justice – Page 42

The Young Perish, and the Old Linger

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Theoden uses the phrase “The young perish, and the old linger,” to describe the accursed state of his kingdom of Rohan. The phrase strikes a chord, because most people can intuitively understand that society ought to exist to further the young, and that the old ought to gracefully let go of power when their time is up. As this essay will examine, New Zealand has become a place every bit as rotten as Tolkien’s fictional kingdom.

Provisional suicide statistics released this week by the New Zealand Chief Coroner are frightening in many ways. Not only do they reveal the highest suicide numbers on record (685 deaths in one year), but they also reveal a number of patterns once you drill down a level or two. The data is broken down by demographic factors, and these can be compared to previous years’ statistics.

Perhaps the most disturbing of these patterns is that the young are committing suicide at greater rates, while the old are committing it less.

The suicide rate for Kiwis aged between 20-24 was 26.87 deaths per 100,000 people last year. By way of comparison, the murder rate in Mexico was 24.80 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017. Some might be shocked to hear that, even with all the cartel violence and gang warfare in Mexico, our young adults are killing themselves at an even greater rate than Mexicans.

The suicide rate for Kiwis aged between 65-69 was 8.72 per 100,000 people – less than a third of the rate for people aged between 20-24. Old people in New Zealand don’t start to kill themselves in significantly higher numbers than this until they get to 90. The quarter century between the ages of 65 and 90 is now the prime of life for a New Zealander.

Compared to 2010, young people are killing themselves more often – the suicide rate among 20-24 year olds in 2010 was only 21.23 per 100,000. For all Kiwis aged between 15 and 29, the suicide rate was 18.88 in 2010 and 23.62 in 2018. All this means that young people are now killing themselves about 25% more often than they were in 2010.

However, old people are killing themselves less often. The suicide rate in 2010 for people in their golden years (between 65 and 84) was 9.20 per 100,000. By 2018, this had fallen to 8.36 per 100,000 – a decline of some 10%. The young perish, while the old linger.

These suicide statistics reveal a fact about our society that is rarely spoken of: New Zealand is an awesome place to be old, and is increasingly getting more awesome for old people as the economic balance tilts ever-further in their favour. However, it is a truly shit place to be young, and is increasingly getting more shit for young people.

New Zealand is an awesome place to be over 65 because there is a universal basic income for such people, of $370 a week. As Dan McGlashan showed in Understanding New Zealand, there is a correlation of 0.82 between being on the pension and living in a freehold house in New Zealand. This means that the vast majority of pensioners don’t have to worry about paying rent out of that $370 – most of it is disposable income.

If you already own a house, getting paid $370 a week just to hang out in it for a quarter century when you are aged between 65 and 90 is a sweet deal. Anyone owning their own house also has a permanent community, and therefore gets a strong sense of social inclusion. To get $370 a week, no questions asked, to enjoy that lifestyle is an incredible privilege.

There’s little wonder that the suicide rate is so low among people who have got it so good.

New Zealand is a shit place to be young, on the other hand, because they are the ones who have to work and pay for the luxurious retirements of the old. In order for our elderly to get $370 a week of free money for a quarter century, the young have to be taxed brutally. This makes it much harder for them to pay back their student loans, to own their own house or to raise a family.

Most pensioners in New Zealand are homeowners because it used to be possible to buy a house on the average wage in this country. Analysis shows, however, that the average wage would now have to be almost $80 an hour for young people to have the same chance of owning a house that their parents’ generation had. Young people nowadays face a level of financial desperation that their parents never came close to experiencing.

Studies have shown that financial pressures are the second most common contributing reason to suicide attempts, behind only depression. Stressful life events are powerful predictors of future suicide attempts. These stressful life events are much more common for the young, who face unprecedented levels of uncertainty over housing and employment. Unfortunately for them, high stress is all but inevitable as the Boomers demand to be catered for to the level at which they are accustomed.

In a normal, properly-functioning nation, the elderly will happily sacrifice themselves so that the younger generations can prosper. Knowing that the young are the next generation of themselves, the elderly are happy to lay the foundations for the prosperity of the young, even at their own discomfort. This has always been the case in healthy nations.

In New Zealand, the elderly throw the young to the wolves so that they can have more for themselves. Many of the suicides of young people could be prevented if we had a properly-funded mental health system. The old people who control the national purse strings, however, have directed almost every penny towards ensuring their own comfort, and have left the young to go without.

New Zealand spends $15,000,000,000 a year on pensions, much of that going out to people who don’t need it. Many people in their sixties and seventies run a business and get $370 of pension money a week on top of that. This colossal expenditure is evidence that our society is run to the benefit of the old, at the expense of the others.

Precise figures for mental health funding are impossible to find for New Zealand because of our district health board system. In Australia, though, some 5% of total health spending goes on mental health care specifically. We can assume a similar figure for New Zealand. Because we spend about $17,000,000,000 a year on healthcare, 5% of our total health budget works out to be about $850,000,000.

It’s not clear exactly what percentage of funding goes to those aged between 15 and 29, but assuming a figure roughly equal to that age bracket’s proportion of the population, we arrive at roughly $200,000,000 per year. Considering that New Zealand spends $400,000,000 per year on enforcing cannabis prohibition, $200,000,000 for the mental health care needs of an entire generation seems absurdly little.

And it is – it’s an absolute disgrace.

The solution to this state of injustice, and a partial solution to our increasing suicide rates among young people, is to lower the age of universal basic income from 65 to 18. This would allow relief from the insane financial stresses that are now levied on those young people.

Lowering the universal basic income age from 65 to 18 necessitates that today’s wealthy Boomers will have to share their pie with others, so we can expect that they will fight this suggestion tooth-and-nail to the bitter end. The overall outcome, however, would be a reduction in suffering, as the Boomers’ loss of luxury would be compensated for by the younger generations’ emancipation from poverty.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 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 2017 is also available.

The Government Should Legalise Cannabis For The Rugby World Cup

Kiwis are rejoicing at the news that our owners have permitted us extended hours to drink alcohol on licensed premises while Rugby World Cup games are on this Spring. It’s true that anything that facilitates New Zealanders coming together in a spirit of goodwill is a good thing, and VJM Publishing applauds this move for the sake of the nation’s mental health. The really great move, however, would be to legalise cannabis for the Rugby World Cup.

A famous half-truth about New Zealand culture is that rates of domestic violence spike every time the All Blacks lose. The full truth is that domestic violence rates spike when the All Blacks win, too, because every time the All Blacks play, men get together and drink alcohol. When they do this, a certain proportion of them will end up bashing their wives and girlfriends (or kids, parents, brothers/sisters etc.).

Alcohol is great fun, and the value it has in facilitating socialisation and enjoyment of life cannot be measured. It’s impossible to quantify the quality of life improvements that follow having a really excellent time partying with alcohol, or the warm memories that come from having a great time drinking with friends, or the value of the friendships made because alcohol broke the ice.

On balance, alcohol is a good thing – but the negatives of it are considerable nonetheless.

As mentioned in Chapter 12 of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, alcohol is present in an estimated 30% of domestic violence incidents that the Police attend, and is believed to be responsible for 3.9% of all deaths in New Zealand. Including sicknesses caused by it and lost work days to hangovers or other alcohol-related conditions, the monetary cost of alcohol use runs into the billions.

Again, in no way is this to make the argument that alcohol is bad or should be further restricted. The problem is that there is no recreational alternative to it. You’re not allowed to go into town and watch the All Blacks at a cannabis cafe, and you’re not allowed to sit in a town square and watch a public big screen while smoking a joint. You’ll get arrested and put in a cage.

If you want to socialise with other people this Rugby World Cup, you get the same deal as at all other times. Drink alcohol or just fuck off back home.

Imagine a Rugby World Cup where Kiwis could come together without being pressured into consuming alcohol in order to socialise. This would finally mean that there was a recreational alternative for all those people who knew that they weren’t good on alcohol (arguably some 20% of the population).

It’s not a secret that the participants in most of those 30% of domestic violence incidents will be people who already know that sometimes they don’t behave well on alcohol. Imagine if these people were able to use a recreational substance that allowed them to be part of the festivities but which did not have the side effect of inducing them to get violent or aggressive. Many of them would take it – to everyone’s benefit.

Liberalising drinking hours for the duration of the Rugby World Cup might lead to more violence, sexual assaults and people killed in car wrecks, but it need not do so. If the purpose of liberalising such laws is to create a festival atmosphere for the duration of the tournament (and nothing can bring the country together like a Rugby World Cup), then it is possible for us to have our cake and eat it.

The way to achieve this is to legalise cannabis for the duration of the Rugby World Cup.

This would not mean a repeal of cannabis prohibition, at least not yet. What it would mean is a moratorium on arrests for public outdoors cannabis use for the duration of the tournament (or at least for as long as the All Blacks are still in it). We could pass a law that said, while the World Cup was in progress, Police would ignore public possession, use and personal trading of cannabis (although commercial enterprises would still be illegal).

This would mean that people could smoke cannabis in public as they can now smoke tobacco. They could meet in bonds of love, and share good cheer with a smile and a laugh, as alcohol users are permitted to do.

One can confidently predict the result of such a move, because one can observe how people behave in places where cannabis is already legal. Making cannabis legal for the duration of the Rugby World Cup would serve to create a relaxed, convivial, celebratory atmosphere for what is arguably the Kiwi nation’s most cherished quadrennial religious festival. It would create many good memories.

This will have several benefits over and above creating a festive atmosphere. It would also show New Zealanders that they don’t necessarily have to shit and piss their pants in fear at the thought of cannabis law reform. If cannabis users were given the opportunity to show that their behaviour was preferable to drunks they would probably take it. It would allow for a much better-informed cannabis referendum debate.

The Advertising Standards Authority is Becoming the Ministry of Truth

In George Orwell’s 1984, one of the major departments of the Big Brother government is the Ministry of Truth. Ostensibly, the purpose of this division is to determine truth from falsehood, and to discourage the latter from being spoken or written. The reality, of course, is much more sinister. New Zealand is seeing the emergence of its own Ministry of Truth, in the form of the Advertising Standards Authority.

New Zealand doesn’t have a constitution, but we do have a Bill of Rights Act. Modelled on the American constitutional version, our Bill of Rights Act is meant to clearly delineate the areas in which the Government may not act to restrict our freedoms. Section 14 of this Act describes the right of every New Zealander to “freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”

The right to freedom of expression includes the right to say things that aren’t true. I’m allowed to say that the world is flat. I’m allowed to say that cannabis has no medicinal value. I’m allowed to say that the Germans started World War Two. I’m allowed to say that a warlord who raped a nine-year old was the perfect man, that consciousness is extinguished when the physical body dies or that anyone who doesn’t worship Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef is going to burn in eternal hellfire.

I’m even allowed to write an entirely fictional novel about a two Anzac machine cultists and a machine that can control minds by satellite (as I did here), and present it as if were true for the sake of taking the reader for a ride.

Not only am I allowed to express any number of false ideas, but I’m allowed to express them in any form.

The first sign that alerted New Zealanders to the monster that the Advertising Standards Authority was becoming was the actions it took over the One Treaty One Nation flyers, published by the 1law4all movement. In an incredible act of arrogance, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that these flyers were not allowed to be distributed.

Incredibly, they ruled that speaking of the benefits of colonisation to the various Maori tribes “was likely to cause offence”, and was therefore verboten. Maori alt-media figure Tim Wikiriwhi wrote about how he did not find the flyer offensive, calling the Advertising Standards Authority’s move “yet another example of patent hypocrisy and pretentious arrogance against a legitimate political perspective that is calling for the abolition of treaty separatism.”

New Zealanders have the right to freedom of expression. Therefore, there is no Governmental agency that can arrogate to itself the right to decide when we’re not free to express ourselves. Unfortunately, evil individuals and groups have the free will to defy and deny these rights if we can’t stop them.

The Advertising Standards Authority shows no sign of wanting to end their power trip any time soon. Their latest effort involves forcing themselves into the political arena, by claiming the right to decide which political statements are permissible and which are not. Ominously, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an advertisement made by the National Party “will be investigated for being potentially misleading.”

This move is in line with the wider agenda of the Sixth Labour Government to crack down on free speech by censoring everything that doesn’t suit their narrative. Megalomaniacal “Justice” Minister Andrew Little has already suggested as much. He weighed in on the issue to promote his pet project of criminalising hate speech by saying that the flyer “peddled myths” and calling its author an “ignorant fool”.

Given that it’s a fairly extreme move for a Government Minister to take to the mainstream media to insult and threaten a private citizen who is acting within his rights, many will be astonished to find out what the flyer actually claims. It’s actually a very tame document that merely asserts obvious and well-known truths, such as the fact that Maoris benefitted from colonisation.

The grim fact is that New Zealand is rapidly moving towards the point where we will only be allowed to express opinions that are on a pre-approved Government list. We are aided towards this miserable goal by entities such as the Advertising Standards Authority, who are acting exactly like 1984‘s Ministry of Truth.

The solution is to organise around the Sevenfold Conception of Inherent Human Rights. This would involve all true Kiwis agreeing that we have the God-given right to free expression, and that this right cannot be abrogated by arrogant shitheads in Parliament, no matter how narcissistic they are.

This would necessitate that all Kiwis agree to what is known as the Right of Silver, which is that all of us have the right to free expression, and that no Kiwi shall act to abrogate the right of any other Kiwi’s free expression. This means we agree that anyone acting to abrogate this right is an enemy of the New Zealand people on account of that they cause us suffering.

Day of The Pillow

The Western World has a severe structural problem, and it’s getting worse. We have a great millstone around our necks in the form of the Baby Boomers. This economic burden has grown much heavier in recent years, and it promises to keep growing heavier, perhaps until the rest of us are crushed. This essay discusses how we can solve the Boomer problem.

In New Zealand alone, it is believed that pensions will cost the taxpayer over $16,000,000,000 this year. It’s impossible to say how much they cost “every year” because the cost keeps sharply rising. By 2023, a mere four years away, Government pension spending is expected to rise by another $4,800,000,000. This total figure would represent almost a quarter of total Government spending.

The Supported Living Payment, by contrast, which is the welfare given to all the disabled people in the entire country, was a little over $1,500,000,000 in 2016. In fact, all of the other benefits put together are less than a third of what the Government pension costs. Many people find this fact astonishing, as we are constantly being fed stories about lazy bludgers on the unemployment benefit. The truth is that the vast majority of lazy bludgers are on the pension.

The younger generations are being sucked dry by the Boomers. Many Boomers are retiring at age 65 in full health and with 20-30 years left to live, and usually with a freehold house to their name, but are still claiming their $370 per week. It’s an obscene theft of resources.

Boomers claim that they’re merely getting what they’re due, that they were promised a pension and by Christ they’re going to get one, even if it means the impoverishment of every generation to follow. But there was never, ever any agreement on the part of the young that they would get sucked dry to provide an extravagant retirement for Boomers.

Moreover, this fifteen-billion dollar redistribution of wealth in favour of the Boomers doesn’t take into account how much extra health spending they absorb. In Britain, the over-65s take up two-fifths of all health spending. Crown spending on health in New Zealand is currently running at about $16,000,000,000 per year, and two-fifths of that would represent about another $6,500,000,000. What’s more, this figure, like overall pension expenses, is also rising sharply.

This means that the over-65s already impose a twenty billion-dollar burden on the rest of us Kiwis. The yearly cost for the entire West runs to multiple trillions. For the average taxpayer, this represents an individual burden on the order of $8,000 yearly. That every working adult gets taxed several thousands of dollars yearly to pay for pensions is one of the reasons why birthrates are so low among Westerners in their 20s.

It isn’t just that Boomers are old. They’re also morally defective. Never in the history of the West has there been a generation that was happy to sacrifice the wellbeing of their children for their own comfort. Never before has there been a generation that willingly left their offspring worse off. The self-centred and egotistic nature of the Boomers is simply unparalleled. They are not anything like the generations that won World War II.

However, there is historical precedent for dealing with situations like this.

Sometimes, when an old person is hanging on to life well beyond the point where life can be meaningfully lived, they become subject to a “mercy killing”. In American Indian culture, people who got to this point were left for the wolves. In Old Norse culture, people who got to this point were put on an ice floe and pushed into the sea. In Anglo culture, people who get to this point are often smothered in their sleep by pillows.

This essay suggests that the time may be approaching when we need to do this on a generational level. It’s time for the Day of the Pillow.

Involuntary euthanasia might sound harsh. However, the Boomers brought this upon themselves. You can’t enslave an entire population and expect them to work themselves to death to finance an extended, luxury retirement for you. If you do, you have to hope that you can keep getting away from it, because if that population ever manages to throw the shackles off they will come looking for revenge.

This is not to suggest that Boomers need to be euthanised en masse. There could be a law that says, for example, that once you accept an old-age pension, you have 5 or 10 years before you get euthanised. This would discourage intergenerational theft by ensuring that only the people who had genuinely come to the end of their working lives would claim the pension.

A more civil way of ending the stranglehold that Boomers have on the West would be stripping the right to vote from anyone who took a Government pension (this newspaper has argued this point at length elsewhere). Retirement should mean retirement. If a person is too infirm to work, then they’re too infirm to be making decisions about the future of the nation.

Yet another solution is to introduce a universal basic income for all at a rate similar to the unemployment benefit, and to lower the pension to this new figure. This would ensure that the younger generations were no longer subjected to indignities for the benefit of the old. Everyone would then be on an even playing field.

The Day of the Pillow is not something that needs to happen. There are much less brutal ways to free the young from the unreasonable burden that the Boomers have placed on them. However, if the Boomer generation continues to exploit the rest of us unnecessarily, we will need to take measures to defend ourselves and our ability to pay for our own needs.