My mate Mick emailed me this link. Obviously, it is does not relate to New Zealand, but the USA. But does it? At present we have a three term NZ “conservative” (read globalist liberal) government, which is missing completely the concerns about immigration because their paradigm is set, not by the cold war, but by the liberal policies of the last Labour party — who has not changed since that defeat.

They do not understand that the times have changed, and that immigration is not about economics but surviving as a nation, no more than the average denizen of the Senate can see that Russia has remade itself as an Orthodox Christian nation.

Our Congress is led by people with a Cold War mentality. Washington is filled with people who were inculcated in neoconservative interventionist foreign policy. They believe we are that ‘shining house on the hill’ that Reagan called the U.S. that fought the evil Communists and won.

Therefore, we cannot be the bad guys. Anything we want is good and anyone who opposes us is bad.

This is simply the way these people think. They are entitled as the stewards of the greatest country in the world to decide what is and what is not moral.

John McCain steadfastly refuses to believe that anything coming from Russia can be any good. Neither can Max Boot, Ralph Peters, Lindsay Graham or Nikki Haley.

Russia, to them, is a “gas station masquerading as a country.”

It doesn’t have advanced robotics, miniaturization, aeronautics, engine technology or anything like that. All Russians are poor, porn-addicted drunks. And Putin is their evil overlord, responsible through his shadow government for all of the bad things that happen to the U.S.

It couldn’t possibly be the fault of our morally-courageous leadership?

It’s only an American’s fault when they are on the other team during an election cycle.

Otherwise, it’s 419-3 against the Russians.

It is why the U.S. Empire will fail just like every other Empire has ever failed. Government systems are sclerotic because they are coercive and the performance of its employees is detached from their funding source — i.e. elections do not determine tax revenues.

It rewards people for inflexibility. Or, at least, it doesn’t discourage the behavior. That’s why Empires always rot from within.

Jacinda Adern has just taken over as the leader of the Labour party. Social democratic, globalist, well over thirty, she is considered the young and fresh face for labour.

The nearest equivalents are Trudeau in Canada and Macron in France: pretty faces hiding old, stale policies.

But this does not allow for change. The same players, the same failed policies remain. There is no reinvention.

Which is what defeat is supposed to bring. The leaders who have been rejected and their followers retire or resign at the next election: the losing party listens to the people as to what went wrong, and then move towards dealing with the real issues of this time

Which are no longer saving New Zealand from the Communists, as in the cold war, or from bankruptcy, as it the end of the Muldoon government. Adern was four when the Lange government came in and the Thatcherite revolution occurred in New Zealand (under a Labour government). Her party is stuck reacting to policies made before she started school.

Better managed parties do change. National did under Key: it took most of Labour’s ideas (to the horror of conservatives) and made them acceptable. But National is now stuck without the ability to deal with the new immigrants, who do not follow the Kiwi way of life, and whom they thought would assimilate. Instead they have refused to integrate.

The issues of the 1990s — when the last Labour government formed — are not the issues of today. There is a risk that there will be a virtue spiral on the left — which will leave only one party standing, and neither near power.

The mood of New Zealand is fearful. The high trust, confident society built on a shared faith and a belief in basic fairness has been eroded. People are not spending. And the only party that is talking about this is run by a disciple of Muldoon: the prime minister who almost sent us bankrupt while I was at University.

Defeat is supposed to lead to reform. The current crop of politicians double down on their policies and do not change with feedback. Perhaps we are led by fools because that is all we deserve. But come September 23, we can vote. And ensure that the left spend enough time in exile that they learn wisdom, knowing it may be a generation.