Simply The Best

[KiwiCoromandel]

Simply the best

Chris Trotter

After the extraordinary debacle of the Katherine Rich dismissal, it is time the New Zealand Right faced up to the prospect of permanent marginalisation.

Many National Party members, including some MPs, privately concede the Rich affair may have cost them the next election.

The British Conservative Party is already marginalised: a braying anachronism nobody takes seriously any more.

If the New Zealand Right, in general, and the National Party, in particular, wish to avoid a similar fate, fundamental questions must be answered - and quickly:

• What does it mean to be a right-winger in the 21st century?

• What issues offer the Right some hope of regaining electoral traction?

• What shibboleths must the Right abandon to secure an electoral majority?

On the face of it, one might have thought the 21st century would be dominated by the Right, much as the 20th was dominated by the Left.

After all, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s gave capitalism more or less free rein across the entire planet.

With its lodestar suddenly transformed into a black hole, the Old Left lost its bearings. The inchoate ravings of the "anti-capitalist" New Left were a poor substitute for the lost resources and organisational expertise of actual socialist states.

And yet, in spite of these considerable advantages, right-wing hegemony has not been achieved.

In most of the developed world, an attenuated social democracy still holds sway. Those parties of the Right foolhardy enough to threaten its existence soon find themselves on the electoral margins.

The obvious and important exception to this rule is the United States.

There, the Left has been driven to the political margins and is in danger of becoming electorally irrelevant.

This is primarily because the US has never spawned a genuine "labour party." The Democrats who assumed that role during the Great Depression could not sustain it without compromising the party's electoral base in the racially divided south.

The other factor favouring the American Right is the US' extraordinary religiosity.

The social upheavals of the 1960s and '70s may have changed the tenor of American popular culture but they failed to shake the nation's deeper cultural foundations.

America's fundamental moral sensibilities continue to reflect that militant and evangelical strain of radical Protestantism which has shaped its history since the early years of the 19th century.

Such is America's influence in the wider world, however, that many right-wingers operating outside the US are convinced the only way to win elections is to emulate the strategies and tactics of George W Bush's triumphant Republicans.

Ignoring all those factors making the American experience exceptional, such people noisily argue for capital punishment, the abolition of gun control, imposing restrictions on abortion rights and outlawing homosexuality.

This "God, Guns and Gays" formula for right-wing success is rapidly becoming the staple fare of talkback radio hosts and simple-minded leader-writers across the country.

Few on the Right seem to appreciate how alienating it is to moderate New Zealand opinion, nor how much it contributes to the notion that the right-wing political universe is populated exclusively by "nutters."

Twenty years ago, the left-wing extremist who slavishly toed the Moscow party line would be told to "Go back to Russia!"

Today, the New Zealand Right's shameless borrowing from Republican Party strategists is in danger of prompting the question: "Why don't you just bugger off to America?"

So, if applying to become the 51st state of the Union is ruled out as a viable political option, what should Kiwi conservatives be striving to conserve?

First, let's clarify the distinction between Right and Left. The right-winger believes in government by aristos - the best; the left-winger believes in government by demos - the people.

In practical terms, the two positions are not so far apart as they might appear. The intelligent left-winger is not hostile to "the best;" he simply believes that if access to political power is not arbitrarily restricted to a favoured few, there is a better chance of finding out who the best are.

Nor is the right-winger necessarily hostile to the people.

He realises the best will always constitute a tiny minority and if they are to rule non-violently, it will be only by convincing a majority of the people they are the best qualified to do so. Historically, aristocracies (rule by the best) are associated with the hereditary control of political institutions, economic wealth and the apparatus of organised violence.

That such a patently unfair political system endured for close to a millennium was largely due to the developmental advantages of aristocracy - diet and education, especially - creating offspring who probably were the best human specimens their societies could produce.

In the immortal words of Monty Python: "You can tell he's a king - he's not covered in shit."

It was only when the rising middle classes won access to similar advantages that the hereditary principle of aristocratic governance became untenable.

Officially, merit was the governing principle of these new bourgeois societies. With the accident of birth no longer conferring automatic political privileges, men had to earn the right to lead their fellow citizens by demonstrating superior talent and/or character.

Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels, makes this case with considerable eloquence in the conversation he puts into the mouths of a Yankee colonel and his Irish sergeant on the eve of the battle of Gettysburg:

"No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf nor a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I God damn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a damn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here" - he tapped his white skull with a thick finger - "and you, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and don't even know it."

New Zealanders will respond to this argument with considerable enthusiasm. People call us egalitarians but we are not.

Like Kilrain, our ancestors were determined to break free from a country judging people, not by the quality of their minds or the content of their characters, but by who their parents were.

New Zealanders have no time for hereditary aristocrats. They have huge admiration for men and women who make something worthwhile of their natural talent.

The rugged individual, the "man alone" trusting in his own judgment, relying on his own skill, suspicious of collectivism and hostile to bureaucracy: of such stuff are our heroes and heroines made.

But it is not all they are made of. They also reflect the tradition of the "good mate" and the "decent bloke" - traditions of unforced compassion, self-sacrifice and an eccentric and rather prickly sense of honour.

If those on the New Zealand Right cannot fashion a winning political formula out of this raw material, they do not deserve to govern.

And they don't. National, ACT, NZ First and United Future have failed to amass anything even remotely resembling the "natural aristocracy" required to woo the demos from its collectivist folly.

On the contrary, all pander shamelessly to the people's basest instincts.

The Kiwi "battler" down on his luck and in need of a helping hand will search the Right's manifestos for evidence of a good mate's compassion and a decent bloke's sense of honour and self-sacrifice, but he will not find it.

All he will encounter is a sad collection of finger-wagging wowsers, snivelling and whining that there are too few of their fellow citizens behind bars and too many on welfare.

The voter looking for Man Alone's self-reliance and independent judgment will also search in vain.

Those on the New Zealand Right not happily ensconced in the pockets of the rich have already sold their souls to the Americans.

It was not always so.

Sir Keith Holyoake, even at the summit of his political success, never forgot how the depression-ravaged workers and tobacco-farmers of Motueka spat upon the Right's candidates in the bleak election of 1932.

The "natural aristocrats" he gathered around him in the National government of 1960-72 - men like Ralph Hanan, Brian Talboys and Tom Shand - understood that if "rule by the best" is to be accepted by the people, then the Right's politicians must really be the best.

True aristos lead, they do not follow, and nobility's greatest obligation has always been to serve the people even as they rule them.

Chris Trotter is editor of NZ Political Review

[Redneck4sure]

There, the Left has been driven to the political margins and is in danger of becoming electorally irrelevant.

I still dream of the day when that is true. :)

[KiwiCoromandel]

the opposite is happening down here...the right is being eradicated by the left.....but they`re doing it to themselves..new zealanders don`t like hard right policies..the right here just refuses to accept that fact.....

[Redneck4sure]

Sounds like, "Dude's Paradise".

[Kooperman]

No country is in a healthy condition if there are no viable alternatives. The USA is an example of shrewd legal and illegal maneuvers by one party creating an imbalance toward the conservatives, who are showing early signs of self-destruction due to too much power. Both New Zealand and the USA, for the benefit of the citizens of each country, need to have the checks and balances that at least two strong parties will provide.

[DudeAsInCool]

Sounds like, "Dude's Paradise". 

Might be. Ive always wondered how Democracy's definition turned into Right-Wing Corporate Capitalism

[Redneck4sure]

Funny, I've always wondered how Democracy's definition turned into left winged government welfarism.

[Kooperman]

Funny, I've always wondered how Democracy's definition turned into left winged government welfarism.

That would be contrasted, I suppose, with the right-wing's own unique welfare system for the wealthy...

[DudeAsInCool]

Funny, I've always wondered how Democracy's definition turned into left winged government welfarism.

What makes you think that much of the government's budget goes to welfare these days and what are you statistics? Did you know that Corporations get far more welfare than the welfare recipients themselves? And as Koop has pointed out above, the wealthy get more tax breaks than the middle and lower classes.. Wheres the Beef, RN?

[Redneck4sure]

I'd rather corporations get the welfare. I hope you are right! Maybe the corp that gets the money will be one that I have stock in or my 401k has stock in.

We need to cut back on the free programs. Eliminate welfare all together. Cut back on food stamps. Sterilize liberals. All sorts of things. :)

Ammo should be subsidized by the govt so poor people can afford more of it. Bus subsidies should be eliminated. Amtrak should be scrapped. Buy a car or walk.

Too much caffeine. I'll stop now. :soapbox:

[DudeAsInCool]

I'd rather corporations get the welfare. I hope you are right! Maybe the corp that gets the money will be one that I have stock in or my 401k has stock in.

:rotfl:

Me suspects that Redneck is a closet liberal...

[Ken]

Did you know that Corporations get far more welfare than the welfare recipients themselves?

And did you know, that the only people who feel the economic impact of the welfare systems are not the corporations, but people like me........making a measly amount of money, most of which is put into a Social Security I will never see.

It's not that I don't like giving a little, it's just that with my own eyes I see the very people that receive my money; and an alarming number of them are male leeches who attach themselves to a women on welfare. It's one of the secret ills of the system (at least where I live). Other ills simply include various loop-holes and exploits. The thing that puts me into a rage is when children don't receive the help, and it instead goes to various drug habits, or again to the leeches.

Fortunately, things are getting a little better and restrictions are being put into place, but I have no doubt that people on the far far left side of the spectrum will cry like children that this is happening and that I and others, who are as close to being at that level of poverty as actual welfare recipients but are still paying for them, are not being sucked completely dry. I don’t know why, I don’t know where there mind is and why their eyes are closed to this, but oh well.

There is a problem with ever social order, and neither the right, left or central are immune.

I have many ideas, but they're irrelevant in a population of close to 300,000,000 different and scary minds who don’t really care what one man has to say, even if it may make common sense.

Edited February 16, 2005 by Ken

[DudeAsInCool]

Fortunately, things are getting a little better and restrictions are being put into place, but I have no doubt that people on the far far left side of the spectrum will cry like children that this is happening and that I and others, who are as close to being at that level of poverty as actual welfare recipients but are still paying for them, are not being sucked completely dry. I don’t know why, I don’t know where there mind is and why their eyes are closed to this, but oh well.

The eyes arent closed, but the T-Bills have been crossed over to the people who need it least. There was a famous book in the sixties called Blame the Victim, which in essence called to task the conservative myth about welfare. Statistically, a small percentage of people on welfare actually stay on welfare. BTW, can you imagine living on 232 dollars a month and 100 dollars worth of food stamps and trying to feed a family--a lot of these folks need help. And in an age where our jobs are being outsourced, or sold down the river to China so that Walmart can knock out every mom and pop store in the country, I am happy to stand up and fight for people's rights for subsistence.

You are right about one thing, Ken. People like you are being squeezed for more taxes, while the wealthy and are being given breaks left and right.

[Ken]

I'd rather corporations get the welfare. I hope you are right! laugh.gif Maybe the corp that gets the money will be one that I have stock in or my 401k has stock in.

We need to cut back on the free programs. Eliminate welfare all together. Cut back on food stamps. Sterilize liberals. All sorts of things. smile.gif

Ammo should be subsidized by the govt so poor people can afford more of it. Bus subsidies should be eliminated. Amtrak should be scrapped. Buy a car or walk.

Too much caffeine. I'll stop now.

Ok, so we'll have a society that includes........

-Wealthy corporations that could give two shits about the people that they hire. Mass firing and outsourcing sure to follow until the US public can no longer support the wealthy corporations and their governments lust for money, thereby causing a complete collpase of everything.

-A redneck that only gives a shit about his stock, because after all, everyone else but him and his family can eat shit and die (you'll probably respond positively to this).

-A country full of people who can't tie their shoes..........wait..............pretty close to what we have now.

-Street fighting (house to house, farm to farm, wherever to wherever), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until the end of mankind (not too far off in this scenario; actually sounds like fun).

-Millions will ride grey hounds or hike hundreds of miles. After all, I bet a lot of them don't have a car/truck/guzzler or they wouldn't be included in this.

-Yes, too much caffeine, or stupid. Probably a little bit of both. Deadly combination.

[Redneck4sure]

I know a lady that cleans houses. One of the houses she cleans is for a woman that has never been married and has 3 kids. The woman lives in a nice brick house with a swimming pool that is paid for by section 8. The woman gets all sorts of govt handouts and doesn't work although she is in good health.

The house cleaning lady lives in a house that I swear is falling down. The city inspector was going to condemn the house but felt sorry for her and didn't want to make her homeless so he told her that when and if she moved he was going to have the house bulldozed. She has lung issues and has to have breathing treatments daily but can get no govt help so she cleans houses.

The few cases of Welfare that I have personal knowledge of are all fraud. I know some people need help but I am tired of supporting the system. I don't feel like I owe anybody a living.

[slum_goddess]

"Why don't you just bugger off to America?"

With the accident of birth no longer conferring automatic political privileges, men had to earn the right to lead their fellow citizens by demonstrating superior talent and/or character.

where to begin?

There was a famous book in the sixties called Blame the Victim, which in essence called to task the conservative myth about welfare.

OMG, that's one of the books that made it from NYC to DE to here...really good stuff (and it put to lie the fable that most USA welfare mothers were black...not so).

[Redneck4sure]

-A redneck that only gives a shit about his stock, because after all, everyone else but him and his family can eat shit and die (you'll probably respond positively to this).