(re-posted from 2022 because it’s an election year)

Growing up in the 1970’s I’d read, watched and listened to sufficient propaganda that I was convinced that the Left were tolerant in many different ways. Perhaps there was an element of the old hippies involved, but I appreciated the whole scene even as I rolled my eyes at their world (punk music was the thing in my time and they had little good to say about Hippies):

“Whatever man. Let your freak flag fly. We dig it”

Of course there was communism, but as the USSR slowly opened up in the 1970’s we became aware of many very conservative things about the place that seemed incongruous with its supposed revolutionary spirit. I was too young to be aware of how narrow that definition of revolution was, with its overwhelming emphasis on the dialectal materialism of Marx and Engels. I was also yet to read about the deliberate Red Terror of Lenin, Mao and company: for whatever reason we did not connect the Cambodian horrors we read about in high school with other communist regimes, probably because we were ignorant of their own Year Zeros and that elimination of existing societies was essential to the establishment of communist rule.

But my understanding of Western Lefty tolerance came to a crashing halt on July 25, 1981 at Rugby Park in Hamilton when some 300 anti-Springbok Tour protestors invaded the pitch and forced the game to be cancelled. I was not averse to the protests in the streets that had been going on for some time by then; if they got the tour stopped that was just politics, even if not via the ballot box (The Left having failed to eject Muldoon three years earlier).

But this was something much more than a protest demonstrating opposition, with the idea of showing sufficient numbers that the government could be turned on the issue. No, this was the outright force of one group telling another that they did not have the right to watch this game of rugby and would be stopped from doing so – by any means necessary. As I wrote on KB in a 2007 post on Chris Trotter calling out John Minto’s justification for violence in certain circumstances:

As Trotter says of Pat McQuarrie – “what was he willing to do to stop the tour”. Well he was willing to threaten to crash a plane into a crowd of spectators for a bloody rugby game, and that threat was the key to achieving one of the objectives of the protest movement. In what way is the motivation different from the current crowd that Minto is running with? Presumably those people also have a cause that is going to make them, perhaps has made them, “do some very dangerous things”.

In twenty years time will a future Chris Trotter-type emerge from the current crop to talk of such things, absolve themselves as “good people” and “decent, caring New Zealanders” who were simply driven to desperate lengths by an oppressive state and the failure of their fellow citizens to heed the call?

It’s just the same old, ‘high-moral-ground’ bullshit that leftists cling to. Their civil rights were infringed by faceless men with batons and charges over ridiculous offences and it’s an outrage? Yes, it was. But now that it’s the police under a Labour government? Less outrage it would seem.

As for the idea that Trotter and co. trampled all over the civil rights of their fellow New Zealanders when they invaded that ground and relied upon a threat of massive violence to get a rugby game cancelled?

Naaaah – the idea that that might be ethically unacceptable and outside the bounds of democracy never occurred to any protest group – either then or later.

It was the sniffy, sneering dismissal of the civil rights of the rugby watchers and tour supporters that got to me far more than the violence. Beat National at the polling booth, become the government and ban the tour was something I had no problem with; Kirk had done it in 1973. A few years later I was impressed by the cleverness of the lawyers who used the Rugby Board’s own principles about promoting Rugby to get the 1985 All Black tour of South Africa cancelled.

But that day in Hamilton was not any of that and it was that day that began my slow turn away from the Left, or at least away from whatever I had thought it was. The 1981 Rugby Park protestor tactics were bullying, domineering bullshit, as was the victim-pleading of those who got beaten up by rugby fans, which of course only added to the stereotyping so essential to the whole project and the Left’s conception of itself:

On the contrary, most were and still are proud of that particular effort, and Trotters latter-day thoughts hardly seem like a distancing. The gap-toothed rednecks had been lectured and fully informed about the bad ethical decision they were making in attending the game and they still went ahead anyway: outrageous! As a result, their civil rights would just have to take a backseat to a higher morality – and if those people chose to fight back about such a loss of civil rights such violence could simply be called a pogrom to denigrate and deligitimise them still further – as opposed to the other sides pure and virtuous violence and threats of violence.

River of Filth anyone?

And so we come to this piece of news boasted about by David Farrar at KB, Nick Smith shows how to unite, where Nick has appointed as deputy Mayor of Nelson a young man who ran against him – for the sake of unity and collegiality:

This move surprised some as Rohan stood against Nick for Mayor (was a credible 3rd), is only 22 and his politics are on the left. But Nick has shown great sense with the appointment, as people want their Councils to work together, despite having some different philosophies.

Very hippyish of Nick – and DPF. But the caveat is in DPF’s next line:

I think it stands in contrast to Wellington where new Mayor Tory Whanau could have united the Council by appointing an experienced Councillor such as Nicola Young as Deputy Mayor, but instead she chose a relatively new Green Party Councillor in Laurie Foon.

And how it will stand in contrast everywhere that the Left gain full control. When is the Right in NZ going to realise the lesson that The Stupid Party in the US is only now coming to grasp: the Left pretends to bipartisanship (and Free Speech and Speaking Truth To Power and Afflicting the Comfortable, etc, etc) – when they’re not in power.

When they are in power they, at best, throw a few tokens to the Right – as long as they’re sure those ideas will be watered down to nothing. How do we know this? Have you not seen what a majority Labour government is doing across-the-board in the last two years? But it’s nothing new; just watch how the Left react anywhere when their ideas are truly under threat of being wiped out or when it merely looks like they’re losing on an issue(see above). Bi-partisanship? No! All out war.

The favour of Nick Smith is not going to be returned. Anywhere.

I can’t help thinking this attitude about “unity”, bi-partisanship and the Great Centrist Pursuit is a hangover from National Party people who came of age in the 1970’s/80’s world.

That was a world (1945-1990) where the National Party had been in power most of the time. By 1990 it was 29 of those 45 years – and for more than one term too, meaning real control (even the Labour count should be reduced since it includes 4 years of post-war Labour love and 6 years of Rogernomics, the very opposite of the Left’s ideas). In that world it probably made sense to cling to whatever centre Labour had created, which was massive control and influence of the State in every sphere of life.

But since then National and Labour are pretty much even – 18 years Nat vs 14 years Labour – and since 1999 Labour have 14 vs 9 out of 23 years.

And here’s the thing with that Labour success: you never hear them or their activists, whether in public or on blogs like TDB and The Standard ever talking the same way as Nick Smith, DPF and National – going on and on and on about “The Centre is Where Victory Lies” and “unity”.

No. Labour may have won in 1999 with Clarke and Cullen’s pragmatism but they certainly pulled shit that they had not talked about on the hustings and which was cemented in so that National could not change it when they got back into government. Was the scrapping of the RNZAF combat wing or WFF or the KiwiRail purchase or any of what they did, ever sold as appealing to the centre? No! In fact their attitude was best summed up by Michael Cullen’s statement in Parliament, “We won. You lost. It goes.” They won two more elections after that bruising statement. Nothing squishy there.

In 2017, Ardern’s government got there on the basis of her freshness, telegenic abilities and the pettiness of Winston Peters. Have you heard anything about what has been done in the last five years as them appealing to the Centre?

No. And yet there we are with 14 out of 23 years in power and plenty of stuff done that the Left wanted – even if they want still more done and complain that what has been done (spending vastly more money than stingy old National) has not done any good for poverty, education, health care and such.

So why does National keep talking up – in public – things like unity, bipartisanship and appealing to the Great Centrist voter (swing voter)? There’s no longer any evidence that it’s any more successful than Labour’s True Believing approach.

I think it’s because they’re unable to make arguments for Right-wing ideas and policies outside of cuts to taxes and spending (and they’re not much chop even then). Much easier to just focus on the “process” of sniffing the winds and getting votes.

Labour don’t think like that and have never thought like that, and while you could point at them as “extremist failures” circa 1990, their electoral success in the last thirty years should be a reason to re-think the National Party approach. Nick Smith’s actions show we’re still a long way from that.

When it matters, Republicans look around and say, “Oh no we can’t do that, we’d lose a man. The Democrats would take seats.” They are virtually a majority for the sake of being a majority. They just want to polish it up, put it on the shelf, and look at it. 
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To put it simply, Republicans approach politics like America fights wars: They don’t want to lose a single man. Democrats, on the other hand? They look at politics like the Russians looked at Stalingrad: The congressman in front votes now; when they fall the next man gets elected and he will vote too.
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So you see a repeating pattern to American politics: There isn’t a true back-and-forth. Instead, Democrats change the country a lot while they’re in power. Then Republicans hold power and push the pause button. There’s no rollback that a new executive order can’t undo.

Maybe they cut taxes; bring back the Mexico City policy; junk a regulation that Democrats created but didn’t manage to implement; but that’s about it. When was the last time Republicans passed a huge law — one that changed America forever the way Democrats do every time they hold serve in American politics? You don’t see it.

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