Posts by slarty
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It may not be exactly how I'd have worded it, but the wording is far short of the confusing law and order referendum. At present "a smack as part of good parental correction" is a criminal offence.
Now you see Graeme, this is where some people struggle with lawyers... while you are, of course, technically correct, the reality is we have a justice (not legal) system that involve lots of discretion. We have countless laws out there which are not enforced on a daily basis, because most of the time it would damage the integrity of the our civil society.
Mostly this is dealt with through the discretion of public servants such as the police, who exercise the power of a stern talking to.
Failing that it goes through some sort of evaluation by another load of public servants to decide whether to prosecute.
Then it enters a legal process, and faces constant hurdles before reaching the point where, in some cases, 12 of our peers may yet decide to find you not guilty.
I like our system, I reckon on the whole it serves us well. But there is not a direct binary connection between something technically being an offence and you suffering as a result, and arguing the point it that way perpetuates the wingnut view that we're all going to jail for clipping our offspring round the ear.
The repeal of the exemption in the Crimes Act was just that - it removed an anomoly that said "I can't use violence against anyone in society except my children". Will it have a material effect in terms of prosecutions? Probably not. Does it send a clear message that violence is not a useful part of parenting? Of course it does - the process of passing the ammendment generated more anti-violence publicity than a squillion dollars worth of Satchi.
Managing compliance is about messaging so that the 99.999% of will demonstrate behaviours that are beneficial and acceptable to our society, not about nailing the 0.001% who have probably decided not to comply anyway. And that certainly doesn't mean trying to deliver some Benthamesque codified book of exactly what we should do in any given circumstance.
Now look how many words you made me write. Poo.
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They just about damn well disappear if you remove the rather dubious "harm" of "productive resources diverted due to drug production", which is the largest cost quoted in the index.
....If you add in revenue loss from not taxing currently illegal drugs...
I think that some illegal drug revenue is taxed at the higher end of the food chain (gangs and stuff).
And as tax numbers are fed to Stats to help calculate GDP, it wouldn't surprise me if "productive resources diverted" are being included in the numbers for NZ Ltd...
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The War on Drugs is real, because we have already conducted it against China & won.
:) Exactly - and we scored a new name for a City from it!
There's an interesting economic aspect to how the drug<->tea trade operated in the 19thC... the state (emperor and all the corrupt layers beneath him) implemented extraordinarily tight controls on what could be traded (only silver).
This artificially created a situation where it was fairly obvious if you'd traded some tea for, say, a pile of textbooks.
So it you had to find something with a massive value, easily transported etc. And lo and behold, the East India Company comes up with something.
The thing that makes me chuckle is it was all driven by massive demand for another demonic stimulant.
Isn't it amazing how we still persist time after time with thinking that our moral views are better than those of others...
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I'd urge people to read the Chief Constables submission - I found the section that basically said we'd been conned into a "war on drugs" by a bunch of US prohibitionist wingnuts to be particularly resonant - so many of our apparently strange domestic policy is driven by the need to pander to international interests...
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Well, let's see if I can live up to that RB...
If you'd like crime to drop by 30%, double the number of coppers available to chase violent criminals, cut NZ gangs off at the knees, dispose of 60% of the prison population and help people who struggle with addiction problems there's this bunch of radical raving pinko, umm, Chief Constables in Britain who have the answer.
But I guess a rational response just doesn't do it for most people...
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I do the Ferry to Airport run every week in a Corporate Cab.
$68 a pop ($73 on the way back because the AIA monopoly taxes the cab drivers for the use of the rank...)
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Sorry, Stephen, I was being a bit brief.
What I was getting at was:
1. Evaluate the risk of an incident occurring through your choice of a car over another form of transport. A car is probably second only to a motorcycle I would guess, but the risk of something happening is pretty small.
2. Then evaluate the marginal increase in risk that results from (for want of a better term) the "opponent" in the incident driving, say, a Range Rover.
Now compare the TOTAL comparative risks between the two. Like I say, it'll be a rounding error.
And I agree about the 4WD around town, but like ABS it does help with avoidance. I guess I should fess up to being a (UK) Police trained driver, an ex-Rally driver and a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. But I'm only basing my opinions on experience, not studies!
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PS. Sorry Stephen for my wild generalisation! I must remind myself that PA readers are a little above average when it comes to thoughtfulness and common decency.
And I broke my own rule twice - I never discuss driving with anyone in NZ. There's some funny deeply ingrained "right to drive" thing going on that makes even the most rational NZer completely unable to see the truth when it comes to driving. The best example of it is the strange inability to identify the fundamental flaw in having the left lane merge into the right when two lanes merge...
It reminds me of all those nice people you meet in the USA - welcoming, friendly, often surprising erudite... and believe in a big ghost in the sky who tells right from wrong, the fundamental rightness of electrocuting mentally ill people and carrying guns to shopping malls.
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If that was a serious consideration, you wouldn't use a car at all...
The marginal threat to others between you driving a, say, Echo vs. a Land Cruiser is in the realms of a rounding error.
Statistically far more significant is having full-time 4WD and ABS.
So if we were being rational, we'd be mounting campaigns against people driving old cars with no ABS!
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PS. What are all these anti-4WD wankers rambling on about? I presume they take offence at someone wanting to express their power and success with a big car? Well yes, I did. I thoroughly enjoyed my V12 Jag and then my WRX. And my stupidly fast Suzuki.
Bollox to the lot of you. Now I'm a sad family man with a Previa, but I'm not going to pour scorn on anyone who likes going a bit quick in something a bit heavy or a bit stylish, because I'm comfortable with my masculinity.
I don't regret a drop of the Octane I've burnt in pursuit of pleasure, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone else having a good time. Reminds me of the sanctimonious attitude of the anti drink / drug / yoof whiners: as Douglas Adams pointed out (sort of) I'm sure it's basically that the whingers are pissed off that other people seem to be having more fun than them.