Posts by BenWilson
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I wish I had bees - I've let my lawns grow, on the hypothesis that more flowers everywhere will draw more bees, which will mean more bees on my fruit trees, which will mean more fruit. Strangely, it seems to have attracted a pair of ducks instead.
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if that doesnt work then i might start tagging vehicles and slashing tyres. whaddayreckin?
I reckon you're stirring. Calling a spade a bloody maori isn't something that's favoured in PAS, for good reason. But speaking your mind is appreciated, so far I like some of what you write. Just remember you're not down at the pub with mates, you're in a public place, you're surrounded by people from all walks of life, although highly skewed towards geeky white men, but thankfully a little less so than most of teh netz. Some of that is because there is a custom of respectful conduct.
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Think there's an equivalent caucus in National that might help gurantee that (relative) sanity breaks out? Stranger things have happened...
I think there is. But crystal balls are fickle devices.
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Mikaere
Um, isn't this what we are doing by entering into discussion about the principles of Te Tiriti ? The evolution is a real partnership between Crown and Maori, implemented at iwi and hapu level.
I'd hope so. Although to be honest I'd rather it was between the government of NZ, representing the people, than the Crown, and that Maori might have representation that doesn't depend on good family ties and connections.
You've just chucked out common law.
I've chucked out one reason for adhering to common law, yes. I don't adhere to it because of any agreements that were entered into by long dead people on another island on the opposite side of the planet with other long dead people. I adhere to it because it makes some sense. I adhere to it because NZ police will put me in jail if I don't adhere to it. I fully reserve the right to advocate change to it. I especially believe that the government of NZ could chuck it out if such a thing seemed necessary at any time.
Mrs Skin
Because the Treaty is the contract that gives our current laws legitimacy, the obligations have transferred BOTH step by step and in leaps over time from then til now. Both parties to the contract are still extant.
The Treaty doesn't really give our laws legitimacy at all. A proper honoring of the Treaty would be a massive and fundamental change to the legislative makeup of this country, since the Maori version does not actually cede sovereignty clearly at all. If anything, the Treaty gives our laws illegitimacy.
Keir
But this is rather dodgy for you are not proposing to make a new agreement between the Crown and Maori --- and if you were, Maori would have the perfect right to tell the Crown to leave and return to the status quo ante pakeha
Actually, I think a new agreement would be a bloody good idea. I don't follow your 'revert to 1700' conclusion from such an event, though. I'm not optimistic that any government of NZ will ever have the balls to forge a new agreement, but I would love to be surprised.
--- but rather to simply renege on the previous agreement and stick a new one you like more in its place.
It's possible that Maori might also like a Treaty that would actually be honored too. Personally I'm reasonably happy with the status quo - the existence of a multiply interpreted and dishonored Treaty doesn't do Maori much good, but it doesn't affect me at all. I'm not a farmer or a fisherman anyway. Neither, for that matter, are the 30-odd Maori that I know personally.
That's not fair. You are quite happy to benefit from the Treaty, but not to fulfil your side of the bargain.
I never made any bargain.
Caleb
Oh, for God's sakes, Ben, no. I was just pointing out that it's often the shiny people who promise to sweep away the past with AWSUM! new ideas who turn out to be the real menaces. Not the "ghosts" of our ancestors.
It's both. Personally I'm not a fan of violent revolution, nor have I proposed it. I'm also not a fan of inherited power, however ancient its roots may be. What I am a fan of is people striking bargains for themselves, and then honoring those. By "themselves", I'm not ruling out collective bargaining, but neither do I think that is superior. It is simply a necessity for powerless people.
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I... don't even know what to say to that. If you subscribe to that sort of weirdly ahistorical mindset, bully for you
And if you find historical agreements more important than ones made by the people who are expected to uphold them, bully for you. But I expect that's a strawman - your historical perspective argues that the obligations created by this historical meeting have transferred in a step by step fashion, rather than leaping over time from then to now? My point about the dead ruling the living is just to counter that historical leap of obligation. I accept no obligation to people who died well before anyone who now lives was born.
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No I am not.
What i am saying to say is the way we interpret it and the way apply it has to evolve along with the evolution of the people and nation of New Zealand, or it will become a faultline in our history that will eventually cause a massive earthquake when it gives way.
OK then. So you consent, even if that earthquake is bound to happen? I don't and I don't think any government is bound to that path by any morality that makes sense to me. I don't care if that makes me an oathbreaker, because I'm not afraid of any curse in English or Maori binding my immortal soul to some fucking document from that long ago.
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(the social contract is an ongoign arrangement).
And it's still not worth the paper it's not written on.
Nitpicking aside: the Treaty is certainly subject to ongoing consent, as is any political arrangement or constitutional document
Yup and Tom is suggesting that we could fail to consent to it. If there was consent, by modern standards of that (women would, for instance, be part of the decision, as would people who were not of chiefly descent), then perhaps he'd fall into line.
And its worth noting that every NZ government in recent memory has consented to it.
That's the weirdest take on the Foreshore and Seabed Act I've ever heard. From what I could tell, Labour were simply ignoring the Treaty.
I don't think that was a wrong thing to do, necessarily, but I think the way it was done was wrong, for such a massive decision. Now could be the time to do it right.
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I'd prefer to stick to worshipping ghosts, quite frankly, because they're less likely to chop my head off.
You worship them because they're powerless to chop your head off? Personally I worship nothing and no-one, and look after my own head, both on the outside and the inside.
So anything we may have once deemed legally/socially/ethically useful as a society needs to be ignored once it passes some nebulous, agreed-upon* use-by date? Like yoghurt?
Now there's an idea. A use-by-date on laws. Sometimes absurd suggestions aren't so absurd after all.
Only problem is that part of the mentality of ghost worship is the understanding that we will one day join the ghosts, so our only chance at earthly immortality is NOT to put a use-by date on our impositions on future generations.
Seriously, who *are* you people? You are freaking my historian ass the hell out. :)
I'm the ghost of Thomas Paine, speaking through my earthly conduit. Fall to your knees and worship, lest you pass your use-by date unrepentant.
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The idea that the specific articles of the treaty of Waitangi could still apply to him and - hopefully - his descendants at that time would be a functional absurdity.
I'm inclined to agree with Thomas Paine that the right of the dead to dictate the lives of the living is one of the most absurd things humans have ever come up with. It's a form of ghost worship.
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Last time I looked Parliament was the highest court, and for better or for worse I prefer decisions with deep real world political implications to be made by that institution than by elite experts informed only from within the narrow blinkers of the law.
I agree to some extent with this. I don't have any problem with the advice of these elite experts figuring extremely highly, but this kind of dispute is deeply constitutional, and the final backing should come from the legislature, preferably supported by the judiciary (having been involved). To leave it entirely to the judiciary is a ridiculous way to manage a matter of such political import.
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