The Politically Incorrect Show - 05/11/2001

A libertarian misogynist might be a contradiction in terms - an Objectivist misogynist most certainly is - but were there such an animal he could be forgiven for arguing that the dominance of "wimmin" in government is a double-whammy against liberty. Look at the New Zealand experience: Helen Clark, a former smoker, leading the charge for a ban on tobacco; Marian Hobbes, former(?) communist, imposing local music quotas on broadcasters; Laila Harre forcing employers (or everybody - yet to be determined) to pay their women employees to get pregnant, & making criminals of parents who smack their children; Sandra Lee, banning commercial development projects left, right & centre & turning local councils into mini-dictatorships; Margaret Wilson, rendering employers liable to $4000 fines if their employees get "stressed" ... doubtless I've forgotten some ingredients of the witches' brew, but these are enough to convey its flavour. It's as though Big Mother has replaced Big Brother.

Big Mother, our misogynist might observe, has, by mere dint of her terrifying countenance, emasculated any potential rebellion by restless macho males - cut it off at its roots, so to speak. Look at Bill English. He has spent most of the time since he replaced Jenny Shipley as Opposition Leader - another Big Mother figure who was for ever hectoring us about our naughtiness - agreeing with everything the government has been doing, purportedly because he wants to occupy the same "middle ground" as the government does. That ground is the playground of eunuchs, impotent against & submissive to Big Mother's demands. Bill is a mummy's boy.

In truth, of course, gender has nothing to with the current onslaught against our liberties. There were plenty of men whacking away at them before the contemporary crop of dominatrices came along. Moreover, the situation would undoubtedly be far worse were it not for the writings of a woman, Ayn Rand, who put forward the most persuasive case yet that, however abjectly servile mankind actually becomes, men's & women's proper estate is an upright posture, with each of us exercising self-government, living freely by his own judgement for his own sake. The individualist injunction, unfortunately, is being drowned in the contemporary collectivist clamour. It behoves all of us, men & women alike, who have not lost sight of it to redouble our efforts to rescue it.

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