You know your idea doesn’t work when…

Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, September 20th, 2012 - 24 comments
Categories: john key, national - Tags:

So the Nats came up with this fabulous populist idea of boot camps for our kids.  Evidence said it wouldn’t work, but there’s a lot of old National folk out there that would like to bring back conscription, put some discipline in our youth etc etc, and this is as close as they can get it.  Because it’s not like the youth of today can’t get jobs because there aren’t any, it’s just that they don’t stand up straight and pull their socks up – and the state of the polish on their shoes is awful! (Possibly because they can’t afford shoes…)

And surprise, surprise the scheme is working so well that John Key is having to spend his valuable (/expensive) Prime Ministerial time to write personally to 175 employers to implore them to pretty please take some of these boot camp kids so the scheme doesn’t look like quite as much of a failure as it is…

$1000/week spent on each of these kids unfairly raising their hopes that their might be a job and a light at the end of the tunnel in National’s economy.

24 comments on “You know your idea doesn’t work when… ”

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  1. BernyD 1
    20 September 2012 at 1:58 pm

    Can’t call that evil

  2. mac1 2
    20 September 2012 at 2:01 pm

    I think Prime Minister John Key’s time would be better spent reading the documentation around Minister John Banks and his inability to read his documentation before attaching his signature.

  3. Uturn 3
    20 September 2012 at 2:14 pm

    There are lots of ideas that have become sloganised that are totally impotent in the face of the social issues of modern life. Boot camps is one of them. The list gets depressing and compiling it here may risk discouraging people that should not be discouraged. Sometimes doing pointless stuff at least gives the impression of purpose, which can buy time for other more gentle and natural transformations. Where a person makes the jump from doing pointless things to understanding those things are pointless and then finding a more solid reality is a personal issue for the individual. This process usually involves an impressive oh shit moment.

    Unfortunately, what you hear today is that if something you’re doing seems pointless, then do more of it, faster, and then it will become purposeful. Which it doesn’t. All that happens is the oh shit moment has greater power and opens the mind up to all kinds of delusions.

    In Key’s case he forgot that the kind of employers that would be in a position to hire unskilled kids, would not see boot camp as a trump card. Maybe he forgot there was a recession happening, which makes employers especially twitchy. He need only take his own advice and check job ads on seek to find that a short course in martial discipline isn’t high on the list of desireable traits.

    Bottom line is under our current economic perspective, not only do we not know what people are, there is no use for the amount of people we have. It’s not a new problem, just newly ignored.

    • AmaKiwi 3.1
      20 September 2012 at 8:55 pm

      What you call “people” are actually “work units.”

      Like all raw materials, you want the “work units” to be cheap, plentiful, obedient, available to function at whatever times and places you need them.

      “Work units” are better than slaves because you don’t have to provide food and housing. Self-maintaining machines. Isn’t the civilized world marvelous!

  4. fatty 4
    20 September 2012 at 2:20 pm

    If we take kids from a bad environment, and then train them up to be fitter, faster and more motivated…and then put them back into their original environment – what happens?
    They become quicker, faster and more efficient criminals.
    It would be more effective to give them the $1000 a week and see what happens, because we already know that bootcamps don’t work.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      20 September 2012 at 3:18 pm

      It would be more effective to give them the $1000 a week and see what happens,

      That is pretty much exactly what we should be doing and the chances are that our economy would boom but the capitalists can’t allow it because then people wouldn’t be dependent upon them.

      • Populuxe1 4.1.1
        20 September 2012 at 6:57 pm

        I asked a few parents I know if they would give their kids $1000 a week. They’re still laughing.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1
          20 September 2012 at 7:36 pm

          And that just proves that they fail as parents.

          • Populuxe1 4.1.1.1.1
            20 September 2012 at 7:59 pm

            It just proves you don’t have children.

            • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.1.1
              20 September 2012 at 11:35 pm

              So, as a parent, whose responsibility do you think it is to teach the children responsibility and self-discipline?

              Please note, we’re not talking about children here but adults who are of the age to have left home and would be going to work if there was any about.

              • Populuxe1 …
                20 September 2012 at 11:48 pm

                I didn’t say I was a parent – that’s why I asked parents what they thought, as opposed to just pulling ideologically-correct responses out of my arse.
                Many adults don’t even earn that a week!

                • fatty …
                  21 September 2012 at 12:58 am

                  “Many adults don’t even earn that a week!”

                  That’s a good point, that’s why we shouldn’t be wasting $1000 to pay a drill sergeant to yell at young people before returning them to their problems.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  21 September 2012 at 1:33 am

                  that’s why I asked parents what they thought, as opposed to just pulling ideologically-correct responses out of my arse.

                  And the answers that they gave proved that they failed at being parents.

                  Many adults don’t even earn that a week!

                  How about we make $400/week then? just double the UB. Essentially, give them enough so that they can do something creative with it.

                  That pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone. Most will turn up nothing, but one or two may well discover something.

                  • Jokerman …
                    21 September 2012 at 1:00 pm

                    D.G?
                    so true. when i was studying human understanding (prostituted to control) i enrolled in a Marketing of Services Paper; made me feel sick so i withdrew.
                    i could be a rural pastor comfortably

  5. shorts 5
    20 September 2012 at 2:39 pm

    wonder if he read the letters

  6. ianmac 6
    20 September 2012 at 2:41 pm

    The sweetener is apparently that subsidies will be given to the employers to prop up the ex-soldiers. Sounds like a bribe to me.

  7. shorts 7
    20 September 2012 at 3:48 pm

    take sweeter, sack on day 89?
    economy picks up
    boom

  8. captain hook 8
    20 September 2012 at 4:59 pm

    its just a rort for authoritarian tories to get their kicks bashing up recalcitrant teenagers.
    you know a bit of b&d and s&m to pay off the kinky fucks in the national party.

    • Jester 8.1
      21 September 2012 at 8:10 am

      Darren Hughes for example

      • bbfloyd 8.1.1
        21 September 2012 at 9:02 am

        As a jester, you would make an excellent gravedigger….. A rather confused one, but even a confused homophobe can still dig a hole without getting even more confused by the intellectual challenge of getting the sides straight, I assume…. I wouldn’t recommend changing lightbulbs for a few months yet… that requires two thoughts at once…..

  9. Roy 9
    21 September 2012 at 10:16 am

    Jonkey will never know that his idea about boot camps did not work because the defense mechanisms in his personality will never allow him to admit that.