When I asked her how she had found NZ, she responded that she could not believe how bad crime was here. Just the week before two female shoppers had loaded their trolley and commenced to leave the supermarket without paying. After an altercation with security they left, without their goods, but free to have another go somewhere else.
My conversation with this supermarket employee got me thinking. I don't want to be disrespectful to India. I don't know much about India, and I have never visited there. I also know some amazing Indian New Zealanders just for the record. They seem to me to make hard-working, respectful, and law-abiding citizens by and large.
But I kind of imagined that crime would be far worse there than it is here. But perhaps not. At least not in the mind of this lady.
I guess I had imagined crime would be worse there than here because India is per capita a much poorer country than NZ. I have seen photographs of people in India rummaging on scrapheaps for food or anything salvageable. They seem not to have any significant state-funded welfare system, hospitals seem largely inaccessible to the poor, and people seem (and I say seem) to be left to their own devices, or the support of their families.
What we have been told increasingly, and very loudly, by left-wing activists is that crime is a direct function of poverty. That if the system was kinder and more generous to the "poor", people would not be committing crimes, at least not in the way, or to the degree, we are currently seeing.
The answer we are told is, by and large, as simple as wealth distribution.
The implication is that if we give people more money, they will be much less likely to commit crimes.
This is precisely the Maori and Green Party Policy. Redistribute wealth, close prisons, give people a voice, provide them with comfortable homes and all will be well.
But if all of this was true, NZ would have less crime than India, and less crime than almost anywhere else, and this should have been the case for a very long time.
If this was true people would not be stealing cars, laptops, sports gear, or vaping pens. They would be stealing basic necessities.
Further, if the left explanation for poverty was true we would notice an inverse relationship between benefit levels and crime. When benefits go up, crime goes down.
Are we seeing this, any of this? We all know that we are not.
Recently I blogged my view that the real crisis in NZ, and in the West more generally is a crisis of virtue, and especially of duty, of duty to family, to others, and to country. Duty to make your own way, and expect nothing material as of right.
I am NOT saying that people do not need a hand up, that society shouldn't watch out for the less fortunate.
I guess I am saying that to expect someone to turn up to work, to remember that wealth is generated by someone's effort somewhere, and to claim some of that wealth as though you are entitled to it is theft.
One of the biggest problems in left-wing thinking is the idea that people are fundamentally good, and that bad systems make them do bad things.
This idea is far too
simplistic.
While it does bear an element of truth, it is no more true than the assertion that people can also do bad things when they are allowed to get away with it, when it makes life easier for them, or when they are simply angry that someone has something that they do not have.
The solution to poverty, at least in part, is an expectation of turning up to work, of paying your own way, of taking responsibility for those nearest to you, of grasping opportunities that do come your way, of turning up to school, and of seeing welfare as a bridge towards independence.
I get a sense that our new government gets this.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
9 comments:
I am not sure that India is so secure. I had Indian tenants who filled the house with mould because they were afraid to leave any window open. However punishment of anyone caught would likely have been more summary.
During the 1930s Depression very many families were far more hard up than any beneficiary today but crime did not soar. Into the 60s many families went to church, or their parents had so a Christian ethic was common and spread through the community. But that has gone and especially since Rogernomics every man for himself has been the motto.
Years ago shopkeepers would accost thieves and detain suspects until the police arrived. Some force would be accepted. And the occasional mistake accepted. I recently had a bag lifted from a bicycle. The manager checked his camera and the elderly immigrant (not European, Indian, Asian, Chinese) woman was still in the shop. Some mumbling about mistake and she was free to wander off (her own bag suspiciously bulging) and go to church on Sunday as many of ilk do. There is no or a lenient outcome now. Further the seditious imagine decolonisation (applied as enact decolonisation) brainwash has permeated maoridom and flowed over to pacifica. This encourages departure from the norms of civilisation. Much punishment is a joke. Home detention with family and mates is better than the lives many solo elderly lead. And brief stints in gaol with mates not seriously discouraging.
I am currently living in Cambodia, recognised as a third world country.
No Social welfare, no generous handouts, no free medical effectively no free schooling.
Yes there is some petty crime, stealing phones, etc. But none of the blatant theft as per this supermarket.
Why not?
Immediate retribution. ie a bash from locals.
AND the cops dont rush in and arrest those reforming the thieves. They wait until the reforming is finished then drag the criminal of to a jail.
Yep the sort you see on Docos about being incarcerated in Asia...in our terms of reference. Hell holes.
The thing that I love about the country is that it reminds me of NZ in the 50s and 60s. Family and community orientated. Accepting the norms of expected behavior and pragmatic about laws.
Its not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, But in my view, society is much better here than in NZ.
So, against the screams of the crazy liberals. We are due another Ruth Richardson Mother of all Budgets. Cut the benefits and force people back to work (there is a shortage of labour after all).
The problem is to much free stuff. Free money, free rent, free health, free education. People don't appreciate free stuff, it just makes them feel entitled for more free stuff. There needs to be a cost to the recipient, no matter how small, so they appreciate nothing is free.
Much to ponder Caleb. Like you an educator, and a parent, I think about what is learned from the very earliest days - formally and informally. I don't think many thieves are deep thinkers -'see it, want it, take it'. I can't believe that they were reared with love and compassion, and that's the scary thing for our society in NZ today - people not possessing the basic self-respect to know of themselves that 'I am not a thief.'
Make me work, and I'll damage your business, then I'll be fired and can go back to sitting on the couch, enjoying the rewards of the work of those people back in my previous "employment".
Just being cynical as usual.
I am so pleased you mentioned the underlying 'theology' that pervades our society. This is that we are all basically born good and become bad because of our environment and the way we are treated.
This sentimental view of human nature came out of the Romantic Era and from others who contributed to the french revolution like Rousseau who famously famously said;'All are born free but are everywhere in chains'.
Our education system m as well as general society has been strongly influenced by this worldview.
It was originally a reaction against a Churchy Pauline doctrine referring to
us being born sinners. Consequently there was a prevalence of very harsh treatment of children in 'knocking the devil out of them' so to speak Of course the now very evident results from the over-reaction is sentimental muck whereby no child is ever to be corrected. You may damage their precious self -esteem.
For heavens sake, how about a resort to middle ground where treatment of children is tough love, firm but fair and with sensible discipline that does not include cruel ridicule, overly physical whacking or any other sadistic rituals? Rewards for hard work well done has also been soused by foolish modern thinking.
but should be re-evaluated.
india may not be a safe country, but this has to be seen in perspective. the population of auckland is similar to a tier-2/3 city in india & the number of ram raids, car chases, shootings in a city of such scale is unheard of.
yes, you are likely to be conned or taken for a ride, or have your pocket picked. but most people don't fear for their lives when a group of bikers ride together on a highway. since most people don't have faith in police and courts and insurance companies, cases of vandalism or shoplifting are handled by owners and customers on their own. i'm not in favour of vigilante justice, but i'm sure what's happening in nz is not the solution either.
There are two competing theories for human behaviour. The first is people are good but do bad things because of the environment they suffer. The environmentalist theory of life.
The other theory is we are born with certain genetic propensities and the expression of these propensities is governed by the environment we suffer. The geneticist theory of life.
Environmentalist say crime is caused by poverty.
Geneticist say there are some within society that have a genetic propensity to commit crime and if there are no restraints in the form of apprehension, punishment or exclusion from society their behaviour results in a diminishment in social trust, a reduction in human endeavour resulting in poverty
Rhetoric is firmly on the side of the environmentalists, but all the facts support the geneticists.
Unfortunately all our institutions are dominated by people who have a genetic predisposition to environmentalism. Facts don't count, only emotive rhetoric.
Eventually society will collapse because of this and in western culture it is well advanced.
The Palestinians know we will eventually allow them annihilate Israel and murder the Jews if necessary and when they are through will destroy western culture, murder us where necessary, to which numbers of us will cheer, as is happening now.
What do we expect, we have a whole generation brainwashed that we evil Colonialists stole all the land and are so racist that these mostly part Maori (let's be honest). feel as though taking stuff for free is an entitlement.
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