Posts by Craig Ranapia
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BTW, I've said both publicly and privately to David that he puts up with a lot more faecal matter in the comments box than I would and (IMO) it doesn't really add much value to the Kiwiblog experience. (I've lost count of the number of potentially interesting discussions jacked by a small number of faintly unhinged commentators from both the loony left and the rabid right who need to get a fully-equipped dungeon and a pay-per-view webcam. Now.) But in the end, both Russell and David have ultimate editorial responsibility for what they publish. You can bitch and whine about their judgement - or lack of it - until the sun goes cold, but I don't see the point.
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Daryl:
If we want to talk about irony marinade, I'd be quite happy to enter into a dialogue about folks who crank up the faux outrage when they go out to provoke a brawl and get exactly what they're looking for. You're far from the worse offender over at Kiwibog, but don't pretend you don't play exactly the same game as the self-appointed Torquemadas of the right. It's too cute for words, and I don't apologise for saying I'm not really interested in giving such people a platform. If David Farrar does, then that's his concern as long as he's willing to accept the consequences.
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Daryl:
Um, I think you went a lot further than that - and, anyway, I think there's a certain amount of preciousness going on. I'm planning to reactivate my long dormant blog, and if you don't like my comments policy and how I apply it please feel free to go elsewhere.
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BTW - I only saw a minute or two on the news, but I thought John Key's criticism of Howard Broad, as if he'd been personally responsible for lack of change to the culture in the last 30 years pretty ripe.
Andrew, to be fair, I'll make two observations:
1) Howard Broad is New Zealand's top cop (and it's most highly paid civil servant) - it may well be heavy duty suckage that the Bazley Report landed on his desk but I wasn't overly impressed with his response either.
2) I think there's been a pretty non-partisan (and quite correct) hope that this report isn't going to end up gathering dust in the stacks of the Parliamentary along with so many others. Broad can either lead meaningful culture change, or he can clean out his desk and make room for someone who will. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I think this is a little too important to go through the same old spin cycle; I certainly think the overwhelming majority of police officers who do their jobs with courage and integrity deserve real leadership.
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Don:
Actually, it's rather funny how many prominent abolitionists, suffragettes and folks in the US civil rights movement would probably be derided nowadays as Bible-thumping Jesus freaks who should STFU with all the God crap. :)
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But previous results are no guarantee of future performance. Nesian Mystik's sophomore album captured few hearts the way their first one did.
And to be fair, I didn't particularly like Anika Moa's second album Stolen Hill, but you've got to have some respect for any musician who doesn't just clone their breakout hit until you want to jam a skewer in your ear.
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Is the Campbell Smith who told a select committee last week that illicit downloading was killing his artists' careers and forcing them into day jobs ...
OK, was I the only person who thought there were probably a lot of writers and actors out there who had to change their underwear once the hysterical laughter wore off? :)
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Ridley:
To be quite frank, I think the bill is explicitly 'anti-smacking' and I don't know why we've really had this semantic shell game being run by supporters of the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act. I think you've just got to read the comments and blog posts by repeal advocates for that to be blatantly obvious.
So, here's my question to Grant et. al.: Why the fuck have you been so inept as not to actually be upfront and say "You bet your arse we're "anti-smacking", and I'll tell you why any time, any where"? FFS, as a gay man with a sense of history, I know the fight for homosexual law reform began long before Fran Wilde put the Homosexual Law Reform Bill into the member's ballot. It was the work of people who made an argument one bloody, painful step at a time over years. Ditto for women's suffrage, the battle to abolish the slave trade in Britian (a bicentennial worth celebrating BTW), the struggle for civil rights in the United States. Heck, any social reform worth the having.
What doesn't achieve meaningful social or legislative change is trying to take a short-cut by 'framing' your argument with blatant intellectual and political dishonesty. And I have very little sympathy with activists of any stripe who get tripped up by their own rhetoric.
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Eww... Yes, I have to agree with you on that one: Like a lot of political labels 'neo-conservative' actually has a useful but limited meaning that seems to quietly morph into a term of abuse that becomes more dreadful the more vague it becomes. "You... you dirty conservative!" Yeah - well shove it up your bunghole, you Godless liberal!"
To quote that great moral philosopher, Cher Horowitz: What-EVER.
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Stephen:
Oy. I must be feeling oversensitive this morning :)Fair enough, if you feel I've made a crive-by accusation of intellectual charlatanism. At the risk of being sent back to Pseud's Corner :), it's pretty heavily contested just how big an influence a dense and highly abstract political philosopher Strauss actually is on the 'neo-cons', let alone on Bush administration foreign policy. A bit of intellectual name-dropping, or taking a graduate seminar with one of his students, doesn't necessarily mean they've read - let alone understood - anything Leo Strauss wrote.
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