There are some people in New Zealand - Robert included due to his reliance on 'news' from Sunday Mass, Fox News, Catholic Apologists and long dead Catholic 'philosophers' - who say silly things like New Zealand is a communist state.
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| These women, at the anti-mandate, anti-government protest in Wellington, given their ages should know better. |
New Zealand is not a communist state.
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| "I like the hat but I'm not a communist". |
New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy with a governmental structure similar to Germany since adopting the MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) system.
We also have similarities to traditional parliamentary systems like the United Kingdom and Australia and have lots of checks and balances built in to ensure fair democratic government.
With a reasonably fair and operative social welfare system though, New Zealand could be seen to be a democratic country with socialistic leanings. This has been evident in many of New Zealand's groundbreaking policies and advancements like voting and female emancipation, abortion laws, same sex marriage legislation and many others.
We vote for the party and the person who we think will lead New Zealand in the best direction. The elected result, by consensus, means that governments swing from central right to central left. That's democracy - change as voted by the people, and it is likely to swing back and forth over time.
In Communism, the workers collectively own the means of production, distribution and exchange from each according to his ability to each according to his need. These principles of Communism are found in the writings of Karl Marx. New Zealand fails on the communism test by allowing the ownership of private property and allowing a free market to operate, within regulation, and allowing the owners of those businesses to keep the after tax profits for themselves to spend or invest as they wish - provided it is not income gained from illegal activity. In the second principal, the re-distribution of wealth from the better-off to the worse-off, this in New Zealand is done through the Inland Revenue tax system and our various social welfare systems including health and education - just like many other Western democracies. New Zealand is not a communist country.
Socialism is not a bad thing. I'm often surprised to see, in Robert's blog posts where he writes of it as if it was bad.
"I'd forgotten to register for today's mass so while she was not looking I wrote my name on the list and took my place. A quick count, and I estimated there were less than 100 people anyway. I felt a bit like those protesting for freedom outside parliament. How long must we tolerate these draconian socialist regulations" - Robert the apologetic sinner 13 February 2022
This coming from someone who purports to be a Christian which is the ultimate socialist ideology is surprising. Maybe Catholics don't see themselves as Christians and are more akin to fascists.
Around the world there aren't that many communist states, with most countries, apart from the handful of non-communist dictatorships, embracing some sort of democratic government.
1 comment:
Hey, a very good post.
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