Ramifications

 

 

Ramifications

When I first applied for my firearms licence, it related only to the firearm I owned, identified by its number, and I needed a reason to own one. This was law for all firearms except shotguns… I have no idea why shotguns were exempt but it may relate to the protection of farmers and their responsibility to controlling rabbits on their land. If I wanted to borrow a firearm from another person, or loan my firearm to someone else, a permit was required from the police which identified the firearm and the people involved. There was good control of firearms, but of course, the government noticed that the management costs were high for a relatively small sector of the population, so they changed the law. The outcome was, a reason to own a firearm was not registered nor was the firearm number and a licence meant a person could own any number and type of firearm. This contributed to, though was not the cause of the gunman shooting members of two mosques, which in turned led to the government changing the law to something just as unworkable.

We have more access to more news than ever before, and it comes to us more quickly than before, and it is less balanced than ever before. When I was young, to actually see the news, we had to go to the movies, whose Pathe and RKO newsreels were always a month or so behind. The first current war news we witnessed was the Vietnam war on television, and although I was less cynical back then, I didn’t think what we saw was slanted then… but it was. While there are a number of conflicts going on round the world as I write, our media focuses on two, the two that are arguably most important to our nation. Consequently, we generally see the impacts of those conflicts on our allies, meaning we see the damage happening to Ukraine and far less of the damage to Russia… unless something happens out of the ordinary. But with the Gaza conflict our news bulletins take more video and press releases from Hamas, than they do from Israel… and I ask myself why would that be?

There’s news right now is about riots in the US, where the government is cracking down on illegal migrants, which makes me ponder two questions; why are local people (so-called) siding with illegal entrants against law enforcement of the land and how do we differentiate between genuine refugees and young men who have an agenda? There’s another question: what is the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee… in this country, I’ve seen both categories returning to their home country for extended periods, even returning with wives and doing business with their home country. Is it not basic human tradition for the refugees to be women and children seeking shelter and safety while their menfolk… or at least the younger menfolk, sort out whatever is that their families are running away from, with the aim that sometime the women and children are able to return home?  Most western countries, particularly Great Britian and Europe and the United States are being swamped by illegal migrants, most of who seem to be young men and of them, that very question could be asked. In Britian’s case, being islands, they should have the ability to keep illegals out, but the government seems unwilling to… raising the question, why not? What are the ramifications of local citizenry having to step aside for illegal migrants?

Perhaps Northern Ireland’s Ballymena gives a clue. The citizens have accepted various ethnicities as legal migrants for years, so racial discrimination is not an issue, but when they see busloads of illegal migrants coming into their territory, they became concerned. The British government then, to house the migrants, offers landlords high rents, that the locals have no hope of affording, thereby making them homeless. Pleas to the government have fallen on deaf ears but the Irish have grit. The spark occurred when a girl had been interfered with by, can we say, allegedly, by a couple of illegal migrants, which went to court requiring interpreters. This resulting in a migrant’s house being burnt and when the police arrived, riots ensued… but were they riots or is it a fight for Irish identity?

During my working life, I used to plant seeds… literally and figuratively; I have always educated, and in doing so told anyone who would listen that I was planting seeds in their heads about the benefits of caring for the environment by the planting of trees and shrubs. I told them that in the fulness of time, the seeds might germinate and their interest might be stimulated into action. I have seen the results, even a small percent, is enough for me. I have been fortunate enough have stood on this Earth for a long time, and have been associated with older people I thought of as wise, and I kept my ears and eyes open. During the 1960’s, young men, youths, wanting show they were ‘radical’, wrote away to be sent a free copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. No, I wasn’t a radical and I never read one, but I did hold the book and flicked through the pages, which were a compilation of Mao’s thoughts. I wondered at the time, and do so today; how many seeds Chairman Moa planted into impressionable brains around the world.?

I can’t say if the Little Red Book influenced it, but also during the 1960’s I noticed a brewing criticism of capitalism, especially among academics, and I remember the discussions we had in the workplace about it. As country folk, we were no-nonsense people who agreed that although capitalism had its faults, the alternative was far worse, mainly because we equated capitalism with democracy. The rich people of our time were sheep farmers because wool and meat prices were high, allowing our local farmers to buy new tractors and cars thus stimulating the economy… we recognised that when the farmers were doing well, the rest of us were doing well too. The other realisation was that everyone can’t be the boss, nor in fact be farmers.

During the sixty’s and seventies three of us in the office had many and varied debates during our breaks… we were diverse politically. I remember the three of us laughing about the foolishness of a couple of academics, professors I believe, from the United States who documented that the way to bring down capitalism was swamp the economy with people on welfare. We were perplexed about the need to bring down capitalism, which probably introduced my first distrust of academics. But the idea seemed implausible that there could be large numbers on welfare because at the time, it was true, our prime minister, Keith Holyoake, knew the names of all the people in the country who were on the dole… because the rich farmers improved the economy, so unemployment was rare. Those professors promoted the rhetoric, that bringing down capitalism would ‘make the world a better place’… where have we heard that before? Anyway, we laughed because under capitalism we were doing fine. But those guys had sown the seeds, and at that time, we didn’t realise that some people dressed in good clothes, were actually in disguise. We are witnessing the ramafications.

As far back as the late 1980’s, the logic of carbon dioxide being the main influencer of climate and weather escaped me and the closer I looked, the more it became obvious that it was ruse to change societal behaviour and our way of life. People from the United Nations saying things like capitalism was a major contributor to the climate emergency, which is why we have to break it down; or climate policy is not environmental policy, it is economic policy; or countries will have to give up sovereignty to effectively combat climate change further convinced me. Behind the rhetoric was to ‘make the world a better place’, and all the while, they were sowing weed-seeds of climate fear.

Sometime in 1992, around the time of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro the United Nation’s Agenda 21 was formulated, and because I kept hearing a commentator lambasting it, I looked into it myself. Good intentions perhaps, but it was obvious it needed something to prod the populus to go along with it; the fear of a climate catastrophe seemed to be that prod. But Agenda 21 wasn’t quite going to eventuate so in 2015, Agenda 30 was proposed. Both look good on paper, but looking more deeply there’s a wealth transfer involved, and of course, it’s ‘to make the world a better place’. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the World Economic Forum was bringing together young world leaders, also to ‘make the world a better place’… you know, ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. A pact of cooperations was signed between the United Nation and the World Economic Forum and among their goals is globalisation and no borders. They are both on the same page.

To them, Great Britian’s Brexit was a backward step as far as the no borders was concerned, but there has been a cosying up of late, helped by the Ukraine war. The covid experience here in New Zealand showed that people dressed up as good, set about instituting the most draconian measures of population control in the world, and the propaganda had the population complying and even now the players haven’t faced scrutiny for their abuse of our basic rights. We were being led by a scholar of the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations noticed… so now their World Health Organisation wants full control to manage the world response to any further pandemics… of course to ‘make the world a better place’.

Part of the fear created about a changing climate was that western nations would be overrun by refugees; but the climate hasn’t changed in an alarming way, nor have sea levels risen more than a smidgin, nevertheless we see refugees rushing into the west… not into other areas of the world, and for good reason. They tend to be better off west. If it is reasonable to expect men to stay behind in their own country to sort out any problems, and if they don’t, how else can their country ever be liveable? The western morals, ethics, empathy and human rights, don’t exist where the illegal migrants come from and as we’ve seen in Britian and elsewhere, advantage is being taken of those qualities among the indigenous people.

Fifty years ago, an old mentor told me, ‘There’s only one certainty in life… change.’ And sure enough, change is occurring before our eyes, so the question is, ‘What are the ramifications?’