The Politically Incorrect Show - 28/06/2001

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Thursday June 28, 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!]

As you know, the scripts of my daily editorials are posted on my web site - www.freeradical.co.nz. I hope that soon, the audio will be available as well, but that's work in progress here at Pacific. As it is, anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world can read my incomparable words of wisdom. And believe it or not, some people do, & get in touch with me from all over the globe. I was really chuffed to get this e-mail from Holland yesterday:

"I enjoyed reading your article about the ludicrous protests that faced the American president when he visited Europe recently.

"Living in Europe, I'm getting sick to death of watching various losers vandalising private property and assaulting police every time politicians or business leaders get together to discuss ways of cutting back trade restrictions. These trade restrictions (import taxes, over-the-top safety and environmental regulations, etc.) destroy the chances of people all over the world, rich and poor, who would like to increase their personal wealth and influence, and provide opportunities for their children to work their way out of servitude.

"When I was at university, about ten years ago, I was one of the nutty environmentalists to be found protesting outside oil company offices and government buildings about the poverty of people in the third world. One of our campaigns was for the removal of the punitive import taxes that prevent a Brazilian or Kenyan coffee farmer from selling anything other than a raw material to Europe. If that farmer were to roast, grind and package his coffee beans, our import duties would push the price of his product up to uncompetitive levels. Now we all know that wealth is created mostly by adding value to raw materials, not by extracting raw materials.

"This is only one example of the myriad ways in which our busy-body, sanctimonious bastard 'social democrat' governments in Europe conspire to keep their own tax takes at ludicrously high rates (up to 56 % of GDP) at the expense of denying such a Brazilian or Kenyan (or any other third world country) citizen the right to make a decent living for himself and his family.

"Now, just as the wishes of the greenies and hippies of yesteryear stand more chance than ever of being granted, the bunch of semi-literate thugs that pass for environmentalists today threaten to turn the clock back, opposing free trade, opposing the scientific advances that have doubled life expectancy in Europe in the last two hundred years, and assaulting the right of individuals to offer their goods and services to the world in exchange for a reasonable price (determined by the market), free of unnecessary government restrictions.

"I'm in danger of rambling on, so I'll end this email by just saying thank you for daring to speak out. Personally I do my best to oppose people who seem to believe in the religion of government (even though I'm doing a contract for the Dutch government right now! - hey I've got to earn a living and they own half the economy), but without your articles to encourage me, it would be much more difficult."

It's good to hear that not everyone in Europe has taken leave of his senses & that someone is trying to plug the dykes to hold back the statist flood. There's little enough pro-freedom sentiment there nowadays - it's as though, when the Berlin Wall & the rest of the Iron Curtain came down, WESTERN Europeans couldn't wait to put a new one up. But that's another story, for another editorial.

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