The freedom that many people now cherish above all is the freedom from the consequences of their own actions, while other people are only too eager to take on the role of guardian and protector of the weak and supposedly incapacitated—which is to say, a large proportion of the population. Through taxation, I may be my brother’s keeper; but I am not even my own keeper. – Theodore Dalrymple
As with so many discussions these days, one feels a sense of gloom even as one enters into them. Propositions that even a few years before would have seemed so outré that no one would have thought them worth refuting become almost unchallengeable orthodoxies in a matter of a few years, if not of months; it requires courage to dispute them, at least if one has a position in an institution or organisation to protect. A subliminal fear—which sometimes is not even subliminal—stalks intellectual life. One does not so much disagree as pronounce heresies. For the moment, luckily, burning at the stake is only metaphorical. – Theodore Dalrymple
These days, one is obliged often to argue against evident absurdities. If you argue against them, however, you confer dignity upon them; but if you don’t, they go by default. I have more and more sympathy with Karl Kraus, the Viennese satirist who wrote millions of words, when he was asked what he thought of Hitler. When it comes to Hitler, he said, I can’t think of anything to say. Hitler was beneath criticism. – Theodore Dalrymple
Never let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do. – Jonathan Wallis, quoting his father Sir Tim.
Climate change should not be a left/right issue. But it is, and the fundamental reason for that is not, as the Left claim, that the Right is filled with “science deniers”, but because dealing with Climate Change offers the ultimate lefty wet dream of the State controlling our lives in at least as intimate detail as the old Soviets. – Tom Hunter
These people, these Leftists, for all their crying about how much they care about humans and human society, are lying in the same way that they lied about caring about South Africa or now about Palestine or … well, pick any issue they’ve pushed over the last few decades. Agnes Walton is John Minto is Marama Davidson is Elizabeth Kerekere is…
They hate our society and wish to destroy it. That’s the real reason they’re hot on Climate Change. Science has nothing to do with it. – Tom Hunter
Believe it or not, being exposed to opposing opinions is actually more healthy than harmful – as the good Lord noted, we appear to be “in for a period of growing authoritarianism and growing bullying of one sector of fellow citizens against another”, in part due to “a growing intolerance of dissent, a growing intolerance of opinions” that we don’t share”. – Nick Grant
My mum actually she said to me if it was my boy who’d been in [that] situation, how would you want him to feel and you wouldn’t want him to beat himself up.
Try not to be too hard on myself. I think it’s something I’m going to have live with forever, unfortunately. It’s going to hurt for a while. – Sam Cane
Look the headlines are disturbing, if you group them all together you’d just be living in a state of worry all the time.
And I know there are a lot of people getting great care with our wonderful health workforce, and deep down I still hope that the care will be there when I need it, but I’m certainly not counting on any longer in the way that I used to. – Tim Beveridge
The new National-led coalition can only pay for the additional demands on healthcare and pensions coming from the ageing population if it gains far greater tax revenues from rapidly accelerating economic growth. – Robert MacCulloch
It’s a good thing to cut back all of the rules imposing costs on our society greater than the benefits. Labour has loved red tape, as much as lawyers have loved making money out of it. – Robert MacCulloch
Cleaning out the waste that came with the 15,000 additional bureaucrats hired under Labour will be endorsed by most of us who don’t live in Wellington. Labour enabled time-wasting and gave away power to legions of highly-paid, working-from-home, public sector managers who flourished under its lax governance.
National must do so since it has no other room to move on spending. – Robert MacCulloch
Three Waters is a business case lesson in how to take a problem and complicate it beyond recognition and leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
A problem that, badly mangled, is never that hard to actually sort – Mike Hosking
The seeds of Labour’s election defeat were sown before the 2020 election. Labour’s extraordinary victory in 2020 on the back of its initial handling of the Covid-19 response masked the fact that the polls had been turning against it from the start of 2020. Failure to deliver on key 2017 election promises such as Kiwibuild and light rail in Auckland by 2020 had already marked the Government down as all talk, but little action. – Peter Dunne
National comes to office at a difficult time, and with a policy agenda that will be hard to achieve. Labour’s defeat shows clearly that voters treat policy failure by governments harshly. They will be no different when it comes to assessing National’s performance at the next election. Alongside that, just holding the line will not be enough. National must not only deliver on its policy, but also substantially grow its party vote if it is to win again.
Christopher Luxon says he thrives on challenges. They do not come much bigger than the one he has just embarked on. – Peter Dunne
For a decade or so I have trained the wisteria along one side of the house, rigging a stout wire for it to cling to and urging it on. It has responded to love as most of us do, to such an extent that it is now warping the purlins, sagging the soffit, fouling the spouting and other sins against home maintenance. And as long as I occupy this house it will continue to do so. For every October it pays its rent with a bloom-profusion, a lilac extravagance, a petal-profligacy that lifts the heart. – Joe Bennett
It is a cool morning and the bees working the wisteria are the best-named bees, the most beeish bees, bumble bees. They are chubby, hairy-bodied, bandy legged and they go to work in temperatures that leave honey bees still huddled in the hive. Some boffin once famously opined that, according to physics, bumble bees ought not to be able to fly. But that says more about physics than it does about the bees, who’ve been happily flying for 25 million years. – Joe Bennett
Bees are insects and we tend to look down on insects. We spray them and slay them. We call them bugs or creepy-crawlies or reasons not to visit Australia. But they rarely seem to resent us. And they specialise in profusion. – Joe Bennett
Insects are wisteria flowers by another name.
I watch the bees for a while, see how they crawl over the petals, mauling and fumbling, famously busy, monomaniac like all wild things, doing what they do and only what they do. Such clarity of being, such singleness of purpose in the mess of my own back yard. – Joe Bennett
Asked about caucus, Hipkins responded, “I think everybody will understand that it was pretty rough.”
That would make a change from the typical Labour Party caucus meeting. Labour MPs recount in private that during the Ardern years, caucus was generally a time for genuflection and deference. Questions were routinely used by MPs and Ministers to praise and flatter the party leadership in a manner than one MP described as “North Korean”. On the rare occasion that MPs did try to raise concerns, they were brushed aside by Ardern amidst a chorus of “tsk tsk” and shaking heads. – Philip Crump
When things are really hard I remind myself what a privilege it is to be here and to be able to use my voice when so many women aren’t here to use theirs. They give me the strength to carry on. – Jane Ludemann
But one thing that’s certain is that as soon as we are relying on a government agency to provide all the answers, we’ve demonstrated that we’re failing as a society and as communities. When that government agency surely can only be as effective as the willingness within communities it serves to help them do their jobs.
Personally, I think the problems go a lot deeper. The ongoing narrative that people’s problems are always someone else’s fault – the lack of demanding personal responsibility, entrenched reliance on the welfare state, the list goes on. – Tim Beveridge
Luxon has to be congratulated for consolidating everyone together in a way that seems clean and tight. Winston hasn’t been playing it out in public, Seymour has kept his cool, it all seems, so far, tickety boo.
If they can keep it that way, they’ll manage to prove all the naysayers wrong. Every person who said it would implode and that it’d be a cluster and they’d all be at war with each other… so far, so good. None of that.
The true test is if Luxon can keep it that way – if he can, he’ll be seen as a genius. I mean who’d want to wrangle Winston and David Seymour on a daily basis? Not me. Best case scenario, they don’t need Winston, and NZ First can just stay out of the fray altogether. Worst case, he’s in and he goes nuts wreaking havoc and making it all about himself and the whole thing implodes. That would be disastrous not just for Luxon, but also for our country. – Kate Hawkesby
Great nations don’t force citizens to buy heavier cars with shorter ranges and bigger repair bills in order to stop bad weather one hundred years from now. – Jo Nova *
* Hat tip: Not PC
Homepaddock 
[…] Quotes of the week […]
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