Concerning Kiwis (With apologies to J.R.R Tolkien)

New Zealanders are generally laid back, caring, compassionate, easy going, and open minded. They belive in justice, fairness, helping each other and giving everyone a fair go. Especially those in a minority.

Or do they? Is it all crap? Scratch the surface, and a nastier kiwi emerges. A kiwi who is full of hatred, intolerance, resentment, evil. A kiwi who, rather than giving their fellow man a helping hand up, who is willing to kick him while he is down, with the size 10 steel capped boot. And again for such good measure. A kiwi who resents and is afraid of minorities, such as the non-white, the sick, the poor, the workers, women, children, academia, etc to the point to pouring out vile critisim which wouldnt be out of place in the Germany of the 1920's and 30's, and even go as far as to push them out of any position of voice in this nation.

I could go on. One only has to turn on talkback radio or read the letters to the editor in the local paper to know what I mean. A foul hatred emerging from so called "middle new zealand", stirred up by right wing politicans and the overseas owned media. You know it is bad when a prominent columnist and former MP openly calls for the sterilisation of those he considers "unfit parents", and lobby groups with "Family" in their names openly oppose legislation that would protect children from assaults by their parents of caregivers, those who are mean to care for them and nurture them. You know it is bad when people oppose free lunches in schools because in their own twisted little minds, they think that the parents would have a "disincentive" to feed their kids. (Even though the practise is common in other nation..)

One wonders what people think of our nation. They must think we are nuts, and I would agree with them. We seem to be in our own dimension, carrying on doing our own thing. Its strange. You would think after 23 years of liberal reform, we would be able to become a part of the world. But we are still quite insular with regards to some aspects.

What is wrong with our nation? That would require an answer which time and bandwidth do not permit. But, let us take a journey and find out. Who knows where we might end up?