Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Russell:
Nice comment, I'd also add a reality check for Tze Ming Mok. The most depressing thing about Turia's 'nasty, racist blurt' (as I/S so eloquently puts it) is that it's hardly the most extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric I've heard in my own whanau - let alone from *ahem* prominent Maori in forums that get little, if any, play in the MSM. (Just take Archbishop Whakahuihui Vercoe - his infamous 'world without gays' mouth-fart in his first major MSM interview following his election quite rightly drew criticism; the equally noxious public immigrant-bashing he'd been up to for years, not so much.)
There's plenty of brown-necks out there, Tze Ming, who aren't going to pay the slightest attention to a parenthetical half-backtrack excluding 'Asians' from the general anathema. When that dog-whistle starts to sounds, you're just tauiwi like everyone else who doesn't fit Turia's standard of racial correctness. Still, I am chuffed to be in such good company. :)
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Lyndon:
Perhaps, but let's face it Tariana and the Maori Party has much better odds of being around after the next election than Winston and his queer little personality cult. Much as I hate to pay Helen Clark a compliment, she quite efficiently castrated Peters and replaced his balls with a nice shiny pair of baubles. (He can't even do that much damage as Minister of Foreign Photo-Ops While Helen & Phil Do The Real Work.)
If Clark and John Key had any real political courage, they would have promptly held a joint press conference and said any immigration policies along the lines laid out by Turia would not even be on the table as part of coalition negotiations. I think it's far to say both National and Labour have broad areas of policy agreement with the Maori Party - as well as much they're never going to get on the same page on. But you've got to ask whether there are some prices not worth paying for the key cards to the Beehive. Ruling out pandering to racist minor parties on something as critical to New Zealand's economic and social well-being as immigration would be a good place to start. Then, as I said above, we could begin to gather some kind of consensus around a coherent and workable immigration system - God knows it's going to be hard enough without the likes of Peters and Turia pimping for the brown-neck demographic.
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Gee, David, I do blame someone who should know better - and unlike 99.999% of immigration cranks and racist windbags out there is co-leadier of a party in a position to torpedo any desperately needed reform of a severely dysfuntional Immigration Service and an incoherent legislative and policy framework.
In short, I'll treat Turia with the same contempt I've poured on Winston Peters for the last two decades.It would also be 'bold' to suggest all Maori who are homosexual, infertile or use contraception, intellectually disabled, born with genetic defects etc. should be put down in a 'culturally appropriate' manner because they're contributing sweet f.a. to the racial gene pool. It would also be demented and creepy on almost every level imaginable.
Can we please have a free, frank, fact-based and (most of all) SERIOUS political and public policy debate about immigration - if nothing else, the novelty value would be considerable.
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Russell:
Perhaps I was being a little facetious, but I still have to laugh (bitterly) at media outlets like the SST and 60 Minutes- tut-tutting about 'raunch culture' when (to pick on the latter) the rest of the show was made up with a puff-y profile of Helen Mirren, and some trolly dolly who can't quite understand why she got sacked for boffing Ralph Finnes in the loo. Nor does the SST get to huff and puff about the 'pornification' of the world when the news section is all to often tabloid in all but format, and we get pages of 'gossip' from Ratshit Glaucoma (or whatever her name is) and pap smear paparazzi pics while substantial features, arts and culture coverage etc. goes MIA.
Perhaps I'm utterly naive, but there is still such a concept as editorial judgement isn't there?
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*sigh* And before the Sunday Star-Times gets too sanctimonious about 'raunch' culutre - does anyone really give the proverbial rat's rectum where - or in who - Matthew Ridge is putting any part of his body?
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Colin wrote:
__Can you please list all the things I can get away with, and the mortal ones that I should avoid.*sigh* I'm sure a quick browse around http://www.catholic.org.nz/ will at least start you on your way. Otherwise, I don't think ignorance about anyone's faith is anything to be too proud or smart-alec-y about.
And more:
PS Is hitting children is OK by your God? (in a loving way of course)Hum... I don't really need a consult with a burning bush to know my own temper - and why spanking a child (or laying a finger on anyone) is about as sensible as falling of the wagon or uniltarally deciding to go off my medication.
I'm not particularly proud of the occasions I've reduced children to near-hysterics without laying a finger on them, though. I've been reliably informed that I can get quite loud, catty and in-your face intimidating when seriously pissed off. But in the end, no amount of legislation is going to make me stop being a prick - if only it was that easy.
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I do not regard religious justification as an argument. If I do, what do I say the man whose religious leader says it's okay to slap the wife?
Well, what would you have said to William Wilberforce - whose arguments for the abolition of trading and owning human beings in the British Empire were not only political, economic and ethical - but religious? He profoundly believed that his evangelical Christianity inevitably lead to the conclusion that slavery was an abonimation to God, and profoundly morally destructive to slave and slave-owner alike.
Wilberforce was also a Member of Parliament, who understood the nature and limits of religion and politics much better than most nowadays. I think that's a pretty good answer - there are plenty of countries that will allow you to hack off your infant daughter's clitoris and labia on the kitchen table. New Zealand is not one of them, until you can convince our legislature to change a few pieces of legislation. Not really that complicated - render unto Caesar and all that jazz...
And, Colin, don't be bloody silly - if you don't know the difference between a customary observance (and one that hasn't been obligatory for Catholic since before I was born) and a mortal sin, either find out or hold your tongue.
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Rebecca Whiting wrote:
Do we really want to get into defining "reasonable force"?Um, don't courts and juries do that all the time - and while we're on the subject, I think that hardy 'non-violenr' discipline method, the time out, is a pretty nasty kind of 'mental violence'. It works - with a little parience - precisely because you're keying into a child's most primeval fear, the phsyical and emotional withdrawl of an adult source of affection. The gut emotion that makes the wicked step mother or being lost in the woods so deliciously frightening.
When are we going to start defining what constitutes reasonable force when your preferred method of disciplining your children is psychological rather than physical? Is sending your kid to sit on the 'naughty step' OK, but putting them in a walk-in pantry not? Where's the bright line where the tone, body and language of a scolding crosses the line into enotional abuse?
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You could say the same about any opinion poll in that case.
I certainly could, and IMO there's a reason why all polling about social attitudes should be treated with even more extreme scepticism than political ones.
My larger point is that I'm sure every one of the sodomites and mannish women you had a whale of a time with recently could give you chapter and verse on the difference between what people will say in polite company - or to your face - and what they do when they think nobody's watching. A secret ballot is the ultimate privacy, when you get right down to it.
I don't think it's entirely facetious or cynical to say polite hypocrisy keeps the world going round - not blurting everything that crosses my mind has certainly prevented me from getting beaten up on more than one occasion. :)
A bigot who knows how to self-censor is still a bigot, though I'm hardly complaining about any evidence that sectarian prejudice, anti-Semitism, racism and homopbobia are a lot less socially respectable than they used to be.
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Well, Russell, unless Gallup hires mind-readers what exactly does that poll prove? Here's another equally plausible read on that: There's plenty of religious bigots, racists and homophobes who won't share their prejudices with strangers on the phone, any more than they'd run down the street screaming 'I hate niggers, faggots, kike and papists!'
And for the benefit of anjum and deborah, could anyone explain what legitimate interest the New Zealand Government has in collecting census data on people's religious affiliations, full stop? I found it so offensive, I didn't even bother ticking the 'object to state' box - just left it blank.
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