Posts by Idiot Savant
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But for some, skin colour (or to be precise, language and cultural practices) does matter.
Big deal. The fact that they care about it doesn't mean their interest is acceptable or legitimate. We don't "acknowledge" and accept the legitimacy of Ian Wishart's panty-sniffing obsession with what other people do with their wobbly bits; we don't "acknowledge" and accept the legitimacy of Pope Tamaki's interest in whether we go to (his) church; and we don't "acknowledge" and accept the legitimacy of Trevor Loudon's witchhunt against people with different political beliefs from himself. So why the hell would we accept it for skin colour?
Living in a liberal and tolerant society means accepting that some things are just NOYFB and not a subject of public policy. We do this because it stops us from killing one another or otherwise making life unbearable. I'll happily accept that Encoch Brown is an illiberal, intolerant bigot; but that doesn't mean I'm going to give him the time of day, or regard him as anything more than a relic who will soon be drooling to himself in a retirement home.
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How do you define merit ?
Educational attainment. Whether their skills match an identified area of shortage or whether they already have a job offer. Whether they're shacked up with a kiwi they met overseas (something that our immigration system has got a lot tougher on, but which ought to be recognised as part of our basic right to family life). And all of this should be assessed in a completely colourblind manner
One other thing I want to end is the present lazy equation of merit with wealth.
Do we need mechanisms to moderate immigration into targeted parts of the country ?
How? We have a right to freedom of movement in this country (affirmed in the BORA's right to liberty of the person and in numerous international instruments to which we are a party). Unless you're in prison, on parole, or have a seriously contagious disease, the government can't tell you where to live and stop you from moving elsewhere.
If we want to shift immigration away from Auckland, then we need to shift economic opportunity. And that's a rather more difficult proposition.
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Yes, from a certain perspective, New Zealand First's predictable antics are almost humorous. The punchline to Mr Brown's crack-brained press release, of course, is that he himself is an immigrant to this country, something that he seems to have conveniently forgotten.
Apparently it's OK if you're white...
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You're it masking behind
Obviously, that should be the other way round.
(Sorry; still on my first coffee)
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It isn’t inherently racist to have the serious debate now we should have had 15 years ago about what sort of demographic makeup and what sort of country we want
Yes, it is. You're it masking behind the polite phrase "demographic makeup", but what you're actually wanting to talk about is how many non-white faces we "have" to see in the streets, and the average skin-tone of New Zealand. In the process, you're granting that these things matter. And that is giving away the entire argument at the start.
Skin colour does not matter, and it is no more a fit subject for debate than the average religion or political affiliation of potential immigrants. These things are properly the domain of the individual, not of society as a whole. It is no-one's business at all what race other people are. The only metrics we should be looking at to decide among those who want to live here are merit and need; th emoment we start looking at the colour of their skin, we're no better than the National Front.
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Fortunately (?) I had a copy of IE around, so I can see it there. But why the hell does TVNZ hate firefox?
It was quite good BTW. Next stop: Backbenches.
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All I get from TVNZ OnDemand is endless "loading". Anyone got torrent, or failing that, advice on how to get the bloody thing to work?
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The video from last night's first Media7 show has been encoded and will be uploaded later this morning. I'll let you know in a separate post as soon as that happens.
Oh good; I was wondering how I was going to get my serious TV fix.
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If we accept that there will be random fluctuations in the quantity supplied, and that the price mechanism should be used to manage that
I think one of the problems is that our major electricity users don't accept that. They want a market, but only if its a one-way bet. hence the cries of "crisis" when the market operates as expected in times of high demand.
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The Standard uses it at every opportunity now, and there's clearly a conscious effort to do so. No Right Turn and others have used it recently too.
It's a meme. Once you've been exposed, it's hard not to recognise the behaviour its referring to when you see it. I use it because it's catchy, and perfectly sums up what I think is wrong with Key: the man is hollow (there's another one!), incapable of adopting a firm policy position, and squirms whenever pressed on basic details like "what did you say last week?"
As for Brownlee, sadly "hysterical blustering fool" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.