"People .. look for light, hope, a fulfillment of their own ambition and they will either find that in political leadership or they will seek out reasons why they have been failed" (Ardern Speech at Bologna University, 1hr 43 mins, Italy, March 2024).
"Governing is about choices" - choosing subsidies to "childcare", "prescriptions", "public transport", "school lunches" (Hipkins - Labour's temporary current leader).
What stupendously depressing words, declaring the only way a human can be fulfilled - can achieve their dreams & ambitions - is dependence on politicians - & should we not achieve them then we will sit on our bums & ask, "Who failed me? Why did those in power not do enough to help me?". What a patronizing view. It does not explain how great nations, like ours, were built. Their formation was not based on creating a dependency culture. The job of politicians is not to make choices for people - their job is to set up a system of rules - create a level playing field - that allows us freedom to make our own decisions. We know what's best for us, not them. Successes & failures follow from our choices. What we share, regardless of ethnicity, is that we don't want to "look for light, hope & fulfillment" from politicians. Ardern should spend time at Harvard reading books - not teaching how to lead from her life experience in Morrinsville & Podium of Truth. Start with some philosophy about how government should protect fundamental rights & liberties, leaving people with the freedom & responsibility to carve their own path in life.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnnCdGyvvNE
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/opinion-national-lacks-vision-for-auckland-our-most-productive-city-chris-hipkins/2AO6SSKWX5AELKSDWMKKNTUAPY/
4 comments:
https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/p/know-your-enemy
"Here, Oakeshott’s prognosis was bleak: modernity was one long, sad tale in which the propensity to adopt the perspective of the individual manqué was growing ever stronger among Western populations. The desire to engage with life as an autonomous, responsible, self-governing agent was diminishing; it was being replaced by an obsession with security and an acceptance of ‘servility’ as the price to pay for safety. We were in short coming to understand freedom as being at best a difficult chore: something best avoided in the name of an easy life. And this was chiefly (and this is where the Labour Party comes in) due to the growing prevalence of a particular class of person which Oakeshott describes as:
[Having] themselves just enough individuality to derive some satisfaction from the adventure of making choices but too little to seek it anywhere save in commanding others."
Succinct and brilliant!
It precisely encapsulates what is wrong with too many of our politicians.
A proper education system was also what we used to have before the middle of last century when the educational decline began.
It was a disgrace to be on welfare or be a parasite on the state and the aim of education was to make you as independent from the state as possible.
Now we produce educational cripples barely literate or numerate who are through little fault of their own dependent on the state. Progressive Education has never had a concern for academic standards or intellectual achievement but rather producing little socialists who have to love the state because they are dependent on it.
Good article Robert but disagree with your use of indigenous; New Zealand has no indigenous peoples, maori were boat people the same as all of our ancestors, just a couple of hundred years earlier. Ardern was never a leader, only a white face puppet for the maori caucus to pull her strings. Could probably teach wrapping fish n' chips though. Kiwialan.
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