Posts by Sacha
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today's 'race row' story
At least they're having to resort to dredging up ones that happened some time ago.
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Please do note it though or people think it's true
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Like this example from the Minister's speech:
“...that particular road from Pūhoi to Warkworth currently carries more people per day than are carried on the whole of the Auckland commuter rail network”
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Excellent - that's exactly the type of analysis I mean. I was looking for answers on your site earlier. Sure you've tackled some of the numbers previously.
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Joshua, I get the impression they may need your help fisking some of the continued lying about the basic usage numbers that underpin business cases and cost-benefit analyses.
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...a battle that is not, let's remember, on a level playing field. Ordinary consumers cannot speak back to Paul Henry on the same level that he gets to speak to them. That's one of my problems with pure Free Speech arguments; they tend to assume that everyone has the same power to speak and to be heard.
Thank you, Emma. It amazes me to see people going on about "speech" as if it's separable from action - and somehow immune from the politics of access to infrastructure, resources and power that enable both. We heard the same willful ignorance over the wealthy Brethren and the resulting Electoral Finance Act restrictions that got some knickers all atwist.
Free speech is not a "right" that exists in a vacuum. Like all rights it is balanced against others. You can not do or say whatever you please without consequences.
Even bullies recognise that by never picking on rich white business men or athletes who might retaliate. It's true that dimwits like Henry might get themselves confused when targets combine say dark skin with being migrant doctors or heads of state.
Access to a powerful megaphone like television brings responsiblities, some in the form of conditions set out in the Broadcasting Act. These supposedly include a clear responsiblity not to denigrate or ridicule groups of people who have traditionally been the subject of bullying and social discrimination.
Those people have a right to go about their lives without being subjected to useless harrassment and unfair action prompted by bullying words. History shows us perfectly well how groups of humans act towards one another, hence such laws that balance the rights and responsbilities between us.
Yet TVNZ chose to thumb their nose at those obligations and gamed the resulting complaints time and time again to defend the attention and earnings their tame twatcock brought them. The BSA waved a wet bus ticket. The PM grinned and like most other media and political 'leaders' played along.
Well it's time to pay up. For the privileged and their sycophants to stop whining about how unfair that is. And for a principled national conversation to put right the damage to race relations that has been allowed in our names. We all deserve that.
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It's all negotiating bluster at this stage. Ak Trains has a clip of Joyce in Parliament today answering questions about whether his faith-based prioritising of highways over rail will continue.
However, the real sorting out will be happening over the next weeks and months, and the landscape has changed whether trucker-boy likes it or not.
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Lhaws gets some attention from the BBC. He must be so proud.
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Danyl posts on the "free speech" response.
He can say whatever he wants to and he won’t be arrested or imprisoned. That’s free speech. But it means everyone else gets to speak too – the version of free speech that Paul Henry’s defenders advocate is one in which he gets to say whatever he wants and the rest of us keep our mouths shut and take it.
But the version of free speech we have in reality is that he gets to say what he wants and we get to say we don’t like it, and if enough people object and Henry’s speech starts to threaten the reputation and commercial profits of his employer then they’ll make a business decision about whether to keep him on. Which they have – and nobody’s right to free speech got violated.
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I love how "New Zealanders" used to mean Maori