Today's Sydney Morning Herald has an in-depth piece on the Exclusive Brethren and the way they have influenced elections in four countries with anonymous smear campaigns and secret donations. Interestingly, despite their insistence on total honesty and lawfulness from their members, their political efforts have skirted the limits - in New Zealand, they technically violated the Electoral Act by using false addresses on their material; in Australia they did the same, and in addition may now be required to submit a election disclosue under federal election law, and in the US they may have violated a law barring foreigners from funding election advertising. But the most amusing bit is their sophistry around how they can encourage others to vote, while being "forbidden by god" from doing so themselves:
"For exactly this reason," said Hales. "I see it as a sin and you don't. So I'm very happy for you to vote because to you it's your obligation to the community. But to me, it's my conscience that doesn't allow me to vote."
Just to point out the blindingly obvious, there are a large number of things they regard as sins - homosexuality and godlessness among them. But I very much doubt they'd regard it as morally acceptable for a Brethren to promote either, even to people who thought they were perfectly acceptable. On politics, then, the Brethren are nothing but hypocrites.
17 comments:
They are not even very smart. If they had any sense, they would have simply GIVEN their money to the political causes they favour instead of publishing pamphlets with incomplete authorisation statements.
The joke is that most pamphlets are a gross waste of money these days - they simply get lost with all the other junk mail. It's not uncommon to see an MP or party do a pamphlet drop, only for a rainy day to turn the delivery into a wad of mushy blue, green or red.
If the Brethrens actually knew what they were doing, then pamphlets ought to be the last thing they do.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/01/2006 01:11:00 PM
Indeed. And a lot of people I know had actually thrown out the EB's anti-Green pamphlets because they thought the pamphlets were from the Green Party. While it's amusing to think of this sub-Taleban sect throwing so much money down the drain, it's still a bit worrying that such a sect should try to influence elections in New Zealand.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/01/2006 03:11:00 PM
I too, read this article, today and found it fascinating. I thought the comment that they're not being secretive but just trying to stay out of the lime-light entirely absurd.
Posted by backin15 : 7/01/2006 10:38:00 PM
Hypocrites they may be but they are in good company.
Ms Helen Clarke is too much of a coward and hypocrite to state she is an atheist and is quite happy to link arms with any religious individual or group if it suits a photo opportunity and buys a few votes.
This is a woman who is pushing for a woman hating, pornography-loving homosexual to be attorney general – a disgusting country with a disgusting PM.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/02/2006 08:40:00 PM
There's *nothing* hypocritical about holding yourself to higher standards than you hold others. It's in fact the norm for religious true-believers/moral saints to do so. For example, St Paul recommends no sex, but if you have to have sex then be married. He's against marriage too (in part because it normally leads to lots of sex early on!) and didn't do that himself either, but for those for whom no-sex is not an option, marriage is the way to go.
I assume that the preference order for Paul is something like:
no-sex&no-marriage > no-sex&marriage > sex&marriage > hetero-(marriage-like)sex&no-marriage > homosexuality etc.
St Paul can practise no-sex (and no marriage) himself, recommend marriage w/ or w/o sex (better w/o) to others, recommend unmarried heterosex to the sexual and marriage-phobic, and find not a good word to say for anything else
No hypocrisy there.
Similarly the Brethren can have as their (partial) preference order:
no-vote > right-wing vote > left wing vote > ....
No hypocrisy there.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/02/2006 11:52:00 PM
Being a homosexual may or may not be an indication of hating women.
However promoting pornography (even claiming as long as its only women it is not really pornography) and the abuse of women is definitely an indication of contempt and hatred of women, the sort of person who gets very well rewarded for destroying women who stand up against systemic abuse disgusts me, sadly he is probably not the worst.
As far as I know Saudi Arabia also promotes the hatred and abuse of women, seems to me you have a lot more in common with those you claim superiority over than you care to admit.
Before people label others as hypocrites look in the mirror – Clarke would take anyone’s money and votes, she has absolutely no principles i.e. remember when she called Peters ‘that odious little man’ conveniently she was able to forget than when she needed him to fuel her need for power, she is a liar and a hypocrite.
Enjoy your porn - by the way what are the 'penatlies' child porn in NZ ?? Still who cares kids (and babies) don't mean much and women mean even less - enjoy.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 12:41:00 AM
anon
who the fuck are you and how did you get from porn to child porn?
fraser
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 09:18:00 AM
Interesting how the more odd of the right can't spell the PM's name correctly. I see this a lot on the Trademe messageboard, and this suggests that "anonymous" above is one of the trolls from there.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 09:18:00 AM
I wish christians had made "no sex" a compulsory option at an early stage.
Posted by Rich : 7/03/2006 11:20:00 AM
Umm, how did Pornography get into this conversation at all? What did the proposed A-G do to get tarred with that particular brush?
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 11:21:00 AM
I believe he has been involved in some of the work the Censor's Office does, but that's just something I've dredged up from my poor befuddled brain. I knew I should have spent more time memorising Labour candidates' bios. (I assume Anon is talking about Charles Chauvel?)
Posted by Span : 7/03/2006 11:27:00 AM
Just what I would expect from little NZ blokeys. When you can't see or argue the point(s) just abuse and attack the person.
Well done you have displayed yourselves with the usual high standard of culture that prevails in NZ - your spelling is wonderful by the way, how amusing and cute that your fantasy woman’s name is so important to you.
Once Helens little Wellington boy friend (oh the irony) gets in your 'freedoms and civil liberties' will grow even more - pity about the lives that will be destroyed to provide what you want and need.
Wonder if you are cops - they pay you to indulge your hobbies of rape and porn.
Of course the cops are far to uncouth for the Armani suit brigade on the Terrace – you have to go to school to be one of them though but worth it to get your snouts in the really big troughs.
I may not spell very well but I think I could manage your words (most only have 4 letters so its nice and simple for you) if I chose to but I choose not thanks.
Remember the little boys are only able to get away with it when the girls to support, protect and promote them. Clarke is a rather like those tragic ‘women’ in South Auckland who she honours with a visit once every three years (complete with armed security) who ‘love’ the ‘men’ who bash them around regularly. Clarke is a filthy liar, coward and hypocrite however you spell it.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 11:30:00 AM
It seems that the sewer is paying us a visit. Its times like this I wonder why I bother having a comments section.
And to drag this back to the point, the reason the Brethren bar voting is because they want to seperate themselves from the world and its sins. Surely pushing a particular political cause and waging a campaign to support it is a gross violation of that principle?
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 7/03/2006 11:40:00 AM
Thanks Span, I thought it may ave had something to do with the Censor's Office or Free Speech in general.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 11:57:00 AM
I haven't had time to read the article yet, but I wonder if it's that (always dodgy) rationale of "I'm sinning to save all of you from having to sin." Which kind of reminds me of so many US tele-evangelists...
PabloR - no problem, but be aware I'm not sure I'm right ;-)
Anon - this "little NZ blokey" is actually a woman. But thanks for assuming that I think with my penis all the same.
Posted by Span : 7/03/2006 03:25:00 PM
No violations needed let alone "gross" ones....
1. People who oppose the death penalty can nonetheless have views about how it should work if that's what's going to transpire.
2. You can be vegan yourself (and think everyone else ideally should be too) but also be inclined to push for just less meat-eating (or whatever it is) in the wider community.
3. You can be a conscientious objector, and have plenty of views about how a war should be conducted.
And so on. Indeed in all these cases, like the Brethren case, there's a kind of broader coherence that such dual-track policies exemplify. We could imagine extremist conscientious objectors wishing that the war they refuse to take part in should be conducted in the most hellish ways possibly to teach the rest of us a lesson, or some such thing. But the most natural thing is for the conscientious objector to advocate no-war-crimes etc.
Similarly the Brethren could in principle support left-wing parties (presumably they'd violate something like a "single-peaked" preferences condition if they did). But their support for right-wing parties is much more coherent, and no crazy ideology beyond their initial withdrawal from the mainstream of NZ life which certainly includes taking voting seriously is needed (I don't believe i/s can say this. So much the worse for him/her then.)
Span's suggestion that to be (i) against voting and also (ii) in favor of right wing votes if people insist on voting, you have to do anything more exotic or perverse than (iii) think voting right is a lesser evil than voting left, is simply incorrect.
The Brethren aren't as hermetically sealed as, e.g., some Amish, some Mormons (which is perhaps all that i/s would allow is OK) but, at least if you care about logic, not to mention being just broadly charitable in your interpretation of people, that's *fine*.
Arguably too, the Brethren's dualistic- interactionist picture is a better one than an Amish-style non-interacting dualistic one in that it does concede (as we need and want them to) our laws' authority over them, but then reserve the right to interact back with those laws to some extent (although they won't vote or hold office themselves). More hermetically-sealed communities have a tragic potential built into them - from their perspective they've seceded from our community which is something we don't and can't recognize. Ultimately our norms about child-rearing and all the rest of it will have to prevail in any conflict. But don't expect a sensitive or illuminating treatment of difficult problems from i/s or fellow-travellers....
Ultimately many religions have an "in the world, but not of it" moment in them. The Brethren have a specific, optional interpretation of that. An intellectually serious and coherent left would be committed to tolerating that moment and its various optional expressions (while also being committed to encouraging such people to re-enter the this-worldly mainstream of society, to vote, to fully politically participate, etc..). Unfortunately, no such left exists.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/03/2006 05:02:00 PM
Anon - this "little NZ blokey" is actually a woman. But thanks for assuming that I think with my penis all the same.
# posted by span : 7/03/2006 03:25:58 PM........
Like I said they can only do what they do because the girlies like it that way ........ Its disgusting and sad but true.
The abuse of women could never survive and prosper without the support of 'women'.
NZ the pornographers pardise - feel free to correct the spelling I can't be bothered.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/15/2006 12:54:00 AM
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