I see that after all the Chicken Licken hysteria about white supremacist Philip Arps’ candidacy for a seat on the board of Te Aratai College, he got just 25 votes. The next lowest candidate of the nine who ran got 131.
I rest my case. As I wrote in a post last month: “The best way to signal to Arps that he’s despised is to let him stand for office and see how much support he attracts. My guess is none.”
Well, he got more than none, but not much more.
We don’t know why those 25 people voted for him. Some of them may support Arps’ views, but it’s also possible that he got votes because his name appeared high in the alphabetic order of candidates or even because some voters thought the name looked vaguely familiar so ticked it on that basis. Sometimes that’s what it comes down in local elections of this type, which explains why so many no-name candidates in the local government elections plaster their towns with billboards.
The bottom line is that the headless chook reaction to Arps’ bid for a place on the board – which included an over-anxious Education Minister, Jan Tinetti, taking urgent advice about whether such people could be stopped – was unnecessary.
Ordinary New Zealanders are sensible enough to give extremists the message that they’re not wanted, as happened on this occasion. The only problem is that the self-appointed guardians of public safety don’t trust their fellow citizens to make the right decisions.
I would have voted for Arps.
ReplyDeleteImprisoning a man for, according to a sentencing or sentence confirming sentence judge, "thinking the wrong way" as Arps was is a disgrace in any honest country.
Electing him would have put forward a daily reminder of New Zealand's disgraceful actions and, maybe, reminded people that we need to allow freedom of thought and expression even when we disagree with it.
Mr Arps did indeed get the lowest vote at 25. The next lowest was 48, then 49 then 89. The highest vote was 177. So its not quite the ignominious defeat the media would have us believe.
ReplyDeleteThe Otago Times called Mr Arps a "convicted white supremacist". I don't know how that could be, but if it is indeed true it would be very interesting to discover if there are similar laws addressing supremacists of other skin colours.
If such laws had a brown dimension for example, and said laws were objectively applied (as all laws should be) then it would be quite easy to think of any number of public figures who might be similarly "convicted".
Many of these public figures have already been elected to far more powerful positions than local school boards, and the media that worked so hard to discredit Mr Arps has cheered heartily for their election.
Interesting to see who did actually make the cut. A couple seem like "Green extremists", but I guess they'll fit right in given the state of what passes for education in NZ today.
A very good point. It seems msm has decreed you can only be a 'supremacist' if you're 'white' , just as a 'racist' can also only be white' in this country.
DeleteIt is interesting that terms such as "white supremist" and "ultra-right" are bandied about by the MSMedia, always in a condemnatory context.
ReplyDeleteWe don't seem to hear similar terms such as "brown supremist" (and yes - we do have a few of those!) or the term "ultra-Left"
I wonder why ?