From the archives: who said it?

48 comments on “From the archives: who said it? ”

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1. Long time listener 1

   7 December 2007 at 1:14 pm

   PhilBest?

   http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=823#comment-8444
2. the sprout 2

   7 December 2007 at 1:25 pm

   the excitable dim one from the top of the south
3. The Double Standard 3

   7 December 2007 at 1:37 pm

   Nick Smith I guess.

   What’s your point?

   I don’t recall anyone from the Nats praising the EB either..

   CYFS does much more damage to families in NZ than the EB ever could.
4. Matthew Pilott 4

   7 December 2007 at 1:48 pm

   TDS if you’re a cynical half-wit whose only source of information is what the media (or d4j) spoon-feeds you then you might believe what you wrote about CYFS.

   Have some respect for the thousands of workers putting themselves in harm’s way to save children. They are not perfect, but the work they do is pretty amazing. You only hear about the bad cases.

   “what’s your point“? doesn’t wash. It’s good to remember who your allies are, don’t you think? The National Party is only too happy to collude with them, if the price is right. Guess it was in 2005.
5. The Double Standard 5

   7 December 2007 at 2:04 pm

   CYFSwatch anyone?

   At least you admit there are bad cases.

   Do think that Teh Party only interacts with those that are pure and virtuous? Wot a larf.

   Keep up the EB broken record boys – its sure to get Helen back in again.
6. rjs131 6

   7 December 2007 at 2:10 pm

   Who said ” Erin leigh is sad and incompetent”

   What abotu “All taito philip field is guilty of is helping people”
7. Long time listener 7

   7 December 2007 at 2:10 pm

   TDS you great big fool. This post is obviously a follow-on from discussion in the previous thread where PhilBest tried to present the Brethren as all motherhood and apple pie. You’re slow dude, even for a National party researcher. Do you come here to contribute or just to disrupt on Teh Party’s orders?
8. Historian 8

   7 December 2007 at 2:15 pm

   Quote: “CYFS does much more damage to families in NZ than the EB ever could.”

   http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/brethren-bid-to-hide-sex-assaults/2006/12/29/1166895479254.html
9. The Double Standard 9

   7 December 2007 at 2:25 pm

   OMFG

   Look what the catholics did! quick we must find them and burn them!

   http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/13/1023864324376.html

   Get some perspective dude.
10. Matthew Pilott 10

    7 December 2007 at 3:09 pm

    TDS, unfortunately child molestation isn’t part of the Catholic Church’s agenda. Destroying families is, for the EB.

    “At least you admit there are bad cases.” yeah, everyone does. It’s unfortunate in the extreme but it’s great they are there to save lives and prevent abuse in so many other cases. Do you know what would make CYFS even better? Tax Cuts!

    RJS how is that blog about workers’ rights going, can you post a link for me?

    cap: the poser. I feel insulted. 🙁
11. Matthew Pilott 11

    7 December 2007 at 3:10 pm

    Cocked it

    TDS, unfortunately child molestation isn’t part of the Catholic Church’s agenda. Destroying families is, for the EB.

    “At least you admit there are bad cases.“ yeah, everyone does. It’s unfortunate in the extreme but it’s great they are there to save lives and prevent abuse in so many other cases. Do you know what would make CYFS even better? Tax Cuts!

    RJS how is that blog about workers’ rights going, can you post a link for me?

    cap: the poser. I feel insulted. 🙁
12. Historian 12

    7 December 2007 at 3:17 pm

    TDS

    I think you need the perspective. Who’s burning?

    Your statement was demonstrably false. A simple “I was wrong” will suffice.

    Unless you do have evidence that the head of CYFS has:

    – covered up decades of sexual assaults against women and children by CYFS staff
    – punished and ostracised CYFS staff who brought such crimes to public attention
    – treated the traumatised victims of these crimes as if they were the problem
    – denied CYFS workers any right to question any of this, or to exercise even the most basic personal freedom
    – and refused to answer media questions about any of this, or indeed anything at all, ever.

    The EBs are led by the Elect Vessel, and his word is law. If his word is to cover up serious crime, that is what they do. Secrecy first, justice second. And if that’s OK by you, then I hope Santa gives you a moral compass for Christmas, because yours is broken beyond repair.
13. PhilBest 13

    7 December 2007 at 4:07 pm

    These people “break up families”? They claim on their website that their rate of family breakdown is LESS THAN ONE TWENTIETH of that of the general community. Who’s right?

    Historian, there is a wide gap between what you’ve just claimed, and the “Age” article you provided a link to.

    What we’re seeing here is the Left, exposed, in all its most extreme ugliness. The brethren haters in the media spend inordinate amounts of time digging into the affairs of this group, and find ONE case – ONE case, of abuse, for which, as usual, it is the word of one person against another. The fact that the person concerned has been removed from membership of the group means something, or not? But off go the Left’s inheritors of Goebbells’ mantle, with this filth – “The Exclusive Brethren” do this, “The Exclusive Brethren” do that. Now where have we encountered that sort of thing before in modern political history?
14. The Double Standard 14

    7 December 2007 at 5:16 pm

    Historian

    Try reading what I wrote instead of making shit up.

    I hope santa gives you a course in reading comprehension for xmas.

    http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1020400,00.html

    I’m waiting for you to denounce Catholics with the same vehemence you seem to have for the EB.

    Cap: afternoon futile (well it would have been, except for getting my kitchen painted)
15. the sprout 15

    7 December 2007 at 6:02 pm

    “They claim on their website that their rate of family breakdown is LESS THAN ONE TWENTIETH of that of the general community. Who’s right?”

    oh gee whiz, well if the EB said it on their website it must be true, we all know what straight=up out in the open types they are after all.

    “the Left’s inheritors of Goebbells’ [sic] mantle”

    ah Phil, if you did actually read modern history i think you will find the reds’ invasion of Berlin caused Goebbels to top himself (and wife and kids). wasn’t a lot of mantle inheriting going on.
16. The Double Standard 16

    7 December 2007 at 6:42 pm

    “wasn’t a lot of mantle inheriting going on”

    Well, who knows what happened to his fireplace!

    This guy might know

    http://www.thirdreichruins.com/
    de
17. Santi 17

    7 December 2007 at 6:49 pm

    “Destroying families is, for the EB.” Disingenous at worst, openly mendacious at best.

    Matthew, you can do better than the lame statement above. Provide the evidence for those bold accusations or shut up.

    Can’t you accept that are people prepared to live their lives in a different way? Is it too much to ask of a socialist like you?
18. Pascal's bookie 18

    7 December 2007 at 7:24 pm

    Santi, You could try scrolling to the top of the page and reading the fncking post mate.

    Or are you calling Nick Smith’s sources a pack of liars.

    The EB’s can do whatever the hell they like, for all I care. Am I allowed to comment on what they do and believe, if I choose to do so?

    Or are authoritarian cults such precious little flowers that they must not be criticised, no matter what they do or believe?
19. the sprout 19

    7 December 2007 at 7:39 pm

    “authoritarian cults… precious little flowers that they must not be criticised”

    i think you got his number there pb.
20. Russell Brown 20

    8 December 2007 at 10:19 am

    More from Nick Smith, back when he had the courage of his convictions …

    “The public face of the church is a group of hard working, honest people who keep very much to themselves and do no harm. But there is a more sinister side of the church which is involved in extreme forms of psychological blackmail that is used to rip families apart in the name of Christianity . The church organised a mass turnout of cars and church people to intimidate the couple and prevent them from taking back their children . even more upsetting was the knowledge that their children had been brainwashed . a sinister underlying agenda . Ex-members refer to it as the three F’s – family, fear and finance – and these three weapons are used with brutal force . commercial blackmail and people being driven to suicide . the huge financial resources that the church will put in to ruin anybody who dares to speak out . I suggest that we should not become so tolerant that we condone, by our silence, extreme intolerance . I believe it is time Parliament revisited key aspects of our family law to provide greater protection against sects of this type.”
21. PhilBest 21

    8 December 2007 at 10:26 am

    “back when he had the courage of his convictions….” You mean he has changed his position now? Just curious. And why?

    And Historian, it occurs to me that if the Klark regime was trying to legalise the sort of abuse that the “Age” article refers to, all the usual posters on this blog would be defending it to the death. Phil Goff? Lowering the age of sexual consent to 12? Remember?

    H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S.
22. Robinsod 22

    8 December 2007 at 10:34 am

    Um Phil – the right want to lower the age of adult criminal responsibility to 12. Are they saying children are able to make conscious and accountable decisions about criminal behaviour but not sexual behaviour.

    Oh and Goff was talking about consent being lowered in circumstances where the sexual partner was 14 or younger not for grown men/women.

    You’re dissembling.
23. Psycho Milt 23

    8 December 2007 at 12:35 pm

    You’re spoiling his bullshit with your annoying facts, Robinsod – show some compassion.

    Tangential to this discussion, but from Nick Smith’s quote: “…three beautiful children…” Why are they always “beautiful” children? Am I the only man on the planet to have fathered perfectly ordinary-looking children? For that matter, I see plenty of ugly children around the place – where do they all come from then?
24. PhilBest 24

    8 December 2007 at 1:04 pm

    OK, let’s not divert off thread. For the record, I oppose lowering the age of either of the above to 12. Not everyone on “the right” wants to lower the age of criminal responsibility, just as not everybody on “the left” agrees with the objectives of Man-Boy-Love associations and the “research” of Albert (“Dr Mengele”) Quinsey. (Although it seems that a disturbing lot of contributors on the Left of the blogosphere DO).

    As “Long Time Listener” says above, this thread was created in response to my comments elsewhere about the EB being set up on the basis of information that is obviously untrue, as a scapegoat by which the Left will advance their totalitarian agenda. Classic ploy of you guys, of course, change the argument, and drag out dirt that you are more comfortable attacking.

    Just as of course, it is a classic ploy to set up a little understood minority as a whipping boy, so that you can rally the ignorant thug classes behind you AGAINST SOMETHING, the fairness of the accusations involved being irrelevant.

    I posted some stuff on another thread that, interestingly, claimed that the EB actually stand for the egalitarian ideal, but Tane and Co dismiss it on the grounds that of course, if it comes from the EB, it must be lies. (And anything from the Left of the political spectrum must be “Truth”. Even the advancers of this “truth” themselves KNOW, like O’Brien in “1984” holding up 3 fingers, and maiking Winston Smith say “4 fingers” under torture, that what they are doing is in the service of a higher ideal, so that “truth” always is a highly manipulable thing where they are concerned).

    Here’s what I THINK honest observers have to admit, irrespective of whether you despise OTHER aspects of what the EB stand for:

    They do NOT stand for “the super rich” or any plot to “exploit the proletariat”

    There is NO EVIDENCE that any of them indulge in “Fay Richwhite” dodgy behaviour with speculation, tax havens, forex deals, buyouts and assett stripping and the like. We have seen a whole lot of beat-ups of such frivolous stuff by the media, that it is obvious that there is none of the REAL serious stuff that might make people like Hager look even the slightest bit correct in his assessments.

    ALL the EB businesses beat up by the media are VERY SMALL but tidy and efficiently run by honest, thrifty, enterprising, and hardworking people. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATEVER to suggest that they have bottomless pockets and that they could even afford to keep up the sort of big-money campaigning that they have been accused of wanting to do. What they did in the US was but a drop in the bucket compared to hundreds if not thousands of lobby groups including strongly leftwing ones. The beatup of the EB in this country is illustrative of the sheer immaturity and lack of proportion that characterises NZ politics.

    “Immaturity” and “lack of proportion” does not go far enough in describing the Electoral Finance Bill. This is the “hammer and sickle” being used to crack a walnut. It is revealing that the main thing that no-one would have disagreed with, reviewing the anonymity laws, is the one thing that ISN’T being done.

    There is every likelihood that there were NOT “links between Don Brash and the EB”, that Don Brash’s surprise and clumsiness were genuine, and that this aspect is a disturbing illustration of the power of the media to put a lie accross.

    What the EB got was a media slander campaign against them, lies about “links with Don Brash/ business roundtable/ the super rich”, ongoing media witchhunting that blew up ridiculous nothings into “evidence” of this or that, and a government and its supporters using them as scapegoats to advance their program of creeping totalitarianism.

    But no, we can’t have sensible arguments about the facts and the available evidence and what it supports or fails to support, we must just drag up anything we can to smear the bullied minority, irrelevance to the argument notwithstanding.
25. Draco TB 25

    8 December 2007 at 10:21 pm

    Quoting PhilBest:
    “”The Exclusive Brethren” do this, “The Exclusive Brethren” do that. Now where have we encountered that sort of thing before in modern political history?”

    I think the most recent example I’ve seen is GWB about Al Qaeda, Iraq, the Taliban, Iran, with his brethren of brown noses (including the national party) all nodding happily in agreement.
26. hinamanu 26

    8 December 2007 at 10:25 pm

    I am a member of the Exclusive Brethren so watch your step mates .
27. Dean 27

    8 December 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Why am I not suprised Russell Brown wishes to rage against the Exclusive Brethren machine?

    Especially when he mentions “courage of convictions” in his post.

    Honestly, Russell. If you’re going to use phrases like that you’re just asking for your own parade to be rained on. I honestly would have thought that you would have been, well, more astute than that.
28. Dean 28

    8 December 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Psycho Milt said:

    “Am I the only man on the planet to have fathered perfectly ordinary-looking children? For that matter, I see plenty of ugly children around the place – where do they all come from then?”

    You’re absolutely correct. It’s a stupid statement.

    Much the same as “haters and wreckers”.
29. Kent 29

    9 December 2007 at 8:39 am

    There is every likelihood that there were NOT “links between Don Brash and the EB”, that Don Brash’s surprise and clumsiness were genuine, and that this aspect is a disturbing illustration of the power of the media to put a lie accross.

    Very good repartee, Phil. But I am having problems with this paragraph. Surely part of Brash’s genuine clumsiness was that he got mixed up with the EB? How do you define “links between Don Brash and the EB”. If someone is confused and mixed up as Brash was, then you cannot define complete separation between his activities and that of the EB. It was this clumsiness and confusion that lost Brash the election. It was further confirmed afterwards with Hager’s book that the separation between Brash’s executive cerebral unit and a whole list of possible puppeteers (eg Ruth R) was not sufficiently well defined.

    With this overwhelming lack of definition it is not possible for the media to put across something that is a lie. (ie the ‘truth’ is too murky)
30. hinamanu 30

    9 December 2007 at 9:03 am

    Since when does the truth matter in religion or politics ?
31. the sprout 31

    9 December 2007 at 10:59 am

    certainly doesn’t matter much to the msm
32. Pascal's bookie 32

    9 December 2007 at 11:46 am

    hinamanu, you seem to have picked up d4j’s habit with your punctuation.

    As a member of the EB’s perhaps you could explain to me why, given that the EB don’t vote because G_d is supposed to raise up governments, it is permissable to fund large electoral campaigns?

    I’m also interested in how it is that given the EB are prohibited from serving in the armed forces, they were/are so upset about our foreign policy vis-a-vis the US/Iraq and NZ’s military posture in general?
    Thanks.
33. dad4justice 33

    9 December 2007 at 1:15 pm

    “hinamanu, you seem to have picked up d4j’s habit with your punctuation.”

    Surely you jest my good man ?
34. Oliver 34

    10 December 2007 at 2:20 am

    Precisely why is it that the Labour Party, its members and affiliates feel that it is acceptable to demonise and persecute a religious minority at every opportunity?
35. Phil 35

    10 December 2007 at 10:12 am

    It’s a good question Oliver – one that has been answered not with reasoned debate or statistical evidence, but with grandstanding, politicised outrage from both side of the house.

    We’ve heard it all before, about how the EB nearly ‘bought’ the election for National, but that is absolute garbage. If anything, they served as a distraction which LOST them critical votes in the final run-up.

    It’s already been shown, beyond any reasonable doubt, that money DOES NOT have a significant impact on election outcomes (a good explanation, which I will not bother to paraphrase here, comes from Levitt and Dubner in “freakonomics”). I stumbled across a 700 page reasearch paper on the subject proving the same point recently, but if I find anything more ‘digestible’ in the next few day’s I’ll send it through to a few blogs to see if they’re willing to post it.
36. PhilBest 36

    10 December 2007 at 10:34 am

    Kent, my main argument is that if you read the “Hollow Men”, you will find that Hager had a staggering amount of detail about who Don Brash was seeing and when, and who he was communicating with and what he was saying. I don’t deny Don Brash’s links with Ruth Richardson or the Business Roundtable – Hager presents ample evidence of this, not that it needed proving.

    Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that 1) There was one helluva successful espionage job done on Don Brash by SOMEONE (and NZ’s fine non-partisan cops are doing a WONDERFUL job investigating, yeah, right) and 2) Hager had NOTHING that proved “links between Don Brash and the EB”. He had 1 e-mail FROM the EB TO the Nats, but NO REPLY, no other communications, and no meetings apart from “someone THINKS they saw some EB bump into Don Brash in a marketplace or something”. How did they set up the big plot to do leaflets “on behalf of the Nats” to circumvent the spending laws? Carrier pigeon?

    Do you see my point? If there HAD been ANY evidence, Hager would have had it. You can bet your boots that whoever was behind this did their darndest to get some BEFORE the book was published. But they found they couldn’t, because there was none, but they went ahead and printed the book anyway, fudging the point re the EB, and relying on a highly compliant, brethren-hating media to do the rest for them, and a gullible NZ public to swallow the lie uncritically.

    The time we’re in in NZ is akin to the era of the Reichstag fire in Germany in the mid 1930’s. We’ve got a government taking dictatorial powers to itself based on lies about minorities who can’t defend themselves, because the MEDIA has helped to whip up public odium against them. It is NOT a good look for the direction of the country.
37. Matthew Pilott 37

    10 December 2007 at 11:36 am

    “ALL the EB businesses beat up by the media are VERY SMALL but tidy and efficiently run by honest, thrifty, enterprising, and hardworking people. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATEVER to suggest that they have bottomless pockets and that they could even afford to keep up the sort of big-money campaigning that they have been accused of wanting to do.”

    Aren’t one of NZ’s largest construction companies, and a large producer of preserves, EB companies. Not to mention a large supplier of office furniture? I can’t name them for certain and have no intention to investigate, but PhilBest’s assertion about them doesn’t wash with the seven wealthy businessmen who fronted after their secretive campaign.

    PhilBest, how could some VERY SMALL businesses afford to spare $1.25 mil for anti-government advertising in 2005.

    I’m afraid you are completely lying about the EB.
38. The Double Standard 38

    10 December 2007 at 11:45 am

    “I’m afraid you are completely lying about the EB.”

    So, you post a completely unsupported statement that you won’t investigate, and then call Phil a liar?

    Well, congrats on joining the Standardistas Hypocrisy Club.
39. Matthew Pilott 39

    10 December 2007 at 12:10 pm

    Completely unsupported – right, so you’ll be naming some small businesses with $1.25 mil in spare change?

    Come to think of it, I found a few hundred thousand in my drawrer just the other day, maybe it does happen. I take it back, good work TDS.
40. the sprout 40

    10 December 2007 at 12:15 pm

    exactly MP, i mean what corner dairy, or any thrifty homemaker for that matter, doesn’t have a few hundred thousand dollars to throw into a political campaign?

    the anti-EFB campaign isn’t about protecting the rights of the wealthy to interfere in elections, it’s about protecting the rights of everyday mums and dads to spend a few 100k on lobbying
41. Matthew Pilott 41

    10 December 2007 at 1:05 pm

    Indeed, Sprout, not to mention having a few thouand bux or whatever it takes to hire a Private Investigator to tail the PM’s husband. What sort of small, thrifty, honest hardworking business doesn’t do that!?
42. The Double Standard 42

    10 December 2007 at 2:13 pm

    “Completely unsupported – right”

    Good to see you agree that you’re the one making up the lies.

    As usual a complete failure to anything worthwhile. Very disappointing.

    It’s really quite sad how you think that, just because you don’t have two pennies to rub together, everyone else in NZ is the same. Still, I suppose it highlights your rather pathetic socialist worldview.
43. Matthew Pilott 43

    10 December 2007 at 3:52 pm

    TDS, try playing the ball, as youu righties so frequently moan about.

    Philbest’s portrayal of the EB was a belevolent collection of honest little employers. Probably making knitted sweaters and rearing kittens or something, who knows. I pointed out that they had over a million dollars to spend on the 2005 election, and also that they hired a private investigator to stalk someone.

    Those two views do not reconcile.

    I don’t see you hassling PhilBest for the lack of detail about his views of the EB, but I doubt you think anyone who posts here would be intelligent enough to notice that. Says more about you than anyone else here.

    You don’t know anyting about my worldview, so please spare the personal attacks and keep it civil. I am going to assume (I may be incorrect, apologies if I am wrong) that you are over an age (say, 15) where you have the maturity to treat people with respect. Try and excercise it here.

    Now, do you want to

    A: harrass PhilBest about his unsubstantiated claims (which would be a waste of his time),
    b: continue to hassle me about what I have said (surely you agree that the actiities I have mentioned do not reconcile with a friendly collestion of small businesses),
    C: make a worthwhile contribution,
    D: continue acting with a strange combination of a bitter old man with the manners of an angsty child, or
    E: perhaps admit that you have nothing useful to contribute, apologise for making personal comments and pledge to act like an adult in future.

    Judging by your standard of comments I can guess which option you will go for, and that will be an indictment of your character, bearing and maturity.

    Prove my assumption wrong!
44. PhilBest 44

    11 December 2007 at 11:50 am

    I did a post yesterday responding to Matthew Pilott and now it’s gone. Smells.

    These nameless EB “big businesses” you refer to, why hasn’t the media named them? Don’t kid me they wouldn’t have if they existed. “Investigative journalism” might as well not exist in NZ, that’s how governments like the Clark one gets away with what they do, but one thing the media has obviously devoted huge amounts of effort and scrutiny to, is the EB. And they’ve come up with nothing that means more than jack to anyone with half a brain who is awake, and actually thinks with it.

    Whether you regard someone as “rich” or their business as a “big” business says more about the size of your mind than it does about the reality of the situation. 7 businessmen stumping up 1 million between them, yeah, they could be VERY SMALL businessmen who care very deeply about the direction of their country.

    50 years ago it meant something to be a millionaire. Now probably every little business you walk past in an industrial area is worth at least this much, even the smallest ones, even ones with only 3 or 4 staff.

    For your information, in the US, a business with less than 5000 staff is officially a SMALL business.

    Small-mindedness and envy, and the politics that go with it, are the main ruination of NZ today.

    Actually, the REAL “big businessmen” are out there quite happily playing the sharemarket, doing buyouts, assett-stripping, forex speculating, using tax havens, all unmolested by our current government and its supporters like matthew pilott, while they’re obsessing about a lawnmower and chainsaw shop owner and his political opinions.

    SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
45. r0b 45

    11 December 2007 at 1:34 pm

    “I did a post yesterday responding to Matthew Pilott and now it’s gone. Smells.”

    Well, either (1) your post was so overwhelmingly brilliant and damaging to Labour that The Standard editors were forced to ignore their own “no censorship policy” and delete it, proving both the existence of the vast left wing conspiracy and just how durned significant you are, or (2) you got the captcha wrong.
46. Tane 46

    11 December 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Sorry to disappoint, but it’s number 2.
47. the sprout 47

    11 December 2007 at 1:45 pm

    but but, how could such a brilliant intellect get such a simple mundane procedure wrong?
48. Matthew Pilott 48

    11 December 2007 at 2:16 pm

    God now I feel like looking into it just to show that they are not just small businesses at all, except that if I told PhilBest that they were any organisation apart from GM he’d say it proves his point.

    For your information, in Nauru, a huge business is probably on that empoloys two people. Do you feel that is a relevant fact? Any other irrelevancies you want to toss in the mix?

    I am not a fan of big business, but it’s also nice to hear you admit what the joys of your beloved capitalism consitutes, remember what “big Business” is up to next time you jump to the defence of capitalism.

    http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=779#comment-6793 (and I note in that post you had a real problem with captcha as well – are you actually some form of republican-party funded blog-posting machine?)

    As we haven’t yet spelled out here the extent of the larger EB, your ranting about the relative sizes of businesses makes no sense.

    IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT (is that the COOL THING to do these days mate? Aren’t you yet old enough to hold a reasonalbe debate without decending into baseless vitriol and petty abuse?)

    “7 businessmen stumping up 1 million between them, yeah, they could be VERY SMALL businessmen who care very deeply about the direction of their country. ” Sure, you believe that. Given your propensity to bat for these “VERY SMALL but tidy and efficiently run by honest, thrifty, enterprising, and hardworking people.” businesses speaks more about your naivety that my perspective of NZ business – especially when you use the US as a comparison…

    And in general, it is only the arrogant, obnoxious right-wing that talks of “Small-mindedness and envy, and the politics that go with it“. This is because these people (hopefully not representative of the majority of the right) are by and large a group of selfish and egocentric people who can’t believe that anyone would want something for the betterment of society, even at some personal cost.

    They therefore have to assume that left-wing policies are some form of envy, because humanity and charity isn’t in their vocabulary.

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