And what, pray tell me, did a youth worker in Henderson, Auckland make of things? Appearing on Seven Sharp the very evening of the horrific tragedy, he honestly couldn't articulate - nor to his credit did he facilely (and ultimately futilely) attempt - any explanation. True, he neither sought to highlight nor downplay the role of such contributing factors to the whole sorry scenario as inequality and poor socio-economic status, even woefully deficient parental guidance and nurture - including 'whanau' - but neither did he even remotely suggest that such 'acceptably' explicated things. How could they?.
No folks, 'in the final analysis' there really ain't any - such - 'reason', or rather defense. He, and all arguably 'goody-two-shoes' fellow-travellers - however genuine and often very well-intentioned or otherwise - simply have no answers. For such a miserable God-forsaken act of savage thuggery. Just like that involving the tragically named Blessie only a couple weeks earlier. No, there simply is none.
No, sin, as Ellen White put it so very eloquently, has no essential cause or justifying motive. It is a rogue principle in God's Universe, giving rise to untold misery and destruction; and itself arising in the distant corridors of time itself, in the secret counsels of the Arch-Fiend himself, the Chief Rebel - Lucifer. Who, somehow, some day, in the veritable sawdust of history, caught a rather bewitchingly endearing glimpse of his own ego; and the Universe was never, ever, the same again. It was 'all over' from then on in, yes, downhill all the way.
And as we all know - except those of us wilfully blinded by 'the god of this age' - our human race eventually became the collateral damage, as Satan or the devil - as he soon became - ever upped the ante in his unrelenting, aeon-spanning campaign against Central Headquarters, against, yea, the Very Creator Himself. A now 'purely' malevolent being seeking to take out as many as he could along the way; wishing nothing less than to inflict as much psycho-emotional damage upon a Creator whose motives were only love-actuated and whose actions were ever compassionate, gracious and merciful - yet also perfectly just, fair and reasonable - towards any and all the beings He had created.
This being of evil incarnate, before whom all others upon the pages of history fade into utter insignificance - except perhaps those he most successfully utilized such as Adolf Hitler - has played out a type of universal Russian roulette, his own nefarious endgame upon Planet Earth, for well-nigh 6,000-some years - whatever the evolution-brainwashed multitudes may like to think. But one day - very, very soon folks: hold onto your seats - it's coming to a neighbourhood right near you, and a whole lot sooner than you'd care to think - or have probably banked upon. And then - but not till then - all will finally be made right.
Lucifer, the devil, Satan, ye old serpent, that Great Dragon, will simply be no more. He will vanish - 'vamoose' - like the proverbial puff of smoke, and time, as we presently know it, will be no more. All will be engulfed and embraced in Eternity, a new dimension of time of which we presently have no conception. And then one rhythm of harmony, one heartbeat of Love, will pulse through the length and breadth of the Universe, and on into all the outlying recesses and hidden pockets thereof.
Love will be everywhere acknowledged as rightfully occupying the Throne of the Universe, and sin and suffering will be no more. And no excuse nor reason for the one-time eruption of the virus of sin will be admitted of. Yea, every voice of rationalization and self-justification will be forever silenced.
And the entire Universe will be at peace. 'And they will all live happily ever after'. Yes indeed.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Violent Crime in NZ today: Concluding Remarks: Is it really all the Left Apologists-in-Chiefs' fault?; and, if not, whence cometh such sheer evil in the first place?
Nothing is ever as easy as it looks, everything takes - a whole lot - longer than you expect, and the one unerring rule of life - and any really useful commentary thereupon - is that life is difficult. Fullstop. As the famed and noted psychoanalyst H Scott Peck, among many others - such as Murphy of Murphy's Law (and its many subsequent addendums) - has expressed matters, this is the reality folks. End of this story, and every other.
Surely a rather flippant way to conclude my previous piece upon violent, heinous thuggery and senseless, gratuitous violence in present-day New Zealand? Indeed. But perhaps that's the very point I'm seeking, however circuitously (i.e. in a roundabout manner) and even unconsciously, intuitively, to make. The sheer inanity, or, as the noted Jewish author and attendee at Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial in Israel, Hannah Arendt, put it, 'banality of evil'. For, as one other noted commentator, the much-written Ellen Gould White, herself stated: 'It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a [satisfactory] reason for its existence.'
In other words, to find some actual explanation for evil is to essentially excuse and thus justify it. To provide extenuating reasons for its initial and continued existence in this world; and moreover, in the hearts and lives of each and every one of us. For, as the noted radio host Jim Mora asked as it were rhetorically when discussing the matter of evil - as if in how to isolate it, as in a test tube, and define it - in conversation a number of years ago with the noted investigative journalist John Pilger, is there not a 'line' of good and evil running through the heart of every person?
Sadly Mr Pilger took umbrage and sought to speedily end the discussion, or at least his own part therein, perhaps suggesting Mr Mora had touched on a sore point and was driving the actual truth home a little bit closer than Pilger was comfortable with. For it seemed only all too evident that the latter much preferred - as ideologically-driven political partisans are ever wont to do, no disrespect for or devaluation of John Pilger's noted contribution to the political debate over the decades intended - thereby to split, as his bete noire George W Bush was himself at that very moment being accused by Mr Pilger of doing, the entire world into a comic book style goodies versus baddies paradigm. Which admittedly ever makes more exciting, 'sexy' and sensational copy, and moreover serves to justify ourselves in taking up the cudgels to fight the good fight for a new world order based upon our own idiosyncratic values. Yet in its basic infidelity to the true human condition and our own at times somewhat inglorious parts in the particular worlds we inhabit, it is as glibly superficial as it is essentially false.
However upon the recent story of Arun Kumar in particular not all left-wing commentators are equal. And so I take my metaphorical hat off and make a due inward curtsy to long-time 'from the Left' spokesman Chris Trotter, who upon yet another of the celebrated National Radio Panel discussions yesterday gave the best overall appraisal of the situation I have yet to hear. Making not an iota of excuse or justification for the appalling event which transpired in Auckland last week, Mr Trotter laid any and all blame home with the offender/s, though he, like many of us, felt the police were themselves found missing in inaction. Citing the former well-known New York City Mayor (and one-time Republican Presidential hopeful) Rudolph Guilliani, Trotter mentioned how, in Guilliani's approach of getting tough upon minor crime and/or signs of decay and disrepair in inner-city neighbourhoods in particular, before these eventually and inevitably mushroomed, spiralling out of control and skyrocketing into worse and even more worsening manifestations, such heinous acts were well and truly nipped in the bud. (And though Trotter didn't mention this specifically, the rapid and steep 'down surge' in especially violent crime ever since that approach was adopted has been a sheer marvel to behold. And clearly a proof if one were needed of its unmitigated, unimpeachable success.)
As Mr Trotter pointed out, petty crime must have consequences just as night follows day, but if it doesn't, what people expect to get away with will only go from bad to worse, and understandably so. As other, more regular commentators on tough love and the like have well said, bad behaviour must be treated as such and given due repercussions, or the situation will only go from bad to worse to downright awful; in no time flat. Shades of the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act - i.e. the anti-smacking legislation - anyone? Duh.
So it was indeed refreshing to see a man of deep and well-earned left-wing credentials, who many, such as myself, consider unequivocally and incontrovertibly and uncontestably Aotearoa-New Zealand's most incisive socialist thinker, saying exactly the kind of stuff 'the rest of us believe'. Not as so many politicians of the left might do, simply to gain political traction when they belatedly realize they're well and truly on a political hiding to nothing and have nothing left to lose, but, wonder of wonders, because he simply sees sense and has an understanding of human nature and how it actually works. A pity that folk like himself, and, on the other side of the ideological 'equation', the likes of the notable and equally unrivalled talkback host Leighton Smith, aren't the ones leading our political parties and democracy. For then we'd no doubt have not only a healthier political debate, but perhaps occasionally achieve some useful things in the political sphere. But no, I won't lie asleep waiting.
To be concluded - following some needed shut-eye...the conclusion that really will be the conclusion!
Surely a rather flippant way to conclude my previous piece upon violent, heinous thuggery and senseless, gratuitous violence in present-day New Zealand? Indeed. But perhaps that's the very point I'm seeking, however circuitously (i.e. in a roundabout manner) and even unconsciously, intuitively, to make. The sheer inanity, or, as the noted Jewish author and attendee at Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial in Israel, Hannah Arendt, put it, 'banality of evil'. For, as one other noted commentator, the much-written Ellen Gould White, herself stated: 'It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a [satisfactory] reason for its existence.'
In other words, to find some actual explanation for evil is to essentially excuse and thus justify it. To provide extenuating reasons for its initial and continued existence in this world; and moreover, in the hearts and lives of each and every one of us. For, as the noted radio host Jim Mora asked as it were rhetorically when discussing the matter of evil - as if in how to isolate it, as in a test tube, and define it - in conversation a number of years ago with the noted investigative journalist John Pilger, is there not a 'line' of good and evil running through the heart of every person?
Sadly Mr Pilger took umbrage and sought to speedily end the discussion, or at least his own part therein, perhaps suggesting Mr Mora had touched on a sore point and was driving the actual truth home a little bit closer than Pilger was comfortable with. For it seemed only all too evident that the latter much preferred - as ideologically-driven political partisans are ever wont to do, no disrespect for or devaluation of John Pilger's noted contribution to the political debate over the decades intended - thereby to split, as his bete noire George W Bush was himself at that very moment being accused by Mr Pilger of doing, the entire world into a comic book style goodies versus baddies paradigm. Which admittedly ever makes more exciting, 'sexy' and sensational copy, and moreover serves to justify ourselves in taking up the cudgels to fight the good fight for a new world order based upon our own idiosyncratic values. Yet in its basic infidelity to the true human condition and our own at times somewhat inglorious parts in the particular worlds we inhabit, it is as glibly superficial as it is essentially false.
However upon the recent story of Arun Kumar in particular not all left-wing commentators are equal. And so I take my metaphorical hat off and make a due inward curtsy to long-time 'from the Left' spokesman Chris Trotter, who upon yet another of the celebrated National Radio Panel discussions yesterday gave the best overall appraisal of the situation I have yet to hear. Making not an iota of excuse or justification for the appalling event which transpired in Auckland last week, Mr Trotter laid any and all blame home with the offender/s, though he, like many of us, felt the police were themselves found missing in inaction. Citing the former well-known New York City Mayor (and one-time Republican Presidential hopeful) Rudolph Guilliani, Trotter mentioned how, in Guilliani's approach of getting tough upon minor crime and/or signs of decay and disrepair in inner-city neighbourhoods in particular, before these eventually and inevitably mushroomed, spiralling out of control and skyrocketing into worse and even more worsening manifestations, such heinous acts were well and truly nipped in the bud. (And though Trotter didn't mention this specifically, the rapid and steep 'down surge' in especially violent crime ever since that approach was adopted has been a sheer marvel to behold. And clearly a proof if one were needed of its unmitigated, unimpeachable success.)
As Mr Trotter pointed out, petty crime must have consequences just as night follows day, but if it doesn't, what people expect to get away with will only go from bad to worse, and understandably so. As other, more regular commentators on tough love and the like have well said, bad behaviour must be treated as such and given due repercussions, or the situation will only go from bad to worse to downright awful; in no time flat. Shades of the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act - i.e. the anti-smacking legislation - anyone? Duh.
So it was indeed refreshing to see a man of deep and well-earned left-wing credentials, who many, such as myself, consider unequivocally and incontrovertibly and uncontestably Aotearoa-New Zealand's most incisive socialist thinker, saying exactly the kind of stuff 'the rest of us believe'. Not as so many politicians of the left might do, simply to gain political traction when they belatedly realize they're well and truly on a political hiding to nothing and have nothing left to lose, but, wonder of wonders, because he simply sees sense and has an understanding of human nature and how it actually works. A pity that folk like himself, and, on the other side of the ideological 'equation', the likes of the notable and equally unrivalled talkback host Leighton Smith, aren't the ones leading our political parties and democracy. For then we'd no doubt have not only a healthier political debate, but perhaps occasionally achieve some useful things in the political sphere. But no, I won't lie asleep waiting.
To be concluded - following some needed shut-eye...the conclusion that really will be the conclusion!
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Violent Crime in God's Own, 2014: The Modern-day Left: Missing in Inaction
In the aftermath of the brutal slayings of two overseas-born kiwis - Blessie and Mr Kumar (as they're 'known' to me, anyhow) - a couple thoughts have occurred to me...
Some would (be *fain to) - but they hardly can, they clearly can't in such circumstances (yes, admittedly, only 'alleged', supposedly, at present), yea, how could they? - defend, to the very hilt; to their **dying breath even, such savage thuggery/brutal and callous savagery and misanthropy. There is in a very real sense nothing left to say about it, is there, only the involuntary sucking in of one's breath as one contemplates - yet again - the gratuitous, almost flippant, snuffing out of another innocent life in what was once quite rightly known as God's Own (land).
Now let's clear up something at the outset. This writer is certainly not advocating - never has advocated and doubtless never will advocate - the arming of (say) dairy owners to help prevent such tragedies occurring, as both Mike Hosking and John Campbell, however fleetingly at the introduction to their shows last night, reported that some, somewhere (presumably in the vicinity or amidst the kith and kin of said victims), had themselves suggested in the initial predictable fallout from said incidents.
But what I also won't be doing is finding even a skerrick of fault with any who do in fact advocate such a drastic response to things. For who around has any other conceivable answer to the situation, I mean, really? No, really?
So what then of those who, also quite predictably even before the cursor's 'ink' has dried upon this post, automatically get their a into g into response to the above idea, and spout off to one and all about how hell would first have to freeze over before this once peaceful land succumbed to such incivility? That is, of allowing its bedevilled, threatened citizenry to have the selfsame rights and privileges as their 'enemies' (for want of a more appropriate term). It's difficult for them, I fully realize, for the 'do gooder liberals' as they're often referred to, to even countenance such a thought, of allowing this fair nation to succumb to the 'American disease' (as it's often regarded, if not stated as such).
And I readily concede that is a wholly valid concern, one that I also share, as in fact no doubt many other much more notable and respected kiwis do. Such as the likes of Gary McCormick, for example, who on today's regular National Radio Panel discussion signalled his own disquiet with the U.S. situation, and his consequent sympathy for the reality that President Obama, with all the power and authority apparently at his ready disposal, likewise can apparently do little about the matter himself. Yet also revealed his utter contempt for the present New Zealand status quo, which allows such atrocities - albeit on a far smaller scale it cannot but be admitted - to likewise occur with sickening and all-so-predictable regularity. Offering his own, no doubt merely tentative, solution of some graded system, like that now applied to driver licenses, whereby folk transgressing such legal and more importantly moral and ethical principles, accumulate 'points' which, upon reaching a certain level, send them directly to jail, without passing go or collecting a cent - let alone $200.
Some who know me well may be more than somewhat surprised, even appalled that I may now be classifiable among the 'redneck' element of society. So what caused me to come to this pass, you - or rather they - may well ask? And remember, I'm certainly not personally promoting such measures, only tolerating or rather 'entertaining', if for the briefest of moments, their possibility or rather plausibility. Essentially in response to those who would likewise automatically dismiss them out of hand. But perhaps it'd be more apt to say I simply see their eventual inevitability, as opposed to being at all inwardly supportive of such.
Perhaps the name Lois Dear means something to you. Her brutal, utterly unprovoked murder - back in 2006 I believe - changed everything for me. Indeed if it weren't for my lack of organization though certainly not motivation, I'd have long since - indeed I did once personally contact Norm Withers in Christchurch thereabouts - helped create a citizens-initiated petition in preparation for a citizens-initiated referendum on the matter.
For one 'simple' reason, and one alone. Lois Dear could well have been my own beloved Mum, brutally disposed of by some callous individual, whether stoked up on drugs or otherwise. By simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, despite likewise being someone who has spent her own life going about doing good and helping one and all as she ever has.
Yes, Mrs Dear was the means I believe the One Above used to unseal the springs of heartfelt sympathy, nay empathy, sealed up deep within me, for all those others like Mrs Dear whose lives have been wretchedly and miserably and mercilessly cut short - in Aotearoa-New Zealand, for starters. For, trite and well-worn as the saying may well be, there but for the grace of God could well have been my own dear Mum. And she too shares the name Lois - or rather Louise - the name also of my first childhood sweetheart (at the tender age of eight to nine, just after my parents split up).
*Gladly/willingly, for those unfamiliar with 'Olden' English.
**Certainly no pun remotely intended.
Some would (be *fain to) - but they hardly can, they clearly can't in such circumstances (yes, admittedly, only 'alleged', supposedly, at present), yea, how could they? - defend, to the very hilt; to their **dying breath even, such savage thuggery/brutal and callous savagery and misanthropy. There is in a very real sense nothing left to say about it, is there, only the involuntary sucking in of one's breath as one contemplates - yet again - the gratuitous, almost flippant, snuffing out of another innocent life in what was once quite rightly known as God's Own (land).
Now let's clear up something at the outset. This writer is certainly not advocating - never has advocated and doubtless never will advocate - the arming of (say) dairy owners to help prevent such tragedies occurring, as both Mike Hosking and John Campbell, however fleetingly at the introduction to their shows last night, reported that some, somewhere (presumably in the vicinity or amidst the kith and kin of said victims), had themselves suggested in the initial predictable fallout from said incidents.
But what I also won't be doing is finding even a skerrick of fault with any who do in fact advocate such a drastic response to things. For who around has any other conceivable answer to the situation, I mean, really? No, really?
So what then of those who, also quite predictably even before the cursor's 'ink' has dried upon this post, automatically get their a into g into response to the above idea, and spout off to one and all about how hell would first have to freeze over before this once peaceful land succumbed to such incivility? That is, of allowing its bedevilled, threatened citizenry to have the selfsame rights and privileges as their 'enemies' (for want of a more appropriate term). It's difficult for them, I fully realize, for the 'do gooder liberals' as they're often referred to, to even countenance such a thought, of allowing this fair nation to succumb to the 'American disease' (as it's often regarded, if not stated as such).
And I readily concede that is a wholly valid concern, one that I also share, as in fact no doubt many other much more notable and respected kiwis do. Such as the likes of Gary McCormick, for example, who on today's regular National Radio Panel discussion signalled his own disquiet with the U.S. situation, and his consequent sympathy for the reality that President Obama, with all the power and authority apparently at his ready disposal, likewise can apparently do little about the matter himself. Yet also revealed his utter contempt for the present New Zealand status quo, which allows such atrocities - albeit on a far smaller scale it cannot but be admitted - to likewise occur with sickening and all-so-predictable regularity. Offering his own, no doubt merely tentative, solution of some graded system, like that now applied to driver licenses, whereby folk transgressing such legal and more importantly moral and ethical principles, accumulate 'points' which, upon reaching a certain level, send them directly to jail, without passing go or collecting a cent - let alone $200.
Some who know me well may be more than somewhat surprised, even appalled that I may now be classifiable among the 'redneck' element of society. So what caused me to come to this pass, you - or rather they - may well ask? And remember, I'm certainly not personally promoting such measures, only tolerating or rather 'entertaining', if for the briefest of moments, their possibility or rather plausibility. Essentially in response to those who would likewise automatically dismiss them out of hand. But perhaps it'd be more apt to say I simply see their eventual inevitability, as opposed to being at all inwardly supportive of such.
Perhaps the name Lois Dear means something to you. Her brutal, utterly unprovoked murder - back in 2006 I believe - changed everything for me. Indeed if it weren't for my lack of organization though certainly not motivation, I'd have long since - indeed I did once personally contact Norm Withers in Christchurch thereabouts - helped create a citizens-initiated petition in preparation for a citizens-initiated referendum on the matter.
For one 'simple' reason, and one alone. Lois Dear could well have been my own beloved Mum, brutally disposed of by some callous individual, whether stoked up on drugs or otherwise. By simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, despite likewise being someone who has spent her own life going about doing good and helping one and all as she ever has.
Yes, Mrs Dear was the means I believe the One Above used to unseal the springs of heartfelt sympathy, nay empathy, sealed up deep within me, for all those others like Mrs Dear whose lives have been wretchedly and miserably and mercilessly cut short - in Aotearoa-New Zealand, for starters. For, trite and well-worn as the saying may well be, there but for the grace of God could well have been my own dear Mum. And she too shares the name Lois - or rather Louise - the name also of my first childhood sweetheart (at the tender age of eight to nine, just after my parents split up).
*Gladly/willingly, for those unfamiliar with 'Olden' English.
**Certainly no pun remotely intended.
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