High rate of animal cruelty in NZ

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According to the NZ Herald, there has been a 2nd attack upon some fur seals at Kaikoura, on the Northern tip of the Southern Island of NZ. I visited those seals about a year ago. Some idiots have come along and killed about 20 of them. What was interesting was the fact that there is apparently a waterfall in the area where the seals swim. This would have been a great attraction to visit if I had known about it.

I have seen a great many cases of animal cruelty in NZ in the last 2 years I have been here. There are far more cases that in Australia. I attribute this to two issues:

1. The more collectivist (socialistic) ethic of NZ

2. The higher incidence of child abuse, such that animal abuse is a practical extension

3. The high incidence of peer pressure-yobbo-loutish behaviour by youths drinking alcohol

4. Low population of NZ, which makes the place a little boring for youths. There is not much of a business culture, and this might be explained by the lack of opportunities for a small, isolated island population offering little in the way of investment or job opportunities. Small businesses have little opportunity to expand with minimal population growth. Everyone is taking off to Australia.

6. The high legal allowances for drinking - 9 beers in the first 2 hours compared to 4 in Australia.

Ethics is the big issue as far as I am concerned. The other issues merely provide the specific context in which crimes occur. There are a number of things that foreigners come to NZ for, and I would think chief among their list are the following - but maybe NZ is simply burning its bridges:

1. Natural settings - the mountain vistas, the wildlife, the trails - Sadly there are too few trails to walk along, or roads to access remote regions. There is a lack of public toilets.

2. Cultural settings - English gardens, cafes - lovely and reasonably priced, often free gardens. I wish more cafes had free wifi. Shopping malls food courts are pretty dirty since no one cleans the tables, or the spilt drinks, etc.

3. Small towns, low population - They are still pleasant - just avoid the drunken youths around and in the bars. I never see gang members in NZ, except whizzing past on their Harley's.

4. Friendly people - they are friendly and related, just avoid the drunken louts at night and on the road, or when your illegally camping in some campervan by the beach.

5. Low cost - Less so with the increase in the GST, but aided by new low-cost flights from Asia with Air Asia X.

The cruelty is a low note to end on, so let me take it a little lower. NZ has a pretty bad crime rate. Most news seems to be punctuated by animal stories - whether its a seal being clubbed or sighted, or the murder of someone working home...usually from a pub. Other than that the news is about Australia and politicians. Little surprise 40,000 New Zealanders are escaping to Australia each year. It makes you wonder - is NZ's problem perceptions or the people. I hope you stay long enough to find out because it is a beautiful country.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Liberals would make Hitler proud

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Wanganui NZ is the host to the United Nations 'Peace with Justice' conference. Basically the conference is stacked with politicians, liberals, bureaucrats and the like....all people detached from reality by virtue of other people' money, whether its a rich grandfather, government salary, a non-representative political system, or simply another form of default, whether a history of family abuse or self-loathing. Why do I say that? Well this is the basis upon which these people exist. Their scheme on this occasion is 'Peace with Justice'. Their stated purpose is:

"A world without weapons of mass destruction and with climate change solutions that put people at it’s centre".

The problem with this cause is that they will not achieve their goal. Why? It is not a reasonable objective; its based on false premises; and these are precisely the type of people who will achieve nothing. They are not the solution, they are the problem.

Let's explore some of their issues. Nuclear weapons have contributed more than anything in the current world to the protection of people. Why? Nuclear weapons protects potential victims. People are potential victims of collectivism; that is any philosophy which subjugates facts to perceptions, or any 'majority' who professes to represent the majority. It is no coincidence that organisations like this are alligned with socialists, animal liberationists, welfare advocates, climate change doomsdayers. They have a common scheme - humanity is evil, he has to be restrained from his selfish ways, and the common good involves ....the pursuit of peace, climatic steady-state and justice. Sounds good...but the devil is in the detail.

The problem is that peace is not the standard of value, life is; as well as any measure which protects it. In such issues the basic unit of consideration is the individual, thus such groups ought to be seeking to enshrine individual rights. On this issue the UN is ambivalent because whilst the various UN Declarations and other conventions attempt to protect individual rights, they do so with dubious vigour. These were the noble objectives of the UN in the post-WWII period. Today the values of the organisation are clouded by collectivist philosophy which has seen Keynesian style policies. i.e. Governments running a sequences of credit-financed boom & busts, whilst underfunding regulation of CEOs, etc who bring the market into disrepute. This was of course the intention - to discredit markets, the selfishness of market participants, when it was all orchestrated by governments to keep them in power. The focus of the UN on justice, peace and global warming is a side-show to deliver collectivist - the basic form of socialism. By no means is socialism dead. In every generation it is reinvented. This generation is disparaging global warming and animal rights.

Interestingly, I have never heard an animal rights advocate show any concern for farmers who raise animals. Their interests are 'collateral damage', as they seek to use their political influence over the uninformed, uncritical thinking electorate to extort political concessions from government. Hardly a cause likely to deliver peace, but was that ever their objective. How can you have peace without a discussion of values. Why the focus on peace. If they are seriously interested in peace, they ought to be focused on solving problems, i.e. conflict resolution. In that respect, they do not have the capacity because they are the problem. They lack the values, the cognitive (critical thinking) capabilities and objective to deliver. Instead they, along with liberals in the media and government-sponsored academics are inducing a sense of guilt, social obligation and peer group pressure which is actually pushing us towards collectivism. They are so concrete-bound they know not what they do.

On my global warming blog you can read about the misinformation about global warming. The reason that no politicians are pushing emissions trading anymore because they are awakening to the fact that its a huge scam perpetrated by academics with no respect for objectivity. On my politics blog you can likewise learn why governments are not the solution but the problem, and why such non-government organisations (NGOs) like UNANZ are simply an extension of the same con job. Finally you can more about how society is being conned into recognition of rights for animals, with a greater zeal than Adolf Hitler. Why do you think Hitler wanted to elevate the rights of animals. Do you think it was love of animals or loathing of humanity? Such is the sense of life of these pithy liberals who are not going to deliver freedom, they are going to give greater powers to government to take it away, whether to protect animals (i.e. more regulation), protect the environment (i.e. more regulation) or peace (more rights). The problem is not that they want to protect these things, the problem is they want to protect people with arbitrary rights which will only destroy your prospects of achieving rights.

Most people will fail to grasp the intelligence of this article.... a testimony to your lack of conceptual integration. Read on....these is plenty more explanation. Rome was not built in a day. The thing to remember is that any arbitrary defined right is not a protection, its an obligation or a noose around your head. Grasp that and you will grasp your political legacy and future. When your right to education or whatever constitutes a claim on other people, it is apparent the whole concept of rights has been soiled. Government is a middleman who needs to justify its existence. It does not want to solve problems, it exists by burying you in them. Just like a stockbroker wants to buy & sell stock for you, the government corners both sides of the market, by creating the problem, and creating the perception of being a solution....have you ever seen that happen by the hand of government. Complex problem? Certainly, they have the majority fooled.

Anti-whaling protestor bound for Japan

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A NZ protester this week boarded a Japanese whaling vessel. His intent was to make a citizen's arrest as well as to present the captain of the vessel with a bill for an odd $3 million. It was a very provocative act which was intended to attract international condemnation of Japanese whaling. Has the action achieved its objective. The NZ anti-whaling campaigner was Peter Bethune, who was the skipper of the high-speed Sea Shepherd, which the Japanese whaling ship had previously sunk off NZ. The problem of course is that this is the second incident that both parties have been engaged. In both cases, it was the NZ captain who was engaging in the provocative act. Perhaps he was thinking that it takes such acts to achieve 'noble goals'. After all it was not many decades ago that women were taking such provocative steps to achieve their goals. Fortunately for them, the people and government came to see the virtues of their argument. Is anyone going to agree with the actions of this captain, or has he over-stepped his mark.
This is an interesting case because it will be interesting to see how the Japanese government deal with the issue. Normally I would expect the Japanese government to be rather aggressive in their condemnation of this person, but consider this - this is an important election year. Is this the time of year the Japanese government wants to fight a battle over whaling? I wonder whether Japanese protests will arise to defend the New Zealander? Whales are kinda cute. Might Japanese environmentalists come out? The Japanese are not exactly the most aggressive lobbyists. They might however have some sympathy for this protester.
More likely however the affair will be simply a court issue, and the Japanese court will sentence this guy, and a deal will be done after the election to bring him back to NZ. It was a pretty stupid act. Its hard to know which group has more conceptual aptitude - the animal rights activists or the brutes who would treat animals cruelly for no good reason.
Animals do not have rights simply because they feel pain. This man's values appear to be the sad manifestation of the philosophy of Peter Singer. Animals of course feel pain, as anyone who has heard a squeeling dog or cat, but that does not mean they are worthy of political protection from men, or if you take the argument that humans are morally responsible for animals, protection from other animals. There is a deeper philosophical flaw involved in these arguments which I will convey in my following eBook on animal rights. Regardless, I am thankful for the publicity at this time. I hope its a long court case.
Did it occur to these lobbyists that animals kill each other. Reflection on that point of fact might highlight in their minds the errors in their philosophical integrity. The deeper flaw will be apparent in my philosophical critique.

Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309249,new-zealand-condemns-activist-who-boarded-japanese-whaler--summary.html#ixzz0fgcTHZiM