Trevor Loudon Replies to Russel Norman
While Russel Norman has yet to satisfactorily reply to my questions to him, there has been interest expressed on this and other Blogs, in my answers to questions posed by Russel to me.
To remove any impediment to Russel clarifying the answers to my questions, I will now answer his questions to me.
I hope you can all follow that.
Russel; Have you ever been a member of, or associated with, ZAP - Zenith Applied Philosophy? What was your involvement?
Trevor; My involvement as a student of Christchurch based self improvement organisation, Zenith Applied Philosophy has always been public knowledge and has been published in an interview I did in 1986, with the old Star Sports. I have studied at Z.A.P. from 1976 to 1982, 1986/7 and 1999 to current. I am enjoying my studies immensely at the moment and plan to continue indefinitely.
Russel; Were you aware of the association between ZAP and the fascist Nationalist Workers Party?
Trevor; No Russel and neither are you. There never have been any such links. I am willing to bet my membership and position in ACT against your membership and position in the Green Party, that you have no credible proof of such allegations. I suggest that if you have no proof, you withdraw your question on this subject from your Frogblog post now and post a statement confirming that you were merely "flying a kite" or were misinformed.
Russel; When did you last have contact with the people associated with ZAP?
Trevor: About 20 minutes ago. Contact is regular, ongoing and enjoyable and involves a wide range of activity.
Russel; Do you think that fascism had something positive to offer the world?
Trevor No Russel I do not. My political path began as an 18 year old in January 1976, when I purchased, for $1.40, a copy of Ayn Rand's "For the New Intellectual" from Summer's second hand book shop in Tuam Street, Christchurch. I have never wavered from my belief in small government and free people since. In earlier times I was more conservative (I long believed the state should suppress the drug trade for instance), but now I count myself as a libertarian.
Fascism is the system whereby the state allows nominal ownership of private property, but can dictate how that property may be used. The Resource Mangement Act is a good example of fascist legislation. Fascism is often also characterised by a strong relationship between the state and big business,(Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, present day China) which is maybe why some people confuse fascism with capitalism, when it is actually a form of socialism. I am a laissez faire capitalist. I am an advocate of the separation of business and state and always have been.
Russel: Do you believe that the holocaust happened?
Yes.
Russel; Is your blog New Zeal, named after the magazine of the same name published in the late 1980s by the Campaign for a Soviet Free New Zealand? What was your invovlement in the New Zeal magazine?
Trevor; Yes it is. I wrote it.
Russel; Did you agree with the New Zeal editorial of April 1989 connecting Ron Trotter, the Todds and the Business Roundtable with pro-Soviet and pro-Stalinist activities such as leading business delegations to the USSR, and having other business connections such as selling "Stalinist" oil? Do you still think that the Business Roundtable is a communist front group?
Trevor; I re read this issue with some embarrassment. On one side, I viewed anyone who encouraged NZ/Soviet trade as morally reprehensible and at best irresponsible from a strategic point of view. I hold similar views about those who advocate trade with China today and believe we should cut trade ties to that country until it becomes a civilised nation. I believed then and I believe now, that certain members of the BRT deserved strong condemnation for participating in NZ/Soviet trade.
On the BRT article. That was a clearly stated as a reprint from an American newsletter. However I did endorse it and am ashamed of doing so. Roger Kerr wrote a very balanced reply to the article and I wrote a snarky rejoinder. I have met Roger at two ACT conferences since then and have always cringed in fear that he might make the connection. Now that you've "outed" me, I'll apologise next time I see him. Thanks, you've done me a favour there.
Russel; Did you agree with the July 1989 edition of New Zeal when it accused the Young Nats of being "Marxianised", because they were addressed by a member of the NZ Planning Council?
Trevor; Sorry,I can't find that particular issue. The NZ Planning Council was infiltrated to some degree by socialists, including at one point by a covert member of the pro Soviet, Socialist Unity Party. What I may have been getting at, is that the very idea of a Planning Council is socialist, or "Marxist" in itself. The whole idea of state economic planning is an anathema to me, as it would have been to the original founders of the National Party. So I guess i was annoyed that the Young Nats would have anything to do with such a nonsensical organisation.
Russel; Do you still believe that being a member of the NZ Planning Council makes one a Marxist, and if so does that mean that Don Brash is a closet marxist because he was a member of the Planning Council?
Trevor; To extrapolate my disdain for the organisation and my awareness that there were Marxists on the staff, to the allegation that I believed "that being a member of the NZ Planning Council makes one a Marxist" is faulty logic.
Russel; If Ron Trotter, Don Brash, the Todds and the Business Roundtable are all part of the communist conspiracy, then what the hell planet are you on?
Trevor; If reading the material I have to hand, leads you to believe I held such views, I suggest you would have been better to have studied logic at university rather than politics.
I hope you find my answers satisfactory Russel. I await your clarification of my earlier questions. I'm particularly interested in your awareness of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Keith Locke's connections to your former Marxist-Leninist colleagues in the Democratic Socialist Party.
To refresh your memory, I will devote the next few posts to examining those links. Some will be a rehash of previous material, but I will try to present some new details. I will also have some questions for your colleagues which I hope you will be good enough to pass on.
Thanking you in anticipation
Trevor Loudon
To remove any impediment to Russel clarifying the answers to my questions, I will now answer his questions to me.
I hope you can all follow that.
Russel; Have you ever been a member of, or associated with, ZAP - Zenith Applied Philosophy? What was your involvement?
Trevor; My involvement as a student of Christchurch based self improvement organisation, Zenith Applied Philosophy has always been public knowledge and has been published in an interview I did in 1986, with the old Star Sports. I have studied at Z.A.P. from 1976 to 1982, 1986/7 and 1999 to current. I am enjoying my studies immensely at the moment and plan to continue indefinitely.
Russel; Were you aware of the association between ZAP and the fascist Nationalist Workers Party?
Trevor; No Russel and neither are you. There never have been any such links. I am willing to bet my membership and position in ACT against your membership and position in the Green Party, that you have no credible proof of such allegations. I suggest that if you have no proof, you withdraw your question on this subject from your Frogblog post now and post a statement confirming that you were merely "flying a kite" or were misinformed.
Russel; When did you last have contact with the people associated with ZAP?
Trevor: About 20 minutes ago. Contact is regular, ongoing and enjoyable and involves a wide range of activity.
Russel; Do you think that fascism had something positive to offer the world?
Trevor No Russel I do not. My political path began as an 18 year old in January 1976, when I purchased, for $1.40, a copy of Ayn Rand's "For the New Intellectual" from Summer's second hand book shop in Tuam Street, Christchurch. I have never wavered from my belief in small government and free people since. In earlier times I was more conservative (I long believed the state should suppress the drug trade for instance), but now I count myself as a libertarian.
Fascism is the system whereby the state allows nominal ownership of private property, but can dictate how that property may be used. The Resource Mangement Act is a good example of fascist legislation. Fascism is often also characterised by a strong relationship between the state and big business,(Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, present day China) which is maybe why some people confuse fascism with capitalism, when it is actually a form of socialism. I am a laissez faire capitalist. I am an advocate of the separation of business and state and always have been.
Russel: Do you believe that the holocaust happened?
Yes.
Russel; Is your blog New Zeal, named after the magazine of the same name published in the late 1980s by the Campaign for a Soviet Free New Zealand? What was your invovlement in the New Zeal magazine?
Trevor; Yes it is. I wrote it.
Russel; Did you agree with the New Zeal editorial of April 1989 connecting Ron Trotter, the Todds and the Business Roundtable with pro-Soviet and pro-Stalinist activities such as leading business delegations to the USSR, and having other business connections such as selling "Stalinist" oil? Do you still think that the Business Roundtable is a communist front group?
Trevor; I re read this issue with some embarrassment. On one side, I viewed anyone who encouraged NZ/Soviet trade as morally reprehensible and at best irresponsible from a strategic point of view. I hold similar views about those who advocate trade with China today and believe we should cut trade ties to that country until it becomes a civilised nation. I believed then and I believe now, that certain members of the BRT deserved strong condemnation for participating in NZ/Soviet trade.
On the BRT article. That was a clearly stated as a reprint from an American newsletter. However I did endorse it and am ashamed of doing so. Roger Kerr wrote a very balanced reply to the article and I wrote a snarky rejoinder. I have met Roger at two ACT conferences since then and have always cringed in fear that he might make the connection. Now that you've "outed" me, I'll apologise next time I see him. Thanks, you've done me a favour there.
Russel; Did you agree with the July 1989 edition of New Zeal when it accused the Young Nats of being "Marxianised", because they were addressed by a member of the NZ Planning Council?
Trevor; Sorry,I can't find that particular issue. The NZ Planning Council was infiltrated to some degree by socialists, including at one point by a covert member of the pro Soviet, Socialist Unity Party. What I may have been getting at, is that the very idea of a Planning Council is socialist, or "Marxist" in itself. The whole idea of state economic planning is an anathema to me, as it would have been to the original founders of the National Party. So I guess i was annoyed that the Young Nats would have anything to do with such a nonsensical organisation.
Russel; Do you still believe that being a member of the NZ Planning Council makes one a Marxist, and if so does that mean that Don Brash is a closet marxist because he was a member of the Planning Council?
Trevor; To extrapolate my disdain for the organisation and my awareness that there were Marxists on the staff, to the allegation that I believed "that being a member of the NZ Planning Council makes one a Marxist" is faulty logic.
Russel; If Ron Trotter, Don Brash, the Todds and the Business Roundtable are all part of the communist conspiracy, then what the hell planet are you on?
Trevor; If reading the material I have to hand, leads you to believe I held such views, I suggest you would have been better to have studied logic at university rather than politics.
I hope you find my answers satisfactory Russel. I await your clarification of my earlier questions. I'm particularly interested in your awareness of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Keith Locke's connections to your former Marxist-Leninist colleagues in the Democratic Socialist Party.
To refresh your memory, I will devote the next few posts to examining those links. Some will be a rehash of previous material, but I will try to present some new details. I will also have some questions for your colleagues which I hope you will be good enough to pass on.
Thanking you in anticipation
Trevor Loudon
posted by Trevor Loudon at
2/06/2006 03:31:00 PM
27 Comments:
Nice work Trevor, direct, succinct and bullshit-free.
Say Trev, could you share your feelings on and details of your previous associations with Kerry Bolton?
You write: " we should cut trade ties to that country until it becomes a civilised nation." Who is "we"? Do you mean that individuals should just choose to stop trading or do you mean that the state should prevent trade? You are not clear on that. And did you oppose sanctions against the uncivilised nation of South Africa under apartheid? I happen to believe free trade in both cases does more to encourage civilisation. But it sounds as if you are not a supporter of free markets internationally unless you approve of both trading partners.
Personally I think that if you want to see the end of the communist regime in China the fastest way of doing that is to increase your trade thus expanding the private sector there. But then I don't associate with extremists like Alan Stang who you obviously spoke of with some fondness.
Ed I have never met Kerry Bolton, or had any dealings with him indirectly or directly. $5,000 to your favourite charity if you can prove otherwise, I regard the man as a nutter. Can I make myself any cleare?
Was Kerry Bolton an anomoly in the Zentih Applied Philosophy group, if so, why was he allowed entrance?
"Contact is regular, ongoing and enjoyable and involves a wide range of activity."
Did Kerry Bolton not involve himself in the activity?
Tremendous response Trevor!
Attacks like that from statists of Russel's ilk are disgusting. You delivered falsafiable evidence of his associations with communism and he responded by spinning out vaguely definable assertions and straw men left right and center.
On one hand I find it amusing and on the other hand it infuriates me how the left and the right slander the free market with slothful accusations of fascism when the free market is the antithesis of fascism.
For those who are reading who are not familiar with the free market and libertarianism: The premises of libertarianism are that there is an objective reality and such a thing as knowledge, human life carries the ultimate value and the initiation of force is always wrong.
The right and the left have no such premises and if you've ever got the feeling the politicians are inconsistant - that's why. The modus operandi of fascism is that human life is expendable and that force is fine so long as a few intellectual elites assert that it is. Exactly the same evil as socialism.
This episode between yourself and Russel reminds me of a video debate from the 80's I saw recently titled "Socialism vs Capitalism; Which is the more moral system?".
Arguing for socialism there was a feminist and some other academic whose area of investigation I forget.
Making the case for capitalism was an economist and Leonard Peikoff.
It was hillarious stuff because the socialists (obvisouly not understanding the *real* politics of freedom) had prepared to argue against conservatives. First Peikoff put together the moral arguments for capitalism for the audience and when Peikoff tore conservatism to pieces as socialism in different colours the socialists were stumped.
Thereafter the socialists discussed the matter of how Peikoff's mother may or may not have cleaned his shirts when he was young and were ad nauseam slandering Peikoff as a fascist.
this article states Zenith Applied Philosophy is linked to the Nationalist Workers Party, the forerunners to the National Front.
And there was also an article in The Dominion (or perhaps The Evening Post, I can't remember for sure) about ZAP being kicked out of the NWP.
Therefore, Trevor, it looks like you'll be quitting ACT pretty soon, right?
"Therefore, Trevor, it looks like you'll be quitting ACT pretty soon, right?"
Why the fuck would he do that?
He's standing for VP.
Yes cos you can believe everything those FDB guys say-
"Their former leader, Kyle "the chipmunk" Chapman has gone completely off the deep end and into full survivalist mode.
Kyle is currently hatching plans to relocate himself, his twenty-six children and five ex-wives to a bunker somewhere in the foothills of the Southern Alps."
To Asher, Ed and Anonymous
I've been pretty tolerant with you guys, but that has now finished. Either put up or shut up. An undocumented article on Fightdemback is proof of nothing. I will say it for the final time. There have never been any contacts between Bolton, myself, any organisation I am affiliated to, any of my friends or colleagues, any member of my family etc. Zilch, Zip, Zero. Unless you can find some real evidence, which you will not because it doesn't exist, kindly desist from making defamatory accusations on this or other Blogs, I also expect retractions to be posted on any Blogs or other fora where any of you have published any allegations of links between me, my friends, affiliates etc and Kerry Bolton. Do I make myself clear boys?
anonymous: Trev said that he'd quit ACT if there was any proof of a link between ZAP and the Nationalist Workers Party.
I have mentioned an article in the newspaper which documented the link. If you still feel like denying it Trev, I could scan it in and upload it.
Asher,
If you are going to make claims substantiate them, I despise the way claims are made about people on blogosphere then not backed up.
Put up or shut up.
"I've been pretty tolerant with you guys, but that has now finished. Either put up or shut up. An undocumented article on Fightdemback is proof of nothing. I will say it for the final time. There have never been any contacts between Bolton, myself, any organisation I am affiliated to, any of my friends or colleagues, any member of my family etc. Zilch, Zip, Zero. Unless you can find some real evidence, which you will not because it doesn't exist, kindly desist from making defamatory accusations on this or other Blogs, I also expect retractions to be posted on any Blogs or other fora where any of you have published any allegations of links between me, my friends, affiliates etc and Kerry Bolton. Do I make myself clear boys?"
I have made no accusations against you, I've asked two questions, I have made no statements to the effect that you have ties with facists and bigots. 'Zilch, Zip, Zero'.
Ed,
You asked if Kerry Bolton was involved, Trevor replied that he was not, you then went on to mention that he was a member of ZAP.
Are you calling Trevor a liar?
Shit Trev, that's a slam dunk if ever there was one, well done!
Asher, if you had the Newspaper to upload you would have.
Anonymous, I asked Trevor if he had known Kerry in my first question, not if Kerry was a member of the group, Bolton being a member of a group/sect doesn't mean he knows and has had associations with every member there.
I would have thought being a member of a "sect" with him would have been an association.
My mistake then.
I struggle to see what is wrong with an organisation hiring marxists. Firstly I believe that your classification of people as marxist is wanton and mostly unbased. Secondly, every person is entitled his or her own opinion, and for you to classify an organisation as evil because some people within it are marxist. Just remember that Senator McCarthy died a slow, highly painful death at a young age - and that's what comes over being a political zealot hell-bent on driving an opposing political school of thought into the bloody dust.
Shame on you, have some decency, compassion and respect for those people who also live in the world which obviously revolves around you.
Rafe said:
"have some decency, compassion and respect for those people who also live in the world"
Rafe also said:
"He (Rodney Hide) looks like a fattened guerilla when he walks down the street. I look at him and think "Ak-47 toting koala bear" "
I was thinking of banning some of the types who persist in making false allegations on this and other Blogs. I am loathe to do it because the more they squeal, the louder I laugh. What should I do? What do the sane people think?
Mr Milt, you calling Trevor a "loony" is rather odd.
If knew what you are talking about you would realise that Trevor's philosophy is built on an objective reality and as a consequence - reason.
Leftist commie pinko's (words from your own mouth) on the other hand, refute reason in it's entirety.
"How do we know whats right and wrong". "Right and wrong is relative". "Yes, what your saying is logical, but you have to realise there is no logic in society". "You can't objectively observe humanity". Etc etc, so on and so forth with the rest of the nonsense that spews forth from statism's hideous mouth.
Someone who rejects reason - as you do - by definition is a loony.
Trev: "I was thinking of banning some of the types who persist in making false allegations on this and other Blogs"
which is funny thing for a libertarian to do.
and how many blogs do you run?
Willie, Trevor's an old guy who's still fighting the wars of his youth. If that constitutes "reason" for you, I'm glad you think I'm a stranger to it.
Mr Milt. Socialism still exists - it's everywhere. The length of the battle between freedom and socialism is irrelevant - it is still going on.
Thus it holds that if it were right to fight it 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, it is still the right thing to do to fight it now. Just as an appeal to the majority does not make something moral or right, the fact that something has existed for a long time also does not make it right.
For Trevor to abandon the fight against socialists simply because he's a bit older now would be entirely irrational.
So once again you support my case rather than yours.
This Randy rationalism is all rather amusing, but I'd have to agree with PsychoMilt.
It's called silly to tilt at windmills when there are better things to do with your life.
It's called nutty to keep tilting when the windmills are long gone.
Cheers,
Matt
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