In wake of the return of the stolen victoria crosses and the Police claiming they are “honour bound” to pay the thieves the promised reward not PC argues that it is permissible to lie to an agressor. The standard example in the literature (which PC utilises) goes something like this: You are hiding someone fleeing for their life (modern examples use Jews in Nazi occupied territory). A murderer (modern examples usually use the Gestapo) come knocking on your door. They ask you if you know the whereabouts of their prey. Do you tell the truth?

I agree with not PC that the correct answer to this question is no. I agree that the rule to not lie is restricted in scope, prohibiting lying to competent adults who are not violating our rights or threatening such a violation.

Interestingly, not PC seems to think I am committed to rejecting this conclusion. He insinuates that Kantian and Divine Command approaches to ethics entail that one can never lie under any circumstances. He writes for example “that moral principles are neither "divine commandments" nor "categorical imperatives" -- they are guides to action applying within a certain framework of conditions;”and latter he is more explict

Unlike the ethics of religionists, Objectivism derives its moral principles not from stone tablets or burning bushes or caliphate commandments -- not on what's needed to live in heaven or paradise in some supernatural realm -- but from from the needs of man's survival and flourishing right here on this earth. The contrast with religious morality could not be greater: for the Objectivist, moral principles are guides to action intended to enhance and sustain one's life. For the religionist however, moral principles are divine commandments that act like a ball and chain -- a dogmatic straitjacket commanding one's obedience, even if when talking to a Gestapo officer it could lead to your own death or that of a loved one. For the Objectivist, the answer to a Gestapo chief is outside the bounds of morality altogether: morality ends when the Gestapo chief's gun begins. But for the religionist, telling the truth is an absolute necessity even if it entails the sacrifice of your life and that of your loved ones.

Here PC is just plain wrong. While it is correct that many Catholic moral theologians support an unqualified prohibition on lying PC misunderstands the rationale they propose for this verdict. Catholic teaching on natural law as (expounded by people like Thomas Aquinas) is precisely that the moral law is derived from what conduces to human flourishing. Lying is prohibited because it is believed to be conducive to human flourishing. It is not prohibited because such a rule makes one fit for heaven or because its set down in tablets of stone promulgated by burning bush (apart from slander lying is not mentioned in the ten commandments) nor is it held to be correct because a priest or caliphate says so. Catholic theologians argue for this thesis from Aristotelian understandings of human flourishing. I think they are incorrect, but thats not an excuse for misrepresenting their position.

Similar things can be said about Divine Command Theories (and contrary to PC not all "religionists" are divine command theorists) . Divine command theories (DCT) as propounded by Locke, Berkley, Paley, Suarez etc typically affirm that right and wrong are determined by God’s prescriptive will. However these thinkers go on to stress that God is a rational being who wills the flourishing of human beings and hence what God’s will is rational and God commands what promotes or leads or respects human flourishing in some way.

But to the more substantive point.

A DC theorist is committed to claiming that it is never wrong to lie in any circumstance, only if believes God has commanded this. Such a claim is often attributed to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, but this is debatable to say the least. The Hebrew scriptures contain several passages where God approves of lying in certain contexts. One obvious example is the case of the Hebrew midwives in the book of Exodus. In the narrative Pharaoh orders that all Hebrew male children are to be killed at birth. The midwives respond by lying to Pharaoh about the births in order to protect them and are commended by God for their actions. There has been a huge amount of discussion of these passages and their application to moral theology on lying within Christian casuistry. So it is surprising people so often attribute naïve absolutism to moral theologians who take scripture seriously.

Nor does a person sympathetic (as I am) to Kantian understandings of morality have to embrace the conclusion that’s its never wrong to lie. According to some Kantian’s (such as Alan Donagan) ethical principles have a logic such that one person cannot appeal to a principle for protection as a shield for breaking that principle or another equally as grave. Self defence is perhaps the clearest paradigm: a person cannot rationally appeal to an absolute right to not be killed if he uses that right as a shield to cover his killing of someone else. Such a position involves a contradiction of the will. And it rejects the universalizability of moral principles; the idea that what rules one lays down for others must, if they are moral principles, also apply to oneself.

I am inclined to think that without something like this condition ethical principles would become incoherent. If one cannot justifiably use force to repel an attacker when the only way the attacker can be repelled is by force then the attacker has a freedom right to attack his victim. But surely if the claim it’s wrong to kill entails anything it entails that people do not have a freedom right to do kill others. Now, if one can use force against a person to protect ourselves and others from their attacks it seems hard to see why we can’t lie or deceive them to do so.

What does this mean in the present context? It means that not PC is correct that the police are not bound by a promise to pay the reward to those who stole the Victoria Crosses. The Police would be acting licitly if they refused to pay. And nothing about being a divine command theorist or Kantian precludes one drawing this conclusion

Let me add a final point in defence of PC’s conclusion. The standard argument against lying in this context takes a rule consquentialist line. It’s contended that accepting a rule that permits the police to renege on paying such rewards has bad consequences. Criminals in future cases may not divulge information necessary to solve crimes and hence peoples property will not be returned. The problem here, as with many appeals to consquentialism, is that there are other consequences of accepting this rule which point the other way. A rule where criminals get paid for returning what they steal makes stealing and ransoming pay and hence encourage stealing, kidnapping, ransoming etc.

Consequently, if one is to appeal to positive consequences in a plausible way one needs to examine the total consequences of accepting the rule. One need’s to examine both how many crimes will be solved by accepting this rule and how much crime will be encouraged if we don’t and it needs to be shown that former good results outweigh the latter. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever done this calculation. Until they have the claim that consequences justify honouring agreements to thieves is unsubstantiated.

We got an email earlier today alerting us to the return of Jim Peron to prominence. This was not the first email expressing this concern that we have had in the past few months, in fact the number we have received is surprisingly high given we thought the issue had gone away back in 2005 when Jim Peron had his work permit revoked on the grounds of bad character due to his paedophilia apologist days back in San Francisco.

What made this email different was that in addition to the claims that he is back in favour and increasing in influence was that it pointed to a new website with our Locke Foundation Report on it and a copy of Unbound (hosted overseas). It invited people to make sure its existence got out there in cyberland.

We were not sure that we wanted to go there again. We certainly do not want to re-litigate this issue it was stressful enough the first time round but we see the point.

Since leaving New Zealand, Jim Peron continues to be published, has had invitations to speak and host conferences, is hailed as an authority and with the demise of the evidence from the world wide web that we unearthed, along with others, some are claiming he was framed, that we, along with Lindsay Perigo, made made the whole thing up because we hate gays. These latter claims are ludicrous - not only is our alledged co-conspiritor gay himself but so was one of the researchers (our flatmate) who worked with us, to write the report! A huge deal was made of Peron's sexual orientation and our faith at the time and to this day. The reality is that these things have no bearing on the issue at hand.

The fact is, that what Jim Peron did was disturbing. I think Joseph Rowlands sums it up well:

A few years ago, a prominent libertarian (Jim Peron) in Objectivist circles was outed as a supporter of pedophilia. Some investigators in New Zealand found copies of a magazine he published on the topic, including an article in his own name.

The responses at the time were very curious. I would have expected libertarians and Objectivists to try to distance themselves from his viewpoint, or to condemn that ideas he had promoted, or to distance themselves from him. Instead, their was an outpouring of sympathy for him. He has a right to free speech, they said. This is just a witch-hunt, they said. He claims no knowledge of any of it, despite the article penned in his name, they said. That was decades ago, they offered. Age of consent laws are arbitrary(!) they began to argue...

On and on, people who had already supported him found ways to dismiss this significant information about him. They determined that there was no significant loss with having libertarian or Objectivist ideas falsely connected to child-rape.

It was shocking to me at the time for a few reasons. One, because the hatred and disgust that most people felt was for those who brought out the facts. Two, because while the issue should have been about someone promoting pedophilia, people tried to ignore that and hide behind the freedom of speech principle. And three, because when these didn't seem enough, people actually started making arguments to try to make it seem more respectable, starting with age of consent laws being arbitrary.

Generally I am not a fan of Post Modern ways of thinking; frequently what I see propagated under that banner is irrational and incoherent but made to look profound through the use of sophisticated sounding intellectualised language. However, one idea often touted as “post modern” I find plausible, at least in some contexts. This is the notion that appeals to objectivity (in the sense of neutrality) are not neutral at all. They are rather concealed attempts to ensure hegemony of ones own position.

I was reminded of this recently when I was reading the webpage of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH). The latest press realise on this page is as follows:

Ms McKenzie said that while NZARH would not oppose charitable work that directly
eases poverty in Melanesia, it is inappropriate for the Government of New Zealand to allow tax exemptions for that part of the Trust's work which is purely missionary or purely commercial. She said the politicians cited in today's New Zealand Herald report of the Trust's activities should understand that Parliament is not a church and elected politicians are not elected to advance the cause of any particular religion's missionary activities."Even the poorest people in New Zealand pay tax, yet this multi-million dollar trust doesn't want to pay tax like the rest of us. If religious trusts such as these paid tax and property rates like the rest of us, it would reduce the individual tax burden considerably. Tax privileges based on religion should be a thing of the past.""If Parliament was passing a Bill advantaging the Scientologists
or the Destiny Church in this way there would be uproar.

Elizabeth McKenzie is NZARH’s president and in this release she speaks on speaking on behalf of NZARH. Here argument is worth noting she maintains [1] that government should not advance the cause of “any particular religion's missionary activities” [2] to grant tax exemption to an organisation whose work is missionary is to give it a privilege not granted to “the rest of us” and constitutes advancing its causes. The appeal seems to be to some concept of impartiality or equality. Religious groups should not get tax relief that everyone else does not get unless their work is purely charitable.

What I found interesting about this is that a some months ago I picked up NZARH’s journal The Open Society (former called The New Zealand Rationalist Humanist) and on the back page where addresses of various “Humanist organisations” are listed there is reference to a “New Zealand Humanist Charitable Trust’. NZARH’s 2001 journal has an entire article on this charitable trust. It states that “The named beneficiaries in the Trust deed are HSNZ and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH)” [emphasis mine] This article also tells us that the trusts purpose is not purely charitable, one of its functions is to “Provide funding for seminars and other educational activities to promote public understanding and discussion of ethics and Humanism;” and the article tells us that NZARH could use it to fund visiting speakers.

So, NZARH apparently have no problem with Humanist Charitable Trusts, will gladly promote them and be the beneficiaries of them, and will use these trusts for promoting their own “particular secular missionary activities”. Despite the fact that “Even the poorest people in New Zealand pay tax,” despite the fact that “If humanist trusts such as these paid tax and property rates like the rest of us, it would reduce the individual tax burden considerably”. It’s interesting two that for all the rampant condemnation of religious charities on their site. NZARH is oddly silent about the New Zealand Humanist Society which, according to the March 2004 issue of the New Zealand Humanist, has tax exempt status and which had an article explaining what they needed to do to maintain this status. In fact NZARH appear on their site to promote the NZ Humanist Society.

The key phrase word in NZARH’s release is the word “religious trusts”. It apparently has no problem with the state giving tax credits to (and hence by their logic advancing and privileging) humanist organisations. It therefore appears to advocate a situationthe state advances the agendas of opponents of religious belief get state assistance but religious groups get no such assistance and are prohibited from getting it. Ironically it does this in the name of equality. However this is not equality it is rigging the deck in their favour. NZARH is advancing economic discrimination by the state in its favour and against its ideological opponents.

I am supposed to be online surfing trade me for summer horse covers but I am mad so I came here instead.

I am mad because I don't want to spend money on a horse cover our horse does not need and, well probably mostly, I resent being made to do so by some idiot who is contemporaneously wielding power and ignorance and has our pony club and all its members backed into a corner.



You see our horse, Trogdor (that is Trogdor the Burninator or Troggy for short - thats him above), does not need a summer cover. He is a well covered, thick skinned, healthy horse with a coat in good condition meaning he naturally has everything he needs that horses for centuries have used to stay cool in summer and warm in winter - and besides he lives in Auckland where it just doesn't get cold (well compared to Dunedin where we recently vacated - I would have to daily break the ice on my horse's water trough through winter down there!) and add to this is he is an Arab cross bred - gee I wonder how the horses in Arabia survived all that desert... so he only gets covered when it is the middle of winter and it is wet and frosty and even then mostly because we are sooks.

This is best practice equine care.

I could bore you stupid linking to endless sites advocating "the natural horse" approach to equine care but basically the gist is that if a horse is in good health and is not too old or too young then they coat will aerate or sit flat to let heat in or out depending on the conditions and only in extreme conditions do you intervene with nature - most of the time if you spend mega bucks building your horse a shelter he or she can stand under you will find him happily out in the blinding rain (or snow as in Dunedin) or sweltering sun ignoring your shelter in much the same manner he is ignoring the weather.

Enter the stupid, moronic animal activist.

He has decided that all the pony club horses are being neglected because they don't have/won't stay under "adequate shelter". He will report us to the council for animal abuse if we do not immediately ensure our horses have cover from the sun and have pony club shut down. (Did I mention the pony club occupies several acres of prime waterfront Auckland real estate which seriously GRATES the council?)

As the horses will not stay in the shade and move around the paddock as they graze (anyone would think they were coping perfectly fine with the sun) our only option to prevent the wrath of the council and to get this idiot of our backs is to put covers on them. This will make the horses hot, sweaty and miserable and will cost us money and will increase the risk of the horses coming to harm in the paddock by way of cover strap breakage or getting themselves hooked on fences and trees, etc. But hey, what would the two vets who wrote opinions on our behalf and us experienced horse owners know compared to some jumped up idiotic animal rights activist?

He actually rejected the vets opinion on the grounds that he "did not consider one of them to be credible." When asked which vet was not credible his response was, "I don't want to name him because I don't want to risk being sued for slander." Hello! You are only at risk of slander if you are talking crap, if it is true you have a defence.

So here I am looking at forking out at least $30 (for the crappiest option on the market - yeah I know, its not that much but its the principle!) for an item I don't need that will make my horse uncomfortable because of some nut-job who knows he has us all over a barrel because he knows the council will leap at the chance to get us off the land we lease from them but still dares to call himself the advocate for animal rights.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Madeleine

Thanks for all the emailed messages of condolences.

Its been a pretty rough 10 months and the last month or so was the hardest.

We are picking up our lives gradually so I guess this means we are officially back online.

Madeleine