Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Actually Sacha, it was Kyle’s squishing together of a WHOLE GENERATION that made me really despise his argument
Despite your objection it's not exactly a new social construct, and I'm not sure if the obvious issues with lumping together people born across 20 years into one bucket make it completely useless. Sacha and Jacqui have raised some of its obvious implications of the generation. And I wasn't the person who raised it. Ben Wiilson did, here, in relation to comments of Bernard Hickey.
And thanks to Kyle for offering an apology.
What is it with people reading into my posts recently things I haven't said?
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I’m not sure that’s necessary. A party with 5% support is likely to have pockets of support, do better in some electorates than others, etc.
Yes true.
And I deleted a further paragraph which raised the possibility of larger STV electorates reducing the likelihood of Hide/Anderton etc making it to parliament, unless they had wider regional support outside of their (current smaller) electorate.
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That may need to be taken with a fair pinch of salt. Didn’t the Greens feature prominently in a number of policy announcements that were seen as being a tad too “I know better than you” – a big reason why Labour lost crucial support from the middle ground in 2008?
Well the prime one was the anti-smacking law change, which was a private members bill, not a party bill, and from memory wasn't a large part of any election campaign. But I think the fuck-up that ACT has been this term trumps anything the Greens did ever.
I didn’t see that shifty little Tory son-of-a-bitch on any party list last election, so why is this so?
No, go on. Tell us how you really feel.
If STV results in a similarly proportionate result to MMP, then it’s quite possible that the largest single party will fail to form the government because s different alignment of parties has gained more votes. That will leave the adherents of the largest party unhappy.
STV results in similar proportionality to MMP if the number of members elected in each electorate seat leads to the same effective threshold (1/n = MMP%). So for our current 5% threshold that would mean 20 MPs elected in each electorate.
There would be some further proportionality advantages in STV in that it wouldn't have overhangs, and the Rodney Hide/Peter Dunne/Anderson etc would be less likely to happen.
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No, not blaming them for anything, except destroying several decades of an apparent “social contract”. Now thats loaded language if ever I read it. And forcing parents and grandparents onto the street. Big, big sweeping generalisations I think you have to agree.
Sacha seems to have answered this for me. I'll concede to the sweeping generalisations. But the point I was responding to was a sweeping generalisation about them funding their elder's care, which had a large hole in it.
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(I did grow up in Mairangi Bay, incidentally, but escaped.)
The house I grew up in got turned into a childcare facility. Apparently my old bedroom is used for changing nappies or something. </bitter>
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I also don’t understand the issue with pre-announcing coalition preferences.
I would imagine from a political party point-of-view, one of the risks of pre-announcing coalition partners is that you've effectively tagged 'vote for us' as also meaning "and these guys too".
Take National/Act for example. I would imagine if they were to announce a pre-election coalition this time, Labour would come out arguing that a vote for national was a vote for Roger Douglas, Rodney Hide, undemocratic change in the super city etc etc etc.
Possibly less dangerous with Labour/Greens, as the Greens have tended to be less offensive to the middle ground, which is where Labour are looking to take the votes).
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Also, I have this feeling that carnivores are generally not great eating? Isn’t that part of the reason most eating animals are herbivores or largely omnivorous? Or am I wrong?
From the poitn of farming there's also a multiplier effect. To make cows you have to farm grass or grain for them to feed on. And then to make the carnivores you have to feed them the cows (or other animals). Each step further along there's a mass of inefficiences and time delays and costs, so it'd be a lot more expensive.
And farming bears or something might create some personal safety issues too.
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You simply lack the wit or the courage to own the moral implications of your highly loaded weaseling.
Having already asked you at least once not to make personal attacks against me, I won't bother responding further.
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Kyle, I’m driven to state the obvious here, but we live in a democracy. As “baby boomers” represent a substantial voting block they presumably endorse the government policy that brought about the changes you mention. If you want to believe that it’s all due to some kind of process independent of the political will then you’ve rather lost me.
Given that I stated at least once that some of that generation supported the changes, and some didn't, clearly I wasn't scapegoating that generation for using their voting power to bring in the change.
You could have a similar (indeed, a lot more direct) discussion about tax cuts and high income earners. Many high income earners might vote against income tax cuts. But they're clearly the ones that will benefit the most. A similar social contract (of the rich paying more for the less fortunate) argument.
Like most of the historical running down of the health system that was reversed during the Clark years this isn’t even remotely a current issue.
The thing that got this all started was the claim that the baby boomer generation supported their older generation in ways that the generation before them hadn't. In terms of paying taxes and providing residential health care, that often didn't happen for 14 years. Hence me including it.
I've never made an argument for generational shaming, and indeed have umpteen times denied making it. If you could stop painting me with that brush and use the things that I actually say...
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I don’t understand how this is ‘scapegoating’ on Kyle’s part, unless I missed a post of his where he said ‘it’s all your fault, you dirty boomers!’ I think he’s discussing it as just… something that happened.
Thanks Danielle.
If Kyle had made it plain that his beef was with the selfishly affluent, rather than an entire generation, I’d have no problem. It’s disingenuous to claim that you’re simply discussing ideas and talking in generalisations when the supposed “facts” that you present unfairly caricature entire generations as possessing certain shortcomings or qualities.
My point really wasn't to do with the selfishly affluent at all. It's about how government policy changes benefit one generation over another, in general. Again, please point out where I caricatured baby boomers as greedy, not caring about others, or indeed being opposed to paying taxes. I don't think anywhere I made any generalisations about what they wanted, just what happened - large tax cuts tied to an increase in user pays.
A sweeping generalisation: “baby boomers” – not just some, but all, no qualification – habitually drive their elders to penury, and deny them life-saving medical care to fund their own selfish lifestyles.
Here is the labour govt reversing the previously harsh asset test policy, which among other things, discriminated against the elderly: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/16395. I won't bother to respond of your characterisation of my argument, as it doesn't really relate to what or how I wrote.
Nicely said Sacha, but the claim of widespread incidents of older dependents of callous “boomers” needing to sell their homes in order to pay for life-saving medical treatment is unsubstantiated, and in the context of the argument it’s been invoked to support, downright risible.
Again, feel free to quote what I actually said. Not 'dependents' (ie, my parents) but 'elders' - ie, the whole generation older than them.
I’d be delighted to engage in a constructive discussion about this, but disinformation, deliberately provocative or otherwise, is the last thing we need.
I'm surprised you don't remember the many media stories about the asset testing that we had through the 1990s - introduced in the mother of all budgets in 1991. There was a sequence of elderly people who were having to sell homes that they'd lived in all their life over several years. It was a major election promise of Winston Peters in 1996 and part of the coalition agreement that year, but one that never got resolved properly under that government.