marine Reserves Act 1971
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori
Context: Customary guardianship and Māori beliefs influence reserve designation and rules.

Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Act 1994
Terms: tikanga Māori
Context: Even activities in Antarctica must respect Māori spiritual customs.

Building Act 2004
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Local iwi spiritual and cultural views must be considered in development approvals.

Te Urewera Act 2014
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Grants a forest legal status as a living ancestor with spiritual significance under Māori belief.

Whanganui River Settlement Act 2017 (Te Awa Tupua)
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Declares the river a living entity with rights, based on Māori cosmology.

 Taranaki Maunga Settlement Act 2023
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Gives Mount Taranaki the same spiritual and legal status as a living being.

Criminal Cases Review Commission Act 2019
Terms: te ao Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori spiritual and cultural views may influence justice processes and reviews.

Trade Marks Act 2002
Terms: mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori traditional knowledge and customs can affect trademark approvals.

Patents Act 2013
Terms: mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Patents can be denied or restricted based on spiritual and cultural beliefs.

Each of these inclusions undermines law, makes its exercise illegitimate and imprecise, and requires by law that all New Zealanders bow to a religion — one based on race — that is not necessarily their own.

As a commenter observes, 

There are also numerous reports/frameworks affirming the Te Ao Maori vision- a powerful and authoritative reference to guide action and establish norms, e.g. Te Rautaki Ao Maori—guidelines for NZ parliamentary process, Matauranga Maori in the Media, and many more.
     NZers are now enmeshed in a web of embedded "cultural references" which decree how to live their lives.

There is neither a moral nor a legitimate legal case for that.

"Race-based policy is not just unsustainable. It is immoral."

"Race-based funding is racist. A statement so obviously true that it ought to be stitched onto the curtains of the Beehive and should be self-evident to anyone with an IQ above room temperature. ...

"Yet... [t]his fetish for ethnic exceptionalism has become the most expensive fiction in New Zealand’s policy landscape. The central myth - that Māori are uniquely deprived and therefore must be uniquely subsidised - collapses under the slightest statistical scrutiny. But facts, regrettably, are of little use to those whose salaries depend on ignoring them.

"The Māori economy now exceeds $70 billion. That is not a typo. Seventy billion dollars, according to BERL. Māori businesses thrive in agriculture, fisheries, energy, tourism, construction - you name it. We are not talking about a struggling underclass. We are talking about a sovereign economic force with the political influence of a Middle Eastern oil bloc. And yet, astonishingly, we are still expected to believe that Māori are victims — infantilised, eternally fragile, and unable to function without a phalanx of publicly funded 'navigators,' 'equity officers,' and 'tikanga consultants' to shepherd them through modernity.

"This narrative is insulting, inaccurate, and intolerably expensive.

"Consider life expectancy. In 2002, the average Māori lifespan hovered around 68 years. As of 2022, it stands at 74.3. That’s an increase of more than six years in two decades. Māori smoking rates have halved since 2006. Educational attainment among young Māori has risen steadily. Tertiary enrolments are at record highs. And in urban areas, Māori household incomes are now statistically indistinguishable from the Pākehā average.

"So where, precisely, was the need for a separate Māori Health Authority? ... [for o]ur state schools [to] have become temples of cultural appeasement ... [for] 'Māori housing strategies] that will [allegedly] solve intergenerational poverty [but simply mean] priority access for iwi developers and whānau collectives ...

"Māori make up 51% of our prison population. We are told this is a result of systemic racism. No - it is a result of systemic dysfunction. ... race-based funding enables this dysfunction. It reinforces dependency. It signals that failure will be rewarded, not rectified ...

"None of this is a call to ignore Māori disadvantage. It is a call to address it with honesty, rigour, and standards. The previous model did precisely the opposite. It flattered tribal elites, funded unaccountable bureaucracies, and delivered nothing but resentment and division.

"So dismantle the rest. ...

"Let the iwi aristocracy, so fond of preaching commercial wisdom, compete on a level playing field in the free market. Let them earn their fortunes without the insulation of state patronage.

"This romanticised vision of Māori as an eternally wounded, noble caste is not merely ahistorical. It is politically corrosive. It distorts justice, misallocates resources, and entrenches mediocrity. ...
New Zealand must decide: do we believe in equality under the law or cultural exceptionalism? One cannot have both.

"Race-based policy is not just unsustainable. It is immoral. And if the National Party had any spine, it would say so."

~ Tony Vaughn from his post 'Racial Romanticism Is Not Policy - The Cost of Coddling a Myth'

Hmmm.

"[S]peaking Māori ... is [oft] perceived as 'virtue signalling,' which is a perception that has arisen in the context of decades of fashionable Western self-loathing. Like you, I can’t stand insincerity. It is hypocritical that people who obsess over the every failing of Western culture cannot also acknowledge the good things about it: democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, habeas corpus and trial by jury, to name just a few. ...
    "However, at present thousands of Māori people are enthusiastically pursuing the renaissance of their language and their culture from a place of sincerity. Many white New Zealanders do not realise this and are mistaking them for the anti-Western virtue signalling camp, and are accordingly very hostile to anything Māori. This is met with bewilderment by Māori. They do not understand at all why some white people are so hostile to their culture. ...
    "Rather than realising the true source of the hostility to Te Reo (which is the intellectual dishonesty of postmodernism as a worldview) antipathy towards anything Māori is viewed in the light of historical suppression of Te Reo in schools as well as the devaluing of Māori culture generally. In short, it is perceived as racism. You need only read Māori media outlets to see the enormity of the bewilderment, hurt, rage and even hate this causes. ...
    "We need a new political paradigm in which postmodernism does not harden people to indigenous issues. The key to this is the simple realisation that you can be pro-indigenous without being postmodern."

~ Lucy Rogers from her post 'Why I speak Māori (and it has nothing to do with “virtue signalling”)' [Hat tip PM of NZ]

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life." Including internet access!

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life. 

• "Even New Zealand’s left-leaning mainstream media have picked up on the University of Auckland's compulsory indoctrination-rich Waipapa Taumata Rau course
• "Janet Dickson’s challenge to the Real Estate Authority over their compulsion on estate agents to undertake a compulsory professional development module called Te Kākano (The Seed)
• "another example in tertiary education concerns efforts to decolonise [sic] the Massey University BA degree ...

"Such examples barely lift the lid on the extent of Treaty indoctrination across the public service, the education and research sectors, businesses and professional regulatory bodies. For example, 

• the Midwifery Council’s Scope of Practice
• the cultural safety requirements imposed on practitioners by the New Zealand Psychologists Board, and 
• the Treaty-centric competency standards for New Zealand pharmacists ...

"A very heavy focus on one population is evident in the charters, mission statements and constitutions of many organisations in New Zealand. ... [I]t seems that even the Internet cannot escape the current identity politics. ... [even if s]uch technology is universally available to the entire world and, by its very nature, is not exclusive to any one ethnicity. In fact, it is one of the most democratising of any technology ...

"[And yet] the InternetNZ Council [which operates the regional registry for New Zealand, i.e, the .nz Register]... has on its agenda the ... overarching Strategic Goal of 'Centring Te Tiriti o Waitangi' as a Strategic Priority, and ethno-centric preferences that dominate five Strategic Goals and 13 out of 25 sub-goals [including] ...  

• Implement Ngā Pae: Pae Kākano | Horizon 1....
• understand what it means to InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa Group to be Tiriti-centric....
• embed Te Tiriti through our strategies, policies, practices, people capability to achieve digital equity, digital inclusion and access for Māori ...
• [ensure] a Te Tiriti o Waitangi perspective guides everything we do. ...
• [ensure] investment priorities are guided by clear objectives that promote equity, align with priorities identified by Māori in the sector.

"It is perfectly reasonable that effective engagement with Māori, as with all stakeholders, should be part of the mission of InternetNZ. However, by declaring that it will be Te Tiriti-centric, InternetNZ, like our universities, is implicitly taking a political stance, when as a user-focused organisation it should remain entirely neutral....

"The stated goals stand at odds with the principles of [worldwide] internet governance as identified, for example, by the global Internet Society[which undertakes] the global management of the Internet.  ...

"As a critical facility for Internet access for New Zealanders, InternetNZ needs simply to recommit to the fundamental principles of a globally interconnected world, that demonstrate no preference for any particular ethnic, religious, social, economic, national, cultural or racial grouping. ... 

"[W]e must avoid even the remote possibility that access to a .nz domain name could be frustrated because the user may not support one or more of the strategic goals outlined above, or New Zealanders’ rights and responsibilities being differentiated by race."

~ John Raine and David Lillis from their post 'In Case You Were Wondering – InternetNZ and the Treaty'

"NZ urgently needs the support of retired individuals or those whose livelihoods are not yet affected by government or iwi control."

"New Zealand is facing a significant freedom of speech crisis. Across the country, people dependent on their business or employment income are being intimidated into silence regarding the influence of the tribal elite over many aspects of our lives. It’s not just about expressing personal opinions but about elected representatives, public servants and private business operators being silenced when it comes to the facts. ... [see for just a few examples: Real Estate agent Janet Dickson's court fight over licensing modules; so-called 'cultural safety' and 'cultural competence' requirements for nursing and teacher registration; 'Mātauranga Māori' being taught as science in schools; proposed 'competency standards' for pharmacists, & creeping tribal control over state assets]    

    "That’s why NZ urgently needs the support of retired individuals or those whose livelihoods are not yet affected by government or iwi control. You have the freedom to speak up for those Kiwis who feel unable to do so themselves. I encourage anyone, who can, to take up this cause, as the consequences for New Zealanders—including Māori who are not part of the leadership elite—will only worsen if this takeover continues."

~ Fiona Mackenzie from her article 'Too Intimidated to Speak Out?'

"The Treaty Principles Bill ... provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is"

"Consider the two words 'liberal', 'democracy' and their connection. Both give us something that none of our ancestors living in kinship groups had. 'Democracy' gives us a system of parliamentary sovereignty, of law, of regulation. It recognises that our common humanity justifies equal rights. Those rights belong to the individual citizen, not to the group.
    "The word 'liberal' gives us the freedom to be different – as individuals and in voluntary associations based on a range of shared interests –culture, heritage, language, sport, music, religion, politics, and so on.
    "This is what makes liberal democracy remarkable. As citizens we have the same political and legal rights. As members of civil society we are free to be different. This is an enormously important point. It is the combination of rights, responsibilities and freedom within democracy's governance and laws that makes the modern world vibrant and prosperous.
    "That's why I support the Treaty Principles Bill – because it provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is – something we should all know, especially ... Members of Parliament ...
    "The Bill is the symbolic link to the hope found in both the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in the 1852 Constitution Act. Nineteenth century New Zealanders, especially those who had been slaves, decimated by war, of low genealogical birth status, or from impoverished backgrounds – they put their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future for their descendants. In the 21st century we can strengthen that faith for our descendants by agreeing to the principles in this Bill.
    "New Zealand's future may be that of a prosperous first-world liberal democratic nation or a third-world, retribalised state. A first world tribal nation is a contradiction in terms. It is not possible. There can be no prosperity without individual equality and freedom. There can be no social equality without prosperity. ...

    "[A]s early as the 1870s there's the commitment to a united people who belong to, and benefit from, the nation 'New Zealand.' Nearly 150 years later that commitment is under serious threat from those who would replace liberal democracy with tribal sovereignty and, by doing so, create a racialised society – apartheid." 

~ Elizabeth Rata from her Oral Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

 

"... It is extraordinary that needs to be said, but equality is not racist."

"The Treaty Principles Bill has done exactly what its champion, David Seymour, intended – it has sparked a national conversation. And that conversation has been eye-opening to say the least. Never could I have ever predicted that ‘equality’ would be treated as ... a dirty word.
    "The immortal words of Dr Martin Luther King Junior’s 'I have a dream' speech, treasured for decades after his death, are now out of fashion according to certain sections of our society and Nelson Mandela would today perhaps be condemned for the ideals he said he would die for:

    '… the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.'

"... It is extraordinary that needs to be said, but equality is not racist."

~ Don Brash from his post 'Equality is not a dirty word'

"The Woke Right ... " [updated]

"The Woke Right is that part of the Right that has decided everything the Left has been saying is bad must actually be good.

"The Left said racism is bad, so racism must be good. 

"The Left said patriarchy is bad, so patriarchy must be good.
"The Left said Fascism is bad, so...

"Because the Woke (or Dissident, or New, or 'New Christian') Right defines itself by glorifying everything the Left said was bad, it becomes an extension of the Left's tortured and destructive caricature of society. They become an extension of the Left and take up its methods.

"The Left wasn't wrong that racism is bad. The Left was wrong about what racism is. The thing the Left referred to as 'racism' isn't racism. Most of it isn't even real. The purpose of most of those claims was to extract power, and it worked because racism is actually bad.

"The Woke or New or Dissident Right ... has adopted a basic reactionary reversal of the Left's pronouncements while accepting the Left's characterisations, framing, and belief in power dynamics."

~ James Lindsay on 'The Woke Right'

UPDATE:

'Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning'

"The suggestion that colonial systems are based on white supremacy is a generalisation that infects much of the debate about colonialism and colonisation. It suggests that 'white supremacy' ... was what motivated colonialism and colonisation. It did not, although there were times when, during the colonial experience, it manifested itself. ...
    "In 2017, [Nigel] Biggar initiated a five-year project at Oxford University ... to scrutinise critiques against the historical facts of empire. Historians and academics widely criticised the project ... 
    "Biggar’s book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, examines the morality of colonialism. ... conced[ing] in the Introduction to the book that the subject matter and his approach were both contentious. ...

"Many commentators of colonialism approach the topic from a critical theory perspective, seeking out any evidence to then suggest that all colonial activity was inherently evil. Biggar does not. His is a more nuanced approach and is that of an ethicist.  ...
    'Biggar’s argument is that the development of Empire and what is called colonialism was an institution that developed over centuries and no one could say that it was wholly good or wholly bad. Biggar cites examples from other imperial activities. The empire of Islam demonstrated examples of racism regarding those from Northern climes (it was too cold to be intelligent) or the tropics (it was too hot to be intelligent). ...

"He commences with the proposition that empire is not an historical aberration or a departure from historical norms. It is part of the natural order of a world that, until recently, lacked stable frontiers formalised by an overarching scheme of international law. The armed migration of peoples in search of resources might serve to unlock the riches of the world and spread knowledge and technical competence, processes which potentially benefit all mankind.
    "Certainly colonialism severely disrupted existing patterns of indigenous life. It was often achieved or maintained through violence and injustice. In the final analysis, all states maintain themselves by force or the threat of it.
    "Governments, imperial or domestic, have always involved light and shade, achievement and failure, good and evil. Biggar’s point is that it falsifies history to collect together everything bad about an institution and serve it up as if it were the whole.

"There are three major points that Biggar makes by way of mitigation when it comes to the legacy of Empire.
    "To begin with many of the worst things that happened were not the result of an ideology or a preconceived and calculated policy. There were abuses. They were recognised and were addressed although not always with the greatest success.
    "Secondly, along with the disruption that was caused to communities there were also benefits. Practices such as slavery, cannibalism, sati and human sacrifice, which were by any standards barbarous, were eliminated. The ground was laid for an economic and social transformation that lifted much of the world out of extremes of poverty.
    "Thirdly and finally not only did colonialism bring disruption but it brought order. The British brought the Rule of Law, constitutional government, honest administration, economic development and modern educational and research facilities, all long before they would have been achieved without European intervention. ...

"There can be no doubt that the British Empire contained evils and injustices but so does the history of any long-standing state. But the Empire was not essentially racist, exploitative or wantonly violent as a general proposition. It could correct errors and sins and importantly it prepared colonised peoples for liberal self-government.
    "What colonialism did bring to the table in the final analysis were liberal, humanitarian principles and endeavours that should be admired and carried into the future. Imaginary guilt should not cripple the self confidence of the British, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders as pillars of the liberal international order."

~ A Halfling from his post 'Colonialism - A Moral Reckoning'

More rights for Māori, says Māori Party co-leader

Q: "To be totally clear do Māori have more rights than non-Māori New Zealanders?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "Māori have rights as tangata whenua because we're indigenous ..."
Q: "...and so so those are more rights, right?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "I think those are, um, more also responsibilities and obligations ..."

Q: "So I just want to be really clear here: you're Māori, I'm not Māori, do you have more rights than me in New Zealand?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "I have more obligations and I think I do also have more rights with those obligations, absolutely afforded under Tiriti. ...

Q: "So so do you think then if if Te Tiriti guarantees a carve-out for Māori-specific rights, do you think that if we are to form modern New Zealand on a constitutional basis around Te Tiriti O Waitangi, that we have different standards of citizenship?"

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "We have different expectations and different rights, absolutely. ... Extra rights absolutely are afforded because we are indigenous, but everyone else gets to be consulted in kaupapa [per our principle/our philosophy]." 

~ Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer from her TVNZ interview 24 Nov 2024

 

"We have a choice. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy, or become an ethnocentric nation riven by ethnic tensions."

 

"We have a choice. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy where everyone counts, or we can become an ethnocentric nation based on identity politics and riven by ethnic tensions. Make no mistake; the current path where particular ethnicities are granted 'partnership' status can only lead to the eventual appearance of more ethnic parties fighting it out for a seat at the table."

~ Ananish Chaudari from his post 'Debate around ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill essential for a multi-ethnic nation'

 

"Does denying human equality and rejecting the principles of colour-blind citizenship place you among the baddies? Yes, I’m afraid it does."

"[T]he period of roughly five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in November 1860, and his inauguration in March 1861 ... were the months in which, one after the other, the slaveholding states of the South voted to secede from the Union. ...
    "The most disconcerting feature ... are the many parallels between the America of then, and the New Zealand of now. ... 

"From a strictly ideological standpoint, it is the Decolonisers who match most closely the racially-obsessed identarian radicals who rampaged through the streets of the South in 1860-61, demanding secession and violently admonishing all those suspected of harbouring Northern sympathies. Likewise, it is the Indigenisers who preach a racially-bifurcated state in which the ethnic origin of the citizen is the most crucial determinant of his or her political rights and duties.
    "Certainly, in this country, the loudest clamour and the direst threats are directed at those who argue that New Zealand must remain a democratic state in which all citizens enjoy equal rights, irrespective of wealth, gender, or ethnic origin, and in which the property rights of all citizens are safeguarded by the Rule of Law.
    "These threats escalated alarmingly following the election of what soon became the National-Act-NZ First Coalition Government. ... The profoundly undemocratic nature of the fire-eaters’ opposition was illustrated by their vehement objections to the ACT Party’s policy of holding a binding referendum to entrench, or not, the 'principles' of the Treaty of Waitangi. Like the citizens of South Carolina, the first state to secede, the only votes they are willing to recognise are their own. ...

"Those New Zealanders who believe unquestioningly in the desirability of decolonisation and indigenisation argue passionately that they are part of the same great progressive tradition that inspired the American Abolitionists of 160 years ago. But are they?
    "Did the Black Abolitionist, and former slave, Frederick Douglass, embrace the racial essentialism of Moana Jackson? Or did he, rather, wage an unceasing struggle against those who insisted, to the point of unleashing a devastating civil war, that all human-beings are not created equal?
    "What is there that in any way advances the progressive cause about the casual repudiation of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr’s dream that: 'one day my four little children will be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character'? ...

"Does denying human equality and rejecting the principles of colour-blind citizenship place you among the baddies? Yes, I’m afraid it does."

~ Chris Trotter from his post 'Are We The Baddies?'

Remembering October 7

"The first anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel is approaching. Not a day since has passed when the consequences and after-shocks of that terrible day have not been felt around the world. More than any other event in living memory, it has polarised and divided people everywhere.
    "Eight weeks after the attacks, I was invited to the Israeli Embassy in Wellington to watch the 47 minutes of footage compiled by the Israeli Government called 'Bearing Witness.' ... Did watching 'Bearing Witness' alter any of my opinions? Yes, it did.
    "I expected to see men, women and children slaughtered but the level of hatred and barbarity was incomprehensible. Often the mutilation continued after the victim was killed as if that were only one stage in a process that would continue until what was left was unrecognizable. We saw 139 killings or bodies but in many cases the bodies were so disfigured or burned that they ceased to look human. ...
    "It does, I think, at least partially explain Israel’s ferocious response in the year that has followed the attacks. In my view, anyone in the Israeli government or military who viewed that footage would conclude that they face an immediate existential threat. Their enemies do not simply wish to take territory or wage a war – killing was not enough. Their enemies that day wished for the elimination of every Jewish man, woman and child until nothing remained but dust. That was the point that I did not fully appreciate until I saw this footage. ...
    "October 7 and Israel’s response will undoubtedly be debated for a lifetime. Hopefully we will live to see a peaceful resolution to this most intractable of conflicts."

~ Philip Crump from his post 'Bearing Witness to October 7'

"We have a choice. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy, or become an ethnocentric nation riven by ethnic tensions."

"We have a choice. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy where everyone counts, or we can become an ethnocentric nation based on identity politics and riven by ethnic tensions. Make no mistake; the current path where particular ethnicities are granted 'partnership' status can only lead to the eventual appearance of more ethnic parties fighting it out for a seat at the table."

~ Ananish Chaudari from his post 'Debate around ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill essential for a multi-ethnic nation'

Treaty Principles: Unequal + Divisive?

"Reasons both for and against the Bill to define the Treaty's principles vary in their worth.
    "One of the worst against it is that it will cause division.
    "Those who use this as a reason to kill the Bill are either in ignorance of, or ignoring, the division that already exists over the rights and wrongs of Māori rights and the disquiet over the way the principles, which are undefined, have crept into legislation and practice in all levels of government, the public service and private organisations.
    "Stopping debate because there is division won’t stop the division, it will make it worse."

~ Ele Ludemann, from her post 'Stopping debate won’t stop division'

"The original intention of the ACT Bill was to assert three basic principles, which can be derived from the original Treaty:

• The New Zealand government has the right to govern New Zealand.
• The New Zealand government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property
• All New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.

But those who profit from the Waitangi Tribunal could not have remained employed and in power for 49 years if that task was so simple ... The danger was soon evident. ... The suggested second principle [became]: 

'The New Zealand Government will honour all New Zealanders in the chieftainship of their land and all their property.'

    "The first version spoke of equality; this rewritten text makes a claim for separation and superior Māori rights ...
    "That rather strange version of property rights has, since the above was written, taken another step away from universality. The second principle has [now] become (11 September 2024): 

'Rights of Hapu and Iwi Māori: The Crown recognises the rights that hapu and iwi had when they signed the Treaty. The Crown will respect and protect those rights. Those rights differ from the rights everyone has a reasonable expectation to enjoy only when they are specified in legislation, Treaty settlements, or other agreement with the Crown.'

"This [version] insists on special rights defined by race. The Bill has been destroyed, and the promise to the New Zealand people has been betrayed. ...
    "The country grows crazier with each new year. We have been living in [George Orwell's] Animal Farm for too long. When the pigs strut about and proclaim that 'All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,' our only response must be – don’t be so silly."

~ John Robinson from his article 'Just Equality: The simple path from confusion to common sense.' [Emphases in Robinson's original]

2020" When "racial politics " took "a deranged and very strange step backwards."

"What came to be known as ‘wokery’ had long been in gestation. .... The first year of lockdown was ... when ... [p]erceptions of race shifted profoundly. The idea that individuals and institutions were ‘unconsciously’ or ‘systemically’ racist had already been established; but this belief, intimating that there was something inherently problematic with white America itself, was now pushed to its extreme. To be white now became problematic in itself. Whiteness became a mark of original sin.
    "Anything associated with the white man and mainstream America was now deemed racist. A pamphlet titled ‘White Supremacy Culture’, published in the late 1990s by academic Tema Okun, proved highly influential. In it, Okun denounced as racist the following ‘white’ values: perfectionism, a sense of urgency, worship of the written word, individualism and objectivity. ‘In this worldview’, writes Bowles, ‘if black people do somehow exhibit urgency or perfectionism, it means there has been internalised whiteness. And that is a type of death for that black person.’ The new racism had simultaneously demonised whiteness and pathologised blackness.
    "Racial politics had taken a deranged and very strange step backwards. ...
    "The grotesque excesses of identitarian politics in America may seem like something from another planet."

~ Patrick West, from his review 'The year America went mad' of Nellie Bowles's new book Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History

"We share those basic desires regardless of race. It’s that commonality that makes race irrelevant."

"Against a backdrop of high-profile, negative statistics it is easy to overlook the positive.
    "For instance, the fact that 64 percent of Maori are employed is rarely reported. For context, the employment rate for all New Zealanders is 68.4%. The difference isn’t vast.
    "In excess of 400,000 Maori have jobs, provide products and services and pay tax. ...
    "97 percent of Maori aged 15 or older are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order. Over 99 percent of Maori are not gang members. ...
    "[A]s an ethnic group Maori take a lot of heat ... because it suits certain political aspirants to promote the negative... [Yet i]t feels safe to say that most people want to live peaceful, happy and productive lives. We share those basic desires regardless of race. It’s that commonality that makes race irrelevant."

~ Lindsay Mitchell, from her post 'Time for some perspective'

"The point, today, is that we must reject the categorical 'coloniser' argument. With mockery, whenever possible."

"Humans have always moved around, and humans have always fought over patches of land. I've written in the past about 'snapshot geography,' a phrase coined by Jonah Goldberg that explains how people select a particular moment in time as their determinant of who is the proper owner of a particular patch. Those who drop the 'coloniser' truth-bomb almost invariably base their snapshot on skin colour, no matter that doing so may lump bitter enemies into a single group....
    "The point, today, is that we must reject the categorical 'coloniser' argument. With mockery, whenever possible. It's a fraudulent assertion that relies on the very racism and bigotries that its users claim to be fighting."

~ Peter Venetoklis, from his post 'Selective Colonisers' [hat tip Louise Lamontagne]