Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Mandela, in reply to Russell Brown,
You were in one tribe or another.
Yup, it felt that way as a child, too. Mind you, I was in Ponsonby. Maybe it was different elsewhere.
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Hard News: Mandela, in reply to Russell Brown,
I don’t even know what that last part means.
It parses out to the exact opposite of the tone. He's literally saying that he won't lie to make the Left look bad, and is better off saying nothing. But somehow the tone conveys that he is a martyr for all of that.
ETA: Although Gio often points out that his memory hole might actually be because he was against the Tour, but he doesn't want his base to know. Which would be extremely sad, if true. -
Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Royals
> the R-word will not be considered for the vote. We won’t be giving those nasty young men any fame at all.
It took me 10 minutes to realize you weren't ragging on the Princes of the Realm. Good call.
"Legalize"
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I'd be furious if Key didn't go. As many of our dignitaries as good taste allows should go, and of course it would be a huge gesture of reconciliation if a National government would invite the most famous figurehead of our own resistance to Apartheid. I'm surprised that they wouldn't just consider it to be a canny move.
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Hard News: Mandela, in reply to Ross Mason,
Ummm…..Mathew was only 9 at the time. To be “Pro Tour” at that age was probably along the lines of “Mum and Dad were so I must be”.
I was the same age and it was a highly formative time. Also, Matthew said his parents had differing positions.
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Hard News: Mandela, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
Or why Public Address seems the right place to post it.
Thanks for it. It's an important confession to say one was pro-Tour to people who are likely to be hostile to that position, IMHO, it makes any change of heart more hard-won. I was anti, but in a much more reflexive way at the same age, practically everyone I knew was anti. It was my first real political conviction, that Apartheid was wrong in an important way. I remember vividly the face of the wild African youth yelling triumphantly that the ANC had been unbanned when I found out it had ended, and really felt his joy, and quite a powerful echo of it years later to see Mandela being cheered by a roaring crowd of South African rugby fans, as I watched the All Blacks play them without feeling ashamed to just enjoy a game. It's amazing that it's been 18 years since then and Mandela has been a Ghandi to South Africa, that whole time. I wish his family well, hope they are able to continue as symbols of unity, and that the nation grinds steadily toward greater equality and prosperity.
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Legal Beagle: John Banks: what next?, in reply to mark taslov,
Yes, having low corruption is not the same as being perfect. If a system is evil, it hardly matters that no one along the way will take a bribe, indeed that might only make it more evil. I don't think NZ is evil, but we do seem to give in to authority easily.
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I don't think corruption is a meaningless concept, however much it might rely on perceptions to be rated. When you encounter the more blatant forms of it, then it sticks out like a sore thumb. In NZ, the idea of even attempting to slip a bribe to a police officer doesn't cross most minds. Getting through border controls doesn't involve giving birthday presents to the guards. It isn't normal here, when facing the bureaucracy, to find it completely intransigent until the routine kickbacks are given all the way up the chain. Buying judges is not a common way of winning a case. I've been to a number of countries where none of those assurances can be made.
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Sunrise in Amsterdam
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Hard News: The judge is not helping, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
If I claim, based on something XYZ told me, that BenWilson is also Redbaiter, it doesn’t matter how credible XYZ is if I can prove that BenWilson is also Redbaiter.
Yeah, but how are you going to prove that, if your evidence IS what XYZ told you or gave you? The evidence can be challenged as fabricated or selectively picked from. Since the onus is on the defendant to prove the truth, surely it's also on them to come up with some chain of evidence, and for that evidence to be available to both parties.
Unless you're saying that Slater probably has other evidence?
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