The Politically Incorrect Show - 09/03/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Thursday March 9, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit & excellence against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

[Music up, music down!]

Richard Nixon had an enemies list. Rob Muldoon didn't need one - anyone who crossed him was an enemy. It's a bit of a worry when political leaders start obsessing about who's against them, as Leon Trotsky & millions of other victims of the Glorious Leader of the People Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin could have attested had they lived to tell the tale. Five minutes in office & our own Great Leader Comrade Jim Il Neanderton is displaying disturbing signs of paranoia. I quote his letter to the editor of the Evening Post this week:

"During last year's election campaign you warned readers to consider the consequences of the election of a Labour-Alliance government. You said, 'The leader of New Zealand's loony Left will become Deputy Prime Minister ... And when Miss Clark feels brave enough to leave for overseas engagements he'll be Acting Prime Minister. The idea makes emigration look attractive.' You went on to describe me & the Alliance as - among other things - 'flakes,' 'truly prehistoric,' 'disconcertingly naive,' 'foolish,' 'backward-looking' & 'unreconstructed socialist.' As I write, Helen Clark has been out of the country for about a day. As far as I can see the earth is continuing to turn on its axis, people are going about their business calmly & there seems to be a very high level of satisfaction with the performance of the coalition Government. We also managed to win the America's Cup & the stock exchange did not collapse. I am wondering if you still intend to emigrate in order to honour your pre-election commitments, or have you responded positively to our call to New Zealanders living overseas to return & help to rebuild the country? Jim Anderton, Deputy Prime Minister."

This letter is simultaneously reassuring & scary. Reassuring because it shows that one major newspaper in the Democratic People's Republic of Aoteroa has got the measure of Comrade Jim-Il. Scary because he's remembered everything that was said about him in this instance & had little better to do in his weekend of glory than write publicly to the people who said it asking them if they still intended to emigrate.

It's true enough that there's a high level of satisfaction with this dictatorship among voters. When half of them are beneficiaries of course they'll be satisfied with a government that doles out more of Other People's Money to them. And I would be the first to acknowledge that the America's Cup victory had everything to do with Comrade Jim-Il & nothing to do with the boys on the boat or its designers, just as the mere thought of our Great Leader's imminent ascension inspired the Black Caps to trounce the Aussies last Friday. But I wouldn't get too complacent about the stock exchange's non-collapse just yet. It'll happen. It's not exactly exuberant right now. Who's going to want to invest in the basket-case the Comrades are already turning the country into? Where the Comrades' increasing of the minimum wage has just cost 5,200 new jobs? Where Comrade Laila is going to monitor whom you employ (when you can AFFORD to employ anyone)? Where you'll have to pay employees to get pregnant? Where if you're successful you'll have to pay a higher rate of tax in order to support all the bludgers who vote for this government? Where you may take out accident insurance only with the government? Where the government bureaucracies that will dog your every step will all be answerable to Te Puni Kokiri? Where Comrade Jim-Il's own empire, the Ministry for Economic Development, will be diverting resources to steel mills in Eketahuna?

Make no mistake, the Evening Post's epithets will be shown to be accurate soon enough. My question is, will Comrade Jim-Il's critics be allowed to say, "I told you so"? Male politicians tend to be short men with thin skins. Dictators notoriously are. If Comrade Jim-Il is this sensitive before he's wrecked the economy, what's he going to be like afterwards? Perhaps one SHOULD emigrate ... before one is exiled. Or worse.

Politically Incorrect Show ... beating the bastards back. 309 3099.

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