I’m not sure what is going on in New Zealand at the moment, but the left wing has gone into overdrive with their passive aggressiveness and using so called political correctness to shut down anyone that either dares to challenge them or hold a different point of view. To quote a friend of mine “has the country become so thinly skinned or is it legitimate to be offended by everything?”

Only last week the left were taunting the right about their appalling poll ratings and Bridges 4% preferred PM rating. See my article dated 28^th April 2020, “Are National really going to tank the election” as it was becoming obvious that not even the hardest core politically right person would have given National a chance in September.

The leadership challenge was enacted and without seemingly having a top-drawer replacement the caucus decided to roll Simon Bridges. Whatever happens unless National wins the election, knowing whether it was the right thing to do or not will never ever truly be known.

Roll on one week and the seemingly unknown Todd Muller comes out and lands a couple of his first interviews right on the money. I am not sure if the left got a whiff of competition, but the left-wing propaganda machine went into full effect.

First off, the MAGA hat. Really? It’s  not even slightly related to New Zealand and if anyone rewinds back to when Trump ran for office the slogan of “Make America Great Again” was all about returning America’s manufacturing back onshore and not playing to the tune of overseas interference. Listen to The Podcrastinators interview with Jami-Lee Ross dated 21^st May 2020, and he talks about the same for New Zealand. Love or hate Ross, many have listened to that interview and not one cry of racism was heard.

In fact, the “Make America Great Again” slogan was also used by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in their campaigns for president. The suggestion that Muller is a racist or even that he will bring Trump ideologies to New Zealand at this point is utterly ridiculous. What is more embarrassing is the left now saying that he should go the whole way and get a swastika helmet or flag. To insinuate that Todd Muller is supportive of the annihilation of seven million Jewish people based on a cap given as a gift 4 years ago at a conference is utterly deplorable.

Then we had the photo of Muller giving a speech with his team around him. Then the comments of “look at all of those middle-aged white men” and “even the women are white”! Seriously, have we now decided that anyone that is not either of a different ethnic background, LGBTQ, suffering from a mental health issue, or disabled cannot set policy or be an advocate for those causes. I find it shocking that people on the right are now being shamed because of who they, how they dress, what sex they are or worse still what colour they are, however, should that be turned the other way then the discussion becomes something very different indeed.

Over the last few years there has been a greater call for diversity which I fully support, however, I only support it if it means that the best and right person for the job gets it. Forced diversity is dangerous and undermines any fair process. It is effectively undemocratic.

Recently there has been a rise in shaming anyone that dares to challenge a policy set by Jacinda Ardern or challenge her record as Prime Minister. Recently I had the audacity to question the policy of giving powers to the police to enter your house without a warrant. Within the first 3 comments I got one was “what’s the matter? Are you upset being told what to do by a woman?”.

An obvious attempt at passive aggressiveness to shut down my challenging remarks and shame me into questioning a woman’s decision. The fact of the matter is, whoever the Prime Minister was, what age, race, sex, sexual orientation they were, I would have questioned that decision but the left wing support base chose to use the fact that because she was a woman that I was unable to handle the decision and should just put up with it. It seems that anyone who dares to question Ardern or her decisions is now either sexist or a misogynist. This is an extremely dangerous way for our society to go and is showing that the left or indeed the Labour support base will use whatever method they can to shutdown meaningful or challenging debate,

This type of behaviour has not only been reserved for the general public. Indeed, the government itself have been guilty of this too. When Duncan Garner was questioning Ardern herself about the lockdown, instead of putting up the case for why she kept it in place, she tried to belittle him by asking when he had qualified as an epidemiologist. Last time I looked no one in the Labour government held that qualification either. Shortly afterwards, Winston Peters told Simon Peters to get a haircut and find a real job. Last time I looked; qualified lawyer was a decent job. It is therefore no surprise that the support base should behave the same way. In life or business, the people will reflect the learnt behaviour and traits of their leaders

If we cannot hold a decent conversation or respectful exchange of views without being shamed for being an average person or too indicative of a percentage of the population then all of the trail blazing things that New Zealand has dome around women’s voting rights, and same sex marriage will be lost forever and replaced by a controlled almost communistic state where you aren’t allowed to challenge leadership and simply shamed into being who you are. Let us not get into the discussion at this point around cabinet ministers who have been out of line and Ardern has done nothing to manage or really discipline them. She is either incompetent or complicit.

Worse still, in other parts of the world, where this political correctness and opinion shaming has become common place, it was eventually fought back against and led to a much worse state of society and ended up leaving divided nations. Just go and ask anyone in the UK since the Brexit referendum. In the UK is was not exclusive to the left and in many cases the right were a lot more extreme. Which ever way it was it has left an angry nation behind. New Zealand is far better than that and that is why this must stop and a return to debating on what matters returns with respectful time and voice given to all opinions.

Should the New Zealand nation turn against this type of behaviour there could be only one loser in all of this and just one week ago she seemed invincible.