Waitangi Day, socialism, lollies and Minto v Sheppard

It seems that I have really upset John Minto. A mutual acquaintance of ours relayed an exchange with John a couple of weeks ago shortly after my Waitangi Day blog. Minto apparently said "that guy Sheppard has undone 40 years of race relations with his blog on Waitangi" clearly thinking I am a traitor or the anti-Christ as he was evidently shaking with anger.

Click here to read John Minto's Waitangi blog.
Click here to read Bruce Sheppard's Waitangi blog.

He is right. The last 20 years of handouts and favourable racial treatment of some members of the population on whatever made up pretence have had an impact on race relations. If I have in some way balanced that up by telling it like some of us see it, and if that has in some way undone the harm caused, then I will happily claim the credit. This said I think John over estimates the reach of blog land.

Things get changed through action combined with thinking and talking. John was a man of action in his youth, and was very effective. He co-founded HART (Halt All Racist Tours) and I am sure he would claim some credit for the downfall of white South Africa. Post that downfall he might like to ask himself if anything has fundamentally changed. The whites in South Africa still effectively run the place. The blacks are still in relative poverty and then there is the major problem of HIV.

Maori should take some note of this. As if they did ever get to "take over" nothing will actually change much as human nature is what it is. To redress poverty does require a change in thinking.

Maybe John I should restart HART, now called Halt All Racist Treatment? John don't you find it ironic that you now champion racism in NZ?

The real irony of this boarder line hatred is that John fails to understand that he and I both actually want the same thing. In the words of Martin Luther King, I and John had a dream of a new world. The problem is that John's dream is not anchored in any understanding of human nature. Thus to bring into effect his dreamlike world of an egalitarian society requires George Orwell 1984 type interventionism.

My dream just requires a sharing of knowledge and an enabling of the people to grasp a dream for themselves. This, plus ensuring the opportunity to make that dream a reality is an opportunity open to all who want it, realising as well that everyone's dream is different.

If you want to understand human nature before the OSH, PC police, education and society in general have done with corrupting it, examine kids and a lolly scramble. Perhaps the real reason the OSH police don't like lolly scrambles is not because kids get hurt, but because it reminds kids what human nature is  really about. Maybe they are the thought police from Orwell. And guess what? Real life resembles a lolly scramble. John, go to a kids lolly scramble and then look at the world as it is and you might find the flaw in your dream of a world of equals.

And parents, ignore the PC crap. Make sure every kid experiences a free for all lolly scramble at every opportunity. Tell the OSH people to go swim in an unfenced pool.

So imagine this: You are in a field with a whole lot of kids, keen and full of anticipation. On the four sides of the field there are the angels of opportunity the lolly throwers. And on the four corners of the field there are the watchers of activity, the policemen, the government, the regulators, call them what you will.

The game is played in four sessions each involving a throw, a mad scramble and then the kids sit down to count up their bounty and enjoy eating some of it. And then the cycle is continued. Round one is played the same in both my and John's dream. Round two onwards are played differently. Each, however, is a dream and no matter what John and I will both die old and frustrated if we really think our dream will come to fruition. Mine I think has a better chance of incremental change. Human thinking evolves very slowly and almost unnoticeably.

Round one, the essence of life. The market opportunity is opened up, the lollies are thrown into the crowd of children. The children spring into life running madly around the field picking up as many lollies as they can reach. It is a competition, the mad scramble continues until each last lolly is retrieved by one child or another.

Some kids play unfair and bodily tackle other kids to push them out of the way in the mad rush for lollies. But once a lolly is retrieved it is then the possession of that carrier of the lolly and it is rare to see children steal from each other. Those who get the most lollies are the biggest, strongest, fastest with the best eyesight.

The fat lazy blind and stupid dip out sometimes entirely. Sometimes they are so far out of the game they just sit down and watch the others sulking. This is a snap shot of societal processes at their very essence. It is a reaffirmation of Darwinism and survival. John, this is the world as it is at its essence.

Progressively the children sit down and count up their lollies. They all then know how many each kid has got and who got the most, and he or she is sort of the winner or hero. The kids with no lollies start snivelling and whining, and those with lollies look at their unsuccessful neighbours who are whinging, and given them a couple of lollies as while the whiners have one in their gob they are no longer whining and spoiling the enjoyment of those who have more, so charity occurs to the point where the losers don't spoil the enjoyment of the winners.

Those who just gave up generally go begging and the successful kids normally say, "Piss off at least try and you might get one." So those that give up are treated worse than those who tried and failed. This is human charity at its very essence.

Now the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the policemen. These include the dreamer John who wants a fair and egalitarian group playing on the ground. He observes this activity and determines that those without lollies deserve a bigger share, and thinks about how to bring this into effect.

The second round begins as the first. Did the kids play normally? Some however organise into groups to improve their chances, and these subsets sort of function on modified socialist principles. As the kids are sitting down with their booty, the first of the four men come onto the field.

The first man is a policeman who sorts out those who didn't play fairly and he takes them off the field telling them that body tackles and hitting kids with bits of four by two is unacceptable. But of course he doesn't take the kids' lollies.

The second guy comes out and gives the kids a good talking to saying how unjust it is that some kids didn't get any lollies and that this is unfair. The kids listen politely but continue munching while the goodie two shoe talks about broad principles of equity and fairness. (This is Minto). 

The last two guys start at each end of the field so that none of the kids can out run them - these guys are Minto's brown shirts or the government. They take any excess over a fair quota pre-determined by John from some of the kids and redistribute lollies to those who have less than this number. This means all kids have the same number of lollies.

They keep a few for their mate John and the other ideologists, because smart people like John have to be well cared for. These three guys need some lollies to buy the support of the fourth horseman for the next round of the game. And after all these four guys are the pigs from Animal Farm and need to be well fed.

As the third round begins the conduct of round one changes. The kids are incredulous that they have had their lollies taken away. Some work out that the best way to play the next round is to join the brown shirts and offer to help. Others decide not to bother trying at all, as they get a share anyway, and the useless keep dribbling uselessly.

The majority expend just enough energy to get just enough lollies and leave the rest on the ground to rot. The few doers left figure there must be a way around this, so they for the third round still go for it and pick up all the lollies, collecting even more than before. But this time they hide all the lollies they collect above the number of lollies that Minto decided they could keep in the last round. This is the human response to socialism.

At the conclusion of this round the brown shirts come onto the field and discover that very few lollies have been collected, and many have none at all. Those who have lollies have the modest amount predetermined by John in the last round. They smell a rat and inquisitions are held.

John comes out to give the kids a good talking to. This time he talks of the virtues of effort, Stalin's 5 year plans etc, and threatens the children with the policeman if they don't try harder next time. The policeman comes in this time to turn over all the kids with lollies, looking for concealed lollies and finding some but not all of course. Minto says henceforth the concealment of lollies will be treated as a crime just like hitting each other and stealing.

By way of example a few of the kids with just enough lollies are removed from the field and punished having all their lollies taken from them and a demonstration of what happens if you steal from the people is given. The remainder of the kids have lollies taken from them, reducing the income of all to a much lower level, so that the useless and those who didn't try get a share.

This is where we are today, albeit  concealment has now extended to wiping the lollies off the field to a safe haven out of the reach of Minto, his policemen and brown shirts, because some jurisdictions run different lolly scramble games more in tune with human nature.

Now round four begins. This is the future. The majority of the kids don't try at all. They just sit there glumly doing nothing, taking anti depressants and waiting for Minto's next rousing speech. They await the next hand out of lollies not understanding that it will be significantly reduced. Some still go out and collect a few lollies eating as many as they can as they go, concealing a few and endeavouring not to be seen picking the lollies up at all. There is very little movement on the field. The majority of the lollies are left lying on the field to go to waste.

The brown shirts and their supporters now have to do a bit of work to feed themselves as well and they are not enjoying it. They are not too keen on giving any of their lollies to the fat the lazy and the useless who do not try. Human charity has been killed dead. They pick up enough of the lollies to satisfy themselves. Minto enters the field and says this is not acceptable.

Those who do not try are criminals as well and this time he calls in his brown shorts and policemen to shoot a cross section of the useless to ensure those left try harder. The children, including the brown shirts who disperse after this action, rise up and brutally kill Minto. And the process starts all over again, like Groundhog Day.

That is the history of socialism and political extremism the world over guys.

Next blog: My view of the lolly scramble game.