Andrew D Atkin:
Proposition for interest in developing a new political party:
-----------------------
My objective is to explore for interest, to the end of developing a new political party.
At this stage, I am only testing to see what the latent interest is.
If you do have any interest, then please contact me directly by writing an email to:
atn_atkin@hotmail.com
Just explain the nature of your interest and your potential contribution.
I'm as much interested in the intelligent layman as the political veteran or academic expert. 'Normal' people are great. They can have a better understanding of the broad public mind I find, which is vital for effective communications. There are few places for "misunderstood geniuses" in politics.
Leadership: I am interested in being a spokesman for the housing issue, and also the child abuse issue. The latter in particular is very sensitive, and I believe I am probably the right person for that role.
The ideal party leader may be someone else.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reason I'm interested in the development of a new party is because the current options have become intellectually redundant.
I believe that Labour, National, the Greens, Maori, and even the ACT party (my closest ideological relative) have become almost entirely poll-driven, primarily concerned with protecting what they have.
These organisations, based originally on principle, have progressively (and inevitably I would say) evolved into little much more than job opportunities for career politicians.
I believe this is the way all political parties go in the end, as people of purpose are progressively replaced with people looking for a job. This wouldn't be so much of a problem today if we didn't have such serious concerns within our society. But we do. We need a political party that is more than a bureaucracy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me state 3 priority issues that I would like a new political party to be based on.
1. Housing affordability.
Housing affordability is so out of control that young people are struggling to create families. And that is about as dysfunctional as it gets.
We need to stop the political circus, and get on with building good homes at fair cost.
And we need to do it immediately - and we can in fact do it pretty much immediately.
It's all about political resistance - not practical resistance.
I will talk about this more later.
2. Education freedom.
It is crazy, in principle, that we hand our children over to the state to be educated. Whereby parents, even wealthy parents, have such superficial choice on how and what their children learn.
We never voted for this totalitarian-type situation. And we should not be tolerating it today.
For so many reasons we need to repossess education from the current regime, of chronic state control.
3. Child abuse.
Child abuse is not a '1% of society' problem. It's more like a 20% of society problem, or more.
Child abuse correlates directly with anti-social behaviour, poor health, and failed life-outcomes. Get rid of child abuse, and you can pretty much get rid of prisons and rehabilitation clinics as well.
Child abuse is the number-one social problem of our time, and it's time for the political world to give it the real attention that it needs. Even if it's a little uncomfortable, to do so.
Now, I will elaborate:
Housing affordability:
The idea that houses should be expensive to build is an insult to the public's intelligence. For decades we have been building houses for a fraction of what we are buying them for now. And the truth is they should on average be cheaper today than they have been in the past, due to technological advances.
The difference is purely artificial cost inflations, from mostly local government meddling, Metropolitan Urban Limits, and unfair taxation. Informed people understand this. So what is the solution?
Tweaking the RMA won't do it. Housing accords won't do it. Banning overseas buyers won't do it. And protesting central and local government will only induce them to pretend to do something about the problem, which is what National is doing today.
What will do it is the declaration of free-to-build zones just outside of Auckland's metropolitan urban limits, and other appropriate areas around New Zealand.
This means creating protected zones (like special economic areas) where houses can be built on rural cost land, with fair and reduced taxation, and a completely stripped back regulatory regime.
Give people the freedom to build at natural costs - not artificially inflated costs.
In other words, treat the housing crises like a national emergency. No more pussy-footing. We've already devastated an entire generation. We cannot let the current situation go on.
We need to use the big guns to solve this problem, and that again will be the enforcement of free-to-build zones. Anything less and we will be in the same situation we are in now, in 20 years time. That's not good enough, and utterly unfair on young people trying to buy a home and create a family. And toxic to the long-term prosperity of our nation.
Relevant link to extend: Here
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education freedom:
Education as we know it was invented in Prussia, about 200 years ago. It was intended to create military personnel who dogmatically take orders rather than think for themselves (otherwise leading to chaos on the battlefield). Institutional schooling as we know it is indeed authoritarian and collectivist, and in the most real meaning of the words.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you look at schooling from a 'naturalistic' position, you can see that it really is a bit of a freak show. We obviously never evolved, as a species, to have our childhood learning process institutionalised into a military format.
Schools as we know them are over-crowding hot-houses that separate kids from their families, put them into age and even sex segregation, and then force them to follow rigid learning timelines, and rigid content, that may be entirely inappropriate for them personally. And the quality of the learning in schools is too-often as questionable as the meaning and validity of the tests that we use to measure it.
We know from alternative forms of education that none of this is really necessary, and usually not even desirable.
Most often kids can and do learn what they need to learn easily, if we simply give them the freedom to learn in the way that they find best for themselves, personally. Not one size fits all. And they can learn faster than kids do in conventional schooling.
Indeed, it does seem a bit strange that we should need to so heavily institutionalise something as human as the learning process, does it not?
I could go on.
But the real tragedy is that we let the government dictate how your children must learn, with personal choice being only superficial. As though some detached bureaucrat should somehow have more rights over your child's development than yourself.
Schooling as we know it is and long has been actually somewhat extreme social engineering, and we do not need to tolerate it. We can and should bring true choice back into education.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can integrate education funding with the family support system so the funding follows the child, and so parents can be free to allow their children to learn what they need to learn, and in their own way and time.
And note the homeschooling option should be as equally funded, per child, as the institutional options. This might well implode the schooling industry as we know it, if most of the demand transfers into homeschooling clubs. But if it so happens that that is what most people want, then we should have no role standing in the way of it.
If Wellington bureaucrats don't like true parental choice and think they know best, then that's fine. Let them sell their supposedly better systems in the market place. And let parents reject their product if they don't like it nor agree with it.
This is the way it should be.
Imagine an education system where children are treated like valued customers. That's what you get with true choice. And all we have to do is vote for it, if at least one well-promoted political party can stand up for it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child abuse:
It is estimated that about 1 in 5 young girls are seriously sexually abused in their childhoods, in the Western world today. This is a profound trauma that changes people permanently, like being in front-line battle.
And there are other childhood trauma's of course. Such as serious neglect, emotional abuse, violence, and the damage that occurs in the earliest years and months.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child abuse is most prevalent in lower-socioeconomic groups, but the middle-classes are hardly without their problems as well. And it's important to note that a lot of the damage done to children is not just a result of a lack of caring, but simple ignorance.
However, the impact is enormous. Child abuse robs people of their lives on an experiential level, and it correlates to all kinds of obvious (and not so obvious) problems throughout people's lives.
Child abuse is pervasive. Almost no-one has had the 'perfect' childhood, and it is the number-one social problem of our time - by far.
Most other problems in the materially-prosperous world are trivial compared to child abuse, and are indeed often little more than an effect of child abuse.
From drug addiction, to violent religious convictions, to severe depression, to premature death. The list driven by child abuse goes on.
Good video: Here
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When political parties turn a blind eye to this issue they make fools of themselves.
And I know that every political party in New Zealand today avoids confronting the problem like it should be confronted.
Child abuse is real, deadly serious, and requires serious attention. And sometimes that serious attention may mean the use of serious policies. Like stopping convicted serious child abusers (who are clearly emotionally disturbed) from having any more children, if need be.
But for the most part, what we need to do is put the conversation on the table and to do so on a mostly scientific level.
This issue cannot afford to devolve into a hateful blame game. That will get us nowhere. Before anything child abuse is a cyclic human problem - not a "bad guy" problem.
We need to drive forward a public education programme on the facts, beginning in secondary schools, and as a society we need to declare a 'war on child abuse'. Because right now we have an entire society missing out on life and in ways that do not have to be.
I declare: I will have no part in any political party that refuses to confront this issue, and in the broad and realistic manner that it should be addressed.
-And please don't believe there are no votes in this. Practically everyone knows that this child abuse elephant-in-the-room-problem is there, and most people do understand that it needs to be dealt with and the status quo is not working.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are other important issues of course, but a new 3rd party cannot afford to promote too many policies at once. We must and should heavily prioritise the focus.
Other important issues include:
1. Equal rights before the law:
To make my point clear, I will say that I do not believe that a non-Maori in need should get less assistance from the government than a Maori in need, and if only because they are not Maori.
Special treatment for Maori ahead of others, based on their race, is intrinsically racist.
The real problem I believe, is that the bigger the racial grievance industry gets, the more politically powerful it becomes, and in turn the harder it becomes to cut it down to size. Which I believe is the situation New Zealand is dealing with today.
We really do need to get on top of this issue. Tolerating race-based privilege is destructive to any authentic democracy, and opens the path to malignant special interests and unfortunate racial tensions that should not otherwise have had to exist.
2. Better policies for economic development:
We need to make sure New Zealand makes sense for enterprise, as this is irrefutably essential for real economic development.
We need to respect that every new parasitic regulation and tax we introduce, just gives business another good reason to set up shop in some other country - ultimately, forcing us to pay the difference via lower wages, as we miss out on the capital investments.
What we want to achieve to this end is of course free-market capitalism - not crony capitalism.
And we certainly don't want socialism, which (loosely speaking) is really just crony capitalism taken to its zenith.
Simple video: Here
3. Keeping New Zealand a safe haven from the global terrorist threat:
About 300 million people, world over, believe in honor killings and sharia law, etc. Does it really make sense to invite those people to come and live in New Zealand?
It is our country. We are allowed to be choosy.
There are plenty of needy refugees out there that we can help out, and who won't cause us any serious grief. Maybe we should just stick with those people?
We don't need to make life difficult for ourselves. With just a little common sense, we can be sure that New Zealand does not ever turn into another France.
Excellent video link: Here
4. Achieving a stable monetary system:
It is ridiculous, in principle, that financial crises should even exist. We need to explore new (or old) methods of making the economy about the real economy, not the credit economy.
We want real economic development - not financial bubbles.
We could look at bringing back the gold standard, if it's a solution.
5. Rational environmentalism:
Making sure we invest effectively in environmental defense and advancement.
This means not letting special interests turn non-environmental issues into political issues, for political profit (it does happen). And instead just making sure that environmental investment is well-researched and prioritised, to ensure that we get the biggest green bang for our buck.
We also need to resist nonsense assertions on climate change, such as "the science is settled". Clearly we cannot yet even model the relationship between climate change and anthropocentric carbon emissions.
Video: Here
6. Achieving a better health system:
We want free-market dynamics introduced to drive superior efficiencies and innovation. Because you can't beat vibrant free-markets to that end.
And we should probably invest and incentivise more into prevention, and healthy living.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some people believe that health and education are too important to be let out to the private sector. I don't know what they mean. I would sooner say these areas are too important not to be let out to the private sector.
We want the best service - not the ideological service.
7. National fertility:
Throughout the industrialised world we see fertility rates falling, sometimes well below replacement levels (~1.1 children per women, in Hong Kong). Also, people are putting off having families into their late thirties and early forties, as opposed to their twenties, which is notably past the biologically optimum age. This can't be intrinsically normal.
The character of national fertility is another very important issue that needs to be put onto the table, in time. If we are making it unusually difficult for people to breed, and to breed well, then this certainly needs to be addressed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Concluding:
Of course I could go on a lot more, but I won't.
This is a good outline of where I'm at with politics, and where I would want the orientation of a new political party to go.
You could call it a classic-liberal party that I want to create, though I find these labels essentially empty in today's world. All I really care about is what's fair, what makes sense, and what works for achieving the ends that we all want to achieve.
So again if you have any interest then feel free to express it to me via an email, and I will add you to my collection of possible participants.
Confidentiality will of course be respected.
If the interest I get is strong enough over time, I can then look more seriously at developing a political party from there.
Because I certainly can't do it on my own. I would need a lot of help. And other than this statement I hardly know where to begin.
Thanks very much for your attention.
My Facebook page: Here
No comments:
Post a Comment