Why Do Pedophiles Keep Getting Away With It?

Australia was shocked yesterday by news that Cardinal Pell’s five convictions for child sex offences were overturned by the Australian High Court. This news was hard to believe on account that Pell’s lawyer, Robert Richter, had admitted during the trial that Pell sexually penetrated a child under 16. Pell getting away scot free with what he did is an echo of Jimmy Savile a decade earlier. This article examines why they keep getting away with it.

No honest person doubts that Pell is a pedophile. The High Court statement didn’t declare Pell innocent – it simply stated that “There is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof.” The father of one of the boys who had claimed to have been raped by Pell will continue to pursue a civil case.

Pell’s lawyer admitted in court that his client sexually penetrated a child – the defence hinged on the arguments that the acts were “plain” and “vanilla”. Several other men have claimed to have been sexually abused by Pell, and the Cardinal was involved in years of covering up child sex abuse by other Australian bishops.

Perhaps most tellingly, Pell used to live together with one of Australia’s worst pedophiles, Gerald Ridsdale. Not only did they live together for 12 months in a clergy house, but Pell came to one of Ridsdale’s trials, walked side-by-side with him into court and played down the seriousness of his abuse.

As was the case with Jimmy Savile, Pell looks likely to get away scot free with what he did. Despite the fact that his predilections are widely known (they call him a ‘rockspider’ in Australia because he likes to get into little cracks), and despite the fact that his lawyer admitted that Pell sexually penetrated a child under 16, the High Court overturned his conviction on a technicality, as some predicted they would.

So how can this have happened?

The usual story we’re told about politics is that the political hierarchy is mostly made up of fair and honest men and women, who commit to a hard and stressful job out of a desire to make their communities better. Although there may be a few bad eggs in politics, these people are rare, just clever tricksters who have managed to sneak through the net. Fundamentally, the hierarchy is honest and made up out of good people.

The truth is that the political hierarchy is very close to the kind of hierarchies that exist in a state of Nature. Only in criminal gangs – the underworld equivalent of political parties – does one find anything closer to the kind of dominance hierarchy that exists among, for example, chimpanzees.

In a state of Nature, fighting for dominance rewards a capacity for cruelty. The crude equation is that one person will respect another person to a degree equal to the total distance between how much harm that person is capable of causing and how much help that person is capable of offering.

Being willing and able to cause harm is one thing. Creating the perception that you are willing and able to cause harm is another. This latter ability is called ‘intimidation’ by most people, but an esotericist might call it black magic. This is, crudely speaking, the art of causing others to conform to your will by intimidating them.

Raping a child is one of the most evil acts that a person can do. Therefore, anyone who does it, and especially anyone who does it serially, is generally considered an evil person – at least by normal people. Most pedophiles aren’t interested in manipulating other people, beyond the child they’re abusing, but those that are are correctly understood to be a kind of black magician.

A normal person will, upon learning that another person is a child rapist, shun that other out of contempt and disgust. A black magician, by contrast, will esteem them on account of the belief that they are powerful. This is a completely different way of thinking to that of normal people, but it has to be understood if our ruling class is to be understood.

When a deeply evil individual arises, the sort of person who becomes a serial child rapist or similar, other black magicians don’t abhor them like normal people do. They worship the power of will that is necessary to do something like rape dozens of children while claiming to be a man of God. Such actions don’t seem like shameless hypocrisy; they seem like incredible feats of pure will. There’s something almost reptilian about it.

Therefore, other black magicians exult such evil people, and take actions to ensure that those people get away with the harm they cause. Savile got away with what he did because of the regard in which he was held by other evil people who worked in the Justice System. These people conspired to discourage investigation, to intimidate complainants and to destroy evidence.

This explains why other black magicians rushed to Pell’s defence. Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who had played an instrumental role in the Iraq War (and therefore in the deaths of one million people), even went as far as writing a glowing character reference for the Cardinal, who he had been close friends with for 30 years.

Mass murderers like Howard don’t consider other evil men, like mass child rapists, repulsive. They consider them impressive in a badass way, like a person would think of a professional rugby player or heavyweight boxer. So when one of them gets accused of raping a child, they naturally come to their defence.

The ruling classes of our societies are much, much more tolerant of evil than the average citizen is. This is partially because they have to be on account of that they’re surrounded by it all the time. But it’s mostly because, in this grossly degraded age, our ruling classes are themselves evil. Our dominance hierarchies reflect the spiritual nature of the world – and right now, that nature is one of cruelty.

The reason why pedophiles keep getting away with it is because others of their kind cover for them. Not only other pedophiles, but other black magicians. These people understand that a child rapist on the loose causes an incredible amount of fear and suffering, and that those energies give them power. Therefore, they perpetuate them to the extent that they are able.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Why Is Rent-Seeking Legal?

Our legal system has many quirks and contradictions that defy easy explanation. It seems strange that doctors are allowed to mutilate the genitals of infant boys, yet they are not allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis products that would save lives. This article will discuss another activity of questionable morality: rent-seeking.

Rent-seeking is an attempt to increase one’s personal wealth without creating or producing any. It is the use of resources, such as land, to extract economic benefits (known as rents) from others without making any contribution to the overall economic good.

The most common form of rent-seeking today is found in residential property. There are some 625,000 rented houses in New Zealand today, and the average weekly rent is $390 a week for small houses and $525 for larger ones. Assuming an average rent of $480 per week, rents on residential property bring in some $15,600,000,000 every year in New Zealand alone.

Rent-seeking is correctly understood to be a form of parasitism. As with other forms of parasitism, rent-seeking is a net negative for the overall health of the system. Not only does it suck money away from the productive and gift it to the unproductive, it also incentivises anti-social behaviour. Economically, it disrupts market efficiencies, limits competition and creates artificially high barriers to entry for market participants.

Despite being a form of parasitism, rent-seeking is a long and honoured tradition in New Zealand. Many a fortune has been built in this country by taking advantage of people’s need for shelter from the elements. As a previous essay here has discussed, there’s nothing as profitable as human suffering, and being exposed to the elements is one of the worst kinds of suffering.

The beauty of rent-seeking is that it carries little risk. All you need to do is to own property and the Police will keep people away from it unless those people pay you money. As long as there are men willing to enforce other people’s claims to property in exchange for a wage (and there always will be), then owning some of that property is effectively a licence to print money.

In reality, there’s little difference between a landlord charging someone rent on the threat of throwing that person out into the street, and an armed robber charging someone their wallet on the threat of stabbing them in the guts. In both cases, the power to charge a fee or levy comes from the power to cause extreme physical suffering. Both are a form of extortion.

Given the apparent net harm of trying to extract wealth from the system instead of creating it, the question has to be asked: why is rent-seeking legal?

The main reason why rent-seeking is legal is simply because the rent-seekers make the laws. It was they who, way back in the day, invented Government by paying some weak-minded arse-lickers to defend their property against outsiders (this is all that Government is). Those arse-lickers bifurcated into the Police and security services (whose prime directive is to protect and serve property owners) and the Government (whose prime directive is to organise the protection of property owners).

At the end of the day, the Government is there to manage the affairs of the rich, and they don’t care if the poor are impacted adversely. People too poor to own property don’t have a seat at the table. This is the same reason why businesses were compensated directly in the form of wage subsidies, rather than workers being given a universal basic income – the wealthy take the lion’s share, the poor get the scraps.

This arrangement has created a great deal of resentment, however. Those forced to pay rent on threat of being thrown into the street don’t feel much less resentful about it than those forced to give up their wallet on threat of being stabbed. The fact that rent-seeking is socially accepted in our culture barely softens the blow. It still feels like a robbery.

As is usually the case for such abuses of power, this resentment has built to the point where it threatens to spill over.

The Sixth Labour Government has made it illegal to evict tenants from residential property for the next three months at least. Some groups of tenants have realised that, if they collectively refused to pay rent until the end of the coronavirus crisis, they could pretty much get away with it. There’s no way to enforce an eviction during the lockdown, so anyone who refuses to pay rent from now on can get at least three months of living rent-free.

Other people and places overseas have already declared rent strikes on account of that the coronavirus has made earning their usual income, and therefore paying their usual expenses, impossible. Housing Minister Megan Woods has said “there was also an obligation on tenants not to abuse the situation,” but it’s hard to see why, other than the possible threat of being blacklisted in the future.

The only reason why property owners can get tenants to pay them rent in the first place is because they have the power to force them to on threat of eviction. If that power is taken away, there’s little reason for those who had been coerced into paying rent to continue playing ball.

Perhaps the fairest outcome would be to continue to allow the extraction of rents, but to levy a 90% tax on incomes derived from it. An outcome similar to this was discussed in a previous article here that proposed the introduction of Georgist-style taxes on rent-seeking activity.

In short, rent-seeking is legal because it always has been, and because we’ve never questioned it. We’ve never been able to, because not only did the rent-seekers control the law enforcement forces but they also controlled the apparatus of propaganda, and these combined to normalise the practice. The legitimacy of rent-seeking doesn’t survive scrutiny, and there is a very real chance that it will be as illegal as armed robbery later this century.

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Cannabis Is Considered An Essential Medicine in America – But Kiwis Still Can’t Get It

With New Zealand entering “level 4” of the new Coronavirus national response system, commercial activity is being scaled back to essential services. This has led to some confusion as to what counts as an essential service. An unpalatable truth facing Kiwis is that, by the standards of several places in America, we are having an essential service denied to us.

The COVID-19 alert level is currently set to 3, out of a maximum of 4. This is similar to the American DEFCON system and refers to the current alarm level. A level 3 means that all non-essential services have been forced to close by Government decree, part of a schedule of restrictions laid out on the Government’s own COVID-19 response website.

What counts as an essential service is also listed on that website. The list covers all the skeleton services required to keep a no-frills society running: healthcare operations, food production and sales, security services, postal and courier services etc. The logic is that, despite the coronavirus risk, it would cause even more suffering if these services were stopped, so they have to be kept open.

Most countries worldwide are now moving into some kind of lockdown with movement or trading restrictions as a result of the pandemic. What’s interesting to note is that although all countries agree on the importance of, for example, social distancing, they don’t all agree on what constitutes an essential service.

Access to medicinal cannabis is not considered essential in New Zealand – the New Zealand Government considers growing medicinal cannabis to be criminal conduct. If you have one of the dozens of ailments that can be helped by cannabis, you can go fuck yourself. You’re not allowed to use it, and if you grow it yourself, you go in a cage.

In several places in America, however, medicinal cannabis is considered essential.

In Los Angeles, county officials declared medicinal cannabis dispensaries to be ‘essential services’ on the grounds that they are healthcare operations like any pharmacy. These officials understand that it is grossly immoral to deny suffering people a medicine that would help them – so immoral that, even in a time of national crisis, cannabis dispensaries need to be kept open.

It’s similar in San Francisco, where cannabis dispensaries are kept open on the grounds that cannabis is a medicine like any other, and that people’s need to access medicine during this time is the same as during any other time. The Dutch also allowed their cannabis cafes to remain open throughout the lockdown, reasoning that closing them would create additional health risks as well as empowering the criminal underworld.

Although the issue is not yet taken seriously by the majority of New Zealanders, accessing medicinal cannabis is a life or death issue for a number of people here. Studies have shown that introducing a medicinal cannabis law decreases the overall suicide rate, and by as much as 11% for men aged between 20 and 29. If one adds to this the lives saved by the application of cannabis to physical medicine, it shows that withholding it from people is causing a significant number of deaths.

It’s incredible that, in some places, the medicinal uses of cannabis are so widely accepted as to be understood by all, yet in New Zealand it’s still impossible to access it. This ongoing denial is a completely unnecessary form of sadism, and one that is entirely unjustifiable given the current state of scientific knowledge about the cannabis plant and its uses.

It’s most galling for those who currently sit in prison for an act deemed to be an “essential service” in other places. New Zealand must seem like a medieval shithole to those who are in cages right now for growing medicinal flowers, when that same act is considered an essential service in more enlightened parts of the world.

Cannabis prohibition is an act of cruelty that only continues because those with the power to change it hate cannabis users, and are indifferent to their suffering. The morally correct thing to do is to recognise that cannabis is a medicine, that people have a legitimate right to use it, and to legalise it straight away.

Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.

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New Zealand Should Legalise Cannabis For The Coronavirus Lockdown

It seems inevitable now that the country will soon end up in lockdown on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. This will cause a great deal of stress not only to our society and to our economy, but also to the minds of individual Kiwis. This essay discusses a simple, easy way that the Government could help the nation avoid much of the suffering coming our way: legalise cannabis.

When the lockdown happens, people are going to be trapped inside their houses for a long time. This sudden, forced, close proximity is going to sharply increase the stress levels of a great number of them. Kiwis are an outdoors people – for us community is found on the sports fields, the tramping trails and the beaches, not inside churches or auditoriums. Being stuck inside will be highly unnatural for us.

The Playstation will help for a while – a few days at most – but that will wear thin quickly. The lockdown will lead to sharply elevated levels of boredom and stress – emotions which, if felt for a prolonged period of time, lead to chaos and destruction.

New Zealand already has a serious problem with domestic violence, mostly due to the fact that alcohol is promoted while more peaceful alternatives are suppressed. In our culture, where most lack the self-confidence to speak eloquently, bashing someone is considered an acceptable way to discipline someone misbehaving.

We can predict, sadly, that the enforced proximity created by the lockdowns will result in a sharp rise in domestic violence. Having to live on top of each other for weeks will lead to more nagging and fighting, especially when some turn to alcohol to beat the tedium. As tempers fray, fists will fly. Because children will be at home from school, they will be exposed to it all. In some cases, this will cause long-term trauma.

The Government could pre-empt a great deal of this suffering today, if they had the wit and will to legalise cannabis.

One of the foremost benefits of cannabis is that it makes boredom easier to deal with. As Doug Stanhope said: “Boredom is a disease. Drugs cure it.” Cannabis can make all kinds of dull things exciting, and can make ordinary things seem interesting. Cannabis enthusiasts have found that weed adds to the appreciation of life in much the same way that salt adds to the appreciation of a meal.

If cannabis were to be made legal today, people could make plans to use it during the lockdown. Although it will not be possible to institute retail sales on such short notice, people could take measures to acquire it from those who already have it, who could themselves be temporarily authorised to sell it while a proper recreational system was being set up (although not to people under 18).

Such a move would ease a great deal of the extraordinary stresses to which Kiwis will be subjected in coming months.

The Government is going to have to deal with the prospect of civil unrest over the next few months. There has already been looting in London, if limited, as a result of the increased tensions. Although the nation is pulling in behind the Government now, this is only because the state of alarm is keeping people in line. As the lockdown wears on, people’s dissatisfaction will change their sentiments.

Legalising cannabis would make this much easier. It would provide relief to the great number of New Zealanders who will be suffering heightened stress and anxiety from the lockdown and from its economic consequences. It would provide relaxation to those disturbed by the disruption to normal life. Not least of all, it would allow for different patterns of thinking in these times of panic and despair.

Jacinda Ardern has already proven that the country is willing to accept extraordinary measures in this time of crisis. We have already accepted a shutdown of the national borders, despite the fact that this measure condemns to bankruptcy a proportion of our tourism, transport and hospitality operators. The general mood is akin to a siege mindset. It’s the perfect time to take bold measures.

A majority of New Zealanders have already accepted that legal cannabis is inevitable. The only holdouts are clinging to prohibition out of stubbornness, spite or malice. The COVID-19 lockdown offers the perfect opportunity to bulldoze through these last recalcitrants and to repeal cannabis prohibition.

Over and above all this, repealing cannabis prohibition would free up some $400,000,000 of Government spending and tens of thousands of Police man hours that is currently wasted every year on enforcing cannabis prohibition. Both of those things will be in desperate short supply over the coming months – time to acknowledge that they’re not well spent persecuting weed smokers.

If the Sixth Labour Government thought intelligently about it, they would understand that the COVID-19 epidemic had temporarily slapped the nation out of its usual slumber, and they would use this opportunity to do things that had previously been made impossible by obstinacy and cowardice. The Cannabis Control Bill that is scheduled to be put to a referendum this September could simply be passed into law by majority vote.

Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.

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