Election Special #1: Why I Hate the Right Wing

So for the last few weeks while doing my daily blogroll I couldn't help notice that a few of those blogs listed over on the right sidebar there were talking about the upcoming election. Now, I still have no idea who I'm going to vote for so I thought I'd post my thoughts on the different parties as I try and work out which one of them I despise the least.

First up I'll start with the right wing parties (I've been pretty arbitrary with my designations of left and right, as I think the whole one-dimensional spectrum of political alignment is a fairly inadequate descriptor anyway, but I'll save that rant for another time).

National

First up, I don't want a tax cut. Secondly, I don't consider myself a 'mainstream New Zealander' and in fact if someone called me that I'd probably take it as an insult. I'm probably not Don Brash's idea of a mainstream New Zealander anyway. After that as far as policy goes they don't seem to have many specifics, just a few promises to review this or that, and to deal with those uppity Maoris.

That last one is the only one that bothers me, but on the other hand National have given me absolutely no reason at all to want to vote for them. It seems that they're mostly just running on a campaign of 'Labour are crap', it didn't work for John Kerry, and now I think I understand why.

So, that was 0 policies that I agree with for National, and 1 policy that pisses me off.

ACT

I've always had a lot of respect for ACT, their not afraid to stick to their modestly libertarian principles even in a situation (i.e. speaking at a university) where those views are not going to be popular. I think they get unfairly characterised as a bunch of greedy old fat rich bastards, when that's probably only really true of less than half of their candidates.

On the other hand, despite their claims to be 'The Liberal Party', their record on social issues is not so great. I'll use the civil union bill as a kind of litmus test for this sort of thing and only about half of their MPs voted for it.

Lets look at their policies one by one:

Privatise health – Thumbs down from Jon.

Tax cuts – Doesn't bother me one way or the other.

Tertiary education – Student loans can be paid off faster by people paying less tax – Fair enough...

Primary/Secondary education – nothing that sounds too dramatic, or anything that inclines me either way.

“We're Tuff On Crime!” - The perennial meaningless appeal to fear that all right wing parties are likely to trot out every now and again – Thumbs down from Jon

Rural & Economy – Yeah, these sound alright...

Enviroment – Get rid of all those useless natural parks (but not the real pretty ones, honest!) - Another big thumbs down!

Defense – Increase defence spending, which I approve of, but they also promise to fellate George Bush as vigorously as possible, so we'll call it a wash.

Small government – Thumbs up.

Superannuation – scrap it, and introduce mandatory saving – thumbs down, again.

Treaty Issues (a euphemism for Race Relations it seems) – Pretty much the same as National, but with a few added whinges that National stole it from them in the first place.

Well done ACT, one policy I liked and five I didn't. You were better off in my estimation before I read through your website. I guess it's just as well I didn't look at National's in too much detail or might have spent all day writing this post.

Christian Heritage

Well these guys were completely offensive to me even before they became the pedophile party. A quick look at their website sent me fleeing before it put me in incoherant rant mode.

Libertarianz

I like these guys. Sure they're nuts, they want to privatise literally everything except defence and police, but I prefer their kind of open straight forward insanity to the bullshit and electioneering of the larger parties. I probably wouldn't even think of voting for them if there was any chance of them actually getting into parliament but they're quite easily the front runners for my vote among this crop of parties.

OneNZ

I haven't heard of these guys before, but a quick look at their website seems to indicate that they're the Anti-Maori party. Maybe they should rename themselves the Whitey Party. Not an option for my vote anyway...

So, currently we're voting for the Libertarianz. Over the next week I'll look at the other parties and hopefully I can find someone who actually matches my views with more than one or two of their policies.