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From The Free Radical
(Aug/Sept 1999) http://www.freeradical.co.nz/ (Courtesy of Lindsay
Perigo, and thanks to Karla Osmers for drawing it to our attention !)
A problem I constantly face when trying to convince anyone
that New Zealand's' much beloved Welfare State Democracy is collapsing
into naked fascism is that no-one believes fascism is present unless
jackbooted brownshirts are dragging the innocent away at midnight.
The point is that no state gets to that point overnight;
slowly but surely the removal of rights and the institution of immoral
laws are the foundations laid over time - often so stealthily and with
such apparently good motives - that the well-meaning accept the erosion
of their liberty - and when the jackboots come, it's too late.
One of the "proofs" I am usually offered in support of
the contention that NZ is a free country is that here, unlike developed
overtly fascist countries one can only be imprisoned having been charged
and convicted, during which process objective evidence is brought to
substantiate the charge. Well, sorry folks but, {with apologies to Gershwin}
"it ain't necessarily so."
Today, in New Zealand, it is possible for a perfectly
innocent man, who has done nothing outside the law, to be sent to prison
on one person's unsubstantiated word. It came about by a law passed
in 1995 and put into force on 1st July 1996 - The Domestic Violence
Act which replaced the old Molestation Act. It is a brilliant illustration
of how "philosophies" such as modern feminism and its femi-nazi adherents
can be used to subvert freedom. Here's how it works.
1) A woman claims via an affidavit that she is frightened
of a man with whom she shares or has shared a domestic relationship.
She does not have to provide any proof; she does not even have to have
witness statements to support her contention. Her word is enough.
2) She applies for an ex parte Temporary Protection Order
(TPO); this means that her intended victim has no warning that such
an action is being taken against him - it is a "behind the back" move.
3) Such orders are signed by a single New Zealand judge
rostered daily for such duties - he can be anywhere in NZ. Since he
probably knows nothing about the case - it might be in Palmerston North,
he might be in Invercargill - he signs the Protection Order anyway.
4) This order will be served on the man - now "the Respondent"
- sometime over the next few days. On receiving it, he discovers several
things: he may not contact the woman in any way; he may not attend at
any place she resides (even if he owns it!); he may not "loiter" near
her place of work or home; he may not have any contact with his children
at all - not even by phone.
5) However, the law requires that the Judge also direct
that the respondent must attend Anger Management Counselling as directed
by the local court Registrar - i.e. the Registrar determines the structure,
number of sessions and so forth. These are usually Group Sessions, in
keeping with the tribalistic nature of those who initiate such monstrosities
- our potentially innocent respondent will be required to sit in a group
with tattooed convicted thugs and discuss his most private emotions,
and his personal method of handling them!
6) Should the respondent fail to attend the Anger Management
Assessment and course, a summons will be issued, requiring him to attend
Court, where the Judge will warn him that any future failure to attend
will result in imprisonment. The Act does not determine any maximum
term or level of imprisonment!
7) Finally, upon service of the Protection Order the man
must surrender any firearm in his possession, even if lawfully held.
8) Should he breach any part of this order - by perhaps
deciding he will retrieve some property of his from the premises, or
try to make some sort of contact with his children - the police can
arrest and hold him without a warrant.
All of this happens when the man is served with the Temporary
Protection Order. So far he has not been allowed to defend himself to
anyone. Nonetheless, he will be held to be guilty as accused until such
time as he proves he is innocent. If he wishes to "appeal" (note the
wording), he must notify the Court within 5 days, but he must submit
to being treated as guilty until he is heard, which can take up to four-six
months.
Note the essentials of this: one woman, who may well be
acting out of nothing but spite, makes a claim about how she feels regarding
a certain man's behaviour; solely on the basis of this the man is prevented
from seeing his children, forced to attend Anger Management Counselling
in company with convicted felons, such as thugs and rapists and failing
such attendance may be put in prison and deprived of lawfully-held firearms.
On one persons' unsubstantiated say-so. With no evidence required. Sounds
awfully like developed, overt fascism to me!
In one case I have been made aware of the man concerned
had not even been informed that a TPO had been made out against him
when the local court-appointed "Counsellors" turned up demanding he
make an appointment for his "Anger Management." He not unnaturally said
he might wait until the TPO was served before even considering whether
he would attend - to be informed that since the court Registrar had
given the Counsellors instruction to instigate Anger Management Sessions,
he would be in breach of court and liable for imprisonment if he failed
to attend.
Just to demonstrate that there's no bias here, should
the man actually fail to demonstrate a requirement for Counselling by
the Anger Management's own assessment criteria - well, they decide this
means he's in denial - so he needs Anger Management anyway!! Heads they
win, tails you lose!
How do such things happen? They happen because those who
seek to control us are very good at playing on the unearned guilt which
the innocent are all too willing to bear, and at using good motives
as a cover for evil ones.
No-one doubts that unfortunately there do exist violent,
destructive men from whom their victims need legitimate protection,
and urgency laws for such cases may well be the best way of handling
these cases.
However, there are hundreds of broken relationships occurring
every year; it is demonstrable from the statistics that vicious men
are in the minority. But the Domestic Violence Act 1995 acts on the
assumption that all men are potentially violent - and this is a direct
consequence of the culture of academic feminism which, via Universities,
has peddled exactly that message for the past two decades.
Unfortunately, too many innocent men have quietly worn
the guilt of the vicious instead of rejecting vehemently as sick and
evil any suggestion that they - non-violent men - bear unearned the
guilt of the guilty. According to feminist philosophy, because a very
few men are violent, all men are violent; because a very few men may
assault their children, all men are itching to do so. The Domestic Violence
Act is a "cover-all" - so that what is occasionally essential for the
few has been made to apply to everyone.
That this Act is designed to attack men is evidenced by
the fact that it does not apply in other than "domestic" relationships
- not to employer / employee, tenant / landlord, for example, where
the gender distribution is less definite. When problems of a similar
nature arise such people have to seek the much less draconian Trespass
Orders.
Is it completely beyond the skills of law writers to protect
the innocent while targeting the guilty? Of course not - framing law
is what they are trained and paid to do.
Few acts of domestic violence are carried out in isolation,
which means that evidence of past violence would be available to the
woman in genuine need of protection - witness statements obtained if
necessary by subpoena, living in a women's' refuge - the sort of evidence
to support an urgency Protection Order that could be supplied in genuine
cases.
No, when laws like this are written, they are done so
for one purpose; to widen the net of the state.
This law exemplifies what Ayn Rand called "humanity's
darkest evil ... its most destructive horror machine ... a non-objective
law" (Atlas Shrugged). Everything in this law, from start to finish
is concerned with the subjective; with whims, perceptions, interpretations
- but never with facts or evidence.
For example, the law states that anybody in a domestic
relationship may apply for a TPO, but what is deemed to constitute a
domestic relationship is so large that "the Court must decide if a relationship
exists." (The grounds on which the Court decides? Whatever!)
Among others grounds for granting an Order are "intimidation,
harassment" (what constitutes these actions? - whatever!), and finally,
and worst of all, "the court must have regard to the applicant's perception
of the nature, seriousness and effect of the respondent's behaviour"
(i.e. what the applicant feels about it all. The Objective basis for
the applicants perceptions? - whatever!).
Inspection of such Affidavits demonstrates that indeed
such subjective whims are all that are required to put an innocent man
in such an invidious position; one sees such accusations as "he has
acted in a harassing manner which I find distressing .....I believe
he is trying to get at me.... He came to my home and asked to see our
children; when I refused he phoned up asking to talk to them .... His
general manner is mean .... He keeps demanding to see the children."
In other words, whatever you, the (almost always) woman
applying for the Order thinks about it all. But you don't have to provide
any evidence!! A law that relies on a judge's whim and a woman's unsupported
ideas has to be about as subjective a law as they get!
And it is by means of this subjective law that any man
can be deprived of access to his children, sent to anger management
with convicted thugs and deprived of lawfully-held firearms!
So what exactly is "Anger Management?" It is Nanny State
at its most extreme - telling us how we may give expression to a normal
emotion! In a discussion I had with one of these Anger Management Counsellors,
he claimed that citizens may not - legally - express anger against those
who initiate violence against us except as Nanny allows us. We may only
undertake what Nanny regards as "allowable, constructive acts" of anger.
"Suppose," I asked this person, "I discover the man next
door is killing my pet cats? I get angry about this and go and tell
him he's a nasty, murdering bastard. I feel this is probably a fairly
natural, acceptable reaction towards someone initiating violence against
me or my property."
Ah, no. Nanny says I am not allowed to call him names.
I can go to the police, and hope they take me seriously enough to do
something, I can call various Government approved groups and ask them
to help me. But I am not allowed to take my retaliatory anger into my
own hands, and say anything abusive or hurtful to the man attacking
my property.
What does all this say? That the Government believes it
"owns" me so far that it will now dictate how I can express the most
basic of normal defensive emotions - anger. It will dictate the terms
on which I may retaliate against those who initiate force against me.
Which means, the initiators of force may be protected, depending on
what they negotiate with Government and its officials, but the morally
correct retaliators against their force may do virtually nothing.
This, most basic of all human rights, is denied by Government
decree. All I may do is what a child can do - ask Nanny State (the Daddy
substitute) to do something on my behalf.
Oh, where years of Welfare Statism have led - now all adults
are children.
And what sort of philosophies are used to uphold this
obscenity?
Those who believe that philosophy has no place in everyday
life would do well to consider this. How can we claim that an affidavit
- which is simply a declaration made under oath, and is by its very
nature unsubstantiated - is "evidence"?
By accepting that reality, as such, does not exist. That
is, there is no reality for which we need evidence, because reality
is what you make it.
Adherence to this philosophy gets demonstrated every day
by people who say, "We all have our own truth ... truth is what you
make it ... what's real for you isn't real for me." So, for the Domestic
Violence Act, reality is whatever the applicant says it is.
And how about the professional man who never hit anyone
in his life, resentful at being required to attend group anger sessions
with convicted thugs? Well there's a philosophy for him, which goes
something like, "We are all equal ... there but for the grace of God
goes each of us ... there's good and bad in all of us ... we shouldn't
judge others."
A recent estimate suggested that close to 50% of marriages
fail.
Given that in few of these there will be any objective
need for legitimate partner protection, this law casts a wide net over
a large of number of men, leaving them threatened, exposed and vulnerable;
is it for no better reason than that they have offended the sensibilities
of an ex-partner?
Or as yet another of many nails in the coffin of freedom?
And remember, this isn't a law targeted at a specific group of people
who initiate force against others - or even contravenes Nanny states
self-protection laws - it is designed to affect any man who has or does
live with a partner who gets spiteful when they separate.
That's an awful lot of men, so bear in mind, male reader
- it could be you!!
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