Saturday, November 05, 2005

Malignant political psychosis

I love it when Chris Trotter from the Left sounds like a libertarian. Here he is, writing in yesterday's Dominion Post.
There have always been those who have resisted the extension of rights which they personally enjoy to groups of people whom they despise. Sadly, the malignant political psychosis which causes so many people to bridle at the thought of anybody else being free, except themselves, continues to afflict a significant portion of the population.

Does National really wish to align itself with this poor, stunted version of liberty? With people who revel in the multiplication of restrictions and restraints? Who can never have enough of social censure and legal prohibition? And who never saw a gate that didn't look better locked, or a free spirit who didn't look safer in a cage?
He's railing against National's appointment of a "political correctness eradicator". Trotter defines political correctness as "the term applied when the state extends its legal protection to categories of citizens which it had previously persecuted and oppressed directly, or else connived in allowing civil society to do so." If that's political correctness, then bring it on!

Then, Trotter presents a chronology of progress. Progress which No Right Turn thinks is driven by the left - "In my lifetime at least, freedom's truest friends have been on the left, not the right... [it's] a shame that liberals on the right haven't done more to show their interest in freedoms beyond the freedom of the rich not to pay taxes." It is, indeed. (It's also a shame that the productive still aren't free not to pay taxes.)
Thirty years ago, [the state] gave itself the right to dictate a woman's reproductive choices. Twenty years ago, it threatened male citizens with imprisonment if they had sex with other men. Two years ago, it fined prostitutes for soliciting sex, but declined to punish their clients for buying it. One year ago, it denied legal recognition to the long-term relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens. And even today...
So, whose turn next to be free? Recreational drug users, of course - relentlessy persecuted and oppressed by the government, and the media's favourite scapegoat. It's time to end the War on Drugs™.