Chris Trots Out of the Park (Updated)

I assume that the police have been called. It seems that Chris Trotter has been kidnapped and an imposter is writing in his place. If the police act quickly, a life may still be saved.

As I watched the cavalcade of secondary school pupils receive their
prizes, and heard all around me the happy murmuring of proud parents, a
lifetime's worth of hostility towards these sorts of ceremonies melted
away.

How can a kid raised among the stark, bare walls of a state house
hope to compete with a kid who has grown up with Beethoven and Bach,
Rembrandt and Brueghel?

But as I watched the prizewinners make their way across the stage,
it suddenly hit me that this attitude was both extraordinarily
arrogant, and very, very dangerous.

Who is served by belittling, or condemning, the distinctions
conferred upon these children? Who is served by an ideology that
refuses to recognise that crucial aspect of the human spirit which
refuses to accept the brute statistical reality that many are called
but few are chosen?

Are we socialists, in our drive for an absolute equality of
outcomes, really willing to descend to the level of a certain species
of crab which will, when collected in a bucket, seize and haul back
into the doomed mass any individual that attempts to escape its fate by
climbing out?

Having been so mean about him recently I can't quite believe this is the Chris Trotter from last week. Has he been drinking? Under too much stress? Or just kidnapped as I suggested?

Should John Key's mother be condemned for instilling in her son the
notion that, with lots of hard work and a little luck, he could
transcend his state house roots?

One would hope not.

This is a powerful piece I think, not because of a particularly strong or well-argued case, but because of his effort to see things from another point of view. It is funny that socialism and capitalism sometimes argue that they are trying to achieve the same ends.

Socialism appeals because it seems more in control and more lovely. More in control because the government can just pass laws for things. More lovely because we give lots of money to poor people.

Capitalism loses because it is too random and hard. Random because the market is unpredictable - although people responds to incentives, the government has a lot of trouble working out exactly what the response will be. Hard because of capitalism's brutal customer ethic - if your customers leave, for whatever reason, even you are are a wonderful human being, you starve.

Having said that, most peoples' understanding of both is woeful. Mr Trotter would do us all a favour if he devoted the rest of his life to trying to educate people about socialism and capitalism, and the merits and demerits of each.

On a less serious note, if this sudden love and wonder of National and John Key doesn't stop soon, I'm going to be violently ill in a bucket. Doesn't anyone hate National anymore? Even the environmentalists are scrambling around for an olive branch (hat top Whaleoil).

Next Labour will get on board and we won't have a democracy any more. Where is Her Majesty's loyal opposition? Mr Goff has already apologised for the EFA and a smacking climbdown can't be far off.

UPDATE: Don't worry, the reall Trotter is back. And wow is he back. More barking than ever.

Your people will not easily forgive this turning away, Tariana. When unemployment and homelessness and poverty bite. When the prisons are full of your rangatahi. When National’s true whakapapa stands revealed.

They will curse your name.

Kupapa!

First Goff, now Trotter. Losing the Maori Party must really be hurting Labour.