Posted on 11/23/2004 1:04:10 PM PST by NZerFromHK
I am fortunate that my thirty year old single mother daughter voted Republican and can't stand libs! She says they whine too much!:-) I am content with my parenting.
Yes, we are a Centre-Right nation, with Traditional Values.
I've got no personal equivalent, but this link will give you a quick overview of New Zealand...
Regards.
You are quite right, to an American, this is bizarro. Abuse of police power happens here so often, with public officials far exceeding their powers on paper, that we're also a might more paranoid when government puts it in writing with the expectation that they don't really mean it (except for those "other people"). Further, we have hordes of activist attorneys looking for just such an opportunity. Such a law would either be struck down by some activist judge before you could sneeze or would be enforced on everybody. Laws assuming selective enforcement just don't happen on the criminal side. Civil cases are another matter.
Another itethat I recommend is the Copetitive Enterprise Intitute (CEI):
http://www.cei.org
It has hundreds of market-based environmentalist proposals that both the Left and Right in the United States aren't aware of or altogether ignored. I found many common-sense proposals refreshing and challenging.
,,, many thanx. I'll give it the once-over.
We have a more convention-based legal mentality - police or other government power are often limited by how it is traditionally exercised as well as what the laws related to that agency have granted (note the convention is unwritten but observed - any serious break with this convention is discouraged in courts). But the United States often doesn't have this convention - it is in fact run a lot more like civil law countries with regards to how much power government actually has with respect to what the law has granted.
It is no wonder this slippery slope thinking is much more prevalent in America than the Commonwealth or Britain.
One thing that I part with many conservatives is transport. I personally think public transport hould be highly developed and people make use of it as much as possible. In theory, bus or railway has greater fuel efficiency - I don't support the thesis that fuel is going to be extinct next year but I don't see how 1 litre of petrol spent on moving a car with one driver to downtown could be justified when you can use it to generate electricity and upply it to an EMU with 1,200 people to the same destination.
An inefficient use of resources just for the sake of "greater mobility" runs rather hollow when you see good PT in East Asia with same degreeof mobility.
I am an environmental conservative. That means, to me, that we ought to be looking at real science rather than junk science in weighing our actions to take on the environment. And, like I've said countless times before, I think "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg is mandatory reading for conservatives.
There ARE market-friendly solutions to our environmental problems, if the left just gets out of the practice of making environmental dishonesty a religion, and the government allows the private sector to do what it does best: rewards innovation and creativity. Whenever the government is involved, it becomes too expensive, too cumbersome, and too slow. JMO.
,,, and there's the weigh point - volume of population to make it cost efficient, stops planned en route relevant to business and attractions and convenient scheduling.
Liberalism is the hobby of the damned.
,,, seconded!
That's the key. Hong Kong has 7.5 million people on land size less than 2/3 of Auckland (40% of you forget about the mountainou and uninhabited islands). We can never have rey entirely on PT but we should at least make people who go to work and who don't require driving around for their jobs to use PT to/from work as much as possible.
That's the key. Hong Kong has 7.5 million people on land size less than 2/3 of Auckland (40% if you forget about the mountainous and uninhabited islands). We can never rely entirely on PT but we should at least make people who go to work and who don't require driving around for their jobs to use PT to/from work as much as possible.
,,, check out the article on liberalism in the November 6th 2004 edition of The Economist. [under the heading "Political vocabulary"].
,,, Singapore makes private motoring virtually prohibitive.
We don't have to learn everything from Lee Kwan Yew. ;-) You know, he's an eccentric.
eccentric.
So am I. (Are we going to be kicked out of the club?) I believe that protecting and preserving is a good thing. But I don't worship nature (after all she is out to kill me) and I don't think of humans are outside of the natural order which is what I find many on the Opposite side of the political spectrum believe.
Preserve, use, protect, tend, enjoy.
You know, we follow the Poms' definitions and the Yanks have different definitions to "liberalism". A search through Wikipedia reveals what we (New Zealand) call liberalism they call it classical liberalism or moderate libertarianism.
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