Ross Meurant: There Is No Democracy Without Debate

Germany’s President Steinmeier, said he felt it was his duty to “call for public debate over serious questions.”  He argued that “there is no democracy without debate.”

Addressing the issue of the issue of compulsory vaccination, President Steinmeier said this applied to times of crisis as well. (1)

In a previous post, Rights Denied, (2) I raised the question of being, shut out of public debate.

In particular I focused on the issue of this Labour/Green government elevating Maori above all other ethnic communities which make up New Zealand and provided specific examples of esteemed academics being vilified and blacklisted (‘scuse the pun) from public discourse.  Hon Dr Michael Bassett and Professor Liz Rata – being two of the most profile.

It seemed to me that their rights to challenge (and in fact I suggest, it was their duty as senior academics), claims by some Maori that the Treaty ensconced a “Partnership” whereby Maori should rule New Zealand as an equal partner with, The Rest – of us Kiwis, was deemed unacceptable.  

Unacceptable in that these experts had rejected the “WOKE” interpretation of science which has been embraced by the emerging regime.  This WOKE claim I totally debunk in A Step Too Far (3)

Authoritarian Environment.

But it doesn’t stop there.  A penchant of government bureaucracies to deny Kiwis their right to work unless they accept mandatory vaccination, now also emerges as another attack on the Rights of New Zealanders.

I am double vaxed and had a boost.  I am not anti vax.  But I respect the rights of my fellow countrymen (‘scuse the non-woke gender pro-noun) to say, “NO”.

Furthermore, compulsory vaccination for children, is where I draw the line.  Much more research needs be undertaken and peer reviewed – by competitors in the commercial bonanza of inventing, manufacturing and supplying vaccines. 

I’m closer to 70 than I am to 60 so if bad outcomes from too much vaccines do manifest, at least I can say – “I’ve had a fair run at life”.  But to force upon children, these vaccines which do not meet testing protocols imposed on other vaccinations which over past decades have saved us, is another Step Too Far.

Remember Thalidomide? (4)

As I review why some say NO, it seems to me opposition to vaccination stretches from what I would consider conspiracy theorist stuff – like:

A. It’s the plan of a very wealthy global influencer to reduce the population?

To the following:

B. Concern that we are being sucked in by the avaricious greed of some to make lots of money by scaring the hell out of the masses who in the main are as ignorant as to the origins, evolution and extinction of the virus and its mutating cousins, as are many so-called experts.

To the following:

C. Conflicting medical data raising serious concerns among many.

This conundrum reintroduces PLATO’s lament?

“We can forgive children for being afraid of the dark.  We cannot forgive adults for being afraid of the light.”

Put another way:

“If you don’t accept the bad news, you cannot identify the problem.”

Therefore, I take heed of PLATO and review the three paradigms A, B, C, and am compelled to contribute to the debate:

Re Category A:    I’m not convinced.

Re Category B:    This does attract my attention – especially as I recall National Party Caucus disagreements - mid nineties – about whether foreign providers were trying to influence people on Pharmac – with enticement to approve a particular product as “acceptable” for New Zealand.

Note:  This was about the time in history when we all going to die of AIDS – and therefore should stop having sex – which as I reflect on this “wisdom”, might well have emanated from propagators of A?

Re category C:  I notice that “among many” includes many medical professionals?

Addendum:  I do not for one moment suggest either in the nineties or now, that any Pharmac appointees ever accepted enticements.

What does concern me however, is the trend toward shutting down any and all challenges to the pathways this Labour/Green government now treads.

Most readers will have by now tired of reading the constant stream of facts and fiction pertaining to COVID. 

As swiftly as an “approved medical professional” comes out with the latest doomsday predictions, “other non-approved medical professionals” produce EMPERICAL RESEARCH which may question some of the Establishment’s Protocols and/or clinically expose Facts Promulgated by Government Appointed Paragons as flawed!

This in my view, gets to the nub of Rights Denied aka “Shut up ‘cause the Government knows what it’s doing, and its advisors are right.”

During 2020 Dr Simon Thornley whose academic quailfications are braodly similar to those of Dr Ashley Bloomfield, challenged the Government’s Covid-19 elimination strategy which put him on a collision course with merging media stars including Professor Michael Baker.

Thornley is reported to have said: “They’re trying to shut down alternative views which have already been proven correct.”  At one point he said: “There’s no doubt in my mind the effects of the virus have been systematically exaggerated at every level.”

The article at Stuff (5) traverses the conflicting opinion of Thornley. There were accusations of “Cherry-picking” data, which in my view might also be applied to journalism.

End result? Michael Baker and his University of Otago colleague Professor Nick Wilson demeaned Thornley.  

Whether Thornley was right or wrong, it is my view that an attack mounted against a person who dared to question the efficacy and integrity of a government protocol, if not designed to scare and intimate others, most likely does.

Stifling debate. 

At least Thornley wasn’t burned at the stake or had an eye put out as did denizens of Carcassonne who failed to see the correct path to God.

History tells us however, that no science is so pure that it does not evolve. Therefore, the more robust the challenges, the sooner a more reasoned outcome will prevail.

Remember Charles Darwin?

The conflicting international medical opinion is too vast for me to fully comprehend – let alone try to condense for capture in this short post.  But I do have the fortitude to say that in my assessment of the situation:

• As the inability of vaccines to make us immune to the virus was exposed as flawed science, the implicit if not explicit assurances we had been given were rapidly changing.

• Contemporaneous assurances that being vaccinated does mitigate the impact of the virus (which ever version one acquires), now flood the market place – yet these claims cannot be proven.

o   For example, consider the claims made by news.com.au in a NZ Herald article 13 January 2021 (6) where NSW Sate Premier said, “around half of those in the state's intensive care units (ICUs) were vaccinated.” 

o   The reporter said: “This may be surprising to some but it should not be taken as evidence the vaccines do not work. In fact, it shows the opposite.”

So here we have a reporter deciding whether the glass is half empty – or half full?

If that’s science for you mate, then I reckon we really do have a Problem at Mill.

·        Under fear of death descending upon us as mist on an overcast morning, if we did not wear a mask and sanitise hands and stay at home and social distance when let out of the cage to get food supplies, now appears to me to have been excessive floundering in the mist by so-called medical professionals and politicians – who really didn’t have a bloody clue- but were dead keen on either publicity and/or keeping their jobs.

·        That while government bureaucrats remained fully paid, the backbone of New Zealand’s economy – that is the small businesses who start a commercial activity by risking their house (mortgaged to a fair-weather friend aka their bank) and employ 30 per cent of all NZ’s work force who in turn pay tax which in turn funds public facilities like Health (soon to be gifted to Maori) and represent 25 per cent of GDP – were:

o   SHUT DOWN: DENIED THE RIGHT TO WORK

o   LOST THEIR SELF RESPECT: CRASHED INTO DEPRESSION.

• It took Rt Hon John Key to come out firing accusing Labour/Green government of creating a HERMIT STATE – before some of these extreme reactions of panic at the mill (aka Parliament) were – moderated. Mildly.

• But still, thousands of Kiwis cannot get home from abroad.

• Why the Labour/Green government has not done as they have in China AND Russia, and built portable hospitals/MIQs to accommodate elevations in contagion and have these facilities additional to public hospitals?

o   Why has not the disused Military facility at the end of Whangaparāoa (Orewa) been converted from a police AOS shooting range facility?   If the doomsday predictions are half true, Auckland will need such facilities.

In my view, the public have a right to be heard.  

Opinion is not the prerogative of the Prime Minister alone.

This right may manifest in the form of professionals producing empirical research which challenges government policy.

This right may manifest of the form of new political party.

These rights must prevail and not, as I said in RIGHTS DENIED be under threat of:

“Criminalising comment which challenges government is one option.  Pressure on Facebook etc is another.  Either way, it is DEMOCRACY DENIED.” (7)

Returning to the German President, I suggest he set the tone for debate which New Zealand would do well to embrace, when called on his fellow countrymen and women to show respect for opinions that differ from their own, and also for “facts and reason,” which “must be and remain our common currency.” (8)

Ross Meurant, graduate in politics both at university and as a Member of Parliament; formerly police inspector in charge of Auckland spies & V.I.P. security; currently Honorary Consul for an African state, Trustee and CEO of Russian owned commercial assets in New Zealand and has international business interest.

References:

(1) https://www.rt.com/news/545918-german-president-denies-covid-tyranny/
(2) https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2022/01/ross-meurant-rights-denied-denied-by.html
(3) https://www.nzcpr.com/a-step-too-far-bi-cultural-partnership/
(4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21507989/
(5) https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/125035835/the-scientist-and-the-rabbit-hole-how-epidemiologist-simon-thornley-became-an-outcast-of-his-profession
(6) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-australia-why-half-of-people-in-nsw-intensive-care-are-vaccinated/625NCSWWYXIN2JA6G7U4QIAYYY/
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid