Thursday 10 July 2008

No Veitch

No, I won't be commenting on Tony Veitch. I don't know enough about what happened and there's nothing I can do about what happened ... and neither can you.

But why this gosh-darned obsession with celebrities and what they get up to, whether good or bad? Don't you have lives of your own to go home to?

Here's Graham Parker, with 'Empty Lives.'

8 comments:

Owen McShane said...

We are always asking people to take personal responsibility for their actions. These two people, as free adult individuals, have done that.

We know that in these circumstances there always exists, or can be claimed to exist, some sharing of blame.
LIke of all of us, I have either participated in, or have observed, family rows, and it is difficult to say who started what and who was initially and finally to blame.

Both these parties decided to accept responsibility and negotiated a settlement. She has been saved the distress of public exposure (UNTIL NOW) and also did not have to sue through the courts and drag lawyers and police into their personal lives.

He avoided the same distress and paid compensation of $100,000 and took on more counselling etc than the courts would have imposed.

It seems that many do NOT want people to take personal responsibility because it deprives them of their prurient pleasures while depriving hack journalists of their yellow journalism and their opportunity to be so much holier than thou.

This saved us all a lot of money.

We have all been saying the police are under-resourced and too busy to deal with real crime - the kind where people end up dead.

And yet those people are now demanding that the police investigate this case which these two parties have settled.

That will take massive police resources off the streets.
And who will be the beneficiaries?
Certainly not the the woman involved who has settled the matter.

So who gains?
Just the trash journalists operating our CHarter and a few man haters who believe that men are responsible for all evil and that all women are saints and can do no wrong.

Anonymous said...

Well written. Thank you to Owen for summing the situation up clearly and succinctly.

LGM

Anonymous said...

The court would have imposed Jail.

Doesn't matter whether you pay the money back, negotiate a deal, lose an election, or whatever.

If you smash someone up, you go to jail.

If you steal an election or taxpayers moeny, you go to jail.

anything else is corrupt

Anonymous said...

Anonymous

...and now you are a legal expert, counsel, jury and judge.

What you do NOT know:

1/. You do not know exactly what happened (you were NOT present)

2/. You do not know what the specific circumstances were (you were NOT present)

3/. You do not know whether there were issues in mitigation (you don't have access to those involved)

4/. You do not know whether the Police would have laid charges or not (for one thing, you are not a Crown Prosecutor)

5/. You do not know whether diversion would have been employed in this specific case

6/. You do not know whether the judge would have elected to impose a non-custodial pentalty or not

You are not in possession of sufficent of the specifics of the situation to make the assertions you do. All you have is a little tittle tattle from the media. From that superficial basis you lurch into fibbs & bullshit. How banal.

Note that you completely evade the point that Owen McShane raises. Can't you read? Certainly you have trouble with comprehension! Try to think hard about what he is telling you.

As with your "stolen" election nonsense and your dishonest twisting of words, you are making up bullshit. Your random fibs are not a valid substitute for knowledge.


LGM

Lindsay Mitchell said...

This is a comment I sent to NewstalkZB;

I am fascinated by today's programme. Hearing all these people who obviously listen
regularly but never ring up. I'd previously thought it was because they were reticent or
nervous. But today shows that they are not. They have never rung before because they have
never felt strongly enough about something.

Perhaps a political party should come up with a Tony Veitch Policy. They would probably soar
in the polls.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Oh and I meant to say Owen has hit the nail on the head.

Peter Cresswell said...

"Oh and I meant to say Owen has hit the nail on the head."

As have you, Lindsay. You perfectly describe my own discomfort at the revelation that it's only about such things that so many get 'inspired' to 'act.'

Peter Cresswell said...

Anonymous, as LGM points out, you have precisely zero grounds for knowing WHAT the courts would have imposed. There's a reason that courts hear evidence before they act -- I invite you to learn why.

That said, there is a point in what you say that need answering.

You seem to imply that if someone gives someone else the bash, then all things being equal the basher must be locked up to 'pay his debt to society' (or more accurately, to use Lindsay's identification, to that part of society which ONLY gets irate about celebrity bashing).

That's not right. A basher has no 'debt to society' to pay off, ONLY a debt to his victim(s).

The reason a basher or fraudster is locked up is not primarily retribution; and it's not primarily the nonsensical 'debt to society.' A basher or fraudster, or any criminal, is locked up primarily to protect the rest of us from being bashed or done over by someone who's shown they're an objective threat to all of us, and to ensure that no value is gained through criminal action.

Anything else is corrupt.