The Politically Incorrect Show - 12/12/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Tuesday December 12, 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!]

It's simple, isn't it? If you grow apples you sell them to any willing buyer of your choice, right? Wrong, at least as far as selling your apples overseas is concerned. In New Zealand you have to sell them to Nanny State's monopoly exporter, Enza. Sell them independently & you're breaking the law, unless you get special dispensation from another Nanny State outfit called the Apple & Pear Export Permits Committee. Last week, Enza won a court injunction forbidding the Committee to issue any further permits till December 18 & putting a stay on permits already approved in principle. 150 apple growers took to the streets of Helengrad in protest. A spokesman said they had a clear message for the Minister of Agriculture, Jim Sutton: "We want him to free up the export permits to let us sell the apples that Enza won't or can't buy." The Minister is not of a mind to do so unless three conditions are met: that a majority of growers agree, that minority interests are safeguarded, & that the move is in the national interest. Which brings us slap bang up against the bromides of the dictatorship that is democracy.

A majority must agree. By what right? Why should grower Smith be prevented from exporting his apples - HIS apples - to any willing buyer just because other growers object, even if every last one of them objects? These are his apples, not theirs, & to whom he sells them is none of their goddam business.

Minority interests must be safeguarded. What the hell does this mean? That deregulation must be approved by the Waitangi Tribunal, or a hui of disabled Maori lesbian apple-growers? The smallest minority of all in this context is the individual grower - I can't see HIS interests being safeguarded by the continuation of Enza's compulsory selling monopoly.

Freeing the thing up must be in the national interest. What is that, exactly? Whose answer to this question is going to apply? If I can ascribe any meaning to the term at all I would say it's against the interests of a nation for its citizens to be denied their natural prerogatives - is MY answer going to apply? Not pygmalion likely! Invoking the "national interest" or the "common good" is almost always a camouflage for the denial of liberty, & this instance is no exception.

Unfortunately, the issue is usually presented as - Enza is doing a bad job, it's inefficient, & my returns are threatened. This is the ACT/Roundtable approach. The issue really is - these are MY bloody apples & I'll sell them to anyone I damn well please. Even if Enza were doing the best job in the world, growers shouldn't HAVE to sell through it, or seek a permit for exemption. Enza shouldn't exist at all. Enza is simply organised crime made legal. Growers should be free to set up a voluntary collective or collectives if they want to, or to go it alone if they don't.

Upon Jim Sutton, this salutation from a fellow-champion of "the national interest."

(SIEG HEIL AWARD)

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