Category: history

Why Donald Trump is Absolutely Nothing Like Adolf Hitler

Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, comparisons between him and Adolf Hitler have been spewing out of the mouths of talking heads in the mainstream media. But as even the superficial analysis presented in this essay will make clear, Trump and Hitler are two very, very different men.

Of course, it isn’t easy to get to the truth about either of them – Adolf Hitler is the single most lied about individual in all of history, and Donald Trump is the most lied about individual of our time.

But even so, even if we limit our analysis only to those facts that are accepted by basically everyone, both pro and anti-Hitler and pro and anti-Trump, we can see that they have little in common.

Let’s start at the beginning. At age 25, Hitler had just moved to Germany and was about to enlist in the German Army to fight in World War One, in which he was wounded and received an Iron Cross for bravery.

At age 25, Trump had just inherited control of his family real estate and construction firm. Before then he had obtained four student deferments to avoid being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war.

At age 30, Hitler had just joined the German Workers’ Party, which was the forerunner to the NSDAP. He was elected leader of the party two years later at the age of 32.

At age 31, Trump married the first of his three wives, a Czech model named Ivana.

When Trump was 35 years old, his older brother Fred died of alcoholism, an event which caused Donald to swear off all drugs, but in particular alcohol and cigarettes.

When Hitler was 34 years old, he led an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic Government with armed force, an event remembered as the Beer Hall Putsch.

The coup attempt failed with the deaths of 16 Hitler supporters and four German Police officers, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Already it is clear that the lives of these two men are on very different paths. Trump appears – from any perspective – to fit the mold of every other playboy prince or President who was born into immense wealth and privilege and decided to parlay it into a shot at power – like George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, et al.

Hitler spent the eventual nine months of his imprisonment writing his manifesto – Mein Kampf (My Struggle) – which formed the philosophical foundations of his efforts to apply his energies to the world.

By age 45, the political movement that Hitler had built had won a democratic election and put him in power as the Chancellor of Germany, and he had already begun to pass measures that would limit the capacity of the German people to take back the power they had granted him.

Trump, for his part, was busy divorcing his first wife and shacking up with his second, the actress with which he was having an affair.

By age 50, of course, things were radically different: Hitler had given orders for the German Army to invade Poland, an event which would trigger British and French reprisals and ignite the European Theatre of World War Two.

At age 50 Trump was also locked in battle – but in the courtroom against rival Atlantic City casino owners. It was already clear that Hitler would not have brooked such resistance at age 50. His domestic opponents had long since been liquidated.

At age 55, Hitler was on the brink of death, only kept going by frequent doses of methamphetamine. This makes him quite the contrast on the drug enhancement front with Trump, who has apparently never smoked cannabis or even tobacco.

And at an age when Adolf Hitler was long since dead at his own hand, his attempt to rid the world of Jewry having led to his own destruction, Trump was happy to see his daughter not only marry a Jew but convert to their religion, prompting him to state “I have a Jewish daughter, and I am very honored by that.”

Somehow it’s hard to imagine Hitler saying such a thing.

By this age, of course, Trump had not even come close to political power. And as we cannot read the future, the comparisons must end there.

It’s apparent even from this short look at things that the two men are nothing alike. Hitler was an extremely intense and original thinker with the willpower of a demon, and who was willing to remake the entire world in his image. Trump is a wealthy playboy who just coasted along on his family wealth, like many before him.

In fact, it’s well possible that Hitler would have despised Trump for his willingness to schmooze up to corruption for money. Such an analysis must wait for another time.

Understanding New Zealand: Voting Patterns of Education

To some extent, a person will become educated to the degree that they are a part of society. Engagement with society in one regard generally predicts engagement with society in another.

This can help explain why there is a significant negative correlation between turnout rate in 2014 and having no qualifications (-0.28) and a significant positive correlation between turnout rate in 2014 and having an Honours degree (0.25) and having a doctorate (0.27).

Some might be surprised that this correlation is not even stronger, and in truth it probably should be. This is discussed at length in the article ‘Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of Education’.

One might make the assumption that, because having a higher education is correlated with a high turnout rate, and because voting National is correlated with having a high turnout rate, that having a higher education must also be correlated with voting National.

This is not an accurate assumption. There is a positive correlation between having a Bachelor’s degree and voting National in 2014, although this is a barely significant 0.25. Holding none of the three higher degrees had a positive correlation with voting National in 2014.

The weak positive correlation between being highly educated and voting National in 2014 was mirrored in the weak negative correlation between being highly educated and voting Labour in 2014. This was only significant for having an Honour’s degree and voting Labour in 2014, which was -0.28. For the other degrees it was negative but not statistically significant.

The university educated especially love to vote for the Green Party. The correlation between voting Green in 2014 and having a degree was 0.57 for a Bachelor’s, 0.75 for a Honours, 0.64 for a Master’s and 0.67 for a doctorate. These were easily the strongest positive correlations for any party.

The only party even vaguely comparable on this front was ACT. Voting ACT in 2014 had a correlation of 0.65 with having a Bachelor’s degree, which was even higher than the correlation between voting Green and having a Bachelor’s. The correlations with having one of the three higher degrees were, however, lower with voting ACT in 2014 than voting Green in 2014: 0.40 for an Honours, 0.57 for a Master’s and 0.30 for a doctorate.

These two parties were balanced by New Zealand First, voting for which had easily the strongest negative correlations with having a degree. Voting for New Zealand First in 2014 had a correlation of -0.76 with having a Bachelor’s degree, -0.72 with having an Honours degree, -0.76 with having a Master’s degree and 0.63 with having a doctorate.

The reason for this is that New Zealand First draws much of its support from pensioners and Maoris, the former having few higher degrees because of limited educational opportunity when they were young and the latter having few degrees on account of various socioeconomic disadvantages and cultural disincentives.

Voting Conservative in 2014 was not significantly correlated with having any of the degrees. In fact, all four correlations were bordering on significantly negative. This suggests that the Conservative Party targets the same kind of poorly educated, paranoid and aggressive religious fanatic that the American Republican Party does.

Although voting for the Maori Party in 2014 was significantly negatively correlated with having any degree, voting for Internet MANA was only significantly negatively correlated with having an Honours degree, whereas the correlations for the other three were, although negative, not significant.

This probably reflects the fact that Internet MANA appealed to a slightly broader cross-section of New Zealanders than the Maori Party, and hence to several demographics that are better educated than the Maori one.

This was also true of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, voting for which in 2014 also had significant negative correlations with holding any of the four degrees. With having a Bachelor’s it was -0.46, with having an Honours degree it was -0.42, with having a Master’s degree it was -0.46, and with having a doctorate it was -0.38.

Predictably, these figures were all, for the most part, mirrored in the other direction. Namely, all the voting patterns of people with very low qualifications or none at all were the opposites of the patterns of people with high qualifications.

*

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.

The Police Will Kill to Enforce Any Law, No Matter How Trivial

There are many power-worshippers in the world today who think it would be just great if their area politicians passed a law banning this or that – some minor irritation that probably does not affect the quality of their life in any meaningful way but which they believe ought to be stamped out for the sake of maintaining good order at the very least.

These people are as dangerous as any fanatic that put a dictator into power.

The reason for this is that the Police, who are tasked by politicians with enforcing laws, will go as far as killing any citizen to enforce any law that they have broken, no matter how trivial.

A lot of people balk at this assertion, usually because they have neither encountered Police officers in operation nor thought the whole process through as a thought experiment.

But if you think it through as a thought experiment, the meathook clarity of it cannot be denied.

Take the case of a medicinal cannabis user. If you have a psychological condition such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or if you have pain related to terminal cancer and do not want to take opiates, you might end up as another of New Zealand’s hundreds of thousands of cannabis users.

Now let’s say that the Police come to your house with a search warrant, on the grounds that they have reason to believe that you have cannabis in your possession or a cannabis operation in your house. They are going to arrest you, and you know that you face up to seven years in prison for the offence.

You might well protest that you are fully within your rights to use cannabis as it is a medicine which legitimately alleviates human suffering, whether physical or psychological. And so the search warrant is not valid, because it was granted on the grounds that a crime had been committed, and none has.

This is perfectly reasonable – after all, you have harmed no-one. But what will happen at that stage is violence. The Police will escalate to violence at this point, probably by forcing their way into your home.

Let’s say that they are unsuccessful at doing so, either because you manage to lock the door in time or because you brandish a weapon in an effort to show them that you are willing to respond to their violence with violence of your own in order to defend yourself and your home.

In that case, you can probably assume that the Police officers will withdraw – and come back with the Armed Offenders Squad. They will call the AOS on the grounds that you threatened a Police officer with a weapon – the fact that you were only doing so to defend yourself against an immoral attack will not help you at all.

The AOS will then lay siege to your house, as they did to Jan Molenaar. This may even involve, as it did in Molenaar’s case, the Special Tactics Group – formerly known as the Anti-Terrorist Squad.

Jan Molenaar ended up shot dead at his own hand, probably in full awareness that escape was impossible.

Note here that this pattern of escalation of violence all the way to your death will happen if you don’t submit to the Police for any reason, no matter what it is.

It doesn’t matter what the crime is. It could be a hundred counts of serial murder, or it could be a parking fine. The inescapable rule is that you must submit to any state-allocated legal punishment for any offence you have been deemed to have committed, no matter how vindictive and cruel the punishment or how petty and victimless the offence, or the Police will kill you in the enforcement of it.

This is why there is cause to think very deeply before deciding that something should be illegal. Constable Len Snee would not have been shot dead if cannabis had not been legally prohibited, as Jan Molenaar would have been left in peace to treat his mental condition in the way that he knew best.

Anyone who supports a law also supports the consequences of enforcing that law. Those consequences might involve the Police shooting up a house with no-one in it, as happened in Napier last year.

In the case of cannabis prohibition, this means also supporting the expense of $400,000,000 per year and the occasional death of a Police officer – is it worth it?

Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of Age


Some might be surprised by how much those aged from 30 to 49 dominate the bulk of the income earning in New Zealand. The correlation between being in this age group and median personal income was 0.73.

The correlation between being in the 50 to 64 age group and median personal income was almost, but not quite, significant, at 0.18. Some might find this surprising given that people in this age bracket tend to comprise the bulk of the senior positions in industry and government.

The reason for it is that there are very few such people, and the majority of the people in this age bracket reflect the educational standards of half a century ago, which were considerably lower.

The main reason why the bulk of the wealth is in the 30 to 49 age bracket is that this is also where the bulk of the education is. Being in this age bracket has a correlation of 0.60 with having a Master’s degree.

Most people are well aware that the bulk of old Kiwis are of European descent. And so, the correlation between being of European descent and being in the 65+ age bracket is 0.67, and with being in the 50-64 age bracket it is 0.71.

There are still many people of European descent in the younger age brackets, but the proportion of Maoris in these brackets is relatively much higher. The correlation between being Maori and being in the 0-4 age bracket is a very strong 0.82. For being in the 5-14 age bracket it is even stronger, at 0.85.

Pacific Islander Kiwis have positive correlations with all of the young age brackets, but they are only significant with the youngest two. Being a Pacific Islander and being aged 0-4 had a correlation of 0.44, and with being aged 5-14 it was 0.27.

The age of Asians reflect the strong correlation between being Asian and being foreign born, which was an extremely strong 0.91. Because so many Asian New Zealanders are foreign born, they will have had to have gone through the immigration system, which puts a high priority on young people who can work and pay taxes for a long time.

And so, there is a correlation of 0.49 between being aged 20-29 and being Asian, as well as a correlation of 0.57 between being aged 30-49 and being Asian.

One could surmise from the above that there is a significant correlation between being born overseas and being in the 20-29 age bracket (0.38) and being in the 30-49 age bracket (0.61). This reflects the fact that our points-based immigration system prioritises letting in those who have a large number of productive years ahead of them.

Some industries are well-known for being filled with people of a certain age group. Few readers will be surprised that there is a correlation of 0.51 with being aged 20-29 and working in the hospitality industry. There is also a predictable correlation of 0.37 between being aged 20-29 and working as a sales worker.

Some might be surprised at some of the correlations between age and income. There is a correlation of 0.25 with having an income of $150K+ and being aged in the 20-29 age bracket, and a a correlation of 0.24 with having an income of $100-150K and being in that age bracket.

The reason for this may be clear to anyone who has read the education chapter already. Young adults are often very well educated because of the liberalisation of access to higher education, and correspondingly there is a correlation of 0.53 with being aged 20-29 and being a professional. This is only marginally lower that the correlation of 0.55 with being aged 30-49 and being a professional, despite the much larger number of people in the latter group.

Those in the 30-49 age bracket, however, make up the vast bulk of Kiwi economic activity. This age bracket has a significant positive correlation for every income band above $50K. The most notable was a correlation of 0.60 between this age bracket and the $100-150K income band.

On the subject of the 20-29 age bracket, there was also a significant correlation between this and being in the two lowest income bands. Being aged 20-29 had a correlation of 0.57 with having an income between $0-5K, and a correlation of 0.47 with having an income between $5-10K.

The 30-49 age bracket, by contrast, has a significiant negative correlation with being in both of those income bands. Here it is -0.27 with being in the $0-5K income band and -0.42 with being in the $5-10K band.

As Kiwis get older than this, there are fewer who have extremely high incomes and fewer who have extremely low incomes. The bulk are in the comfortable middle zone. This may be because previous generations were more egalitarian in their outlook

It can be seen when our culture generally started to go off the idea of smoking cigarettes – it was in the mid 1980s. We know this because the 30-49 age bracket has a correlation of 0.58 with having never smoked, which stands in stark contrast with the figure for the 50-64 age bracket, which was -0.02.

People don’t seem to mind walking to work in their twenties. The correlation between walking to work and being aged 20-29 was 0.68. The next age bracket – people between 30 and 49 – had a correlation with walking to work of -0.02, which was much, much lower. This will reflect both increasing physical difficulty, naturally increasing laziness, an increase in the means to maintain a private vehicle and an increase in the desire to keep up the appearance of a certain social status.

Older people were significantly more likely to be South Islanders. Being in the 50-64 age bracket had a correlation of 0.33 with being in the South Island, and the 65+ age bracket had one of 0.27 with living there.

*

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.