Island Life: Let’s learn English, with John Key.
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A S,
I guess its how you view conservative. ...but point taken. They're not neo-conservative for sure .
Conservative and Neo-Con seem to me to be very different things. No meaningful comparison from my perspective.
Maybe the dog ate National's policies?
Maybe if someone announces an election date, we might get some policies....
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Maybe if someone announces an election date, we might get some policies....
We peasants don't deserve to know when we will next be allowed to chose our rulers.
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The National Party's bid to find out who secretly taped conversations with its MPs was dealt a blow when it was told there was no security camera footage of the cocktail party in the Town Hall.
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National tonight released a letter from the council's chief executive, Garry Poole, who said: "I can advise that no security camera footage of the cocktail function exists."A party spokesman said it was considering what to do next.
Let the conspiracy theories flourish!
(mine: footage erased by Nats. Well, think about it - would you want people watching you get all pissed and inappropriate? Could be far worse than the audio clips ...)
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A S,
We peasants don't deserve to know when we will next be allowed to chose our rulers.
That does certainly seem to be the attitude towards the populace.
Given that its our election, and the whole motley lot of them actually work for us, it would be nice if they would remember that we aren't here to provide them with lifetime employment.
The inevitably truncated election period just ends up depriving us of time to actually get to grips with policies, not just buy into the various hyperbole that surrounds them.
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Maybe if someone announces an election date, we might get some policies....
If that is all that the "we are better than Labour" hooha requires, What te frig have we been paying their wages for these last nine years? They could have just popped in this week,saved us at least $50 mil and I wouldn't have had to hear Judith Collins:)
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"Conservative and Neo-Con seem to me to be very different things. No meaningful comparison from my perspective."
there is a seminal influence there .....literally for george bush to w .
Labour have been very conservative in drug law, workplace law, r&d,
new housing schemes, immigration, family law. I think they're sitting in a politically desirable place the holyoake national party owned once.......sensible but not too exciting.but the workforce in this country is still poorly paid, new ideas are welcome especially from parties of commerce, we want smarter markets. .....but my initial point on this subject is if National are just going to be labour for 3 years lets just keep a pretty good labour government. .....but alas i do dream of competitive elections.
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WfF, ETS, Kyoto, not joining War on Terror etc.
WfF: Tax credit aimed at working families. conservative.
ETS, Kyoto: Arguably conservative. Depending on how big you see the threat to our current way of life, arguably no where near conservative enough
not joining War on Terror: Not strictly true, but I'd say that GWB's approach to fighting terrorism has been pretty radical. The fact that we didn't sign on to some of the more radical and adventurous aspects would make our approach, conservative.
It's funny how words change but conservative has done some crazy evolvin'.
I blame the Americans, because they are the biggest.
A partial list of things that are now considered conservative policies, but wouldn't be if you thought about what the word means:
1) Throwing out long established rights in the face of an historically insignificant terrorist threat.
2) Making a pledge to never raise taxes.
3) Following through on such a pledge in the face of a war, massive deficits, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
4) Turning down cups of tea, and opting instead for more reform.
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Alex, is it the fact that the tax credit is aimed at families that you think makes it conservative? That's odd. What if it were a tax credit for R&D or education and training? The point is that it's not simply a tax cut nor simply reliance on markets (or is that what you'd call neo-con)
How is the ETS and Kyoto conservative politics? You say arguably, I'm not sure what you mean, can you elaborate?
And how is not joining the War on Terror Not strictly true, because we're doing peace keeping and reconstruction in Afghanistan?
Perhaps you've got an objective definition in mind, but it's not one I can infer from your post.
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For what it's worth, the crowd that obligingly supplies "Our Views" to the Herald is unimpressed by talk of National hidden agendas and would rather talk a little more about Helen's crime-friendly, parent-hating nanny state. I can't resist offering the following tidbit:
Life is too easy in NZ. The bourgeois academics are manipulating the simpler people resulting in rampant socialisation.
Rampant socialisation. Now there's something we can all get behind.
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Labour have been very conservative in drug law
Well, Jeremy, if you want to talk about Labour's enthusiasm for wiping its arse (willingly enabled by nearly everyone else) on tiresome legal protections that evolved over centuries... I'd say you're actually looking as some rather radical people who've coating their radicalism in a populist veneer.
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I also admire the use of "bourgeois" along side "rampant socialisation" in that Herald diatribe.
As Obama says, sometimes it seems as though "these guys take pride in being ignorant".
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I also admire the use of "bourgeois" along side "rampant socialisation" in that Herald diatribe.
Don, that would have to be the very definition of poo words, when the utterer hasn't got a clue what they mean but has been told that it's bad and so flings them around. And ignorance don’t count fer shit in a faith-based reality.
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God bless Amerika.
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Man, I love the oratory of this guy. I keep wheeling out fresh YouTube clips of him at workshops. Should have played this to the kids at school this morning after their speech contest.
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Don, that would have to be the very definition of poo words, when the utterer hasn't got a clue what they mean but has been told that it's bad and so flings them around. And ignorance don’t count fer shit in a faith-based reality.
Yes, Sacha. I've gotten in the habit of asking people what they think "neo-con" means. Leads to some interesting, and sometimes outright creepy, places.
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"..., is it the fact that the tax credit is aimed at families that you think makes it conservative?"
The notion of a family is a traditional conservative plank. it kinda rocks.Thats not to say modern political conservatism gives a fuck, in many ways their anti-family.
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' I'd say you're actually looking as some rather radical people who've coating their radicalism in a populist veneer.'
but they look so normal craig.
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i've gotten in the habit of asking people what they think "neo-con" means.'
start with william f(?) buckly if you like , actually go to you tube and watch him get taken apart by noam chomsky in the 1960's. Fascinating, up there with zappa on crossfire.
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Barack Obama:
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant"
My choice for Quote of the Decade.
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start with william f(?) buckly if you like
I could, and if you think someone who was a vocal opponent of the Iraq War from the right - before it was fashionable - is any kind of "neo-con", then I've got to wonder what meaning it has at all except as a poo-label for anyone on the right you don't approve of.
At least when Gore Vidal and Buckley infamously threw the poo on live television in 1968, they did it with a little patrician style:
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I could, and if you think someone who was a vocal opponent of the Iraq War from the right - before it was fashionable - is any kind of "neo-con", then I've got to wonder what meaning it has at all except as a poo-label for anyone on the right you don't approve of.
The term neoconservative is at least thirty years old and has shifted in meaning somewhat, but never so much as to encompass Buckley, no question about that - Buckley was a Goldwater republican if we must label him, and nothing could be further from a neo-con on that side of that particular pale.
A fairly workable definition of what neo-con currently means would probably be anybody who espouses the PNAC document we were talking about last week. A bizarre chapter in history whose last pages are even now being written, in other words.
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neo con- such a mysterious word, no one knows what it means or where it came from. the mysteries of politics.
Listen to what buckley is saying to chomsky , he was milder than his offspring, sure but as arrogant as them. -
"vocal opponent of the Iraq War from the right - "
look his offspring are pretty stupid , who wasn't opposed, it was a fucking stupid move, all george bushes sr guys were against it to, it was dumb , so was cheney for along time.
anyway he's called the father of it. (neocon) .......he's not it.
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"except as a poo-label for anyone on the right you don't approve of."
this kind of shit is the weakness of your writing Craig.
I say what I see , feel free to discuss but i've haven't got a secret agenda. I'm keen to work things out as much as you are.
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this kind of shit is the weakness of your writing Craig.
I say what I see , feel free to discuss but i've haven't got a secret agenda. I'm keen to work things out as much as you are.
Jeremy: Well, I used to be rather fond of poo-wording the evil Liarbore dykeocracy as "Stalinist" until a good (lefty, FWIW) literally threw a copy of Robert Conquest's The Great Terror at me, and suggested I get a clue about what Stalin actually did, and how trite (and downright offensive) comparing Clark to him was. Best advice ever.
No secret agenda there on my part -- just a healthy dollop of intellectual laziness and plain stupidity. And I'm quite serious -- I wonder how many people who casually use 'neo-con' as a sneer really have any concept of what it means.
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