I subscribed to the Libertarian Magazine Free Radical once. I enjoyed reading Lindsay Perigo’s writing, and Deborah Coddington’s too. Lindsay got sidetracked by the cult of Objectivism. Something happened to Deborah as well, but I don’t know what it was. She joined ACT, became an MP, quit all that and now, in a complete reversal of what initially kindled my interest, is a Herald opinion writer. I’ve read her columns in increased bemusement as she drifted far from the views that made her (to me) such an interesting writer. I eventually stopped reading, partly in line with my decision to boycott the NZ Herald, but also because I could not work out where the hell Deborah was coming from.

Today in TrueblueNZ GD, commenter Mawm brought her latest Sunday Herald column to my attention.

I was appalled at how completely Deborah has brought into the sick mainstream media meme that so wrongly characterises the US Tea Party group, and how viciously she attacks groups in NZ (and the US) fighting for liberty the way she once fought for that concept. Deborah’s uninformed nonsense has drawn my ire before, but the appalling level of ignorance and bigotry she displays in today’s column has generated a new level of anger. I’m ready to write her off completely as a disgusting apostate. A traitor to the cause.

Her enthusiastic embrace of the idea that a collective of racists and tribalists should be granted special rights over and above those awarded to every other NZer is a complete turnabout of her once reverence for the idea of small government and individual rights. The notion that there are two groups in NZ separated along race grounds, and that one group is guilty of serious historical injustices to the other is not only a fable, it is extremely destructive to the unity we need to fight back big government and its advocates. Who ever would have thought a Libertarian could morph into a defender of race based politics and The National Party?

The TOW Tribunal has been guilty of some atrocious findings. Sometimes their judgments have been supported by no more than photocopied documents of no legal worth. Tribunal members themselves have attacked the processes as being completely one sided. The main effect of this monstrosity though has been to engender a split in NZ society that should never have existed. It eventually gave birth to an even greater monstrosity in the Maori Party, and in a betrayal of the principles National once stood for, John Key welcomes this group of racist opportunists into the fold of government. From there its been really down hill.

The people of Little Waihi who once leased land from government now lease it from Maori owners, and are about to be kicked off the properties they have leased for decades on extremely dubious grounds. I smell cronyism and development there. The new Maori landowners posture as protectors of the environment. Utter nonsense. If left to their own devices they would have killed each other off they way they killed off so much of NZ’s wildlife. Its all about money, racism and self interest. So is the Sea Bed and Foreshore Act.

Coddington now writes for a corrupt mainstream media in the company of communist fraudsters like Matt McCarten. She buys into sick collectivist and racist concepts. She propogates lies and misconceptions about the Tea Party group, really today’s only effective force for liberty. “Jumping the shark” seems like such such an inadequate expression for her disgraceful column today.