Posts by mark taslov
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Sacha,
Thanks for your understanding Sacha.
So venturing back to Graeme’s question from another angle. Two key differences between the official endorsement of discretionary enforcement of the smacking law and the official endorsement of discretionary enforcement of cannabis use and possession laws are that firstly, one instance grants police the opportunity to seize material possession for personal gain with little recrimination while the other does not and secondly while the discretion expected to enforce the smacking law is contingent on certain expectations of human nature and a capacity for good judgement from officers, the discretion expected to enforce these cannabis laws ignores human nature and the capacity for bad judgement by police officers.
This issue has been further exacerbated by the fact that until this year members of the New Zealand Police Force have enjoyed 155 years without a comprehensive drug testing program and even now the regime falls well short of what might be considered reasonable expectations for stamping out the types of corruption one is prone to suspect occurs when cannabis is confiscated without charges being laid:
While details are still being developed, the plan is for all staff involved in critical incidents which have resulted in death or the discharge of a police firearm to undergo mandatory testing.
Testing may also be required where a critical incident has resulted in serious injury, Clement said.
Meanwhile, 500 staff involved in “safety-sensitive” roles would be subject to random tests from next year.
So while the law as it is written was designed to protect the public from the harms of cannabis use and possession, a Prime Ministerial endorsement of discretionary enforcement of cannabis laws erodes safeguards that individual officers might reasonably expect from corruption by their peers.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I thought Little’s response on Morning Report was perfectly coherent.
I guess my question would be, how coherent can support of an incoherent legislative approach truly be? The first issue with Mr Little’s position is that as Ian pointed out over the page:
Key doesn’t get to govern based on his own wishes – has anyone explained that to him properly.
Which should apply to any politician in a democracy, so while Andrew Little’s position bears many similarities with that of John Key
broader liberalisation, not something I’m particularly fussed about
I’m not entirely sure if you’re reading of that position is the same as mine.
He is opposed to decriminalization
He and John “I’m not a big fan” Key are opposed to official decriminalisation but not particularly fussed about our current de facto decriminalisation. Which is great for non maori. This is not a new issue, as I intimated earlier when referencing politicians ‘across the spectrum’, this has been going on for decades. I’ve had the police confiscate cannabis from me under the Bolger Government, under the Shipley Government and under the Clark Government, and I’m yet to be prosecuted, under the Key Government it looks like I'll be lucky to get a look in – I’m not going to fudge this, how awesome is it to be a pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand? While police are arresting about 15,000 people a year for personal use and possession of cannabis, what are the odds? In the parlance of our Prime Minister – losers.
Andrew Little:
There are negative health effects for young people, young brains young minds, now the brain is still developing until the early twenties, and this is not, greater liberalisation of cannabis is not going to help when it comes to potential health effects there.
Who knows? Introducing age restrictions might help. Allowing people to smoke in the fresh air of their back yard rather than being fearfully holed up behind closed doors exposing their children to second-hand cannabis smoke might help. Not putting mums in jail might help. Better access to health support without fear of being criminalised might help. Better public education will help. Whether the chief concern is helping young minds or placating small minds remains uncertain.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Moz,
“no-one wants a business selling X at the end of their street”
One needn’t step too far out onto a limb to posit that the majority support shown for growing small amounts for personal use is in part fueled by people wanting that kiwi mainstay – the tinny house – removed from the end of our streets; not wanting tinny houses at the end of our streets being one of many lines that has been trotted out by decriminalisation advocates for decades. The cynic in me even wonders if his statement (sorry the actual quote wasn’t available when I posted above) isn’t the first step of a mighty about face:
“You show me the communities who want to put up their hand and say I want a tinny house at the end of my street.”
Because literally no one was talking about legalising tinny houses except our Prime Minister. Looking at examples of cannabis legalisation around the world, tinny houses – associated with crime, arms, lacing with fly spray and horse tranquilizer, a million wasted strips of Glad, and who knows what else – simply don’t feature. Their equivalents are displaced by heavily regulated dispensaries selling quality produce.
Regardless of how many socially isolated journalists mindlessly trot out these soundbites:
Are you worried about the sort of I suppose backlash? The Prime Minister yesterday said people wouldn’t want tinny houses at the end of their streets.
The fact remains that thousands of New Zealanders already have tinny houses at the end of our streets, these are an unfortunate outcome of prohibition and we don’t want tinny houses at the end of anyone’s street.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Sacha,
To be fair though Sacha, even consistent messaging wouldn’t be a bad start, Mr Key by contrast appears entirely lost in the shop. the message being sent by his Government to teenagers and the wider community in this neck of the woods is that the National Party simply don’t care.
I hope Maggie Barry has time to take him aside to explain how people manufacture the spuds and kumara that find their way onto his dinner plate.
Despite the clarity in the wording with regard to growing a small amount for personal use, tonights Newshub segment rounded off with John Key at sea in his own circular argument that we’d need shops to sell it but no one wants a tinny house at the end of their street.
Perhaps his advisors (anyone?) could explain the poll to him.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I believe the smoke free environments law is enforced by the Ministry of Health primarily, rather than police, and applies to smoking anything in a public premise.
It’s by the by, I presented the possibility of making our own centre smoke free in anticipation of any suggestion that doing so would make a difference to the way the cannabis legislation is currently not enforced by the police.
But maybe the elders of your town prefer the challenged to be nicely stoned inside the community centre than wandering the streets annoying people.
Sorry by elders I assume you’d be referring to the local council, and no, I’ve yet to observe any instances of them referring to members of the community so dickishly. Go troll your family.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Graeme Edgeler put it to me on Twitter this morning that Key was applauded for emphasising that the police would apply their discretion when the Section 59 “reasonable force” defence for child discipline was removed – so why scorn him for saying the same about drug law? And why is one “message” law, passed on the understanding that it would not lead to prosecution in every case, a good thing, when another is not? He wasn’t just trolling: it’s a reasonable philosphical question.
More than anything else this affirms the adage that one person’s reasonable philisophical question is another’s feckless musing. Through the looking glass, It’s not unheard of to enter the centre of this admittedly small town and be greeted by a similar THC to air ratio as one would expect to enjoy at a Bob Marley concert.
The probability that local police are unaware of this is highly unlikely given that the police station is within 20 metres of the shop from which the psychoactive smoke tends to emanate. Yes the local police force is ludicrously understaffed, but it’s hardly wanton conjecture to surmise that part of the reason our community centre occasionally doubles as a defacto hotbox is an outcome of this discretion that Mr Key et al are advocating i.e. the widespread understanding that the consequences of punishment far outweigh the harm generated – either that or the police are as blazed as anyone else game enough to venture into the mini-Woodstock our community hub becomes, especially on Fridays.
Were our town centre age restricted it may be all well and good, but as the police station lies opposite the local park (itself equidistant from the smoke source) which is unsurprisingly frequented by children, (whom research reveals are most likely to be adversely affected by exposure to cannabis and its derivatives), the suggestion with regard to cannabis use – that there are no victims beyond the toker – tends to overlook that while it is incredibly difficult to either passively smack or be smacked, exposure (active or otherwise) to airborne substances is in some instances regarded as a serious issue, as evidenced by the numerous local laws around the country desginating smoke free areas.
If police are unwilling to enforce smoke free legislation in instances where it would require also enforcing unattractive and outdated psychoactive substance legislation then what difference would implementing legislation to create a smoke free town centre make in this case?
In terms of our elected representatives, limiting our criticisms to John Key seems parochially partisan given the cowardice and share ineptness shown by our would-be leaders across the spectrum – for a couple of days last week I was a prospective Labour voter.
Yes we are only just a small town, but that needn’t be taken as any indication that we wouldn’t welcome coherent, considered and enforceable legislation designed for the benefit of New Zealand as a whole.
Despite feeling as if I’d just emerged from a Cannabis Cup quarter final I was glad to later learn that I had successfully posted my parcel to the correct destination.
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Thank you for taking the time to read Rob S and Sacha. My apologies for the vagueness of ‘Yoruba’ above, it was an afterthought that I hoped any one interested may follow up on but in the interests of clarity I feel it’s only right that the point I was attempting to make is expounded upon:
The Yoruba case is a clear depiction of a society where power relations were traced through their age-grading culture. The Yoruba people are located mainly in southern Nigeria. Until missionaries and colonialism influenced the area, most of the Yoruba were genderless beings. Instead of having a culture that was divided through gender expectations and hierarchies, the Yoruba people used seniority as an organizing system. This system separated power relations by age and lineage, not gender (Oyěwùmí 1997). The only real gendered aspect of the Yoruba society concerned the different roles in pregnancy and arguably the beginning of marriage (“The Yoruba Family” 2013).
When people married in Yoruba society, typically a female-sexed person would marry into a male-sexed person’s family. The newcomer, as the person would be referred to, would be ranked below all the members of the family she married in to. Although it seems like this person is now stuck on the bottom of an immovable power hierarchy, this was not the case. The newcomer has the ability to move throughout the power system by having children. By adding to the family lineage one would move up in seniority (Oyěwùmí 1997). This system not only allowed for people to fill many different roles (compared to western society in which people may only fill the roles allowed to their gender) but it also allows for all people to have access to power in all spheres.
Further reading here.
The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses
With regards to the link “comparitively” in my initial post:
Same-gender love can sometimes be difficult to differentiate in Classical Chinese because the pronouns he and she were written with the same character, like tā (他)
To that I should add that this tā (他) was split into three tā: 他(he), 她(she), 它(it) in the early 20th century following the fall of the Qing Dynasty, however this distinction does not exist in the spoken language to this day.
I might also add that my hand was pushed to post my initial 3 posts above due to an experience last week. As we attempted to separate the ram, the ewes stuck close, intent on protecting him within the flock. Apparently amused by this, the person helping me jokingly muttered “chicks”. Based ona couple of previous comments, I did not construe it to be a comparison to fowl but rather anthropomorphism: a derivation of his perception that women habitually and foolishly follow men around(?). Most importantly, what struck me is that a 60 y/o South African émigré who moved here as a youth and who has spent most of his life trotting the globe working as a professional mathematician – has been back in the country with his new wife less than a year and has found this kind of aside to still be acceptable social currency in 2016. I was too taken aback to challenge it.
And finally, speaking of Social currency
Jeremy Corbett: The following show is for adults only and contains bad language that may offend some people and there have been a lot of moves this week to ban all smoking on TV because when people see it on TV, it glamorises it making it cool and sexy, well we at 7Days have a plan to make sure that doesn’t happen [cut to shot of Paul Ego wearing a red bikini top]
Paul Ego: [husky voice] What are you looking at? pervert. [flicks ash under bra, seductively pokes out tongue]
[laughter]
Jeremy Corbett: That should do it.
Because naturally, Paul Ego playing a transgender character, mocking those who may be attracted to the transgender character, is far more repugnant and therefore humorous to the NZ public than Paul Ego playing himself in that vein, nipples out.
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Some old shit that was lying around.
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Hard News: Media Take: Heavy topics, in reply to mark taslov,
How does this all tie together? Well, as I see it, the wider LBGTQAI community (having long been challenged by stereotypes) have helped society successfully challenge stereotypes, and our acceptance of this community has reduced violence and bigotry in our society. With regards to this sloganeering and stereotyping, it is most specifically the Q (Gender Queer/ Gender Fluid) and T (Transgender) and most naturally the I (intersex) who confound these gender stereotypes, and yet they are exactly who is most othered as we continue to frame societal woes as a binary battle of the sexes. We are your largely invisible brothers and sisters and things, you may call us “sir” or “dude” or “miss” based on superficialities, and it’s highly likely we may not even correct you given we have spent entire lives feeling and being mislabelled. Regardless, for the most part many will remain invisible – given that the SHCTP funds 3 MtF GRS’s every 2 years meaning that most of New Zealand’s transgender citizenry don’t have a shit show of ever qualifying for gender reassignment surgery unless they can conjure up a spare $7-24,000 – we are your neighbours, your workmates, your closeted and uncloseted spouses and that person you pass on the street. In saying that I don’t wish to perpetuate any misconception that being a transgender person is contingent on either having undergone invasive surgery or having been prescribed HRT – this is about identity first and foremost.
Possessing, it would seem, the power to dilute this apparently insoluble gender binary solution, by virtue of being more visible, these otherwise unseen members of our community may very well assist in further dissolving the battle lines; a truer equality for all may become that wee bit more realisable. If nothing else our greater visibility may help curb our suicide rate.
Obviously none of what I’m saying is much use to a those currently trapped in violent and intimidating relationships, it’s not going to provide equal pay or encourage basic humane respect, neither misogeny nor misandry will be stamped out in the forseeable future, but for accuracy’s sake we need to look deeper as a society and reflect on both what we can and what we perhaps might not yet be able to see and in turn adjust ourselves to act accordingly. Kyle is spot on when he says:
As men, when we behave like this – or stand by while our friends, workmates, teammates behave like that – we are the problem.
We all need to work to stamp out misogeny and misandry, but we also need to recognise that while these are related to and incorporated in family violence, misogney and misandry are not themelves indicitive of family violence, I have family members whose misogeny and misandry infuriates me but this is not necessarily a symptom of violence or vice versa, these are largely symptoms of ignorance to be challenged (which is often easier said that done), distinct from family violence – itself generally symptomatic of weak self-control and addiction (25% of the most severe intimate partner aggression incidents in New Zealand involved alcohol).
As The Dunedin study has found, self-control is the greatest indicator of ‘success’ in life, and furthermore that self-control is something that can be both taught and developed. With an eye on the legislative environment few could argue that many of New Zealand’s most pressing social issues appear to be related to a self-control shortage. In addition, more focus on techniques that meaningfully empower us to defuse conflict successfully could also be incredibly useful – as a pragmatic backup.
Looking forward, a considered reassessment of this gender stereotyping and conditioning so prevalent in our society must happen sooner or later in order for societies to find and enjoy greater peace; for society’s agressors to find peace and most importantly for society’s victims to find peace: peace being the purest antidote to violence.
ETA – Kyle, I should add that I have always enjoyed your contributions here and both the wisdom and expertise you have conferred over a range of related issues, if you feel that my use of your piece as a springboard has resulted in an unfair portrayal of what you wrote; I apologise for singling you out, and I am aware that the argument you presented is quite widely held amongst the liberal class at this juncture.Obviously I can appreciate that a lot of people may not wish to read something like this, that it confronts what appears to be widely accepted norms and may contain numerous errors or miscategorisations. For my part it’s not something I myself am particularly enthused about writing either – invisibility becomes quite comfortable after a time. I’m at pains to admit that I’m not well versed in much of the jargon, but this is an alternative perspective that for whatever reason I’ve felt increasingly compelled to offer in response to the men vs women arguments that have occurred here in recent years which I’ve always missed my chance to contribute to due to those threads repeatedly being closed before I can get my head together.
I’d like to add that I would never have had the confidence to write a comment like this had it not been for Russell’s wisdom, acceptance and patience with me over the years and Emma’s absolute frankness with regards to issues of a personal nature which has been of immeasurable inspiration in helping me reach a point of self-acceptance. So thank you so much to both of you, you’ve made an incredible difference in my life. I hope I’ve not overstepped my mark.
Yoruba
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Hard News: Media Take: Heavy topics, in reply to mark taslov,
the most rational choice is for women to treat all men as dangerous.To treat all men as a threat, and all men as abusers.
Again, while this might sound reasonable when taken as the musing of a caucasian man informing women how to feel and behave, when one considers it in the context of the publication and audience:
The world's most glamorous showgirls just happen to be men.
It's confounding, because it is apparent that this is a context still steeped in fundamentalist binarism, redolent of the gender essentialist environment that the New Zealand media by and large refuses to budge from.
Tune in to Seven Sharp and you'll witness the stereotypes and snipes of this incessant gender war. Tune into Story and you'll witness exactly the same clichés playing out night after night. However if you tune into Shortland Street you'll see a teenager who fails to convincingly occupy the position of either male or female: an anomalous transgender person cast against the back drop of a user paid health system.
We have X chromosomes, some of us have Ys, some of us have many Xs, some have other gender-binary confounding 'defects' or 'mutations', and these all occur quite naturally in the human race. Other gender anomalies may not be so obvious under a microscope, but what is clear is that there's a lot more going on here than male≠female.
We have Xs on our passports but there's neary a transgender to be seen anywhere outside the main centres, which is odd considering that one effort to quantify the US population gave a "rough estimate" that 0.3 percent of American adults (1-in-300) are transgender. These dualistic stereotypes are a perpetuation of a patriachal design whereby men are the species, and women the subordinate, and that's all; a design where the battle lines were drawn for us at birth - where for all intents and purposes there can be no in-betweens, and we best conform. This conformity is especially apparent in the male kiwi who may become men - real men; who love their footy, don't wear gay pink shirts, and are hard as nails.
Where Kyle assumes the lack of victimisation he has experienced is due to him being a Pakeha middle aged professional man who lives in a nice part of town. Others might point out that it could just as likely be due to the fact that he's a well built skin head who looks like he could handle himself, or perhaps as a psychologist he's better equipped than most to defuse situations.
The fact remains that as with heterosexual relationships, approximately 1/3 of same sex relationships also devolve into violent relationships.
Domestic violence is a male problem, and women are the victims.
This is simply no longer applicable to society as a whole, it is selectively tailored to a segment of society, albeit the majority, but it others many people - furthermore it others/ deprioritises the issues they face.
A clue as to possible alternative approaches to this issue is in the Headline for the series:
FAMILY VIOLENCE
Because families are seldom about men and women as much as they're defined by the children. If children are a foremost concern, which they should be, then what tangible benefit do our young boys derive from these kinds of generalisations beyond establishing and reinforcing stereotypes which would in part appear to be fueling the issue:
"I am violent because I'm male therefore I'm violent."
This stereotyping appears to ignore the basic conflict resolution principle whereby finding common ground will generally trump pointing out assumed differences, and I don't use the word 'assumed' lightly, given the invisibility of intersex et al. members of society and given the length of time it may takes some members in the transgender et al. community to identify/ transition.
It also largely ignores gender related family violence issues - the girl who is abused for being too manly, the boy who is abused for not being manly enough - it perpetuates a cycle of ignorance.Should we be saying to our children:
the most rational choice is for children to treat all adults as dangerous.To treat all adults as a threat, and all adults as abusers.
Following this logic what is the most rational choice?
A New Zealand review of all child homicides between 1991 and 2000 found that in cases where a child was killed by their parent - 54% of perpetrators were fathers, 40% were mothers, and 6% of cases involved both parents
That's an alarmingly balanced spread, and yet our response to these types of issues is still one of barbarism, and binary fundamentalism: a response that introduces the death penalty by stealth is still advocating violence, I'm unclear how this applies to those in same-sex relationships or similarly overlooked circumstances.
Our pronounced habit of legislating to undertake cultural attitude shifts appears to be based on a short-sighted overestimation of the reach of legislation administered by what global history has shown will ultimately be relatively fleeting regimes. I assume that this issue seems to be particularly evident in New Zealand given our propensity for the comparitively myopic historical perspectives that dominate our national discourse.
The irony for me with regards to tolerance is that it is our children who are leading the way in accepting the unquantifiable X. In contrast we as adults have had discussions on these very boards whereby parents, good parents, educated parents, still labour under the assumption that their children are naturally CISgendered, deciding that they will therefore treat them accordingly in terms of singling out their male progeny to inform them that they might be potential rapists. [Thread is now closed].One hopes this prophecy is not self-fulfilling.