Any live-streaming?

Anyone know if the Libertarianz/True Liberal/Cannabis reform get together today in Auckland is live-streaming?

Welfare reform protests alarm beneficiaries

WELFARE REFORM PROTESTS ALARM BENEFICIARIES

Friday, October 5, 2012

The language protesters are using to describe ongoing welfare reforms is unnecessarily frightening people on benefits, according to welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell.

"Welfare reforms are being described as 'cruel', 'punitive', 'brutal', 'vicious' and 'violent' prompting beneficiaries to fear the worst - that they will lose their income."

"This is simply untrue. The reforms are focussed on getting more people into work and on creating better outcomes for children. For people on the DPB the work expectation kicks in when their youngest child goes to school and can be met with a little as ten hours per week until their youngest turns 14. But if there is no work, they will continue to be supported. Loss or partial loss of benefit will only apply to those who repeatedly refuse to meet drug test requirements for suitable jobs; who repeatedly refuse to enrol their child with a local GP or kindergarten, or who have an unresolved arrest warrant against them."

"If benefit payment rates were being cut, as happened in the early nineties, an outcry would be understandable. But demonstrating against the government putting more effort and resources into getting people into work makes no sense. Especially  in such a distraught fashion which, as I said earlier, is actually alarming the people the protesters claim to care about."


www.welfarereform.co.nz

Quote of the Day

This is beautiful in its simplicity. Coincidentally I'd only yesterday been having a conversation with my Dad about Somerset Maugham and he was recommending various works. The Moon and Sixpence particularly appealed to him not least for its naming.  Anyway the quote that arrived in my inbox this morining:

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that, if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.

— William Somerset Maugham, Strictly Personal [1941]

Where did that protest banner come from?

People opposing the government's welfare reforms are gearing up to protest nationally on Friday this week. One protester has made this sign:

Curious as always I searched the quote. Here is the original:

Morality is doing what's right, regardless of what you're told. Religion is doing what you're told, regardless of what's right."- unknown

It would seem the original quote was a protest against religion. But I didn't think the protester would have come up with the substitution herself.

So I googled images and found this:

This amended phrase actually appears on  the Wisconsin Oath Keepers shared Tenth Amendment Center's photo.


Now  Oathkeepers are libertarian/conservative, nationalist, constitutionalists associated with the Tea Party and would be pro welfare reform. When they talk about not obeying they refer to not obeying what they view as illegal government (the Obama administration) and, for instance, his gutting of the 1990s welfare reform.

It's strange world when left-wingers parade around with right-wing protest banners. Or statists carry the same message as non-statists.

Truth column September 20

My September 20 Truth column is now on-line

Why does Labour persist in creating state dependency unnecessarily? Or at least it would, given the chance. Its half-baked food in schools policy makes no sense. Most children in decile one to three schools – the lowest income – arrive at school with breakfast on board.

More

Other Truth columns here

Principles are the problem

I laughed outright at Bryce Edwards' complaint about the Libertarianz

“Part of the problem is that the Libertarianz are just too damn principled, and all about promoting their core ideology," said political commentator and lecturer Bryce Edwards.

At least  they have some principles and ideology to adhere to.

Or would it be better if they had some political wannabe minor celebrities using the party as a personal vehicle. Or a leader who appealed to old ladies and racists. Or embodied any of the new religions like global warming, freedom from genetic engineering or trees before humans. Or provided a hitching post for old religionists who cling to biblical ideas of sin. Or played to separatists and first-people privilege sentiments. Or were such a broad church as to be indistinguishable from the next broadest church.

Are these political entities what Libz should be looking to emulate?