Posts by Keir Leslie
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Yes cheers, I am not particularly in need of a refresher course on being left wing here. One left wing value I hold particularly dear is fairness in the administration of state functions (or, procedural liberalism, not just a catchy phrase).
So for instance while it is very nice to say that if you are found fighting in the street you ought be locked up for the night, I should have say that this is a bit of authoritarian and repressive measure, most likely to be used by the police force that we have in unpleasant ways.
It might be better to start by saying: what ways can we improve public behaviour that don't involve the use of the punitive parts of the state apparat?
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Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Matthew Poole,
No but it does revoke your ability to carry on the trade you are committed to. And that is hard; it can destroy a lifetime's worth of work in an afternoon.
Generally I am not a big believer in regulatory red tape arguments, but I do think that where you need a license to carry on a business it is worth looking seriously at the consequences of taking away that license, or curtailing that business, and understanding that it is actually a hugely punitive action that needs to be dealt with carefully, and not just as an easy way of getting tough.
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You have a right to make a living, but that doesn’t extend to being a right to make a living by selling controlled substances. A liquor licence is a privilege, not a right, just like a driver’s licence.
Eh. I disagree. Ruining people's livelihoods is a horrible thing to do, and has to be bound up with legal safeguards. You don't have the right to sell liquor, but you do have the right to be treated fairly by government. And the less legal safeguards you have, the more you have to accept the risks of a situation like that of the Jains in the UK.
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The established precedents are so strongly in favour of a right to make a living from selling alcohol that only an explicit alteration to statute will usefully change how these decisions are made.
And let's be clear, this is a really legitimate thing. If you start up a business, the state shouldn't be able to just shut it down on whim. And while yes it may be too far one way, and maybe things should be rebalanced, the consequences of taking people's jobs off them are very hard, and do need to be taken seriously.
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Agree – it’s part of that us vs them simplistic, childish and unproductive culture that needs changing. I find it hard to believe that we let them get away with it …
But fundamentally it is us v them. I mean, really, I understand why this isn't something people shout from the rooftops, but fundamentally, the political system is a struggle over the distribution of power and wealth.
While it is very nice to imagine some kind of happy consensual etc politics, really there is a struggle over where we want the country to go.
Eh in general I just find anti-political arguments deeply deeply reactionary and unpleasant, sorry.
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Sure! I don’t think the Treasury is quite as political as some here have suggested. They are certainly rather neo-liberal economically ideological but their overarching (unstated) ideology is to stop the stupid politicians from doing anything too excessive …
Which is a highly political viewpoint.
Fundamentally, the structural set up of the New Zealand civil service is fucked, and has been since the '84 Labour government reformed it. It will need to be fixed, at one point or another.
The role Treasury has had here is deeply concerning. It raises real questions about Makhlouf's job. He is meant to be an impartial professional civil servant. I do not see how he can continue in his role following such a high profile, and highly embarrassing, intervention in politics. He should resign.
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Good grief, Posner must have loved that one.
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Of course Hansen would say that his sentencing was based on entirely compatible theories. (I say of course because it is a pretty fundamental principle that you can't sentence contrary to the jury's verdict.) He discusses this at para 43 of his sentencing notes.
(Depressingly, if you want to learn more about sentencing in New Zealand, Hall's Sentencing is, as the title suggests, pretty authoritative, and covers this stuff well if soul-destroyingly. In particular, see Appendix 3 especially (a) and .5, as well as the commentary to s 24. R v Smee (1985) 19 A Crim R 261, 262 is quoted at 3.5(b):
Courts must be careful not to step over the fine line that distinguishes relevant background circumstances such as the character of the accused, the ‘real relationship between the complainant and the accused’ (R v Cooksley [1982] Qd R 405 at 417), the fact that the crime was part of a system followed by the accused (R v Singh (1981) 3 Cr App R (S) 90), or the rebuttal of the suggestion that it was an isolated instance unlikely to be repeated … from punishing the accused for offences of which he has not been convicted, or from taking into account circumstances that are too remote from the facts that constitute the offence. However the limiting of attention to the facts that comprise the bare elements of the offence is obviously too narrow an approach.
Which is probably a good thing to keep in mind when reading Hansen's notes.)
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When we say bums-on-seats brigade, we mean ``people who quote evidence'' right? And Tim Hazeldine talks a lot of self-serving bullshit about national champion status, which plays precisely onto his hands as a lecturer at UoA, and gets a lot of praise.
Look. the thing is, I don't give a fuck about how important what ever the flavour of the month is. All I know is that there are a lot of people spinning self-serving stories about how their disciple ought get a fuck load more cash. Almost none of those stories ever resort to such show-off stuff as wage figures, or unemployment data. Instead, you get this absurd world where actual subsidy figures are ignored (see above) and the numbers that make people feel good are repeated over and over again.
Fundamentally, this is nonsense.
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Oh bugger off Sacha, I am not a Chicago economist, & have spent the last few posts making reference to factual evidence so am hardly going to start fretting about lack of real worldliness.