I opened my Sunday Star Times this afternoon to find columnist Rosemary McLeod in the throes of a Force 4 (of a possible 5) MORAL PANIC!!!.
Apparently, we're all too permissive and wet and don't know right from wrong any more and can't give our kids a steer in the right direction. It's all going to hell in a hand cart, apparently.
FFS, Rosemary.....have a lie down, dear. It will pass. With time will come perspective and hopefully some sense of proportion.
The atrocities in Manurewa were committed by people who know right from wrong. They weren't confused about whether or not it was right to shoot an unarmed shopkeeper while robbing him. Mummy and Daddy didn't wring their hands over the morality of armed robbery and gratuitous murder.
These men chose to do wrong.
Let's have a good look at why these people made those choices without first having a full-blown attack of conclusion jumping and liberal bashing. I hear the sound of cold steel under your fraught prose, attended by the sound of ten thousand knees jerking.
Let's also accept that some people are just born bad. There really isn't anything we can do about them except capture them quickly when they do what they are fated to do. They may have been taught morality every day since their eyes opened and they just can't do it for whatever reason.
Or maybe they are just incredibly stupid. Some people are. During Clinton's watch as Governor of Arkansas, the state of Arkansas executed a murderer so retarded he asked the guards taking him to die to save the rest of his last meal for him for his return after he got this execution thing out of the way.
Who knows? The real reasons these people go bad could be very subtle given some of these people are members of straight, apparently devout families.
Maybe TV is to blame for deadening people's minds.
Maybe some drug other than TV messed up their brains over time.
Maybe the suspected links between some vaccinations and autism have an intermediate level of harm to unborns that result in near-death to the conscience?
Maybe the same rational mechanism that lets soldiers kill others believing it to be right in the context of war is somehow being invoked in the minds of these kids?
The point is, at this moment, we do NOT know why the tiny handful of people (for it is just a tiny handful) who killed three people in Manurewa last week did what they did. Why did those 6 or 7 or 8 people - out of the 1.417 million in the Auckland region and 4.3 million in New Zealand - do it?
We can guess, but at this point, we don't know.
The one point you do make that I absolutely agree with is people and politicians have not given anywhere near enough thought to the social consequences resulting from trade policy changes. What HAS happened to people and families who worked in industries now laid waste? Why was little or no effort made to support them in retraining for other work? All very good questions. Let's ask National what they plan to do about it. Particularly as they still very much favour those same policies and look like winning in the next election.
Whether or not that had anything to with the atrocities in Manurewa, I don't know, but you make a good point in a general context.
That aside, let's find out the answers as to why these people did what did they before we blame you, me, my Uncle Jim and everyone else who breathes.
Have a lie down Rosemary. Please.
What is the point of taxation?
1 hour ago
As you have pointed out elsewhere, unemployment is the lowest it has been for years. The problem isn't lack of jobs nor is it trade policy. It's much more complex than that but part of the reason is too many people who have no respect for other people, their property and the law. Some of these people could work (when unemployment is this low, you may not be able to get the job you want but you should be able to get a job unless you either can't work or won't).
ReplyDeletehp: Agreed unemployment is very low by historical standards. At the same time, there will be places like Foxton (also a wee nest of baddies) where the pain of change is recent and they have few alternatives to leaving town. In any case, I doubt that applies to Manurewa. Let's find out why this small number of people did what they did before we build the freedom-killing police state some seem to feel we need.....which wouldn't stop such people anyway.
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