Hard News: The next bylaw will ban irony
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From my limited experience of the breed, it was the casual brutality, glorification of criminality and abuse of women, and utter disdain for the property and human dignity of 'outsiders' that churned my stomach.
Completely agree, having had some more than limited experience with the breed - you can't choose your family - funny to think that I know of people from other more 'mainstream' groups who occupy much the same territory too...
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This law isn't based on any sort of rational policy or consideration of actions and consequences. It's about the realm of the symbolic.
I'm astonished no-one is pointing out the irony of one gang using its muscle to 'bash' another.
From what I can see, there's a bunch of males, wearing regulation dark jackets, making by-law that targets another bunch of males who wear regulation dark jackets with particular embellishments.
There's plenty of room in this debate for some smart lawyer defending the arrested gang person to ask the Court whether the wider definition of gang should be extended to, well, gangs of middle-class white males. Let's hope the judge is a woman.
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The next bylaw will ban irony
But Laws is already immune...
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He IS the Laws!
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But Laws is already immune...
I think anyone who can describe John Key's response to the smacking CIR as "petty fascism", or chunter on about how Louise Nicholas is a pathological and vindictive liar who needs to get over the "mere sensual excesses" she was subjected to and move on (to take two random examples from his SST sewer) isn't merely terminally irony-deficient. He's lacking in shame and common human decency.
Speaking from the non-wingnutty right, I have an acquaintance who says she can't bear to tune into Public Address Radio because she won't support a station that employs a fuck-tard like Laws. Can't honestly say I blame her.
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I'm astonished no-one is pointing out the irony of one gang using its muscle to 'bash' another.
From what I can see, there's a bunch of males, wearing regulation dark jackets, making by-law that targets another bunch of males who wear regulation dark jackets with particular embellishments.
Police are public servants and are employed by, and accountable to, various arms of government. And therefore, us.
That's kind of a key difference.
Also, the police didn't make the by-law. They're just the poor saps that have to enforce it. I wouldn't be surprised if significant numbers of the local plod aren't too happy about that.
Also, the gangs themselves are more than happy to refer to police as 'the big blue gang'. I'm therefore quite happy not to buy into that line of argument, myself.
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I have an acquaintance who says she can't bear to tune into Public Address Radio because she won't support a station that employs a fuck-tard like Laws. Can't honestly say I blame her.
No, that’s being precious.
NZ is such a small place that every media outlet employs someone distasteful in some way or other.
Name one station / channel / paper that is completely toad-free.
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Also, the police didn't make the by-law. They're just the poor saps that have to enforce it. I wouldn't be surprised if significant numbers of the local plod aren't too happy about that.
Rich: You're right up to a point, but I wish we weren't seeing pulbic statements like this (in the story RB linked to in the original post):
Police spokeswoman Kim Perks said police had endorsed the gang bylaw as there had been genuine concerns by the community about gang intimidation in Wanganui.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Police make submissions in support of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill? They can't have it both ways, and if front-line officers aren't in support of the by-law, and their own management and union ignored that then I respectfully suggest that we've got bigger problems here.
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No, that’s being precious.
Considering the thud of Listener subscriptions being dropped around these parts, I wonder if this is the best place to accuse others of being precious. :)
Hey, I can hold my nose, file my pieces, and accept they're going to be broadcast on the same frequency as the loathesome Mr. Laws. But at least I'm getting paid for it. I understand others who think differently, having dropped the Herald sub because its much cheaper to insult my own intelligence.
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chunter on about how Louise Nicholas is a pathological and vindictive liar who needs to get over the "mere sensual excesses" she was subjected to and move on
Excellent, the touch of nausea I needed to complete my morning.
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Difference being that the dissatisfaction with The Listener and The Herald is more of a generic thing.
If someone cancelled a Herald subscription solely because Garth George writes for it, then I’d say that was pretty precious too.
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Also, the gangs themselves are more than happy to refer to police as 'the big blue gang'. I'm therefore quite happy not to buy into that line of argument, myself.
So, being in a gang precludes the ability to undetake critical analysis ? I have a cousin who is a very senior member of Black Power, and some of the stories he has told me about police behaviour leads me to conclude that the concept of a 'big blue gang' is not only apt, but able to be backed up by observed practic.
In many ways it's like the laws against offensive language. They are, to some extent, worth having, because offensive language is very often a precursor to violence, and is certainly used to intimidate people and whip up anger. If it gives the police an ability to immediately defuse a silly situation from going sillier, on account of something which is basically pretty silly in itself, then they are sometimes helping matters quite a lot.
Alternatively, they could simply invoke their power to enfore the Queen's Peace. The problem with these kinds of laws is that they can be selectively applied and are open to abuse. Just this morning on Bfm's Law Line there was a mum telling a story in which daughter's friend was alledgedly being pushed around by some police, swore at them for it, and was arrested for obscene language.
Breaching someone's human rights on the basis of who they associate with, not their behaviour in the instance, is the hallmark of facism not liberalism.
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being in a gang precludes the ability to undetake critical analysis
That puts words in my mouth that I never said.
I'll address the rest of your argument when I get a chance.
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From what I can see, there's a bunch of males, wearing regulation dark jackets, making by-law that targets another bunch of males who wear regulation dark jackets with particular embellishments.
Police are public servants and are employed by, and accountable to, various arms of government. And therefore, us.
As the TV camera panned around the Council chamber, all I saw were, again, a bunch of males, wearing regulation dark jackets, making a by-law that targets etc etc.
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And meanwhile. On Craig's beloved North Shore the council's lack of commitment allows another Gang to harass an old lady and deprive her of her garden.
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That puts words in my mouth that I never said.
And you've come to exactly the wrong corner of the interwebz if you think anyone here -- even a flaming rightie, like myself -- is seriously going to argue that the Police are beyond criticism. But I'd rather pitch my criticism of the by-law on how its really, really BAD LAW, rather than claim the Police are somehow just as bad as (if not worse) than the gangs.
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And meanwhile. On Craig's beloved North Shore the council's lack of commitment allows another Gang to harass an old lady and deprive her of her garden.
Dude, you're not getting all Randi Krishna on us, are you? You know, "the Resource Management Act is creeping fascism" as the Council stomps all over us with their polished jackboots etc. :)
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Breaching someone's human rights on the basis of who they associate with, not their behaviour in the instance, is the hallmark of facism not liberalism.
No arguments there. Just caveats. Human rights are slippery beasts, and the ban on patches is not a ban on association. It's a ban on wearing a particular item of clothing in a particular place. As a human right, that's well down the list. I still think it's a right, it's just quite a weak one.
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I assumed Christopher Dempsey was probably referring to the council members who made and passed the law. Glad to see that assumption was correct.
Breaching someone's human rights on the basis of who they associate with, not their behaviour in the instance, is the hallmark of facism not liberalism.
Spot on. (And an "Obscene Language" law is another silly law that should be dropped.)
[Laws apparently said] Louise Nicholas is a pathological and vindictive liar who needs to get over the "mere sensual excesses" she was subjected to and move on
He said that? Geez, I didn't think it was possible, but he is even more of a dick than I thought.
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Human rights are slippery beasts, and the ban on patches is not a ban on association. It's a ban on wearing a particular item of clothing in a particular place. As a human right, that's well down the list. I still think it's a right, it's just quite a weak one.
Isn't it a 'Freedom of Expression' issue?
Does anyone know what part of the Bill of Rights that gang member (the Tribesman guy) is intending to use in his defense?
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Isn't this another example of Nanny Sate? and the irony that M Laws has pushed it so hard.
Personally I find suits intimidating... -
He said that?
Oh yeah...Thanks to the rather user-unfriendly archives on Stuff, I can't provide a link to the column on line but describing the behaviour of Shipton et. al. as "sensual excesses" wasn't something I'd forget in a hurry. There's vile, and there's going so far beyond the pale you're not coming back.
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Personally I find suits intimidating...
Personally, the memory of a very angry Samoan drag queen built like the proverbial brick shit house and advancing towards me while brandishing a nose-bleed inducing stiletto heel still raises a cold sweat. Ban that bitch and her scary shoes!
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Thanks to the rather user-unfriendly archives on Stuff, I can't provide a link to the column on line
The page has been moved (and thus lost) but here it is reposted on Kiwiblog. Hold your noses:
There was even less evidence and less corroboration in this current trial. I have little doubt that the attorney-general and Crown Law so advised the police. But they persisted. Why?
Go back to my opening paragraphs. Because Police HQ regard Rickards and his mates as dirty. Morally dirty. Their sensual excesses in the mid-1980s were deemed to be wholly inappropriate in the first decade of this new century.
[...]Then there is the specious line of reasoning – advanced on TVNZ in the wake of the verdict by a female Victoria University criminologist -that the latest verdicts will have rape and sexual abuse victims refraining from complaint.
A commentary that presumes two things. First, that the jury were morons. Second, that criminal law need not apply if the alleged victim is an aggrieved female.
But that’s the thing these days. If you are male, white, heterosexual and middle-aged, you must be automatically guilty. Even when the evidence does not stack up.
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Dude, you're not getting all Randi Krishna on us, are you?
No.
Did you read the story? I just seemed like so many kinds of totally stupid fuckedupness.
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