Marc My Words… 20 July 2007
Political comment
By
Marc Alexander

The dawn of a new error

"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we are sure, stifling it would be an evil still. - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859.

Many with strong opinions are assailed from time to time by people who either politely or not, make the suggestion to not be so judgmental. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it happens to me all the time. My response has always been an emphatic “why not?”

There's been a dearth of judgment lately - especially where it matters most, amongst our law-makers. What we have had instead has been the triumph of fancy masquerading as ideas - the precise opposite of discernment based on consideration. The result? Nothing less than the meltdown of values at the altar of moral relativism.

Our culture has undergone such a change that even concepts of right and wrong have become subject to this bankrupt ideology. We have become slaves to ethical laziness drowning in a sea of the new bigotry against values and re-calibrating them indulgently. For example, promiscuity has been re-packaged as part of the alternative lifestyle - encouraged by sex education in schools where condoms are demonstrated on bananas while the meaning and obligations of relationships are ignored. Porn stars and prostitutes are now euphemistically referred to as "sex workers". Prisons have become 'Correctional Institutions' and prisoners re-classified as 'residents'. Drugs are couched in the language of harm minimization supported by tax-funded needle exchange programs ostensibly to lessen the possibility of the more un-savoury health downsides such as hepatitis and aids. Meanwhile, women who murder their infants are increasingly given leniency for post natal depression; and inebriated killer drivers are partially exempted from blame if they claim alcohol addiction.

Much of the defence of these changes rests on the doubtful principle that unless we are part of the group identified, we cannot possibly imagine their world and, therefore, have no right to judge. Freedom of speech has been distorted to mean broad-mindedness to accept the idea that right and wrong, goodness and badness, or truth and falsehood are no longer absolute. Instead they must be understood from within the culture it's found and with recognition to the situation at hand. That means from within the drug culture, prison culture, sex-industry, and so on. We are even prevented from passing judgment via threats of legal action and defamation suits.

The new tolerance has ironically spawned an intolerance of criticism and offence. The protection of self-gratifying lifestyles from public condemnation implicitly feeds into a requirement for lack of responsibility. No absolutes, no recriminations.

The political up-side for an ideology based on the maintenance of power rather than the betterment of a nation can take advantage by active promotion of such indulgence as a trade-off for votes. And this is precisely what the present Labour government has pursued, aided and abetted by fawning media uncritical of the new vistas of behaviour opening up as a result. Just today an item in the Christchurch press confirmed matter of factly that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) officials told Parliament's education and science select committee that "funding for prostitution courses could be considered under changes aimed at boosting quality and relevance."

Or consider the almost heroic treatment given to David Bain. It was hard to count all the sycophantic media personalities pushing their way to obtain exclusive interviews. Armed with mile wide grins celebrating the marvels of modern dentistry, they raced with their microphones to prod David Bain with all the urgency of a proctologist on a lapsed parking meter. Had they concluded their fawning with a request to have an autograph I would not have been surprised. In fact I was somewhat surprised they didn't.

Seventy people crammed the Christchurch court's public gallery, and when news hit that he had been granted bail, the packed public gallery erupted in cheering and clapping. What seemed to have escaped the throng of well-wishers was that David Bain was found guilty of killing his father Robin, his mother, Margaret, and siblings Arawa, Laniet, and Stephen by a jury in May 1995. He had exhausted nearly all avenues of appeal until finally, the Privy Council determined that he be granted a retrial but should remain in prison. Somehow that translated into a 'get-out-of-jail-free card', and he was out on bail. The most salient aspect to all this was not that he was found innocent, that there was no credible alternative to him being the perpetrator, but that David Bain's own extended family (those that knew him best) were disinterested in meeting with him. It was even stipulated that as part of his bail conditions he be sent to the North Island. Gee I wonder why?

How about the preposterous case of Jason Reihana? He was found guilty of a double murder and promptly rewarded with a non-parole sentence of twenty-one years. As it turns out he's suffering from leukaemia. Now... unlike you or I who would be forced to take a gamble on the government's health waiting list, he's going to receive treatment almost immediately. At a time when our health resources are stretched, waiting lists for treatment getting chopped for no good reason other than it embarrasses the government, this is utterly absurd.

He'll first spend six weeks in Auckland Hospital for a bone marrow transplant where he'll need two guards, maybe three, 24 hours a day. That'll be followed by six months of outpatient care. Prison escorts will then take him to and from the hospital every second day and then on intermittent visits for an additional 18 months. The whole thing is anticipated to cost us around a million dollars. The worst of it is that the victim's family, as taxpayers, will also be paying.

I suppose there will be the predictable rumblings from the loony civil and prisoner rights advocates who will try and argue that not providing him with medical care would be tantamount to imposing a death sentence. Personally I can live with that. Others can't. Department of Corrections assistant general manager women's and specialist services Bridget White said that prisoners are considered for secondary and tertiary health care under the same eligibility criteria as all members of the public. My question is why?

We do not have a limitless supply of healthcare dollars. What resources we do have should be prioritized to meet the greatest needs. And the needs of the law-abiding must always be seen as greater when in competition with the needs of the criminal. What our present system does, by prioritizing the needs of a convicted double murderer at public expense to the tune of $1million, while waiting lists are the norm for non-offenders, is for practical purposes, place a higher value on the social worth of the criminal. People who choose to embark on a life of crime have, by doing so, also chosen to relinquish the entitlements due to the law-abiding. Only the most morally vacuous would have a problem with that surely? This is moral relativism at its worst - the criminal culture being upheld to the same standards as obedient citizens on all other criteria as if their criminal actions did not have consequences attached to them.

While being an atheist, I nevertheless acknowledge that the Judeo-Christian heritage of the West has provided a fairly consistent ethical template which, for the most, rejects the moral relativism so prevalent today. I suspect it's the main reason why Churches are often the target of ridicule. All the same, we are awash with examples of unwillingness to place an ethical stake in the ground. The real aim of the intellectual Left is not to replace traditional Judaic-Christian values but to supplant it with no values - which is the natural consequence of the relativistic world view. The removal of such things as shame, guilt and punishment therefore becomes a necessity: it is the obliteration of an individual responsibility. The result is nothing less than humanistic anarchy. Only the functionality of law maintains any semblance of outward order, but this hides the reality behind the rising tide of crime we have become 'used' to living with - assuming it to be the necessary price for our rapidly diminishing freedom. It isn't of course, but the process is designed and meant to amputate the ability to come to judgment about issues, people, and behaviour.

We actually do have the right...no, the obligation to call into question the social worth of a person, group or action based on a standard that transcends the vagaries of the latest ideological flight of fancy embodied by the moral relativists. Because the alternative is a slow descent into a society divided into increasing silos of commonality alienated by all the others. Community replaced by spheres of identity shaping culture existing unto its own logic. Not long ago we prided ourselves on the ability to discern and make judgments. The absence of a genuine standard has turned the capacity to distinguish and discriminate as a virtue of the wise to being a negative constraint on the new tolerance expected throughout society. No wonder the kids are muddled. We are training them to accept ethical ambivalence. What is taking place is nothing less than the extinguishing of our values.

ends

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