The New Zealand general election is almost upon us! Rather than talk about which parties I like and which I don’t, I want us all to imagine a parallel world in which we find New New Zealand heading into an election. Here’s what’s on offer in New New Zealand:
There’s an election approaching, and Prime Minister John key is pretty confident that he’ll still be Prime Minister when it’s over. Full disclosure: I won’t be voting for his party (National). Seeing some of the propaganda that has been churned out in this election lead-up has caused me to notice something I hadn’t noticed before. So I went back through political propaganda from previous years, and there it was. I hadn’t seen it before, but it was there.
[WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS HIGHLY OFFENSIVE RACIST IMAGES for educational purposes]
Suppose you awoke one day and found yourself in a relatively technologically advanced society in which there were some very poor people. You did not consent to be in this position, but here you are. You ask around among some people with reasonably well-paying jobs (that is, people like you), and they all tell you the same thing: They didn’t intend for there to be any very poor people. They all just woke up and found themselves here.
If you kill yourself, then the only reason you did it is that one day you made a choice to do it. Are things really that simple?
Popular Christian blogger Matt Walsh has been getting a bit of flack lately. In a blog entry that was, in my view, a pretty bad idea, he offered what he took to be a correction to the many messages of sorrow about the recent death by suicide of actor Robin Williams. People have been drawing attention to Robin’s struggles with substance abuse and, more prominently in people’s comments, with the mental illness that is depression. I think it’s right to draw attention to this, and for Robin’s sad passing to be a reminder to us all how debilitating depression can be, and to reach out and help those who battle it. Sometimes you know about it, a lot of the time you won’t. Checkout the latest carbofix reviews.
New Zealand’s suicide rate is down. But there’s an unhappy story here about our elderly.
Figures for the year ending 30 June 2014 show that our overall suicide rate is at its lowest since the year ending 30 June 2008. Whether it’s the overall economic environment and direction, hopelessness / hopefulness about jobs or more personal scenarios: Family hardship (or an improvement therein), relationship status, or (hopefully!) improvement in the shape of mental health services, this is encouraging. Mental health and suicide has been thrust into the limelight recently, and that’s a brilliant thing.
You’ll be hearing more about this over the next little while, but we’re moving in an Anglican direction.
My wife and I are dragging our kids along (actually it’s not proving to be terribly hard) to the Anglican Church. It is not official yet, but that will come in time. I won’t go into the story of that just now. I’ll start right where we are now. We’ve walked (deliberately) into a Church – and plan to invest ourselves in a Church – that is beautiful, that has heritage, that proclaims the good news, that has a marvellous legacy of great thinkers and examples in the faith, and which, right now, is constantly under pressure to change, and in part due to the dedication and persistence of a few, the cracks are starting to show in the old girl.
We know that constitutional or legal freedom of speech was not violated when you bullied Brendan Eich out of his job at Mozilla because of his view on marriage. But lift your standards a little. “Legal” does not mean “good.”
Sometimes, public, ugly spats, cases of abuse or bullying, hate, or division can have the effect of causing misunderstandings – or perhaps just properly understood but really wrong views – about moral and legal issues to come bubbling to the surface of public discussion. The appalling treatment dished out to Mozilla’s Brendan Eich recently has been just such an example. In particular, the issue of freedom of speech and the consequences of the exercise of that freedom have been much discussed.
So Mozilla’s CEO has, in effect, been forced to resign. He was forced to resign because he believes that marriage ought to be regarded as the union of a man and a woman, and he has in the past donated money ($1,000) to a campaign to have the law in California reflect that belief. He didn’t want to go, but he was pushed, and pushed very hard.
Obviously this is a case of bullying. Obviously this is a case of free speech being stifled,1 and equally obvious (or it should be) is the fact that Mr Eich’s view on what constitutes a marriage is not, in any way at all, an attack on the equality of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation.
But what is perhaps worst of all (perhaps, I’m not sure – this sort of bullying is despicable enough) is that
If abortion poses a risk to women, then why are some people so offended when others point it out? Why do some even become angry, accusing those who highlight this connection of bullying and vilifying people? Is it really concern over bullying that drives such outrage? Or is the outrage just a front for the opposition to any negative press for abortion?
As some readers may know, Charlotte Dawson, a model and celebrity born in New Zealand but who lived in Australia, was recently found dead in her home in Sydney. Her tragic death was a suicide. Charlotte battled depression and had also endured a very public battle with internet bullies. People are awful beyond words sometimes.
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