Hawk, homosexuality [male type anyway] was illegal in New Zealand until the mid 1980s. I don't mean blatant public displays or anything like that either. I mean consenting acts by adults in private.
There has been and still is all sorts of individually repressive legislation in New Zealand and also, of course, in that great land of the free and brave, the USA. Contrary to popular misconception though that might be. Heck, it was even illegal to have too much melanin in one's skin as recently as the 1960s in the USA [the punishment for having too much was to be prohibited from certain schools, seats on buses and stuff like that]. So it's a bit precious of us to come over all righteous about how China manages psychotic people who have crazy superstitious beliefs.
I agree with you that China's authoritarian style is an ugly blot on the landscape. But I would like to see a more authoritarian style in New Zealand, in many respects, starting with graffiti and including getting the social mayhem here under control. The NZ government is paying people to create mayhem, kill children and otherwise destroy the community. We are voting for self-destruction [albeit unknowingly].
"Children" are running riot and there is negligible consequence. Their parents are hopeless and funded by the state to produce more, which gets them a bigger pay packet, which makes them produce more. Children are a meal ticket, not loved, nurtured, protected and encouraged.
We have wacko Hari Krishnas dancing and singing in the street. I quite like that.
We had Jiang Zemin here a few years ago and law abiding protestors were moved and blocked and generally hassled to protect the delicate sensibilities of Jiang. One of the funny things I enjoyed on the 50th celebrations of the People's Republic of China was the sight of Jiang Zemin standing in some flash car, being driven up and down in Tienanmen Square [I think], with him calling "Sieg", or something like that, and the crowd responding in unison "Heil" or something similar. Apart from the colour of the bunting, it reminded me of a Nuremberg rally. It wouldn't work to get a NZ crowd calling out to the leader like that. We'd all fall about laughing at the absurdity.
My point is that the USA shouldn't get too bound up with picking a fight with China over their cultural norms. Apart from the hypocrisy involved, it's too bossy-britches. If China requires religious groups to register, that's not really much different from requiring a licence to run a petrol station, taxi or other means of earning a living [which NZ has]. Each society exerts social controls and social norms of all sorts. Here, groups have to be incorporated societies, which is much the same thing as requiring registration. Groups the government disapproves of are spied on [by our silly Security Intelligence Service, who were a public joke a few years ago when a guy caught them in the act of illegally entering his premises] and otherwise harassed.
Many people around the world consider the USA a barbaric state. They execute people for example. They ban marijuana and even cocaine. Public nudity is illegal. All sorts of things are compulsory or forbidden. They even used to force people against their will to be in an army and kill people against their will [both the will of the killer and killee]. They'd gaol refuseniks. Same in NZ.
Freedom would be a wonderful thing.
If you know of anywhere where freedom is practised, I'd like to hear about it.
Mqurice |
