way too much information...

Born in Wellington, New Zealand. At that time, only 3 billion others roamed the earth. Baby boomers were appearing in maternity wards all over the western world and I was one of ’em. The grandparents and many parents of these “boomers” experienced the tragedy of the Great Depression and two World Wars. It wasn’t until the world economy recovered that the “glory days” and endless summers of the nineteen sixties came about...at least in the western world anyway...

Upper Hutt during that time was an expanding mass of new homes built on the back of cheap loans and low inflation. The Government built a lot of subsidised houses in suburbs like Upper Hutt amongst privately owned homes. This was a world-leading experiment in socialism that was ultimately doomed but provided a fantastic opportunity for low income earners at time. I am the .5 in a family of 2.5 kids, here's my personal rant...

¤ What is he thinking?

I remember a teacher at school saying "you're too young to be cynical". I laughed because that was about three years after I'd first heard a teacher say that. I don't think many of my ideas were taken seriously back then. Why didn't our teachers tell us this? I'm old enough to remember global cooling. I hope this isn't too cynical; sarcastic maybe, but never cynical...OK, maybe just a little.

The ice age is coming
The sun’s zooming in
Engines stop running
The wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error
But I have no fear
Cause London is drowning and I...
Live by the river

London Calling The Clash 1979

¤ Philosophy

Common Sense rules, nothing else matters. Call me a pragmatist, see if I care :-) For a long time, I have seen the world in terms of absolutes. The black and white answer...it is yes or no, right or wrong, on or off...but as I get older I find it more and more difficult to describe to people why I hold these certainties in my head.

We are educated to look at the other view, listen to the other party, consider it from their point of view, have some empathy damn it! But this should not result in a compromise in our belief in what is right...I'm sure Nelson Mandela had empathy for Apartheid, not...did he let them change his way of thinking? I don't think so. Stand up for your idea if you think it is right. Share the idea with others. If it is right, chances are, others will listen. If not, then, at least you have been heard.

Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world. Everyone thinks he has enough.

Descartes, 1637

I'm worried that the ever-expanding gray area of indecision and political correctness is taking over. It's on TV, it's in Government policy, it's embedded in social justice policies that ban the majority from their opinions. We are told there are no clear cut solutions, it is "too complicated", there is no "right" answer and the classic: they have "always done it that way"...I say bollocks to that. Politicians exist in the gray area...they are the gray area. I refuse to be bound by ifs, buts and maybes.

¤ Politics

Politically, I believe in freedom but not at the expense of requiring the system we currently call democracy. Freedom from religion intervention and government intrusion are important rights in any independent state. The right to privacy and freedom of movement are surprisingly rare in many modern democracies. I might be described as a libertarian by some but more importantly, I believe in the all powerful Law of Common Sense. I also believe that the world would be a better place if these laws were enforced.

Take this quiz to see where you stand on political issues. Or not. Some of these quotes are often used to describe liberterians so I must be one:

This was posted on SlashDot.org.

Thoughts on capitalism, wealth, and power

As they are by definition made up by more than one person, all societies are by definition compromises between the desires of their members. Various societies try to balance these desires by employing various economic systems. In a [completely fictional] utopia all people would be able to have anything that they want and never have to deal with fulfilling desires of others that conflict with their own. As the world is finite conflicts do arise and economic systems are employed to work these conflicts out.

The general hope, I believe, is that the chosen economic system will provide a basis for supporting the other ideals of a society; be they listed in the US Bill of Rights or others such as a right to education, a right to health care, or a right to choose to garden in the nude. What ever they are, these ideals of a society provide the framework for discourse and function within it.

I have no problem with laizes-faire capitalism, regulated capitalism, socialism, communism, or any other economic system as long as the chosen one[s] allows the ideals of my society to flourish internally.

What follows are my unedited thoughts:

¤ Taxation

Laws that protect big corporations, the non-working "poor" and lifestyle criminals are turning those few productive citizens left among us into tax-slaves. Don't even start on the tax-rate itself, tax is theft. I will not give more than half my income to a government I didn't vote for, so they can give it to people that do not deserve my support. That is wrong. Just plain and simple common sense.

¤ Road Rules

What is going on with the road rules? We are told speed limits are imposed for safety but the accident rate is about half what it was when the limit was set. This is not common sense. Cars are much safer, although the roads have stayed the same.

Solution: Fix the roads, increase the speed limit. The government has your money, let's spend it. Simple. Drivers Licenses will only be issued to those who can pass two psychometric tests. Firstly, all drivers must pass a logic test. This test shows how's the driver rates on a scale of common sense. Secondly, the driver must pass a coordination test. Some people are not fit to drive, let's just admit that and raise the bar. But do not exclude the young because of their age, but perhaps on the basis of their maturity.

¤ Freedom

The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.

Quoted by Lord Chief Justice Halisham.

¤ Privacy

Freedom and privacy are not the same thing, work it out. The misuse of information is the problem, not the information itself. Until we resolve issues of trust and privacy, libertarians the world over will be wringing their collective hands. If your are worried about privacy you can be sure that others are too, check out phonebook and freenet.

¤ Guns

Gun laws in most countries are just wrong, freedom does not include the right to carry a gun, that's just ridiculous. The Dalai Lama said:

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.

He didn't say "Come back with nukes and blow them all away" now, did he? Just common sense, if you are being attacked, it is reasonable to reply in kind. The problem is, if you allow guns to proliferate, we will all be in an untenable position where guns become an all too common reponse to other guns. Read his autobiography, well worth the effort.

¤ Leadership

When I become President of NZ the rules are gonna change...just kidding - sort of. A single charismatic ruler will always have a better chance at efficiently organizing people and delivering services than committees in a constant power struggle. This nightmare is repeating itself over and over in many democracies around the world. A benevolent dictator can make a really positive difference, but only with the support of the majority of the people. This argument is circular since a majority in favour is in itself democratic. Of course benevolent dictators have been given a really bad name since they all seem to turn into psychotic megalomaniacs.

¤ Democracy

I see no problem with democratically electing a leader that has more autonomous power than is traditionally considered safe in Western democracy terms as long as there is a mechanism to get rid of them when it is the will of the majority of people to do so. Does this sound confused? Let me clarify. Often, it is the coercion of minorities by the majority that degrades modern democracies. For example, who agrees that taxes should be higher? My guess is NOT the majority. So why do we pay more tax every year? Much of the "noise" from minorities can be traced back to the dissolution of power in our weak democracy that places decision making capabilities in the hands of a few. This is not minority bashing - the simple fact is there are a few government employees determining very important aspects of our lives in a very non-democratic way with no way of correcting bad decisions. The feedback mechanism takes four years. Most people abhore the process to the point of apathy.

¤ Religion

Religion, superstition. What is the difference?

an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is... near-universally dreadful.

...from Martin Amis, The Second Plane, 2008

However the freedom to practice religion is an important component of modern docienty. The same common sense limits applying equally to religion as they do with other groups in society. Is it any surprise that religions target the desperate and poor when recruiting new members? This is not necessarily wrong, but lets recognise it for what it is.

Extremist god-botherers of all nations beware, rationalists, sceptics, atheists and agnostics can be intolerant too. The maturity of the human race is not served by greed and intolerance. That is just about as plain an example of common sense as is possible. The rest of us have a freedom from religion that is just as important as the right to practice an ideology. There are plenty of movies and books on this subject. "Don't you know it's bad luck to be superstitious?"

One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason - but one cannot have both.

Quoted by Robert A. Heinlein.

¤ Free Trade

Unrestricted trade across international borders is free trade. Not the government regualated farce that we have today. Companies should be able to develop themselves internationally but corporate growth today isn't natural market growth. It's growth encouraged and enhanced by government-dispensed privilege. It's artificial, and it distorts rather than serves the free market.

¤ Money

Having money is not a sin, NOT having as much as is average should be. While money is not the root of all evil, there is an obligation of those that have to maintain some balance with those that have not. I'm not talking about the redistribution of wealth on a grand scale. We are told that differences in wealth are attributable to differences in efficiencies either in technology or intelligence, through luck of climate or umpteen other reasons, Whatever, the fact is there has been and always will be, differences in the distribution of wealth.

Given that some of us are better at generating wealth than others, how we cope with these differences is more important than working out why the Russian people are not economically as "rich" as citizens of the United States.

We know that the gap between rich and poor creates tension but just as important is the attitude of those that are rich relative to those that are not. Of course, "rich" is a relative term... if I did not have enough to eat, of course I would think someone who had food was rich. Some countries manage this gap better than others. For example, Hong Kong has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor but is a relatively safe country with a low crime rate. Compare that to parts of China that closely resemble the wild west. There is trouble brewing for those of us that neglect the poor (see Religion).

How can any Government control the distribution of wealth? The answer is not to use taxes since this limits choice and is by definition non-democratic. The answer is to educate everyone so that they can make value judgments for themselves. We should all have the freedom to spend the money we earn, the way we see fit. I refuse to be bound by bureaucrats that believe they can spend my money more efficiently and more appropriately than I can. Just because some of the population are not capable of basic decision making, doesn't mean we should all be bound by the "lowest common denominator" limits...now there's an idea, an IQ tax...

¤ Copyright

In practice, the goal of maximizing publication regardless of the cost to freedom is supported by widespread rhetoric which asserts that public copying is illegitimate, unfair, and intrinsically wrong. For instance, the publishers call people who copy pirates, a smear term designed to equate sharing information with your neighbor with attacking a ship. (This smear term was formerly used by authors to describe publishers who found lawful ways to publish unauthorized editions; its modern use by the publishers is almost the reverse.) This rhetoric directly rejects the Constitutional basis for copyright, but presents itself as representing the unquestioned tradition of the American legal system.
The pirate rhetoric is typically accepted because it blankets the media so that few people realize that it is radical. It is effective because if copying by the public is fundamentally illegitimate, we can never object to the publishers' demand that we surrender our freedom to do so. In other words, when the public is challenged to show why publishers should not receive some additional power, the most important reason of all -- We want to copy -- is disqualified in advance.
This leaves no way to argue against increasing copyright power except using side issues. Hence opposition to stronger copyright powers today almost exclusively cites side issues, and never dares cite the freedom to distribute copies as a legitimate public value.

From Misinterpreting Copyright, Richard Stallman, gnu.org

Further reading on the state of the music industry in its case against The Pirate Bay.

¤ Skepticism

A great philosophy in life is to always question. Blindly assuming something to be true is the basis of religion.

I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

From Introduction: On the Value of Skepticism, Skeptical Essays [London: Allen & Unwin, 1928]

¤ Success

According to John Jim Rohn at success.com, the keys to success are: committment, learn to be happy, discipline yourself, embrace change, live well.

¤ The Republican Flag

If you are overseas and are asked where you come from - when you answer, "New Zealand", nine times out of ten, the first reply will be "aah, Kiwi, huh!?". In marketing terms, New Zealanders have "high brand recognition" but we do not fully leverage the benefits of this recognition. Most foreigners I talk to, assume that New Zealand is part of Australia...this stems at least in part, from our flag.

Can we apply a little common sense here? Declare a republic, change the money, (what is Edmund Hillary doing on the $5 bill, sheesh, put him on the new $500!), design a new flag incorporating the silver fern and other indigenous elements, say red, white, blue and black. There, that wasn't so bad was it? What other countries athletes wander around the Olympic village with an "alternate" flag (the silver fern). It really is not that hard. All the old colonial arguments have gone now, get over it. There is nothing stopping this from becoming a reality, now...except we are mostly too apathetic to make a fuss.

Do nothing...and when someone asks you where the All Blacks come from, you can just smile and say "the West Island of New Zealand".

NZ Flag