Skip to main content

Friday night free for all

What a storm today!

Where I am, just north of Wellington, the day kept alternating between calm and sunny followed by the skies being covered over and hard pelting rain. Followed by hail and thunderstorms in the afternoon. It's calmed down to a light drizzle right now, but who knows when the wind will start up again.

In the political area, I have to say that I am revolted at the vitriol hurled at ACT MP David Garret. I've been listening to talk back in the afternoon and noticed the frenzy was being whipped up by Danny Watson of NewsTalkZB who wouldn't hear a word in the man's defence, and set himself up to re-educate anyone that tried.

Is there no such thing as forgiveness in NZ? Is there no such thing as a sense of proportion? After all, this was 26 years ago, he's not guilty of pressuring his girlfriend to have an abortion, he hasn't raped anyone, he just used the identity of a dead baby to forge a passport. And I say "just", because the baby was already dead, he had no hand in the baby's death.

What is it with this country? We murder babies in our hospitals with impunity and yet all our rage is directed to the most superficial things. As if there is some sort of collective guilt that is misdirected.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Fortunately we have talkback for people to vent their anger on, that way they don't take to the streets with their pitchforks and demand a lynching.

Comments

  1. Good morning from Yorkshire where it is sunny for a change.
    And please forgive me for my Monty Python post.
    The film was on tv the other night and that sketch is one of my favourites.
    With it being set in Yorkshire, it seemed quite apt too.

    BTW I thought that German guy was right about describing Heathrow as being like the Third World and noting the agressive secularism in Britain. The BBC and others have been quite critical of the pope.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi FFM,

    Yes, I saw you had posted that "every sperm is sacred" clip. Couldn't resist, huh?

    Yes, you are forgiven.

    But you may be subjected to a post in the future describing in detail why that clip is puerile. Which you can ignore of course.

    But the whole concept of Catholics apparently treating sperm as sacred keeps being brought up again as a sledgehammer argument...

    Yes, the German guy needs to be more diplomatic and save those sorts of gaffe for bloggers. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Howdy all. Been out and about, all work and waiting in airports. Glad to be home just in time for a rainy weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Regarding your comment about ACT MP David Garrett - I agree in the substance.

    It seems all the people against the three strikes policy against violent offenders are comfortable with a "2 strikes" law for any offence.

    The passport offense of 26 years ago was bad, but he's been in court for it and been tried on the issue. The name suppression would have best remained, out of respect for the relatives of the baby. It wasn't his call that brought that back out into the public arena.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi all. Foul weather here too.
    A commenter over at my place pointed out that Garret was the only MP not to stand and applaud when Helen left Parliament for the last time.
    After that, I'd be prepared to forgive the man a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi KG,

    I'm glad I'm not out on a limb on this. I haven't been keeping track of where everyone else stands on Garrett, I just found the whole attack on him despicable.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't think you're out on a limb at all, Lucia Maria.
    This is just another concocted outrage for a couple of slow-news days by a media pack too lazy and too unprincipled to go after the hard targets--and too cowardly to risk being left out of the Beehive press-release loop.
    That's not to say they won't be successful in whipping up some outrage among the perpetually uninformed....

    ReplyDelete
  8. Evening all from a chilly south.

    It's not so much what Garrett did (though it was despicable), it's the hypocracy of taking such a hardline on crime with that in his past.

    We can't expect all MPs to have blameless pasts but they need to be open about them if, as in this case, it relates to their campaigns/

    ReplyDelete
  9. HP,

    Hi!

    Yes, I've been hearing it's all about the hypocrisy. Yet I don't see it. On the surface it appears to be so, but if you stop and think - a different matter altogether.

    As far as I can see there is no hypocrisy. Garrett took a hardline on crime in order that criminals, who offend over and over again are stopped before there are too many victims. Yet Garrett himself is not being accused of constantly forging passports - he's only done it once. If he does it a second and a third time, then yes that line would make sense, but he hasn't and I doubt he will.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What I care about re: Garrett's actions is the pain he has caused the parents of the dead baby whose identity he had stolen. I feel for them and I think of the grief and hurt it would cause me if someone did that if my children were to die. It was a terrible thing to do to those people.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Muerk,

    I'd agree with you if he'd mailed the passport to the family. But he didn't.

    I don't know the details of the whole thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the first they knew of it was when the whole thing was leaked.

    The person who leaked the information hurt those people moreso than Garrett did, as they were used as pawns in a political vendetta.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Evening again everyone.
    Sun now shining for 2 hours.
    I see HP's point about hypocrisy.
    Trouble is, this makes it harder for those on the right than the left.
    We expect criminality and corruption from the left.
    Much as I too applaud Garret for his stance on Uncle Helen, he has been a rather colourful character.
    Surely ACT had better qualified people in its ranks for the 2008 list.

    ACT will certainly need a severe rebranding or relaunch if it is to survive.

    It certainly has some dead wood to clean out. Whoever described them as scoprions was spot on too.
    The last thing we on the right need to do, is to fall out among ourselves.
    We should be a broad church.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The Garrett thing is a bit more complicated than most people give credit for I think.

    The Tongan conviction was clearly pretty trivial ($10 fine for pete's sake) and almost certainly corrupt.

    The passport thing is clearly more serious, but again did happen a while ago. However, when he was caught on that one he lied about his Tongan conviction and thus got diversion and no conviction entered. Thus he lied to the court.

    Yes, it's pretty stupid to claim that this is hypocrisy. The three strikes isn't about throwing away the key on the first mistake - quite the opposite. The crime has to be serious, and you get two chances to turn your life around.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I didn't agree with the leaking. Garrett was given name supression and the court should have been obeyed - but it was Garrett's actions that hurt that family. He did a terrible thing to those parents. The family were told of the offending at the time - we wouldn't blame the police for prosecuting the crime.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please be respectful. Foul language and personal attacks may get your comment deleted without warning. Contact us if your comment doesn't appear - the spam filter may have grabbed it.