Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 10/10/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Tuesday October 10, 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 Poole has paid the price of dissent in the Sheeple's Republic of Aotearoa. For his temerity in organising a full-page ad in the country's major newspapers calling on the government to reverse its economic policy direction, he has been attacked by the Prime Minister as a National Party stooge & by the Deputy Prime Minister's senior adviser as a "half-wit." As it happens he is not a member of the National Party & is not a half-wit, but as he put it over the weekend: "Does it matter who I am? Just because I bothered to stand up & say something, you get crucified for it." Richard should probably develop a thicker hide - one would expect this Prime Minister to try to turn his 600-signature ad into a party political issue. That in itself is not unusual, however puerile it might be. Far more ominous has been her call for the head of the executive director of the Business Roundtable, Roger Kerr, because of Mr Kerr's arranging of up-front payment for the ads. Now the Business Roundtable is a private, voluntary organisation. Who heads it is absolutely none of the Prime Minister's business. If that person & that organisation are critical of her government's policies, that's something she must learn to live with. She has no more business trying to dictate who should head this organisation than she would have telling the Wainuiomata Bowling Club, should there be such a thing, who its president should be, least of all on the grounds of agreement with government policy.
The Prime Minister has displayed a penchant for sticking her nose where it oughtn't to be from Day One: the name of Charley Dempsey comes readily to mind. One shouldn't be surprised - this is the woman who stated categorically in one of the pre-election television debated that "the state is sovereign." Not for nothing has she been dubbed the "Minister of Everything." But one SHOULD be appalled. Tony Simpson told Richard Poole that he should consider himself lucky to "live in a free society." How free is it when a private organisation is pressured by the holder of the highest political position in the land to fire its leader because he's associated with a public criticism of the government? Regardless of one's opinion of the Business Roundtable & of Roger Kerr, one should view with utmost alarm this latest act of dictatorial bullying by the Prime Minister. She herself would be well-advised to frame on her wall Voltaire's famous saying, "I disagree with what you say, but defend to the death your right to say it."
Currently I'm in the process of sorting through articles for the next issue of my magazine, The Free Radical. One of the contributions is from a young, ex-pat economics student, Tim Sturm. It's a speech he delivered recently to England's Libertarian Alliance. In it, Tim quotes from my editorial on this programme on the day before the last election. Here is the quotation - & I invite you to ask yourselves, how prophetic has it proved to be?
"So, sheeple, you're about to elect an even bossier shepherd, with even more ferocious dogs. Well, sheeple, you are pathetic, dumb, gormless non-entities, mindlessly baaaaaa-ing & braying & begging for the shepherd's commands & the dogs' snarling & biting, surrendering any last vestige of individuality you might still have been capable of ... Nanny State will govern absolutely every aspect of your stunted, blighted lives, because you, you pitiful, simpering blobs of blandness, want her to. Never will the need for a radio programme like the Politically Incorrect Show be greater; never, for that very reason, will it be under greater threat, especially from power-tripping politicians intent on stamping out any criticism & dissent."
If you enjoyed this, why not subscribe?