Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 16:52:46 NZST
Subject: Re: PKF: Walking On


Bill wrote - lots.

I'm afraid you seem to have mistaken me for someone else Bill. For the
record (and so no body else mistakes me as such). I am not and never
have been a sociologist or any other sort of "ologist" for that
matter. This is just a viscous rumor with no basis in fact.

Anyway

New Zealand (unfortunately in my opinion) is not a nest of left wing
relativists in fact New Zealand is a reasonably conservative country
in which every now and then people do stand up and make a difference
(for example the anti-South African rugby tour protests of 1981,
homosexual law reform, our anti-nuclear policy, and electoral reform
(the change to MMP)). Despite this though we tend to elect
conservative governments and it has been some of these conservative
governments that have enacted some of these liberal social reforms. So
we have here a strange mix of right wing  economic theory and left
wing social policy which inevitably come into conflict with each
other. Thus while we have seen massive cuts to social welfare, health
and education budgets in real terms the government has never been able
to get public support behind these changes and is constantly making
announcements, backing down and then implimenting them anyway. And so
people here are fed up with politicians something like 2/3 of the
adult population in fact but that doesn't mean we are all left wing.

As to the transparency of political rhetoric there is an old saying
that "you can fool most of the people most of the time ..." which I
think pretty much sums up the situation here. Now I've never seen a
politician "break the mold" and admit to the truths of the other side
but that would be a sight to see. In most cases it appears to me that
governments are voted out rather than opposition parties being voted
in, this I believe was the case in Britain after a decade and a half
of conservative rule. Labour could probably have stood Barney the
Dinosaur for prime minister and still got in with a healthy majority.

Unlike America where you have the house and the office of the
president over here we just have a single house of parliament. Thus a
bill like Hilary Clinton's would more than likely have been enacted
with no problem at all over here despite what the public does or does
not think of it.

And finally, for those that are nodding off, just how is it that we
should "...teach people to elect good men (sic)." Can it be done? Who
decides the good, the bad and the ugly? Just what "should" our
teachers teach aboout morality, or for that matter any other subject?
And how "should" these subjects be taught?

Teaching people to elect good men is a nice idea I'm sure both
marxists and ultra right wing nationalists would agree that thats what
should be done. Now just how do we ge them to find a common ground?



Mike Eathorne-Gould
(michael-AT-sol.otago.ac.nz)
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