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Welcome to podcasts two hundred and sixty one for October twenty three, twenty twenty four. Last week I read a couple of essays that were published in close proximity time wise, I mean, in different journals. One was by retired judge Anthony Willie, the second by Jeffrey Tucker from Brownstone Institute, and both were very good, and it occurred that they coupled well together. I did think of having both authors, but elected to stick with Judge Willie. He was the
longer commentary anyway, by five pages or so. Now that decision was fortunate because Tony and I talked with ease for fifty minutes and could have gone on for another fifty.
As he pointed out to me afterward, these two articles sink well together, and for me it's an example of what I was pointing out or trying to I think last week in the last podcast, which has to do with the increasing number of people who were writing voluminously in some cases and making a living well some are anyway, unless I forget that I've complained on more than one occasion about how much there is out there and how hard it is to get on top of it with
so much choice. But I can think of worse now before we talk with Tony Willie two weeks today, fourteen days from now, and we'll be sitting in front of the TV watching the future of the world unfold. And I remember clearly when I was winding up the radio program at midday on election Day twenty sixteen, everyone around me was convinced that the Clinton woman would be the next president. My reaction was, don't get to two excited.
It's not over, and Trump will win, I think, and the rest is history, and history is about to repeat itself. I think. In fact, at this point I have little
to no doubt that it will be the case. But wait, Trump was supposed to win in twenty twenty, but the numbers for Biden swelled as the night wore on, and in some states, even breaking their own rules, closed down counting for the night for one reason or another, and the staff like a burst water Maine and the staff which wasn't affecting anything, and the staff was sent home. The votes for Biden magically appeared and he won the biggest vote count in history. Amazing. Now could that happen
again for Kambala Harris? I don't think so. But when it comes to rearranging reality, the Democrats are second to none. So while anything can happen over the next two weeks, I'll declare a second term for Trump and I won't be surprised if it's a big margin, and I want
to throw the word landslide in. I'll think about it and at the back end of the podcast to be a little more on the election and a bit of information with regard to aspects of the American Constitution and how better to understand it, because it's not easy actually to understand, as though in a moment Anthony Willie. Leverix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever and skin allergies or itchy skin.
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Leverx and always read the label. Takes directed and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland Layton Smith. There was an advertisement when I was young, when you're on a good thing, stick to it. Retired judge Anthony Willie has guested on this podcast on numerous occasions. Why because when you're on a good thing, stick to it. And it's great to welcome you back, Anthony.
Thank you. Leighton.
So your most recent column, your most recent contra to the Discussion of things, almost knocked me out. Its length was superb. Everything that you said in it was applicable to what's going on and where it's headed. And my guess is that a lot of people will want a copy of this to refer to and to refer others to because it is on target called blowing in the wind Sir Elton John's beautiful lyrics aptly described the parlous position of the fragile candle of enlightenment and reason as
it exists in today's world. Both are increasingly assailed by the winds of dogma, ignorance, and deliberate misinformation. What triggered you to put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard.
Well, curiously enough, it was the anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, which doesn't have anything much such relevant, except that it brought to mind Elton John's lyrics. And I was going to write thing about the text of what I did right, and I thought that that was a rap description of what's happening to all of the benefits of the enlightenment that we've for so long taken for granted.
Well, I'd like to work our way through this through this article as closely as possible and at whatever speed you choose to deliver. But you start off essentially by pointing out that there is an insidious phenomenon invading society.
What is it? Well, we've taken for granted for so long. Now the benefits that we acquired from this flowering of thought which occurred in the principle the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And we've sat back and assumed that life will always be like that and our position is secure. But it's not so. We're surrounded with a growing tender see full of the old Marxist doctrines to take hold and doing
so very successfully. And of course they're the antithesis of our way of life, which is based on all those things I mentioned in the article free speech, the rule of law, democracy, and so on. And it's something that's really of concern. We don't seem to be grasping that this is occurring in so many different facets of our society.
But of course we had the classic example of the previous three years of the so called Labor Government, in which the Marxist philosophy was alive and well, led of course by somebody who wasn't about Marxist and had been the world president of a Marxist society. But we don't seem to really be alert to just how dangerous this is and what is happening.
What is it that's preventing the continuation of not just the practice but the teaching of the advantages and what we are discussing actually delivers to society, to individuals, to organizations. It all really comes, I suppose, under the heading of one word freedom.
Yes, yes, and really that sums up what is happening, and it's the loss of freedom. And I give a
few examples in my article in no particular order. But if you begin by subverting education so that children at school only learn what this part killer group in society want them to learn, and if they are told that their history is irrelevant and that where they came from is in New Zealand anyway is essentially bad m then it starts very early and it's almost impossible to displace some of this teaching as children grow up, because we all know the old Jesuit mantra, give us the child
till there's seven, and I'll give you the man. And that's what's happening in education, or had been happening under the previous government. Fortunately that is now being rectified significantly by the present government, but it's going to take a very long time. And there is now a whole generation of young people who have been taught this stuff and believe it, and the story goes on. I mean we
saw it during COVID, how medicine was politicized. Without going into detail, the so called pulput of truth dictated what we would do with our lives. We would be locked up and we would have to have if injections of a substance if we wanted to continue to live a
relatively normal life and so on. And that's harks back to what you were saying about Ashley Bloomfield and the who and this sinister proposition that medicine is no longer the curing of the sick, it is now part of the national secure see complex which governs our lives.
Well, I was going to leave that till later, but seeing that you've you've raised it. The article that that that that came from was by Rob McCulloch. It was on the podcast about six weeks ago. And is Sir Ashley Bloomfield arguing in the New Zealand Medical Journal that this nation should be turned into a police state for the next in brackets inevitable Rose bragget pandemic And I mean, let's ask us a question. But the direction that the article takes is is very obvious. Yes, and this this
is a. I can only put it this way. This is an individual that caused chaos as far as I'm concerned, in this in this country, or contributed to it greatly, and has for whatever reason been awarded the Knighthood for it, and then gone on to greater height of the World Health organization and is now attempting to expand what he first achieved here. Would that be.
Careers, absolutely, and it wasn't really apparent from his public utterances. But looking back we know what was behind all this, and that was, as I just mentioned, utilizing what turned out to be a relatively unharmful German if you like, or whatever, measured in terms of the number of people who died, which were very few. Indeed, that was used
as a front for closing down New Zealand society. It has never happened in the history of this country that people were locked up in their houses for their own good, the people had to take medicine for their own good and so on. And to think that that is now becoming a derigue in these international organizations is indeed very worrying. And of course the Americans have just said, no, we're not having a bar of that. We'll determine our own health policies. Thank you, But I'm not sure what our
governments do about it. They haven't said yet.
No, I suspect they're being blown in the direction that the Bloomfield would desire. And well, I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. Anyway, let me go back to just to a bit of history, because this is
part of what you were saying is affected kids. You're right after having listed the flowering of free thought and curiosity otherwise known as the Enlightenment, and listed all those things philosophy, law, democracy, medicine, education, freedom of expression, music, economics and technology, etc. All of which are underpinned by unhindered rational thought. That was the social contract Captain Hobson
brought to these shows in eighteen forty. It remained the social norm since, but is now as much under threat here as it is throughout the Western world. The threats are numerous and growing, and they assail enlightened thought and practice on all sides. It begins with the degradation of our shared history. Do you think that those who are pushing the shared history are aware of what they're doing.
Absolutely, they're aware that, to quote day Cart that I think, therefore I am, which was probably the mantra that was at the heart of the Enlightenment, because he said I think, therefore I am. Not what do I read therefore I am? Or not what do I listen to other people telling me? Therefore I am? He promoted rational thought, and that is the one strength that those who would upset and destabilize
our way of life have to counter. For as long as people are free to think rather than just listen to what other people tell them, then they're going to get nowhere, These people who would break so much damage on society. So they do they begin by attacking the Enlightenment.
Indeed, just talking about there was a well known philosopher I believe who wrote a book called I Drink Therefore I Am. It was a book on wine, of course, So you cover that by saying it's now fashionable at all levels of society to denigrate this process as the product of whiteness and the oppression which accompanied it. And you say, the Marxists are well aware of this crucial fact as they seek to replace history with lies which benefit the growth of the state to the detriment of
the individual. Are we being across the board too easily seduced to comply with, to comply and even vote for this approach.
Well, well, I think we have been, because we must be among the most complacent societies on the planet really when you look back to think of the strengths of our society and the things we came to rely on, our democracy and the rule of law and education and all that sort of stuff, and we just assumed that
would go on forever. And when it was attacked as it was in the last three years of the so called Labor government, nobody seemed to well, very few people seem to notice, and that encouraged those who would replace it with something else to continue with the work. I don't think it's going to go on. I'm confident that with the new coalition government that we will reverse this, but it's going to take time and it's not going to.
Be easy correct, and it will be thought, I believe by those in the education system who have had a contribution to driving it absolutely.
But I've got a lot of confidence in the present Minister of Education and her deputy, yes David Seymour, that they will do they will do this. I'm quite confident.
He's my legal member and I've never met her or spoken to her. It's probably time we got around you. So we covered the education. Then you hit on politicized medicine wherever possible, by introducing racial considerations into the availability of treatment and by supplanting the independence of the medical profession to best manage their patients by substituting state intervention.
Can I just relate to you a little example. My doctor, my own doctor, rang me a few months ago, and he was distraught, and I wondered, what the hell is wrong? And it turned out that he'd just been dealing with the department because of an aged patient of his, a woman who needed certain assistance. But she didn't qualify on the age front, because if you were Marie, you were entitled to it in your fifties. She was seventy two,
I believe, and she wasn't entitled to it. And he rang me, and really all he wanted to do was just talk to somebody and get it off his chest. And I saw, or heard, rather the desperation in his voice, which was which ran a parallel with what I've been told by other doctors, but not quite so emotionally as this, because there was nothing that he could do for the woman without the Health Department's contribution. Yes, so there we
are politiciz medicine. Have you have you got anything else in mind besides what we went through in COVID.
Well, yes, the push towards rationing medicine on the basis of ethnicity, now that is a essentially a political notion because it divides society and you divide and rule. That became the norm under the previous government. And indeed you ticked a box where you went along declaring what you're whether or not you had married ethnicity, and unfortunately that is still alive. And well, I mean, one is these stories of just recently on this week, I heard of a woman who went along to a surgery and the
first question was what is your ethnicity? I can't, for the life of me now understand why any any doctor or nurse would be remotely interested in that, because the government has made it abundantly clear that that is no longer a relevant consideration. But it gives an indication of just how deep seated these things became, bearing in mind after only three years of indoctrination.
Indeed, moving on to the seeking to destabilize the legal systems, as you feel, of course for most of your life. Is it and we've discussed it before, but is it better now, worse now, or still much in the same place.
Well, latent, it's hard to know how to describe this now, but except to say it's incomparably worse. I suppose you saw Murial Newman. She conducts these poles. At the end of her series of article was on any given week, and one of them, one of the questions was have you any confidence in the judiciary? Ninety eight percent of the respondent said no, they have no confidence now in
the judiciary. I mean that is a truly appalling statistic, because unless people believe that when things go wrong and they need to invoke the law, they can go along to a court and have a hearing before an impartial tribunal, well that opens the way to anarchy. Really, so people would instead of going along a court, will make their own arrangements. And we're back with you two and all
that goes with that. This destabilization is now very apparent in the universities, in the law societies, and on the judiciary, and we have this concerted push to introduce notions of spiritual beliefs into the law called tea care, whatever that means, because if you look at the dictionary you'll get at least a dozen different meanings, so that the law which the judges then are expected to administer will no longer be knowable in advanced it will no longer be certain,
and it will no longer be applicable to everybody who appears before them. Now that's something which of course goes in one ear and out the other for most people as they get on with their lives, you can't blame them until they want to invoke the law. And if this continues unchecked, we are going to be in serious trouble with that pillar of our way of life, that
is the legal system and ry. I think there's every indication at the moment that the present Attorney General is deeply conscious of this, and my hope is that she will do all she can to ensure that the sort of people who are pointed to the judiciary at all levels are not subject to these temptations of imposing their own private thoughts and moras on the public. But it's a long process because these people are there for they could be there for twenty years, and that in that
time can do a lot of damage. And that is why to preserve sorry to go on, but that is why to preserve the integrity of the legal system. We need legislation which will make it abundantly clear that tribal practices are not part of the common law of New Zealand. And that will stop certain members of our judiciary at the highest levels. It's one of your previous interviewees expanded upon.
It'll stop this business of Oh, I think it would be a good idea if we gave try or society a bit of a leg up by introducing teaking are into the common law. It can't happen. If it does, we will not have a legal system.
Well, if you don't have a legal system, you've got chaos exactly. Can you give me a warning, you know, enough time to sell the house and bolt.
Yeah.
Well actually, actually, just looking at looking at your article, you finish up on the legal system with the socialists. It's an outcome necessary if existing social norms are to be destroyed, is your final sentence. And then I turned the page and read introduce chaos into the sovereign Parliament.
Yes, well, Winston Peters has been drawing it tension to this recently. I mean for most people. They took again, they took their parliament for granted. They assume that it would be a place of relatively rational debate, where the members attempted to rely upon facts, and that they preserve the dignity of the place. I mean to look at a parliament on television now, it's so embarrassing. As Winston points out, people make no attempt to dressed respectfully. That's
showing some respect for the institution they're in. They shout each other down.
That's not unusual though on a global basis.
No it's not, But it's big gaining impetus since the last elect or the previous election.
For anybody who's not following it like you you are and watching parliament on a regular basis, has the abuse become more savage, Yes.
It has, But it's become more irrational too.
Well, they go hand in hand on it.
Yeah, yeah, And that's the worry again. It's the flight of reason, and once that goes out the window, once people stop relying on rational thought, well we all know where it will end up.
Well, the flight of reason is a is a wonderful little quote and it's applicable on a number of fronts. Subverting the common language. And this is an easy one, and it's the shortest one of the points that you go into for I think obvious reasons, because it's steering you in the face no matter where or what you do.
Well, Yes, we have enjoyed the English language as our common language. Now that's just an accident of history. There's nothing particularly necessary or good about that, but it just so happens. We've got it, and for the last one hundred and forty odd years it's been our common language. But within the last ten years there's been this movement towards inventing a new language by using marry words to describe concepts which were utterly outside of their experience at
the time their language was being developed. Now that's not to say that their language shouldn't be preserved by all means. It must be preserved, but you don't take it and then bastardize another language with words that have cannot have had any meaning at the time these particular words were first thought up. And as I think I've said to you before, my favorite is moto car m o t
o ka. Now that that just illustrates the sort of thing that's going on, and to walk into a coffee shop and see a sign outside which says kof ee and in brackets underneath a noun and underneath that coffee. I mean, it's just silly, really, and it's demeaning to the Mari language, which should be kept intact for those who want to learn it as it as it was in speaking, if they wish. But however it's happening.
Subject of science, of course, as you say, is at the very heart of the Enlightenment, and I don't know anybody who would argue with that. The corruption of science is now widespread. For example, it is now widely accepted in increasingly influential circles that rivers are no longer nature's way of draining rainwater and snow melt from high places to the sea, but they have some spiritual quality which must be taken into account in planning and control of
catchments and fresh water usage. I didn't mean to read all that, but once I started, I needed to anti science. You might call it in general, How does it well? I know of examples, and so I have a somewhat of a grasp on it. When it comes to professions like engineering, which is a science, there is an undermining of the basis of it to an extent that is unwarrantable and could see some dangerous things happen in buildings
in the future. Mind you, we haven't been too good at adhering to strict build ology may would over the past few decades. But expand on that as how science is concerned, would you.
Yes, well, I think the attitude of the Royal Society of New Zealand to that. I forget his name now, but he was an eminent scientist, and he also had
qualifications of sympathetic involvement with the mary community. And he wrote an article in which he castigates in which he pointed out that they introduce the introduction of these sort of spiritual values as the equivalent of science and as a part of science, would only end up denigrating science, and it would put this country back economically and socially
to the dark ages. Really, And I've always remembered when I was doing environment court cases, one of the judges coming to me and saying he had a problem that he was doing a case involving the Waikato River and a gentleman has turned up and said, well, you can't grant this because it would offend the Tannyfars, and he didn't quite know how to deal with that because he didn't quite know what they were or what their standing was in the proceedings inside. It just makes a nonsense
of the whole thing. So it's happening, and again it's just something else that somehow the government and society has got to deal with.
And it won't be it won't be simple. Talking of standing, the first time I heard that word being used in the sense that you are using it was with the Supreme Court in America who denied denied a hearing to somebody because they didn't have standing. So would it be possible, for instance, would it be legitimate for that judge who you just described to say simply, I'm sorry, but Tanaphars don't have standing, or any judge to say it Tanophars don't have standing.
Yes, that's exactly what he did. Yes, these cases are concerned with provable facts, not miss well.
That leaves me wondering whether the judge wasn't as bright as he should be or I'm brighter than I thought.
A good judge.
Look, there is there is. You've mentioned the Royal Society, the Engineers Society, whatever it's called, has fallen in down the same rabbit hole. Yes, and it's causing. It's causing in the lives and minds of a couple of people I know, some ridiculous situations.
Yes. Yes, I've got a very close friend who's a retired civil engineer many years standing, who's had to tell his institute please stop sending me this publication monthly because I'm afraid I can't read most of the language is written, and very little of it's got to do anything to do with engineering, whether the bridge stays up or the sewerage system works.
That's what i'm That's what I'm told by somebody who is who is at the top of the game.
Yeah. Oh, it's happening, There's no question about it.
Global warming is your is your next suggestion the subject of whether why did you include global warming?
Because, as I said the article, for me, it's the poster child of the journey away from science and from it's the poster child of the journey away from days descartes. I think, therefore, I am because people who believe in it only believe, well they believe, which is a religious concept, but they only believe what they read or what other people tell them. People who question it do some they do their thinking, and then they look to the facts
and what's provable and what's not. And the result is and it harks back to what we were talking about earlier. This is one of the new constraints on society and on free thought, that if you don't believe in global warming, then you are a danger and you are misinforming the public, and it's got to stop. And you'll recall the President Obama's climate za was a fellow John Kerry. I heard it.
I sat and watched him say this, that he's deeply concerned about the effect of the First Amendment to the American Constitution, which of course ensured freedom of thought and expression, and he thought that that was a license for misinformation and it's got to stop. And he actually canvas ways in which the Senate and the House could engineer the repeal of the First Amendment. So global warming isn't just
something that's interesting to commentate us. It has this lurking danger as well in terms of freedom of thought and freedom of expression. As I say, it's a religious concept. And I was appalled at the treatment given to Maureen Pure, the Member for the West Coast for National.
Was disgusting, absolutely appalling, and she was hung out to dry because all she said was that she's waiting for the evidence on what caused the bad weather on the East coast.
And that really alarms me that we have in the house a number of senior MPs who were quite unashamed of you. Tell you all I believe in global warming. Well, you can go along and believe in whatever you like, but let's get some facts.
It's timey that I read early today an article which I don't have in front of me. I wasn't going to I wasn't going to utilize it. And it refers to the article refers to a new study that has just been released and there is no evidence of global warming since the nineteen seventies, in spite of it says, in spite of the so called records in Europe last year, this is all from memory, they say. You won't read this, of course in the mainstream media, but not just a report.
It's a major study put together by a bunch of serious scientists.
But that's the concern in this particular area, Lason, that how on earth any rational person can believe that a gas which surprises no point, not four percent of total atmospheric gases, and which is crucial for the continuation of life on the planet, could be causing the Earth's climate to change. And I have not the slightest doubt that
the Earth's climate changes continually. And you've only got to look back through more recent history to see the freezing of the Thames and the medieval warming period and sun that's unexceptional when you think we're just a rock hurling around in space with a core that's molten rock, subject to all the outside influences and the elliptical all but and all that sort of stuff. But the people who believe in this that they're not interested in the facts.
And that's where it comes back to the flight from the Enlightenment and reason. Once you depart from the facts, you're lost. You're at a swamp.
Yes, not just in Washington. I actually I like to come back to that subject briefly. When we conclude one of my favorites is next the mainstream media take it away.
Well, it's just a disgrace at the moment, isn't it. I mean examples they crop up every night on say TV en Z one news in a news bulletin which maybe comprises half an hour of so called news. To spend ten minutes dwelling upon some unfortunate young man who filled himself up with drugs and alcohol and fell off a balcony in Barcelona is to be utterly absurd when there are so many things going on that cry out
for reporting and informing the public. And I'm not a bit surprised that the state broadcaster is in dire straits. Should it be solved, The trouble is, well, who would buy it? The trouble is what are you replace it with?
Wouldn't it be better just to ensure that the board takes control of the thing and they only employ well, first of all, they have a code of conduct which requires them all to act impartially and fairly and so on, and need to only employ people who are capable of complying with that code.
Well, there's a couple of things I'd suggest. First of all, in Australia, the ABC, where they have a much larger population, much much broader selection possibility of appointees. The ABC is run by the journalists. The news division is run by the journalists and not the not the board. They one or two have tried to make amendments and they fail because the staff believes that they own it. And so the situation here, of course is that we have a
much more limited pool to choose people from it. I'm budding whether there would be anyone, if not enough, who would be game enough to put their lives on the line, I mean their professional lives.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I think if if it had a board that was sufficiently rigorous and kept close eye on, almost on a daily basis of what was big edit done, then these people could be called out. And I think human nature being what it is, they'd get the message if they want to keep a job and earn a living, and they would change their attitude to well, for example, they're reporting of politics in New Zealand, which is so one sided it's just a joke really.
But what would be the what would be the case after the after the change government, after we change government? At an excellent to just revert back again absolutely, because there is no sorry, there is no we'll use a shipping term here, there is no solid draft on that ship.
No no, and that's that's a risk that we do run. But as the previous labor lot showed, my word you can embed some stuff very very quickly, and hopefully this present coalition government is there long enough to embed the sort of thing we're talking about, so it becomes the norm. But it's pretty fragile here we are.
Yeh. So freedom of association is you're the next on your list, and I think we've probably covered that reatably well.
So democracy, well, I left that in the economy to the end, because if you're going to impose a sort of communist Marxist type government on a country, the thing you've got to do first is to destabilized democracy with
a view to getting rid of it entirely. And when do you look around the world, the democracies, generally speaking are the prosperous and relatively settled nations and the other lot the communists are continually at odds with themselves with economies that have to be by the stolen from from the West or depend substantially on oil. So admitted to me, it's just plain as the nose really that we cannot afford to see our democracy placed in jeopardy at all.
It's something that is that is essential that we fight for it.
What bothers me about what you just said is that I think I'm fair insane. You need people with a certain degree of intelligence to take that on, and it seems to me that we might be losing most of them. If not, well, it will never be all of them, but most of them to overseas. I mean, we don't need to go into stories about people we know, including our own kids, who have who have not fled but don't plan to come back.
M Yeah. That said later on, I still have a certain confidence in the so called common man, people who know nothing about any of this stuff. But it's the old pub test. You know that they know that there's something wrong with what's happening and that something needs doing
about it. And I still think that there is a large catchment out there of people who, once they're alerted to what's going on, their own sense of common sense and fair play will kick in and they will start making noises about stopping some of these insidious sort of influences that we're subject to. It the moment.
There is more to your article than we have covered, but I want to leave it, yeah, because it to me, Well, we'll explain explain where to get it shortly, but I want to I just want to cover a couple of other things headline the fatal flaw in artificial intelligence. If I asked you what it was, you'd give up the answer. The answer is it's got a question mark at the end of it, climate change. And I want to quote
you a little of this. AI's role in amplifying dominant narratives will continue to stifle dissent, limit open debate, and impose restrictive controls on society. If we allow this to continue unchecked, AI will become a tool for shaping thought, controlling discourse, and eroding the very freedoms it was meant to empower. Would you find any fault with that?
I couldn't agree more. I think part of the problem is that people like me anyway, have not the faintest idea what I actually is and what it what it actually does. Presumably it's where images and words are manufactured out of, SAIDA. I don't know, but I'm concerned about it. Yeah, I really am.
Yes, it could be it could be controlled. So your article is I think something that should be studied in high school. At least I've did serious. It's encompassing to the point that it covers everything basically and logically and seriously and would cause far greater thought among students than anything that they're looking at.
Now.
I mean that, I mean that very very sincerely. Now, thank you Jeffrey Tucker, who I refer to quite frequently, the founder, apart from anything else, the founder of Brownstone Institute, which has become a center for information for a lot of people. Yes, Jeffrey Tucker wrote something a few days ago, and I thought it slotted so beautifully alongside your article that I wanted to touch on it. It's headed Globalism
and freedom do not mix. And I'll quote you a little interesting question, why, after many, multiple decades of only localized migrant issues, most having to do with border wars or other disruptions, have so many nations at once dealt with floods of people exploiting broken migration systems. In other words, how did a local problem become a global problem so quickly?
How did all border systems break at once? And then goes on and consider the problem before this one, we had a globalized response to the COVID crisis in most nations of the world. The policy response was eerily similar. There was masking, distancing closures, travel restrictions, and capacity limits. While big business was allowed to stay open. The same methods, which have no modern precedents, were attempted in all countries in the world except a few. Now we can relate
to that. That's only the beginning, but we can relate to that in this country as much as anybody else can anywhere else on the planet. The question that the point that he raises grab my attention specifically because I asked this question of at least two interviewees on the podcast about the coincidence of the same approaches being taken in other countries as well as ours or ours as other countries, and what this copying was all about, and neither of them was happy to be agreeable with that.
Just coincidence was the bottom line.
I don't know about you, but I don't believe in going.
That it's not of that nature. No, So the Jeffrey Tucker article is a clip on to yours. He goes on and covers numerous other aspects, specifically the World Health Organization and what's going on with that at the moment. Specifically with well, maybe i'll quote this. He talks about the nation state and I have a book called The End of the Nation State, and it was written in and published in nineteen ninety five, and it was determined
that the nation state was over and was about to finish. Well, it hasn't, and it would be an interesting discussion to have separately about whether or not we are still moving of late in that direction, it says, all these years later, most people in most nations, the United States especially, believes that they should have a final say over the structure
of the regime. This is the essence of the democrat ideal, and not as an end in itself, but as a guaranteur of freedom, which is the principle that drives the rest. Freedom is inseparable from citizen control of government.
Would you agree with that absolutely? Will you really can't have one without the other.
When that link and that relationship are shattered, freedom itself is gravely damaged. The world today is packed with wealthy institutions and individuals who stand and revolt against the ideas of freedom and democracy. They do not like the idea of geographically constrained states with zones of juridical power. They believe that they have a global mission and what to empower global institutions against the sovereignty of people living in
nation states. Now that's all I want to quote. But he goes on and covers other things like disease, pandemic threats, climate change, etc. As methods of achieving that. Yep, this word juridical. Did I pronounce it rightly?
Absolutely?
It is?
But it confused me. It confused me at first. I thought someone had made a mistake, a spelling mistake. But I hadn't come across it ever. And don't forget I did a couple of years of law twice.
I only did one year twice.
I think I think that spells itself out.
It just means things that judges. Well, it's things that are decided in a judging way.
Really, yes, But it's not commonly used, is it.
No? No, it's too hard to pronounce.
You got that right. So in wrapping this anything you'd like to say.
Well, we were talking, well, just one thing we were talking as an indication of how far down the line we got in these anti democratic, anti freedom sort of tendencies under the previous governments. And that is David Seymour's referendum, which he wants on the Treaty principles. Well, we won't go into that, but what he's asking for is that the public decide the particular questions that he's raised. Whether they're right rise, it doesn't really matter. It's for the
public to decide. And I was appalled to read Chris Finolasen, as a former attorney General, expressing the view that these things are far too difficult for the public to have any say in and they probably come up with the
wrong answers. Now, that to me summarized very neatly a lot of what we've been talking about in these attacks on the on the freedom of expression and the democracy, and it just illustrates how far down the track we we we came before hopefully the the stop signs went up, but I live in Hope.
Anymore.
No, that's we could we could talk for hours later, but.
Well we could talk for ours, but would you want to Tony?
Thank you so much, all right, thanks Laton, good to talk. Bye bye.
This is Producer here. We are in the mail room for two hundred and sixty one and haven't seen you all day, so it's nice that you put an appearance in.
I know, actually it's really rather nice to be able to get into your studio stroke library now later because you've had a lot of building work going on in here, and it looks fabulous.
I actually wasn't going to mention it, because once I start, I can't stop your.
Library, your shelves, your new library coming together.
I was introduced to a cabinet maker, cabinet maker who was a friend of a friend, and he came over and had to look at my wall and said, I can do that easily. I told him what I'd wanted. I can do that easily. And it wasn't easy to wait for because I talking about five weeks.
All good things take time.
Well, the point being you you made mention of the fact that you aren't you pleased it's taking time, because if he could do it the next day, maybe he wouldn't be so good. Words to that effect. But some of you, some of your logic that was actually.
Thank you very much.
I bet you were. She'd done it ages ago now, But unfortunately you have twice as many books as as you have space for. But it now means that you'll be shoehorned out of this room of food once a day.
I guess you're just.
Living here anyway. It's a magnificent job. Takes up a whole wall floor to siling wall, to wall. Let me put it this way. I worked out by filling up one bay of twenty eight with books that I took to be an average, and it took twenty eight books. No, it took twenty six books, and there's twenty eight days work that out?
What are you going to do with the rest of the books?
Go on, match, wait and see.
So why don't you let me start so later? Noel says Roger Partridge was great. As I recall, it was Helen Clark who decided to set up the Supreme Court as an alternative to the Privy Council in the UK. At the time it seemed to make sense. Having to travel halfway across the world to get ultimate justice seemed unnecessarily expensive. But that has But has that major cost now been passed on to taxpayers? Does anyone know how much it costs to run the Supreme Court with their
near palatial headquarters in Wellington. One of the benefits of the Prevy Council was an objective judgment removed from local bias and flavor of the month local issues. Might we get almost as much separation by canning the Supreme Court and using Australia's highest court instead, and I'm looking forward
to two six ' one. It blows me away that everyone didn't learn about photosynthesis at school and how CO two is essential for that process and ultimately for the existence of life on our planet.
Why okay, so, why by the connection between two six one and photosynth? Was I going to do something this week that I haven't done? Brain fade could be? Recently, Solicitor General Uni Yougo seek KC released her prosecution guidelines which instructed prosecutors to treat Mari criminals and victims differently from those of non married descent. Imagine this from a King's council. This racist law would have taken effect on first January twenty twenty five if it wasn't for the
Hobson's Pledge. Great work in publicizing the heck out of our judicial system's ideologically possession. Your podcast with Roger Partridge was a very timely reminder of the voracious appetite of New Zealand activist judges to overreach. The New Zealand legal
system is a putrid swamp of predatory activist judges. Judge Anthony Willy echoed Roger's sentiments in his fantastic piece on enzcpr entitled Blowing in the Wind, where he warned of the increasing sun substitution of socialist values for social norms that we have taken for granted. He provided a long list of sins of the previous Labour government's ambitions, one of which included the destabilization of the New Zealand legal system.
They did this by quote introducing concepts utterly incompatible to that system, such as the tribal cultural values, and seeking to elevate those values to the status of law. If allowed to continue, this will result in the common law no longer being certain, knowable in advance, and applicable to all Equally. It will lead to the judges departing from their traditional role of interpreting and applying the law, add instead deciding cases according to their personal beliefs and proclivities.
I agree with Roger Partridge. The government needs to execute legislative intervention and stop judges like Una Yugosi KC before it's too late. Meanwhile, to sendra a dirn is.
Dame Layden Hogi says, I have been a fan of yours through your one ZB years, listen to all your podcasts on my daily walks and remain eternally grateful for your voice of reason. I'm a seventy nine year old expat from the USA, having resided in New Zealand for the past fifty two years. I spent five years in the US Navy as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War era, having made two eight month cruises in the Gulf of Tonkin aboard the USS Constellation and the USS Enterprise.
Our mission was to be on hand angel duty it's called in case of man overboard or plane crash, etc. So never had to face any actual combat. Anyway. I grew up believing that America stood for all things good, just and true, etc. Not so much now. And that's from HOGI.
Can I just have a look at that?
Please?
Thank you, Hogi. I don't recall you ever writing before. You've been here for seventy nine now you've been here for past fifty two years. Where have you been?
I've missed you.
Now from Robin except for copying now from Robin your last letter this week. That means in two sixty that was the long one that I read when you departed, missus producer. Except for copying the except for copying the COVID pass. His experience is a duplicate of ours, and please put all your phones on silent. Sadly, though family had a different view from their parents in their seventies, we too had our medical supplies stopped at the border. I keep hoping the rules will be relaxed. Keep up
the good work, Robin. I'd love to know how many people actually follow that, and then how many how many did get stuff nicked at the border, and are they due compensation in the light of the present.
Knowledge, Laden Allison says I another great podcast. I wish we could hear more from the experiences of mister long letter, especially how step by step he got his exemption. I am on his side. The foolishness and culpable ignorance of those days deserved not to be respected. And think, she says, thank you so much, Allison, thank you?
Yes indeed, now finally from Brett neo racists, does such a word encapsulate the New Zealand situation or fall short? Race needs to be removed period. At the end of the day, we are just people. It is not complicated. Have a great day, warm regards Brett. Now is that as a cover note to send me an article by Graham Reeves. Graham reeves the Treaty Principle's Bill or the Constitutional Principle's Bill or neither two and a half pages.
Graham is a lawyer and the former National MP. So I'll do the same thing as I did last week and not hold you up because I know you've sorry. Later, You've got people pending.
Isn't that terrible?
You know?
The jolly phones get in every every every area of your life, every nook and creny.
They just anyway, I'll let you depart and I'll knock this off. Thanks later, my pleasure. So to repeat Graham reeves the Treaty Principle's Bill or the Constitutional Principle's Bill or neither begins. In his blog of fourteen October twenty twenty four, Professor Robert mccalluch in, discussing the Treaty Principle's Bill, suggested that the bill be rename the Constitutional Principle's Bill.
He suggested that it should map out the fundamental value all kiwis hold deer, avoiding the futile treaty interpretation and
mind reading game. If only it were that simple. New Zealand already has a well developed set of constitutional principles which have been formulated over a period of about nine hundred years, starting with the Magnaicata in twelve fifteen, the Bill of Rights Act in sixteen eighty eight, the New Zealand Constitution Act eighteen fifty two, the Bill of Rights Act nineteen ninety and the Human Rights Act nineteen ninety three, all of which have contributed to New Zealand being the
oldest continuous successful democracy in the world. Put simply, the combination of the above enactments established the three pillars of a democratic system of governance. Firstly, the disbursement of power from an authoritarian head of state, including the separation of the church from the state that is, a secular society and not a sectarian society, to the elected representatives of
the people. Second, the establishment of the rule of law, including both the civil law and the Criminal's Code, and most importantly, the creation of protection of private property rights, which provides a foundation for a capitalist economy. And thirdly, the equality of all citizens under the law. Under this system, parliament is the supreme law making agency, receiving its mandate
from the people in free and fair general elections. What has muddy the waters was not the signing of a very simple Treaty of Waitangi document in eighteen forty, but the subsequent introduction into New Zealand legislation of references to the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles since the passing of the Waitangi Tribunal Act nineteen seventy five, and the tortured, the tortured attempts to articulate the principles of that very
simple document. The situation was further exacerbated in nineteen eighty six by the Land's Case, which he arose from a provision in the State Owned Enterprises Act of nineteen eighty six which required the Crown to register memorials against titles owned by the Crown being transferred to the new SOE entities to protect those assets for future treaty settlements. Somewhat Ambitiously, Justice Robin Cook took it upon himself to indulge in some obit dicta reflecting his views on the meaning of
the treaty principles. However misguided he may have been, he did not for one moment suggest in the landscase and in the subsequent Cold Case, and in his extra judicial musings in Roderua in nineteen ninety that the treaty or its principles created an equal partnership between MARI and Crown. He made it clear that the right to govern remained firmly with the elected part of it of New Zealand.
A more recent and interesting development took place on the morning of fifteen October on talkback z B the Prime Minister of New Zealand, when referring to the Solicitor General's guidelines for prosecutors in which mary were to be given preferential treatment to avoid convictions under the Criminal Code, stated that the law should be color blind. Color blindness is
consistent with the constitutional framework referred to above. Color Blindness is the theme of the recently published Colman Hughes book The End of Race Politics, Arguments for a Colored America. Hughes coins a new category of actors in the racial narrative, the neo racist, to be distinguished from the anti racist. He writes that the neo racism narrative demands that we implement policies that rebalance the way that resources are distributed.
Wherever possible, we need to give people of color preferential treatment. This is the only way for our society to move beyond its checkered racial past and to defeat white supremacy. Hughes' response to what he calls this seductive narrative is as follows.
It depends on several harmful myths and fallacies, including the disparity fallacy, the myth of undoing the past, and the racial ad hominin, which is the most pernicious in that it states that you can dismiss any claims about race and racism that white people make simply because they're white. He asserts that neo racists don't want racial peace, but
endless ideological war. When we see neo racism for what it is, racism in anti racist clothing, we see why neo racists fail to support colorblind policies that would eliminate racism, and why they reject the colorblind principles that motivated the civil rights movement. While New Zealand's journey is different to the American journey, I contend, writes the author that we can see the behaviors referred to by Hughes exhibited by the Waitangi Tribunal and the Mari and other activists who
have vested interests in keeping the racist narrative alive. They are the neo racists. The question is, then, how we as a nation move forward as a united country where rights and obligations are not determined by race but by citizenship, and in accordance with our constitutional heritage, where all of the rights and obligations afforded us as citizens of a free, democratic society as referred to above, are not adulterated by
the neo racist agenda. Is it a concise statement of the principles of the treaty principles or is it simply that Parliament legislates the removal of all reference to the Treaty and its principles to firmly establish that all of the citizens of this country are equal under the law. If we don't and continue to try to solve socioeconomic disparities purely on race, not need, then we are, in
my opinion, on a slippery slope. Well, there's a few people that filled there's more than one slippery slope around at the moment. But from Graham Reeves, lawyer and former National MP, that is an opinion worth considering. Quite frankly, I think a second hearing might be worthwhile. Winded back, Layton Smith now. Finally, in the mail room, I suggested that Hogy, the American New Zealander who'd lived here for over fifty years, had not written before. I was wrong.
I discovered by doing a dig that once before. He sent me a three minute video. I think it was earlier this year, and I've got to play it. It explains the difference between the US and New Zealand, the difference between a constitutional republic and a democracy. And this is a byproduct why I think so highly of the US Constitution. HOGI appreciate it, thank you, and here it is.
A democracy is a political system in which the people, periodically, by a majority vote at the polls, select their rulers. The rulers then have absolute power to make whatever laws they please by a majority vote among themselves. In a constitutional republic, the people, also by a majority vote at the polls, select rulers who make laws by a majority vote among themselves. But the rulers cannot make any laws they please because the constitutions severely restricts their law making power.
The ideal of a democracy is universal equality. The ideal of a constitutional republic is individual liberty. In this century, great strides have been made toward the goal of subverting our republic and transforming it into a democracy. The foremost tactic of the subverters is subversion of language. By calling America a democracy until people thoughtlessly accept and use the term totalitarians have obscured the real meaning of American principles
of government. Writers of the Constitution were anxious to safeguard liberty against dictatorship monarchy they called it, but their chief anxiety was to protect the country against democracy. Edmund Randall, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Virginia, said the general object that the Convention was to provide a cure for
the follies and fury of democracy. Elbridge Gary and Roger Sherman, delegates from Massachusetts and Connecticut, urged the Constitutional Convention to create a system to eliminate the evils that flow from the excess of democracy. Alexander Hamilton, delegate from New York, said, we are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is not found in democracy. If we incline too much to democracy,
we shall soon shoot into a monarchy. John Adams, one of the giants of the American Revolutionary period, said democracy will end. They all contend with all endeavor to pull down all, and when, by chance it happens to get the upper hand for a short time, democracy will be revengeful, bloody, and cruel. America was founded not as a democracy, but as a constitutional republic. We pledge allegiance to the republic
by which our flag stands, not to a democracy. The Constitution requires a republican farm of government for all states, but does not mention democracy, and neither does the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. Foeman ask him what kind of government the Convention had given America, and Franklin replied.
A republic, if you can keep it.
Very old and very wise. Franklin saw through the mists of time to the day when Americans might trade their freedom in a constitutional republic for the promise of government guaranteed equality and security in a democracy, and beyond that, to the day when democracy inevitably degenerates into dictatorship, guaranteeing nothing but poverty and serfdom for the people that robs and rules.
Now, if you like me, you'll have to play that back once or twice to get the full gist of it. I did, and I'll probably do it again. But that will take us out for podcasts number two hundred and sixty one next week. There is another aspect of the US Constitution that I think is very important before we before we get to it in a fortnight's time. If you would like to correspond on any matter of it, all doesn't matter, Latent at newstalks ab dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalks ab dot co dot nz.
We shall be back with podcasts two hundred and sixty two in a few days. Until then, as always, thank you for listening and we shall talk soon.
Thank you for more from News Talks B Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio