I'm referring to this contribution from former ACT MP Stephen Franks.
Yes, yes yes – at last those who our masters would make into worms have turned.I can totally understand the frustrations felt by businesspeople unable to access their premises. If I were in their position I could well imagine being driven almost crazy.
All of us who want to live on our feet and not our knees owe thanks to the business people who today stormed the cordon to regain the right to their own properties.
The humiliation piled on them since the earthquake by the lords of emergency, "in their own interests, of course" is humiliation we should all have felt. Lets now hope tomorrow's revolt is bigger, and the next day until the oppressors are shamed and slink away.
The left fondly thinks that working class warriors established our freedoms. In fact it was the merchants of London and other property owners who needed freedom and respect for the rule of law to protect their properties as well as their consciences. Unions and the left have been on the side of repression more often than not.
I salute you merchants of Christchurch, as worthy inheritors of a noble tradition of merchants.
Still, let's think this through. If authorities let through the cordon anyone who wanted to go in, and if a building were to collapse on one of those people, we'd be demanding the head of someone in a position of responsibility.
This may be a difficult concept for some people who believe property rights are paramount, but sometimes the protection of human life is more important than stuff. It's just stuff. Things. Possessions. Chattels.
What made Franks' intemperate post all the more amusing was the almost pre-programmed need to blame the entire situation on the left. This is not a left v right thing. You could hardly call the police and army puppets of our all-seeing socialist overlords.
I just hope that the citizen revolt Franks is calling for doesn't end up with someone being buried under a tonne of bricks and masonry.
The aggrieved merchant class who Franks is trying to score ideological points by aligning himself with are a rather more diverse bunch than his famously stunted imagination is likely to comprehend. The real irony here is that the ultimate target of their grievance is Franks's political bedfellow Gerry Brownlee. He's the real power behind Civil Defence national controller John Hamilton, the guy who's happy to fawn over visiting royalty, but lacked the cojones to meet with today's protesters while things were still civil.
ReplyDeleteFranks channels his inner Ayn Rand. Property rights trump life rights every time. After all, Franks was once an ACT MP and has not changed his spots. Again, thanks for following his blog so we don't have to.
ReplyDelete"those who our masters would make into worms have turned."
ReplyDelete"live on our feet and not our knees"
"stormed the cordon"
Seriously, WTF has he been drinking/smoking? Switch to decaf, Stephen.
If we changed just a couple of words in the first part of Franks' post we could easily transform it into a call for the proletariat to rise up and seize the means of production.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mr Franks was a marxist in his university days.
Revolutionaries on gilded ramparts.
ReplyDeleteHe was actually a Marxist, Scott. He often brings that up. You see, he went to China once, so therefore he understands socialism better than anybody else and why it's WRONG.
ReplyDelete