Posts by Craig Young
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Why the hell do political journalists continually turn to John Tamihere for comments about a party that he hasn't belonged to for the last decade or so and which he continually and relentlessly sledges at every available opportunity? Or for that matter, Chris Trotter, who wouldn't know a social democrat if one bit him on the arse?
Craig Y
-
Ye gods. It looks as if the fundies are transitioning from targeting LGBTs as their preferred object of the Three Minutes Hate session to Muslims, with conspiratorial sentiments that similarly attribute the Downfall of Western Civilisation to them. I recommend Martha Nussbaum, the excellent US philosopher, as a corrective to these diatribes.
-
As for the raving right, they seem to be utterly without clue on this issue. Take the current rhetoric about polygamy and incest, for instance. McCrockoshite pontificates about them endlessly when he's within microphone range, but Canada refused to decriminalise polygamy after the Bountiful case (it involved a fundamentalist schismatic "Mormonoid" colony which was characterised by violence against 'plural wives' and pedophile child marriages and sexual abuse) after British Columbia held a reference case in November 2011.
As for 'consensual adult' incest, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights refused to decriminalise that form of incest because (obviously) 'consensual' sibling incest is questionable if one of the parties has some form of cognitive, intellectual or behavioural disability, as well as the fact that two of the children born to the sibling couple had severe intellectual and physical disabilities.
And as for 'religious freedom,' if they think LGBT activists will deliberately dress badly, muss up our hair, dumb down and demand to be married in fundamentalist churches, nope...any more than we want to be ordained as ministers within such sects.
Craig Y
-
I would volunteer, but I'm focused on achievable objectives- although as indicated, I do support decriminalisation of medicinal cannabis derivatives and would join any lobby for that- and I do agree with the points made earlier about the evolution of social movements,. Taking the LGBT rights movement as an example, the use of amenable and available expertise to substantiate our particular incremental claims is the route we've followed in New Zealand and overseas. It's taken time, but we're now knocking at the door of full LGBT equality rather insistently.
Incidentally, why has no-one brought up the Netherlands in this debate yet? How did they deal with drug law reform in their context?
-
I find myself in the position of supporting medicinal cannabis decriminalisation, given that it can have useful palliative effects for PLWAs within my own community, but I despair of NORML and ALCP's disorganisation and absence of available expertise. And like it or not, that's how social change happens- to succeed, social movements need to tap amenable and available expertise and counter populist conservatives. It worked with the decriminalisation of homosexuality and sex work, the corporal punishment of children ban and liberalisation of abortion. It will have to be done in the cannabis and wider drug policy reform debates too.- CY
-
Sorry- incrementalism is best. My bad! ;)
-
Added to which, the total drug decriminalisation lobby needs its own lobby organisation and incrementalism isn't best. Unfortunately, whenever I urge such realism on them, I get hysterical temper tantrums from certain total decriminalisation advocates of libertarian persuasion. And they need to tackle one issue at a time- first medicinal cannabis, then possibly recreational cannabis, then a harm minimisation/risk reduction approach to E, and then perhaps a rigorous evidence-based full deconstruction of the Misuse of Drugs Act. However, Class A drugs should remain illegal due to their demonstrable harm.
Craig Y.
-
Part of the problem is the pot decriminalisation lobby's own disorganisation and purism, to put it bluntly. Let's put it this way- regardless of the scale of particular social movements, they need strategic professional allies to make the case for legislative reform and evidence-based research to back it. Now, I accept that exists in abundance for medicinal cannabis, which is why I support its decriminalisation.
However, the pot lobby keeps shooting itself in the foot with the continued existence of the ALCP, although not as much as it used to. If you want decriminalisation, then vote Green. Any other vote is a 'wasted' vote ;)
CY. -
And here I have some problems with either portmanteau, universal prohibition or laissez-faire legalisation of drugs alike. I'm okay with simple euphoriant drug decriminalisation when it comes to E and whatever recreational equivalent highs are not currently illegal, given that it will encourage harm minimisation and risk reduction.
And again, I have problems with applying that to P/crystal meth, which doesn't fit the harm minimisation and risk reduction model. However, that caveat doesn't mean that I wouldn't welcome some evidence-based reform when it comes to drugs that can and should be more readily handled through medical or non-criminal and commercial access.
-
Here's a general guide to matters poly. If you're a straight woman and want polyandrous relationships, try the Irigwe community of Northern Nigeria, the Masai African tribal community, Bhutan, some Sri Lankan ethnic communities, Rajasthan, Ladakh and Zanskar (India). In Canada’s Sasketchewan province, it is permissible under family law. Now, apart from India and Sri Lanka, none of the above are significant immigration sources for New Zealanders and there isn’t an organised national or international pressure group pressing for the recognition of polyandrous relationships.
In the somewhat icky context of 'consensual adult incest', it is only recognised in
France, Portugal, Brazil, Japan, Turkey, Israel and Argentina. Apart from Argentina, none of those nations currently recognise same-sex marriage or civil unions (apart from France's shonky PaCs model).Polygamy is recognised under civil law in
Afghanistan
Algeria
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Brunei
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Chad
CAR
Comoros
Congo
Djibouti
Egypt
Ethiopia
Gabon
The Gambia
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jordan
Kuwait
Libya
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Mauritania
Morocco
Myanmar
Niger
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Singapore1
Somalia
South Africa
Sri Lanka1
Sudan
Syria
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
UAE
Yemen
Zambia...most of which prohibit male homosexuality and lesbianism and prescribe the death penalty for homosexuality in the case of Sudan and Somalia (apart from India and Indonesia, which have decriminalised male homosexuality). South Africa (!) is the only exception on that list which permits both.
Craig Y