Kevin: Thoughts for the Year

As it’s the end of the year I’d thought I’d do a ‘thoughts of the year’ post – a list of things and events that were important to me. So, in no particular order:

The Murder of Charlie Kirk

Here, it’s not so much his murder, which was a tragedy, but the reaction of his detractors: from outright mocking to lying and taking what he said out context. I really have no words for the staggering level of vitriol, although I’m not sure if even vitriol is the right word.

Peter Lynn: The Peasants are Revolting

Over the last 30 years, state sectors of Western democracies have expanded and senior level state employment, with its high pay, security and access to the levers of power became a magnet for the academically gifted, especially independence minded younger women. University educated they initially moved into ministries before spreading back into academia, and out to media, consultancies, mainstream political parties, the legal profession (including the judiciary), local government and lately, HR departments of larger corporates. During this period their political centre of gravity moved sharply left- at least partly driven by self-interest as they accrued advantages from an ever-larger government sector.

JC: We Live In an Unhinged World

Today’s world is not only unhinged but is becoming increasingly dangerous. It is now not uncommon to hear from some in high places that ‘We are closer to World War III than we have ever been before.’ There are many reasons for this: political ideology, political leadership, terrorism, foreign aggression, the media and the breakdown of society, which seems a good place to start.

Dr James Allan: And the Legacy Media Wonder Why Nobody Trusts Them

Last year when I was asked to write a chapter for a US book on the incredible inroads and attacks on our civil liberties during the thuggish Covid lockdown years I decided, in part, to rank the worst offending groups. The lawyerly and doctorly castes were bad. They were woeful in fact. But the politicians as a class, the ones who ultimately made the calls, were worse – and there were very few exceptions to that generalised claim, as any Australian knows who looks for politicians who, say, resigned from Cabinet on principle (nada, zero) or who spoke up publicly and loudly against the massive authoritarian over-reach and aping of the policies of the Chinese Communist Politburo (a mere handful at most). So I gave the silver medal for thuggish lockdown commitment and stalwart thuggery to the political class. However, in terms of letting all of us citizens down I reserved the gold medal for the journalists of the legacy media.

Dr James Allan: Annoyances

Here are a few things that get my goat. They really annoy me. Start with the strange coalition between open borders Left-wing progressives and chamber of commerce types (some, but fewer these days, nominally conservative) about how ‘there are jobs locals won’t do’. A mere moment’s thought tells you that’s wrong. Such claims aren’t that far off the ante-bellum, pre-US Civil War queries from some in the south about ‘who will pick the cotton if we end slavery?’ It’s simple. In market economies all jobs will be filled if you offer to pay enough. All of them without exception. It’s just supply and demand.

Chris Trotter: Going For Broke With Woke.

What are we to make of Chris Hipkins speech “Working With Others”? Ostensibly about unity, the Prime Minister’s address homes in on the two issues which, for the last three years, have divided New Zealanders the most – Ethnicity and Gender. For good measure, he has also ruled out leading Labour into any kind of coalition agreement with NZ First. Taken in its entirety, Hipkins’ speech has much less to say about unity than it does about refusing to work with anyone who declines to embrace Labour’s radical social agenda. That being the case, it would have been more honest to entitle his address: “Going For Broke With Woke”.