This much repeated quote is attributed to Mary Antoinette and has passed into general language as a put down towards protesting mobs. Of course history shows that things didn’t work out very well for Mary ultimately losing her head to the French Revolution guillotine alongside her husband.
No expert in the area but my understanding is that the cause of the French Revolution was the widening gap between the rich and poor, with the breadless peasants vs the French Queen the ultimate example and hence the power of the supposed quote.
So as we know those that ignore history are destined to repeat it and while I think we are some distance away from the “peasants” taking over the streets they have made a start with the Occupy Wall Street protests which seem to have morphed into just Occupy.
We have our only local version here that are camping out in The Octagon, a central green space in the heart of the city and just outside the front door of the council offices. I was taken to task recently for referring to them as an “idiotic mob” with my critic pointing out that they were peaceful and well meaning with some valid points to make. So I would have to concede that what he said was true as far as it went but I still stand by my comment on the basis that these folk (the local version) are against a lot of stuff but “for” absolutely nothing (well for the environment, people first etc) but there is no how, what do they want to see done exactly? They have no answers to the problems they pose so they are just noise machines. I am against cancer but protesting on the streets won’t fix that either.
As to mob, well all of them as far as I can tell are living off “the state” or put another way the system they despise is allowing them the income to sit around protesting and because they don’t believe in central authority they are a group of individuals acting for the time being in concert, eg a mob, as opposed to a political party or movement.
But overlooking the short comings of the way they are going about it, there are certainly shades of the French Revolution in the current world wide unrest.
Locally there seems to be an increasing theme around the widening gap between rich and poor (so called as both terms are relative to the society within which you happen to be measuring) and there is no doubt that this is ultimately a bad thing for all. Problem is the solutions seem to be missing. On one side we have “trickle down” economics and on the other we have “wealth redistribution”, neither option really seems to deliver on its promise.
The other interesting plot line that is playing out is “do we care and should we care”. As I have mentioned before the idea that the poor should be anything but that is a reasonably recent idea and alongside that idea is “blame” for being poor. Once upon a time being poor was not your fault and you couldn’t change it. Both ideas are currently in question. Then we had the rise of social justice, “we should help people not be poor”, which is somewhat in conflict with the “they should help themselves” idea.
Once again the clash comes with a poorly defined statement of the problem, “no poor people” or “helping the disadvantaged” are very worthy ideas but what do they mean in practice. How do you define poor, a percentage of average income seems popular but obviously flawed. Helping often turns into dependency and is it even possible with 20 something percent youth unemployment at the moment, how exactly do you “help” these people into employment there are simply not the jobs... although perhaps the youth have the wrong skills... or too expensive to take on.... or not paid enough to attract them to work. Seems I don’t have the answers either so I am off to The Octagon with my tent.
Random thoughts on Random topics sparked by my travels through life and the things I see or hear on the way
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
William Webb Ellis
So Mr Ellis lived from 1806-1872 and were it not for his “invention” of Rubgy was unlikely to have been one of history’s stars. The idea that he invented Rubgy by picking up the ball and running with it during a football match doesn’t seem very likely but none the less this myth is strong enough for the Rugby World Cup trophy to carry his name.
At the moment with NZ hosting this competition and the general religious zeal with which some Kiwis treat rugby it seems as if the future of the nation hangs on one last game in the finals when the All Blacks play France. The AB’s bogie team at world cups just to add some interest to the match.
This cultural phenomenon where the emotional wellbeing of the nation in some part hangs on the performance of roughly thirty men (the total squad size) playing a game of rugby is rather intriguing, for a start how did rugby come to have such a dominant position as the sport of choice of so many Kiwis.
In the majority of the world Rugby is an elite sport played most often at private schools as a sweeping generalisation only in NZ is it the game of the masses. Most other countries have soccer in that position and in the country of origin of so many Kiwis when it was first settled, England, this is certainly so.
So presumably I can deduce that NZ was settled by the upper classes who brought with them a love of Rugby and the poor working classes that followed went along with this and abandoned soccer when they saw what their betters had to offer in the new country......Hmmm doesn’t seem that likely and even less so when you sprinkle in some facts for example it was the working classes who settled the land and given that life was quite comfy in London for the rich I can’t see hordes of them volunteering to come out to a land “lacking in culture and refinement”.
So why is soccer not our dominant sport? Well it seems to be down to the efforts of one Charles Munro who learned the game while being educated in England, presumably in one of those private schools. Upon his return to Nelson he established a team at Nelson College, but who did they play is the key they played the Nelson Football club (i.e. the soccer boys) and this set a pattern that was to be repeated as the energetic Mr Munro established the game in Wellington and then organised tours of the country. Every where the team went it played the lads from the local soccer club as presumably they were the only easily contacted local sports teams who could organise 15 lads for a game. Clearly some of the clubs enjoyed their rugby outing and presumably switched codes, in fact quite a number must of because the game took off quite quickly and was a sporting force in the country within 10 years of Mr Munro’s return from England.
So well done Mr Munro for setting in place a cultural icon of NZ for at least the next 150 years (I think there are threats to rugby’s current status but only time will tell.) This idea that an individual who is not a recognised leader can influence the culture of a nation is intriguing but when you think about it a bit more this must always have been the case.
For example the Japanese interest in achieving perfection in what they are doing has always fascinated, I mean to become a sushi chef can involve up to 10 years training and the first three are cooking rice only. To western eyes taking 3 years to learn to boil rice seems a bit over the top but that is Japan for you. This is one example of their approach, so how did this get started? Well presumably it must have been one person and others must have said you know what Fujita is on to something there and followed.
The other question that arises is some cultures have traits that we don’t always admire, so how did that get going? Why would we copy a loud mouth to the extent that it became part of a national identity?
Back to the power of one, looks like a good example could still change the world or at least your part of it which might spread, just like Charles Munro and his love of rugby. So pick your desired cultural norm and practice what you preach you never know what might happen.
At the moment with NZ hosting this competition and the general religious zeal with which some Kiwis treat rugby it seems as if the future of the nation hangs on one last game in the finals when the All Blacks play France. The AB’s bogie team at world cups just to add some interest to the match.
This cultural phenomenon where the emotional wellbeing of the nation in some part hangs on the performance of roughly thirty men (the total squad size) playing a game of rugby is rather intriguing, for a start how did rugby come to have such a dominant position as the sport of choice of so many Kiwis.
In the majority of the world Rugby is an elite sport played most often at private schools as a sweeping generalisation only in NZ is it the game of the masses. Most other countries have soccer in that position and in the country of origin of so many Kiwis when it was first settled, England, this is certainly so.
So presumably I can deduce that NZ was settled by the upper classes who brought with them a love of Rugby and the poor working classes that followed went along with this and abandoned soccer when they saw what their betters had to offer in the new country......Hmmm doesn’t seem that likely and even less so when you sprinkle in some facts for example it was the working classes who settled the land and given that life was quite comfy in London for the rich I can’t see hordes of them volunteering to come out to a land “lacking in culture and refinement”.
So why is soccer not our dominant sport? Well it seems to be down to the efforts of one Charles Munro who learned the game while being educated in England, presumably in one of those private schools. Upon his return to Nelson he established a team at Nelson College, but who did they play is the key they played the Nelson Football club (i.e. the soccer boys) and this set a pattern that was to be repeated as the energetic Mr Munro established the game in Wellington and then organised tours of the country. Every where the team went it played the lads from the local soccer club as presumably they were the only easily contacted local sports teams who could organise 15 lads for a game. Clearly some of the clubs enjoyed their rugby outing and presumably switched codes, in fact quite a number must of because the game took off quite quickly and was a sporting force in the country within 10 years of Mr Munro’s return from England.
So well done Mr Munro for setting in place a cultural icon of NZ for at least the next 150 years (I think there are threats to rugby’s current status but only time will tell.) This idea that an individual who is not a recognised leader can influence the culture of a nation is intriguing but when you think about it a bit more this must always have been the case.
For example the Japanese interest in achieving perfection in what they are doing has always fascinated, I mean to become a sushi chef can involve up to 10 years training and the first three are cooking rice only. To western eyes taking 3 years to learn to boil rice seems a bit over the top but that is Japan for you. This is one example of their approach, so how did this get started? Well presumably it must have been one person and others must have said you know what Fujita is on to something there and followed.
The other question that arises is some cultures have traits that we don’t always admire, so how did that get going? Why would we copy a loud mouth to the extent that it became part of a national identity?
Back to the power of one, looks like a good example could still change the world or at least your part of it which might spread, just like Charles Munro and his love of rugby. So pick your desired cultural norm and practice what you preach you never know what might happen.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Pick Me..
It is election time here in three months and the billboards and campaigning have already started. I spotted a Labour Party billboard at the weekend which beside the shining face of the candidate had “Vote Labour” (naturally) “Minimum Wage $15” (For anyone who is interested this is an increase from $13) So I have rubbished the idea of a legislated minimum wage before and if this was the answer to a low wage economy why don’t they suggest $25 or $45 an hour? Any way the over arching thought I had was that this sort of blatant electioneering nonsense is what needs legislative change. Therefore here is my answer to a change of governance structure.
Firstly as a society we have limited difficulty coming up with collective desired outcomes or “policy” if you will where the debate starts is the best way about achieving the required outcome. The increase in the minimum wage is an example the policy requirement is a liveable wage for all employed persons. Just about everyone will agree that sounds ok (I am going to walk past the definitional issues for the moment) It is the how we get there where it all goes wrong. In this instance the best people to answer this question are probably economic researchers and potential social analysts. Not well meaning, slogan wielding, power hungry, ego driven, vested interest politicians. (some or all of the list normally applies to all of them)
So first it is clear that we need to arms of governance, we need the policy arm and the implementation arm. The Policy arm, let’s call that the Peoples Parliament (PP) would have the same elections, party politics etc that we know and love now but no power to pass any legislation, only the power to pass Policy in the form of Legislative Requirements. These Requirements would be passed to the Governing Parliament (GP) for implementation.
The GP would propose the method for enacting the Policy and design the legislation to give effect to the Policy, this would be referred back to the PP Passing into Law or Veto. If they Vetoed they could offer comment of course but there would be no requirement on the GP to do anything further. The PP would have no right to alter the legislation.
Contained within the GP would be the Prime Minister character and Ministers as we know them now and the various Department Heads would answer to this group.
So the obvious question how do you get into the GP? Answer the PM would be appointed by an Electoral College and they (the PM) in turn would appoint Ministers. The PP would have the power of Veto over any given Ministerial Appointment but not the PM.
Who is this mysterious Electoral College? These would be people elected by the citizens to appoint the PM and after they had completed this task they would go into recess only to reappear between elections if the PM needed removed for some reason (governed by a constitution). To be able to stand for the Electoral College you would have to have no political affiliations, have a suitable level of education and passed a simple test on the constitution. Anyone could stand for Electoral College if they qualified.
What’s the point? Well that way hopefully we get a legislative and implementation arm of government less effected by political influence (no one is totally unaffected but hopefully better than now). You get people in the GP who are suitably qualified for the roles they hold without having to pander to vested interest groups etc.
This is unashamedly designed to put a buffer between the masses and the leadership of the country, hopefully allowing a rational consideration of the facts to dictate government decisions in pursuit of an agreed vision provided by the people.
The opportunity for such a radical experiment seems remote but that’s my idea for what its worth.
Firstly as a society we have limited difficulty coming up with collective desired outcomes or “policy” if you will where the debate starts is the best way about achieving the required outcome. The increase in the minimum wage is an example the policy requirement is a liveable wage for all employed persons. Just about everyone will agree that sounds ok (I am going to walk past the definitional issues for the moment) It is the how we get there where it all goes wrong. In this instance the best people to answer this question are probably economic researchers and potential social analysts. Not well meaning, slogan wielding, power hungry, ego driven, vested interest politicians. (some or all of the list normally applies to all of them)
So first it is clear that we need to arms of governance, we need the policy arm and the implementation arm. The Policy arm, let’s call that the Peoples Parliament (PP) would have the same elections, party politics etc that we know and love now but no power to pass any legislation, only the power to pass Policy in the form of Legislative Requirements. These Requirements would be passed to the Governing Parliament (GP) for implementation.
The GP would propose the method for enacting the Policy and design the legislation to give effect to the Policy, this would be referred back to the PP Passing into Law or Veto. If they Vetoed they could offer comment of course but there would be no requirement on the GP to do anything further. The PP would have no right to alter the legislation.
Contained within the GP would be the Prime Minister character and Ministers as we know them now and the various Department Heads would answer to this group.
So the obvious question how do you get into the GP? Answer the PM would be appointed by an Electoral College and they (the PM) in turn would appoint Ministers. The PP would have the power of Veto over any given Ministerial Appointment but not the PM.
Who is this mysterious Electoral College? These would be people elected by the citizens to appoint the PM and after they had completed this task they would go into recess only to reappear between elections if the PM needed removed for some reason (governed by a constitution). To be able to stand for the Electoral College you would have to have no political affiliations, have a suitable level of education and passed a simple test on the constitution. Anyone could stand for Electoral College if they qualified.
What’s the point? Well that way hopefully we get a legislative and implementation arm of government less effected by political influence (no one is totally unaffected but hopefully better than now). You get people in the GP who are suitably qualified for the roles they hold without having to pander to vested interest groups etc.
This is unashamedly designed to put a buffer between the masses and the leadership of the country, hopefully allowing a rational consideration of the facts to dictate government decisions in pursuit of an agreed vision provided by the people.
The opportunity for such a radical experiment seems remote but that’s my idea for what its worth.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The LHC and Me
So the LHC is The Large Hadron Collider which most of us will have heard about (http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc-interesting-facts.htm) It is part of scientists ongoing quest to find a unifying theory for the various forces they observe in the universe. It is a massive undertaking in terms of size, money and time and of uncertain benefit in terms of putting food into the mouths of the hungry etc and the inevitable question will be why bother? The simple answer is “because you don’t know what you don’t know” Sticking with what you know only gets you what you already have.
However this is not in support of The LHC (it is big enough to look after itself) but an observation on a desire to have a unifying theory in the first place. As humans we seem to prefer this approach and have great difficulty dealing with messy unpredictable things. I presume it goes back to the way our brains work where to avoid information overload we just focus on difference and ignore the standard things. This gives us a lot less information to process and is why something new in your living space keeps catching your attention for a while till your brain categories it as “standard”. Or why travelling is so tiring, because there is no standard so your brain is on alert the whole time.
Recently Fruitcake at http://scuzei.blogspot.com commented on what she thought was my world view through the lens of these posts. This surprised me at a number of levels but the big challenge to me was that I could be categorised into a single box which is not how I saw myself. This of course posed the question what was my world view or the lens that I applied to the challenges I see around me. Am I a conservative or a liberal what level of state intervention am I comfortable with in my life, do I believe in private charity or social welfare, am I a social Darwinist as Dina suggested once (I denied that one).
When I came to try and categorise myself I didn’t find a unifying theory unless you consider evidence driven pragmatism a unifying theory but there is no real hint of what my view might be on any given subject contained in that phrase.
There are two parts to this though. My thought process tends to be given a desired outcome of X what do we need to do to achieve this. So the evidence driven pragmatism is easy for the “what do we need to do” bit although I am constantly surprised that the choices people make do not follow this. The harder part is agreeing what the desired outcome is. To that end I guess I am a Utilitarian – The greatest good for the greatest number. This seems the only sensible position to adopt for a society, however we also have the Tyranny of the Majority to look out for. Eg taking “white” farms and giving them to “black” farmers in Zimbabwe might pass the greatest good test but seems inappropriate from other stand points.
So just like the scientists I seem destined to keep searching for a unifying theory for my points of view. I am comforted that for the last hundred years or so (the period of the surge in scientific endeavour) Science has happily operated with no unifying theory and it hasn’t stopped them making significant progress in the various scientific disciplines along the way. They also remain open to the idea of sharing information and adopting learning’s in one area to inform seemingly unrelated areas.
So while searching for the perfect unifying theory of everything in the world let’s remember that you political opponent may sometimes have a better answer than you in some areas. Of course this isn’t always true a political party of many years ago now since gone from the local political landscape called Values was the butt of a bumper sticker joke that said “I am voting Values cause I’m pissed” this pretty much summed up the worth of their policies. A bit like these guys but less fun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGillicuddy_Serious_Party
However this is not in support of The LHC (it is big enough to look after itself) but an observation on a desire to have a unifying theory in the first place. As humans we seem to prefer this approach and have great difficulty dealing with messy unpredictable things. I presume it goes back to the way our brains work where to avoid information overload we just focus on difference and ignore the standard things. This gives us a lot less information to process and is why something new in your living space keeps catching your attention for a while till your brain categories it as “standard”. Or why travelling is so tiring, because there is no standard so your brain is on alert the whole time.
Recently Fruitcake at http://scuzei.blogspot.com commented on what she thought was my world view through the lens of these posts. This surprised me at a number of levels but the big challenge to me was that I could be categorised into a single box which is not how I saw myself. This of course posed the question what was my world view or the lens that I applied to the challenges I see around me. Am I a conservative or a liberal what level of state intervention am I comfortable with in my life, do I believe in private charity or social welfare, am I a social Darwinist as Dina suggested once (I denied that one).
When I came to try and categorise myself I didn’t find a unifying theory unless you consider evidence driven pragmatism a unifying theory but there is no real hint of what my view might be on any given subject contained in that phrase.
There are two parts to this though. My thought process tends to be given a desired outcome of X what do we need to do to achieve this. So the evidence driven pragmatism is easy for the “what do we need to do” bit although I am constantly surprised that the choices people make do not follow this. The harder part is agreeing what the desired outcome is. To that end I guess I am a Utilitarian – The greatest good for the greatest number. This seems the only sensible position to adopt for a society, however we also have the Tyranny of the Majority to look out for. Eg taking “white” farms and giving them to “black” farmers in Zimbabwe might pass the greatest good test but seems inappropriate from other stand points.
So just like the scientists I seem destined to keep searching for a unifying theory for my points of view. I am comforted that for the last hundred years or so (the period of the surge in scientific endeavour) Science has happily operated with no unifying theory and it hasn’t stopped them making significant progress in the various scientific disciplines along the way. They also remain open to the idea of sharing information and adopting learning’s in one area to inform seemingly unrelated areas.
So while searching for the perfect unifying theory of everything in the world let’s remember that you political opponent may sometimes have a better answer than you in some areas. Of course this isn’t always true a political party of many years ago now since gone from the local political landscape called Values was the butt of a bumper sticker joke that said “I am voting Values cause I’m pissed” this pretty much summed up the worth of their policies. A bit like these guys but less fun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGillicuddy_Serious_Party
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
History never repeats..
So say Split Enz a 1980’s band in a minor hit of theirs This group contained the Finn brothers who more famously turned up later as Crowded House, but enough musical history and the dubious wisdom of pop songs. I am more taken by the line “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” an observation I believe was originally made by Edmund Burke but more famously attributed to Winston Churchill more often than not.
If we are to accept the quote then in the context of war there are a lot of people not paying attention as it keeps repeating over and over. Is it simply in the nature of humanity to go to war. Can we never learn to control this presumably powerful instinct?
This thought thread was sparked by the current hand wringing going on over 9/11 and of course the “war on terror” that resulted in the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Which lead to thinking about the nature of war more generally.
So my neighbour rang me a while back and asked me in a roundabout way to cut down a tree that is at the bottom of my garden because it blocked his sun and made his house colder. I don’t want to cut down the tree as rather than a view of a mature tree I will have a view of his house. This may seem unreasonable my view versus his comfort but the house was built there years after the tree was fully mature so the lack of sun due to the tree shouldn’t come as a surprise to him. I am therefore not inclined to correct his folly by transferring his pain to me. Any way that is not the point so to wrap this point up the law is on my side (right of wrong). After chatting around the thing for a while he said “you are not being helpful, can’t we come to a compromise” to which I replied that if he could explain the compromise position between chop down and not chop down I would listen. (pruning wouldn’t change anything it is a big tree) The point being some problems just don’t have compromise outcomes some of them have a winner (so to speak) and a loser. So what now for my neighbour having encountered my unreasonable intransigence? (from his point of view).
Well because he is a civilised individual (albeit grumpy with me potentially) he accepted the position but he could have “gone to war” with me by executing a commando raid in the dead of night over the fence and poisoned the tree. (he wouldn’t be the first) and I could have retaliated by shooting him in the head. (ok that would be a bit extreme but you get the point)
Effectively we had a competition for resources (he wanted the sunshine that my tree was using) and I didn’t want to share because in this instance we couldn’t. So the end of war would seem to be an acceptance that the status quo is acceptable and no one will do anything to alter that state without the express agreement of the other parties that might be affected. That is how our mini battle did not escalate to war.
So how likely is it that there will never be an “uncivilised” neighbour in the world who will not resort to force to get what they want. Well if you continue with my example then presumably when we all feel we have an appropriate share of the available resources.
If I could have cut the tree in half vertically that might have been a compromise, it just doesn’t work with trees. But trees aren’t what we have real wars about are they, it does tend to be resources that we could deal with differently. Contented people seldom go to war only the disenfranchised.
Lest anyone make the mistake that this is a call to socialism, it isn’t, I used the term appropriate not equal or desired share of resources. So it is back to the debate about how we allocate resources appropriately and ensure people understand and accept that this is so.
For example most people are happy that doctors get paid more than labourers. They can see that it takes a lot more training for one thing to become doctor so we have an unequal share of economic resources but an understanding of why this is so. So when I am driving my Toyota and my doctor is driving his BMW I don’t really feel bad as I understand and accept that. When my banker is driving a Ferrari because... well because I don’t feel so good and potentially have a desire to "deal" with my bankers excessive consumption presumably at my expense, look out I see the potential for "war"
If we are to accept the quote then in the context of war there are a lot of people not paying attention as it keeps repeating over and over. Is it simply in the nature of humanity to go to war. Can we never learn to control this presumably powerful instinct?
This thought thread was sparked by the current hand wringing going on over 9/11 and of course the “war on terror” that resulted in the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Which lead to thinking about the nature of war more generally.
So my neighbour rang me a while back and asked me in a roundabout way to cut down a tree that is at the bottom of my garden because it blocked his sun and made his house colder. I don’t want to cut down the tree as rather than a view of a mature tree I will have a view of his house. This may seem unreasonable my view versus his comfort but the house was built there years after the tree was fully mature so the lack of sun due to the tree shouldn’t come as a surprise to him. I am therefore not inclined to correct his folly by transferring his pain to me. Any way that is not the point so to wrap this point up the law is on my side (right of wrong). After chatting around the thing for a while he said “you are not being helpful, can’t we come to a compromise” to which I replied that if he could explain the compromise position between chop down and not chop down I would listen. (pruning wouldn’t change anything it is a big tree) The point being some problems just don’t have compromise outcomes some of them have a winner (so to speak) and a loser. So what now for my neighbour having encountered my unreasonable intransigence? (from his point of view).
Well because he is a civilised individual (albeit grumpy with me potentially) he accepted the position but he could have “gone to war” with me by executing a commando raid in the dead of night over the fence and poisoned the tree. (he wouldn’t be the first) and I could have retaliated by shooting him in the head. (ok that would be a bit extreme but you get the point)
Effectively we had a competition for resources (he wanted the sunshine that my tree was using) and I didn’t want to share because in this instance we couldn’t. So the end of war would seem to be an acceptance that the status quo is acceptable and no one will do anything to alter that state without the express agreement of the other parties that might be affected. That is how our mini battle did not escalate to war.
So how likely is it that there will never be an “uncivilised” neighbour in the world who will not resort to force to get what they want. Well if you continue with my example then presumably when we all feel we have an appropriate share of the available resources.
If I could have cut the tree in half vertically that might have been a compromise, it just doesn’t work with trees. But trees aren’t what we have real wars about are they, it does tend to be resources that we could deal with differently. Contented people seldom go to war only the disenfranchised.
Lest anyone make the mistake that this is a call to socialism, it isn’t, I used the term appropriate not equal or desired share of resources. So it is back to the debate about how we allocate resources appropriately and ensure people understand and accept that this is so.
For example most people are happy that doctors get paid more than labourers. They can see that it takes a lot more training for one thing to become doctor so we have an unequal share of economic resources but an understanding of why this is so. So when I am driving my Toyota and my doctor is driving his BMW I don’t really feel bad as I understand and accept that. When my banker is driving a Ferrari because... well because I don’t feel so good and potentially have a desire to "deal" with my bankers excessive consumption presumably at my expense, look out I see the potential for "war"
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Till divorce do us part
Sometimes it seems that topics develop a level of popularity all by themselves. On this occasion I seem to be encountering a lot of references to gay marriage a topic which frankly I haven’t given much thought to because a) I am not gay and b) I am already married. I think the confluence of unrelated but similar items is called synchronicity which is mostly irrelevant but a cool word to try and drop into your next cocktail party.
So back to gay marriage, other than the reasons above I have a sort of “so what” attitude to this, if gay people want to be married good luck to them on the other hand why all the fuss as far as I can tell my status us married does not provide me any privileges or rights that I wouldn’t otherwise have so who cares.
Administratively it is sometimes easier to be married, my wife automatically becomes my spokesperson etc for medical stuff if I can’t speak for myself (which may be a very bad thing depending on how recently I came home late or did something else irresponsible) and gets the house when I die etc but all of this can be overcome with some legal papers albeit I admit it might be more of a hassle and the items on the list are relatively minor in the scheme of life.
So I realize that some of the fuss derives from the fact that gay marriage is not recognized by some governments and people want this “put right”. So this begs the question why would a government care and actually when you think about it why are they involved at all? Why do you need a marriage license? Actually why do people including myself even get married?
Errr, In my case because that’s what you do? Looking back that is really my own personal answer, there was presumably a lot of symbolism in the starting a new life together type stuff and I never thought about it at the time but it is really the creating of a new family unit isn’t it. Separate and with its own identity from the families the two of you have come from and by extension the beginning of the child bearing and raising process that completes the cycle. So it is not to suggest I fell into marriage but it wasn’t motivated by trying to be involved in any grand societal plan. And the getting married bit is quite distinct in my mind from the life I have now built with my wife. If I were to have my time again would I bother to get married, actually maybe not, I would have a party but the license and stuff perhaps not.
Presumably then society (the government) cares because the family part is the key a mummy and a daddy in a stable family unit are the best space to raise a child. Well let’s quickly admit that there are other models that work just fine to name just one would be what I will call a village model where the whole tribe is responsible and this seems to work very well. Equally we will all readily admit that there are some appalling mummy and daddy units out there.
So presumably governments think that gay people would make bad parents hence a dislike of gay marriage. Certainly biology is on the side of the government, producing babies is quite a bit harder if you and your partner share the same gender. So that should be an A ha! moment for the government, exactly how big a problem can this ever be given the built in limitations? And as for those gay people who seek to adopt etc, these are what I would call deliberate parents as they have to consider plan and actively seek parenthood versus the many, many accidental parents in the non gay world. How many time have you heard someone say “little Johnny was a bit of an accident” or some such. (as an aside I feel like slapping these people, how would you like your existence being referred to as an accident) So what would you prefer people who want to be parents or people who got drunk and ended up with a baby. (yes yes rash sterotyping but you understand what I mean)
Once again this seems to me to be an area that governments are in for the “doing good” reasons and it has the inevitable consequence of interfering in people’s lives for no supportable reason. With 30% of marriages ending in miserable divorce and potentially a higher level of unhappy marriage if governments want to do good they should ban marriage altogether I don’t see why gay people deserve special protection from that sort of self inflicted misery it is just another example of discrimination against us poor middle class white fellas.
So back to gay marriage, other than the reasons above I have a sort of “so what” attitude to this, if gay people want to be married good luck to them on the other hand why all the fuss as far as I can tell my status us married does not provide me any privileges or rights that I wouldn’t otherwise have so who cares.
Administratively it is sometimes easier to be married, my wife automatically becomes my spokesperson etc for medical stuff if I can’t speak for myself (which may be a very bad thing depending on how recently I came home late or did something else irresponsible) and gets the house when I die etc but all of this can be overcome with some legal papers albeit I admit it might be more of a hassle and the items on the list are relatively minor in the scheme of life.
So I realize that some of the fuss derives from the fact that gay marriage is not recognized by some governments and people want this “put right”. So this begs the question why would a government care and actually when you think about it why are they involved at all? Why do you need a marriage license? Actually why do people including myself even get married?
Errr, In my case because that’s what you do? Looking back that is really my own personal answer, there was presumably a lot of symbolism in the starting a new life together type stuff and I never thought about it at the time but it is really the creating of a new family unit isn’t it. Separate and with its own identity from the families the two of you have come from and by extension the beginning of the child bearing and raising process that completes the cycle. So it is not to suggest I fell into marriage but it wasn’t motivated by trying to be involved in any grand societal plan. And the getting married bit is quite distinct in my mind from the life I have now built with my wife. If I were to have my time again would I bother to get married, actually maybe not, I would have a party but the license and stuff perhaps not.
Presumably then society (the government) cares because the family part is the key a mummy and a daddy in a stable family unit are the best space to raise a child. Well let’s quickly admit that there are other models that work just fine to name just one would be what I will call a village model where the whole tribe is responsible and this seems to work very well. Equally we will all readily admit that there are some appalling mummy and daddy units out there.
So presumably governments think that gay people would make bad parents hence a dislike of gay marriage. Certainly biology is on the side of the government, producing babies is quite a bit harder if you and your partner share the same gender. So that should be an A ha! moment for the government, exactly how big a problem can this ever be given the built in limitations? And as for those gay people who seek to adopt etc, these are what I would call deliberate parents as they have to consider plan and actively seek parenthood versus the many, many accidental parents in the non gay world. How many time have you heard someone say “little Johnny was a bit of an accident” or some such. (as an aside I feel like slapping these people, how would you like your existence being referred to as an accident) So what would you prefer people who want to be parents or people who got drunk and ended up with a baby. (yes yes rash sterotyping but you understand what I mean)
Once again this seems to me to be an area that governments are in for the “doing good” reasons and it has the inevitable consequence of interfering in people’s lives for no supportable reason. With 30% of marriages ending in miserable divorce and potentially a higher level of unhappy marriage if governments want to do good they should ban marriage altogether I don’t see why gay people deserve special protection from that sort of self inflicted misery it is just another example of discrimination against us poor middle class white fellas.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Decisions, Decisions
More government vs less government for some reason this seems to have become a left right battle and it is not obvious to me why this should be so.
Potentially it seems to me to depend on your ideas on the role of government so I thought I would advance an answer which may or may not be the standard answer for I don’t know of a consensus on this point.
For me the government is there to provide the goods and services I would not be able to provide for myself, either through my own efforts or via purchase from other providers.
Obvious examples are the court system and defence forces. Roads are another example of something it is almost impossible to provide for yourself and while there are example of privately owned toll roads in reality these are just adjuncts to the main network provided by the government. Toll roads that went from your house to all of your friends houses would be a difficult ask for a private organisation.
There are other things that governments provide that are up for debate, an obvious an often debated one is health care. Through the world we have examples of an almost totally government funded and supplied health system such as NZ or the UK or essentially private only provision such as the USA and many hybrid versions in between. So the role of government in this is up for grabs.
Education is another issue where it is clearly possible for people to arrange for themselves and many do but in almost all jurisdictions especially the base level education of the young always falls to the state. This mostly seems to be part of a social contract whereby the state has deemed some level of compulsion into education and in return has provided the means of affecting this compulsion. Why this should be so for general education is not obvious as for example it is also compulsory for you to obtain a driving licence but governments do not seem inclined to hand out free driving lessons to enable you to reach the required standard.
The education anomaly seems to be government indulging in social engineering, e.g. the notion that governments have a role in promoting a “good” society for us all to live in and without exception a better educated populace results in a more harmonious society. But this is a very slippery slope as once you start telling people how to live their lives it is very hard to stop.
For example the NZ government along with others around the world has decided that smoking is bad and are doing their best to wipe out this habit with restrictions on advertising, the places you can smoke etc. Now I don’t smoke so I guess I should care less but on the other hand what business is it of the state if you smoke?
The much trotted out line is that the societal health costs burden outweighs your right to smoke. (a greater good for the greatest number argument) This is of course complete rubbish as the solution to this (assuming it is correct and I have my doubts about the maths, I mean what about the significant savings in superannuation payments as an offset) is to raise the tax on tobacco until it equals the costs, not run advertising campaigns trying to persuade people to quit or put gruesome pictures on the packets for the same reason.
Another example is superannuation, it is pretty clear I can save for myself so why do I need the government doing it for me?
When you look at a lot of examples of government, they fall into the “good” society category rather than my original definition and this where the big versus small comes in.
If you believe in my definition of government then it would tend to a smaller government, if you prefer the “good” society idea then I suspect it will be bigger. There are lots of reasons advanced for various policies but a lot of them are just meddling in peoples right to choose in the belief that it will make for a “better” society.
Potentially it seems to me to depend on your ideas on the role of government so I thought I would advance an answer which may or may not be the standard answer for I don’t know of a consensus on this point.
For me the government is there to provide the goods and services I would not be able to provide for myself, either through my own efforts or via purchase from other providers.
Obvious examples are the court system and defence forces. Roads are another example of something it is almost impossible to provide for yourself and while there are example of privately owned toll roads in reality these are just adjuncts to the main network provided by the government. Toll roads that went from your house to all of your friends houses would be a difficult ask for a private organisation.
There are other things that governments provide that are up for debate, an obvious an often debated one is health care. Through the world we have examples of an almost totally government funded and supplied health system such as NZ or the UK or essentially private only provision such as the USA and many hybrid versions in between. So the role of government in this is up for grabs.
Education is another issue where it is clearly possible for people to arrange for themselves and many do but in almost all jurisdictions especially the base level education of the young always falls to the state. This mostly seems to be part of a social contract whereby the state has deemed some level of compulsion into education and in return has provided the means of affecting this compulsion. Why this should be so for general education is not obvious as for example it is also compulsory for you to obtain a driving licence but governments do not seem inclined to hand out free driving lessons to enable you to reach the required standard.
The education anomaly seems to be government indulging in social engineering, e.g. the notion that governments have a role in promoting a “good” society for us all to live in and without exception a better educated populace results in a more harmonious society. But this is a very slippery slope as once you start telling people how to live their lives it is very hard to stop.
For example the NZ government along with others around the world has decided that smoking is bad and are doing their best to wipe out this habit with restrictions on advertising, the places you can smoke etc. Now I don’t smoke so I guess I should care less but on the other hand what business is it of the state if you smoke?
The much trotted out line is that the societal health costs burden outweighs your right to smoke. (a greater good for the greatest number argument) This is of course complete rubbish as the solution to this (assuming it is correct and I have my doubts about the maths, I mean what about the significant savings in superannuation payments as an offset) is to raise the tax on tobacco until it equals the costs, not run advertising campaigns trying to persuade people to quit or put gruesome pictures on the packets for the same reason.
Another example is superannuation, it is pretty clear I can save for myself so why do I need the government doing it for me?
When you look at a lot of examples of government, they fall into the “good” society category rather than my original definition and this where the big versus small comes in.
If you believe in my definition of government then it would tend to a smaller government, if you prefer the “good” society idea then I suspect it will be bigger. There are lots of reasons advanced for various policies but a lot of them are just meddling in peoples right to choose in the belief that it will make for a “better” society.
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