mikedilger on Nostr: The news that gets out of NZ tends to be the bad stuff. No country is the magical ...
The news that gets out of NZ tends to be the bad stuff. No country is the magical mystical libertarian or anarcho-capitalist utopia. I wouldn't consider New Zealand to be close to such a thing. But it is a sane, safe, mostly free, democratic, liberal and productive place to live with fewer crises going on.
When the left is in power they have crazy bad ideas (take from the whites to give to the browns, control the media so that nothing bad is said of the government, restrict guns of lawful people, lockdown to save grandma, try to compete in the real estate development market, try to run a railroad, try to run a bank, try to build public transport on massive scales, shut down oil and gas exploration and rely on unreliable wind power - later necessating importing coal from China to keep the lights on, etc), but they are highly incompetent so they can't actuate most of their ideas. Basically they waste a bunch of money and get nothing done except marketing of themselves. At least they get nothing done. When the right is in power, they are much more competent and their ideas are more sane so there is less to worry about. But they want more power for themselves, more support of US and Israel, disrespect freedom of association, they lockdown for grandma too. Nobody is perfect but they are far better.
I don't think the U.S. has more "respect for property" than NZ does. The U.S. has high levels of civil asset forfeiture without judicial review, anything law enforcement claims was involved in a crime... and indeed that isn't even necessary anymore. Most states also permit local prosecutors to take personal property from people who haven’t been charged with a crime. In NZ they generally can only take the proceeds of crime and only after conviction.... civil asset forfeiture requires a high court ruling that the asset in question was indeed part of a crime before it can be taken.
Jacinda was an authoritarian. That wasn't obvious from the start (although some of us had seen the young-socialists videos). She had her way of seeing things. I don't think she was evil, she just had a different opinion and one that many of us did not want to live under. She wanted to protect everybody and punish people who interfered with that. She couldn't handle the feedback though so she resigned.
The NZ government is very subservient to the US regulations, including banking, five-eyes spying, extradition of Kim Dotcom, etc. That is because we have virtually no military and depend on the U.S. to protect us. It is why we are getting off-sides with China even though China is our largest trading partner. We are kind-of fucked in this regard. I think we need to push back against the U.S. to stay neutral, but this government wont be doing that.
The media was locked-up by the last Labour government who paid only certain media companies based on (unwritten) favorable coverage of the government. But all the people I know were wise to what was happening. Hardly anybody I know watches the news anymore. Lots of people listen to underground radio like Reality Check Radio (which can't get a license... funny that) or to podcasts like Joe Rogan.
COVID woke up tons of people. There is quite a resistance movement and liberty is on the rise.
And where I live, amongst farms, people are very independent and libertarian minded. And the people next door matter FAR more than the people in some city far away who think they are running the show.
When the left is in power they have crazy bad ideas (take from the whites to give to the browns, control the media so that nothing bad is said of the government, restrict guns of lawful people, lockdown to save grandma, try to compete in the real estate development market, try to run a railroad, try to run a bank, try to build public transport on massive scales, shut down oil and gas exploration and rely on unreliable wind power - later necessating importing coal from China to keep the lights on, etc), but they are highly incompetent so they can't actuate most of their ideas. Basically they waste a bunch of money and get nothing done except marketing of themselves. At least they get nothing done. When the right is in power, they are much more competent and their ideas are more sane so there is less to worry about. But they want more power for themselves, more support of US and Israel, disrespect freedom of association, they lockdown for grandma too. Nobody is perfect but they are far better.
I don't think the U.S. has more "respect for property" than NZ does. The U.S. has high levels of civil asset forfeiture without judicial review, anything law enforcement claims was involved in a crime... and indeed that isn't even necessary anymore. Most states also permit local prosecutors to take personal property from people who haven’t been charged with a crime. In NZ they generally can only take the proceeds of crime and only after conviction.... civil asset forfeiture requires a high court ruling that the asset in question was indeed part of a crime before it can be taken.
Jacinda was an authoritarian. That wasn't obvious from the start (although some of us had seen the young-socialists videos). She had her way of seeing things. I don't think she was evil, she just had a different opinion and one that many of us did not want to live under. She wanted to protect everybody and punish people who interfered with that. She couldn't handle the feedback though so she resigned.
The NZ government is very subservient to the US regulations, including banking, five-eyes spying, extradition of Kim Dotcom, etc. That is because we have virtually no military and depend on the U.S. to protect us. It is why we are getting off-sides with China even though China is our largest trading partner. We are kind-of fucked in this regard. I think we need to push back against the U.S. to stay neutral, but this government wont be doing that.
The media was locked-up by the last Labour government who paid only certain media companies based on (unwritten) favorable coverage of the government. But all the people I know were wise to what was happening. Hardly anybody I know watches the news anymore. Lots of people listen to underground radio like Reality Check Radio (which can't get a license... funny that) or to podcasts like Joe Rogan.
COVID woke up tons of people. There is quite a resistance movement and liberty is on the rise.
And where I live, amongst farms, people are very independent and libertarian minded. And the people next door matter FAR more than the people in some city far away who think they are running the show.