I held enough mild curiosity about Perigo’s show to seek it out on Youtube and watch it. What a yawn. From the opening monolgue with the mandatory attack on religion, to the incredibly amateurish camera work, to the unsophisticated editing, to the strange upward camera angles, the pretentious and ostentatious set, the post modern furniture, the black military shirt, the ball point pen twirling, the goblinesque appearance and the pulpit and the preaching, I thought the whole thing was just weird and tiresome.
I was once an avid fan of Perigo. So much so that I would ask my Granny here in NZ to tape his daily radio shows and post them to me in the African desert where I worked at the time, and I would listen to them as I drove across the sandy and rocky Sahara. Funny and interesting talkback interspersed with sung commercials for Matamata Post and Rail. I subscribed to his magazine, The Free Radical, for years.
Unlike Perigo, I have never been a committed lefty. Except for a short period of muddled thinking in my teens, I have not ever been interested. I’ve basically been a developing right wing thinker all my life. I guess this is the basis for my gradual disenchantment with the Libertarians and my lack of interest in Objectivism. I just saw it all as a bridge too far. Life and politics are not meant to be as complex and culturally restrained as Perigo and other Objectivists / Libertarians would advocate.
I think Perigo is old, his show is old, and his message is old. Even the discussion with the guest was uninteresting. A kind of rambling dissection of the Japan nuclear incident and Obama and the current war or whatever the hell it is in Libya. All of it went nowhere, and taught us not much other than that Perigo was possibly quite wrong in his insistence that future stations be built far from the sea. Safe from Tsunamis is what you should have said Mr. Perigo.
I’m glad I watched it though. It reminded me of why these days I listen to Mark Levin and read Mark Steyn and watch very little television at all. TV today is bad, but hell’s bells, it doesn’t have to be as bad as Perigo made it.
TrueblueNZ 
14 responses to “Perigo! Dangerously boring goblin..!!”
Glad I never bothered to watch . . if what you say is accurate, then he’s obviously jumped the shark years ago . . yesterdays man.
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“…a bridge too far…”
And that sums the libs up.
All the GOOD stuff they have is lost, as they try to go too far, too fast.
I maintain that the ‘pure’ lib line may well work in about 200 years. But the world is FAR from ready yet- even if a few of us are civilized enough now.
They should stick to and push small government and personal responsibility. Leave drugs, open borders and queer issues for a world that is ready. Right now it is not.
A world that cannot tell the difference between a Republic and a democracy is a teenager full of whiskey behind the wheel of a truck.
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. . just had a look now. I watched until my eyes started glazing over ( it was the 5:02 minute mark) Up to that point, the thing was just bizarre . . seems that years of hagiographic idolization by Peter Cresswell, Susan Ryder and one or two others has gone to his head !
. . . in short, another queer all hung up on religion . .
*yawn*
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I listen (and read) Libz stuff on economics, the rest… well Rand has pickled their “rationality”…
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Just watched the intro but couldn’t watch anymore…
Gosh for such “free thinkers” they buy into every tenet of the Church of Libertarianism much more readily than Christians do…
I’d also love to hear the reason based argument behind a spontaneous creation of the Universe… That’s what ended my atheism, a honest assessment of which required the greater leap of faith…
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“That’s what ended my atheism, a honest assessment of which required the greater leap of faith…”
Yes indeed! 🙂
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“That’s what ended my atheism, a honest assessment of which required the greater leap of faith…”
. . . kind of the same deal with me. . was raised a Catholic but by the time of my teens I was so cocksure and enlightened by science I rejected it all . . by 30 I was agnostic and at this point I’m a deist . . just can’t see how everything around us is all an act of randomization.
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The post and subsequent comments sum up nicely what’s wrong with libertarianism in NZ, it’s elitist, driven by a small crowd of Rand worshipers who are engaged in collective dementia and group think, if not circle-jerk.
However, that does not distract from the value of libertarianism per se, and I must, as always, object to the simplicity of the left-right paradigm, which is quite meaningless without adding the small vs big government dimension. When taking that into account you can properly classify, and you’ll find that hard core anarcho-capitalists (including some extreme libertarians) have a lot in common with leftist anarchists, and this is precisely the issue the commenters here seem to touch on.
As for Perigo, the problem is probably that there’s too much history and detail out there, it becomes impossible to see what he is saying separate from his personal context. That also applies to all other details of the show, to the extent that the content is lost completely.
This country desperately needs another actuality show, but it simply shouldn’t be presented by Perigo.
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This thread is a trifle ad-hominem is it not? Nobody seems to have mentioned the guest and how erudite he was. Sadly, as Kiwis we are adept at “shooting the messenger!”
From personal experience I can assert that the Libz are not permeated by “queers hung up on religion” – one can look to Labour for that.
The message of the Libz may have been around for awhile but this does not defeat its cogency, perhaps it enhances it?
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I watched and was disappoint by its format.
To some extent I share Redbaiter’s opinion of Perigo, whom I have followed for years.
The first program on Stratos was not his finest hour. I can only hope it improves, because he is a very intelligent man prepared to discuss topics and confront the cowardly left.
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My experience with Perigo and the Libs is similar. I was an advid reader of the Solo site and considered becoming a member of the Libertarianz. But they lost me when they started sweating the small stuff. Both should stick to the basics – accountabillity, and responsibility and pitch it at a level that most people will at least be prepared to give some attention. Muddying the waters with anti religious opinions, gay rights rants and pro drug legalisation is just too polarising.
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There are a few things the Libnz could learn from the American Libertarian Party:
– Not put the crazy up front, they talk about allowing polygamy and wanting to rename NZ the Republic of New Freeland, right on their website…
– Stop being the NZ Rand Party, there are many strains of Libertarianism, not just the Cult of Ayn…
– Focus on economic freedom, fiscal responsibility and small government…
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…the second show was even more tedious. Despite having a message I agree with I found it hard to maintain interest until the end. I had a similar paths with the ‘libz’ as some posters have noted above. From afar, it all seems like a good idea, until you become familiar with some of the main protagonists and realize it’s really just militant rand-ism with a large dose of mean spirited elitism. They are really no different from ‘bomber’ and his ilk, just a different variation on the garden variety rigid ideologue theme.
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Angus “I’m a deist . . just can’t see how everything around us is all an act of randomization.”
Darwinian evolution is not “randomization”. Do yourself a favour, and google Dawkins weasel.
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