Why The Greens Should Lose Voters To TOP In Coming Weeks

With a general election now less than three months away, the various political parties are trying to position themselves front and centre in the mainstream media. Most days now bring a major announcement from at least one registered party. The announcements made yesterday have the potential to cause a great deal of support to switch from the Greens to The Opportunities Party. Numbers man Dan McGlashan explains.

In the second edition of Understanding New Zealand, I showed that the demographics of Greens voters and TOP voters were very similar. The correlation between voting Green and voting TOP was on the order of 0.8, which shows that the two groups overlapped to a major degree.

Both voting blocs are young, highly educated, urban and white. They are the kind of people who are doing relatively well but who do not wish to use the Government to force themselves into an even better position (in contradistinction to National and ACT voters). They are very similar in demographics and psychology to their social democratic counterparts in places like Northern Europe. In fact, many Green and TOP ideas originally became popular in Northern Europe before being adopted.

When I wrote the article linked in the paragraph above, in 2017, there were no major distinctions between the two parties. This year’s election campaign has already revealed some and will, I suspect, reveal more. Support for my suspicion comes from recent policy announcements.

The Green Party shot themselves in the foot yesterday with their announcement of a Guaranteed Minimum Income. This policy promises to ensure that no New Zealander need live in poverty, by topping up whatever income they get to a minimum of $325 per week. This would mean that all part-time workers would get topped up to $325 per week, as would beneficiaries (apart from pensioners, who already receive more than this).

Green Party support for a GMI will, in my estimation, cause them to lose a significant number of votes to The Opportunities Party.

Although some of the smarter Green supporters have been trying to remedy the error by describing the policy as a universal basic income, it isn’t one. It’s something significantly worse – so much so that The Opportunities Party have stolen a major trick on them through their support of a UBI.

Those who counter that the Greens’ $325 is much better than TOP’s $250 need to take into account that TOP’s offer leaves the part-time worker much better off. The worst thing about the Greens’ guaranteed minimum income policy is that it massively disincentivises part-time work.

Let’s assume, for simplicity’s sake, that our part-time worker is doing 20 hours a week at $19 an hour, for a total of $380 before tax (let’s say $327 after tax, according to this tax calculator).

The Greens’ proposal would see this person not benefit at all. Earning $327 would see them receive no top-ups. This means that, incredibly, anyone working less than 20 hours a week might as well not bother showing up to work anymore. They wouldn’t get any net benefit from working 19 hours or fewer, because their total wage wouldn’t be higher than the $325 guaranteed minimum.

TOP’s proposal is entirely different. A part-time worker working 20 hours would first of all get the $250 universal basic income. The full value of any wage they received from an employer would then get added to that (minus taxes, of course). Because that wage would be taxed at a flat rate, they would come out miles ahead compared to the Greens’ proposal.

Let’s use an extreme example, and say that the part-time worker’s taxes go up 5% under TOP’s proposal (this is not close to being accurate, but let’s assume it for simplicity’s sake). This would leave them with $308 of their wage after tax, plus the $250 UBI, for a total of $558 – i.e. $233 ahead of where they would be under the Greens’ proposal. Even if their taxes went up 10% (an absurdity) they would be over $200 a week better off.

So the Greens’ proposal amounts to maximising the risk of the welfare trap. Anyone employed for fewer than 20 hours would have no incentive to continue with their job. If they can’t get full-time work, they’re better off not working at all.

This is arguably even worse than the status quo, in which beneficiaries make slightly less than $325 but can earn up to $150 from part-time work before their benefit is docked. Someone on the Jobseeker’s Allowance working eight hours a week would make around $250 from the Jobseeker’s Allowance plus $150 from their part-time job, for a total of $400.

A cynic might even say that the Greens’ policy was intended to create welfare dependency in the knowledge that welfare beneficiaries heavily support left-wing parties (as I demonstrated here). That’s possible but it’s more likely that the Greens have erred on account of their naivety and fundamental misunderstanding of economic psychology.

With regards to 21st Century welfare policy, TOP have cleverly positioned themselves close to alt centrism. They oppose the Establishment but are neither left nor right. By supporting a UBI – something closer to a right-wing position – TOP have avoided giving in to the politics of envy that have caused many centrists to become disappointed in the left in recent decades. This gives them a major point of distinction with the alt left, represented by the Green Party.

By avoiding ACT’s politics of greed and the Greens’ politics of envy and dependency, TOP have set a pragmatic, sensible course as the centrist alternative to the Establishment. I predict that the superiority of their UBI proposal to the Greens’ GMI policy will win TOP a significant number of votes from the Greens. The next move to distinguish themselves from the loony left should be for TOP to abandon any proposal to raise New Zealand’s refugee quota.

Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing, is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people. It is available on TradeMe (for Kiwis) and on Amazon (for international readers).

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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Is It Time To Rename Arnold Schwarzenegger?

2020 has been the year of the revaluation of values. Many things once thought acceptable are being re-evaluated with a new mindset. One thing once thought acceptable is the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This article asks: is it time to rename him?

The name ‘Schwarzenegger’ evokes many sentiments in the modern Western mind – similar sentiments to Arnold’s former nickname “The Austrian Oak”.

Physically, one thinks of the superbly well-crafted physique that won multiple world bodybuilding titles as well as the role of Conan the Cimmerian. Mentally, one thinks of the preternatural will and ambition that took a teenage Austrian boy to Hollywood superstardom and from there to a successful term as Governor of California.

Linguistically, the name evokes other sentiments. ‘Schwarz’ is German for ‘black’, and ‘neger’ is German for… well, you guessed it. Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name literally means ‘black nigger’.

A white man going around calling himself “black nigger” cannot be acceptable under today’s moral standards. It’s no different to a white man conducting his daily affairs entirely in blackface. The name Schwarzenegger must be cancelled.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger could instead be called Arnold von Osterreich, a name that respects the black community while still evoking Arnold’s heritage. American President Donald Trump should pass a law renaming him as soon as possible in the hope of appeasing the black rioters currently rampaging through American inner cities.

Note: this article is a pisstake! If you really thought that we support the renaming of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’re stupid!

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Clown World Chronicles: What Is ‘White Erasure’?

All over the West, destruction reigns. Statues are coming down, cities are being renamed, history is being rewritten. The destruction can seem so mindless, but there’s one thread running through it all. This article discusses that thread: the concept of ‘white erasure’.

White erasure, in short, is the genocide of white people. This occurs in four sequential stages.

The first is the demonisation of white people. This is achieved by preventing people from speaking favourably about white people (by calling it “racist”), while encouraging people to speak disfavourably about white people. Speaking disfavourably about white people involves insinuating that all white people are racist, and that their history is one of evil.

There are many examples of this in today’s world. Most notable is the outrage generated by the expression of innocuous statements such as “It’s Okay To Be White” or “White Lives Matter“. In both cases, the men making these statements were slammed as racists by their national mainstream media, the first even being compared to Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant.

The latter case is especially incredible, as the statement about white lives was made days after a racist terror attack in Reading, England, that claimed the lives of three white people. The end point of the demonisation of white people is that anyone claiming that white people have a right to exist is a racist.

The second stage is minimising white influence in the institutions. This occurs in a variety of ways depending on the institution in question. In all cases, however, it begins with a commitment to diversity, where diversity is defined as a minimum of white people.

In the universities, it starts with offering scholarships to non-white people on the basis that they are not white. The usual argument given is that non-white people are poorer than whites, and therefore deserve help more, but this ignores the fact that working-class white people are also poorer than the white average, and there is no help for them.

A similar phenomenon exists in government. It’s now considered extremely important that the government supports diversity, so much so that even the conservative parties are judged on how many non-white members they have. Again, diversity here is not defined as viewpoint or ideological diversity but simply as an absence of white people. A black person who thinks the same way as middle-class whites is better than a working-class white who thinks differently.

The third stage is minimising the proportion of white people in the population. This is achieved in two major ways: mass non-white immigration and the suppression of white birth rates.

Mass non-white immigration inevitably leads to a lower and lower proportion of white people in the local population. The Brazilianisation of formerly white societies causes white people to fall back into gated communities, ceding public spaces. It has also led to the idea, now popular in Europe as well as in the New World, that Western countries are not inherently white ones. They are the common property of the whole world.

The suppression of white birth rates is achieved by the manufacture of an economic environment in which raising a family is all but impossible. In order for it to be possible, the minimum wage has to pay enough that a man can afford shelter and food for a family of at least two children, a wife and himself – on one wage. This seems ridiculous now, as it is a long way from the case today, but it was once standard.

Mass immigration plays a direct role in this, by destroying the negotiating position of the white working classes. The more desperate they are, and the more imported cheap labour they have to compete with, the lower the wage they will be able to negotiate. The lower the wage, the more precarious their condition, and the fewer children they will be able to afford to bring into the world.

The fourth stage is changing the environment to remove any trace of white influence or presence. This is a multifaceted approach, which simply seeks to erase any sign of white people.

This is all over the world today, especially in the frenzied and ongoing efforts to pull down all statues of white men. The logic is that all white men are guilty of the collective historical sins of the white race, and therefore no memorials to them can be left standing. Everything that reminds of white people is to be erased.

The problem is, as Solzhenitsyn put it, that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. This means that there are no men who are perfectly innocent. Every historical figure is guilty of at least some sins. So sins can be found in any historical figure, as long as there is sufficient will to uncover them. Anyone can be cancelled.

Another major component of this stage is the movement to rename colonial streets, cities or territories. The idea here is that the “real name” of a place is the indigenous one, such that even native speakers of English are obliged to use it when speaking English. The ultimate goal of this is to remove all trace of white people, as if they had never been present.

The most difficult thing to grasp about all this is why white people are doing it to themselves. It isn’t easy to understand why – it seems at least masochistic, if not outright suicidal. This has caused a number of conspiracy theories to arise, including the usual anti-Jewish ones.

The brutal reality is that this is how life is at the end of an empire. The Roman Empire went through it, when the Christian mobs destroyed all the temples and holy places of the Greco-Roman religion. Their gods destroyed, the citizens lost touch with their conceptions of good and evil. A Dark Age, lasting centuries, was the result. It may be the same for us.

History goes in cycles, and the measure of the swing of the Great Pendulum of history to the left is the measure of its swing to the right. The last five hundred years has seen white people assert themselves upon the world with only the scantiest resistance. The next five hundred might see the world assert itself upon white people.

White erasure may end with a Holocaust of white people, or it could end with their gradual replacement, or it could lead to a resurgence of will that strikes a death blow to Clown World. There’s no way to know yet.

This article is an excerpt from Clown World Chronicles, a book about the insanity of life in the post-Industrial West. This is being compiled by Vince McLeod for an expected release in the middle of 2020.

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Understanding The New Definition Of “Crime”

Most of us are still getting our heads around the bizarre attempt to redefine racism as “prejudice plus power”. Well, hold on to your pants, because there’s about to be another effort to redefine a simple word to suit a political agenda. This essay has the details.

If you’re in Generation X, the definition of racism is simple enough. If you dislike someone because of their race, and not because of personal characteristics that are worthy of hate, then you are a racist. You have judged a person prematurely on account of your bigotry, which is prejudice. Prejudice is bad because it doesn’t give other people a fair deal.

We had just gotten our heads around how racism was a bad thing when the definition changed.

Now, or so we’re aggressively told, racism is defined as prejudice plus power. This new definition asserts that only structural and institutional racism counts as actual racism, and that racism that isn’t backed by institutional power is merely prejudice. In practice, this means that non-white people can’t be racist because their racism isn’t “backed by institutional power”.

This is clearly bullshit, but enough morons have fallen for it to make it possible for the next move to be made.

In recent months, keen observers have noticed another attempt at redefining language, this time relating to crime. Some criminal actions are made out to be horrific atrocities, whereas other criminal actions, much worse than in the first group, are made out to be perfectly and understandable courses of action that no reasonable person would complain about.

For instance, 472 people have been shot and killed by American Police officers in 2020 so far. At that rate, some 30 have been killed between the death of George Floyd and the writing of this article. The crucial difference between the death of Floyd and the hundreds of others is simple: Floyd was a black man killed by a white one. As such, the severity of the crime is much greater than if it had been different.

The new logic is that a criminal act isn’t really a criminal act unless it’s coming from a place of power. In the same way that racism isn’t real racism unless it’s committed by those deemed to have power, now crime isn’t really crime unless it’s committed by those deemed to have power.

This is why no-one cares about the fact that American blacks kill 4,000 other American blacks every year. These might be killings, but they’re not really murders because they’re not coming from a place of institutional power. As such, they’re not worthy of any outrage.

It’s also why no-one cares about children getting beaten to death. Children are almost always the same race as their parents, and consequently there is seldom a racial power differential between parent and child. Absent such a differential, crimes aren’t considered severe enough to warrant attention. No-one knows who Sofia Taueki-Jackson is, and no-one cares.

In the new paradigm, not having power means that you can basically do whatever the fuck you like for whatever reason. Someone else is always to blame. No matter how wretchedly unenlightened your conduct, someone else is always to blame. There will always be a chorus of slaves willing to make excuses.

The morality can be summed up thusly: to have power is to be immoral, to be powerless is to be moral.

This morality explains why the authorities of the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone have been filmed taking action to enforce the zone’s borders and immigration policy. The authorities of CHAZ are powerless, therefore they get to enforce immigration laws (in any case, if they are not weak then they represent those who are). This is why it’s moral for them to enforce borders but not moral for America to do it.

Enforcing immigration laws is only a bad thing if you have power. If you don’t have power, then it’s fair for you to violate other people’s boundaries. This is (of course) never explicitly stated, but it’s implied. Only the strong are obliged to hold to moral laws. The weak can do what they like, and all blame can be safely deflected onto the structure of society.

This logic is self-contradictory, because such a system does nothing to abolish hierarchies or power differentials – it merely grants ultimate authority to those who decide what power is. If power is defined as wealth, then the powerless are the poor. If power is defined as white privilege, then the powerless are the non-whites. If power is defined as social status, then the powerless are the degenerate and the outcast.

In reality, under such a system, all power lies in the hands of those who can most effectively claim to represent the powerless. And those people will be those who were powerful in the beginning, and who are powerful in all times and places: members of the ruling class who are able to persuade others to follow and obey them.

Understanding the new definition of crime requires the recognition that the Western World is now fully in the grips of slave mentality. We have given up on the concept of self-mastery entirely, and now indulge baser instincts in a manner little different from animals. This won’t change until the world goes through a revolution that reasserts master morality and an honour culture.

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