[00:00:04] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the dispatches, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
[00:00:22] Hi everybody. Welcome along to the Friday Freebie edition of the Dispatches podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again. Today's topic of conversation, Trump gets convicted while te party Mori gets seditious. Before I get into any of that, though, if you're new here, why not subscribe and start tuning into regular episodes of this podcast? If you've been listening for a while and you enjoy the commentary, then please give us a like some stars, a few words. If your platform, whatever podcast, platform you're listening on right now allows you to do that, all of that really, really helps the show. Last but not least, if you want a daily dose of the dispatches podcast, all you have to do is go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and become a five dollar monthly patron. And if you do that less than the cost of a cup of coffee each month, you will get access to an exclusive patrons only episode of Dispatchers commentary every single day of the week, Monday through Friday. That's patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and a huge thank you, by the way, to all of our patrons. You guys are awesome. It's thanks to you that we are able to keep making this content right. With all of that out of the way, let's jump into today's topic of conversation. First of all, Trump has been convicted in a New York court. That happened about 2 hours ago at the time of the recording of this podcast, and I just wanted to share a few brief thoughts on this. This is clearly a political machination. I don't think you can read this as anything other than a political scheme to try and stymie or even outright prevent Trump from regaining the White House. It's pretty transparent that that's what is actually going on here. If this was just Trump supporters decrying this and saying, oh, this is an injustice and this is him being politically targeted, I would be a lot more circumspect. But when you've got actual law experts who are coming out and who are saying there is a problem with this trial, and I'm telling you this as a legal expert, who votes for Joe Biden, then? You know, something's not right here. So it's clearly a political machination. It also is an incident that really, I think, proves the fundamental flaw or one of the fundamental flaws in liberalism. There are a couple, but basically what you're seeing here is that people aren't really reasoning. They are just reacting and emoting depending on where they fall on this issue, like what side of the political spectrum they fall on. They are emoting accordingly to this particular judgment, this guilty verdict that has been handed down. People aren't sitting there and reasoning their way through this. They aren't sitting there reasoning their way through the issues. They are simply just reacting online. And it's quite interesting to see this. But basically what I'm seeing online this morning is people who are in one of two camps. They are either anti the guilty conviction or they are pro the guilty conviction. And it's really divided along people who are pro or anti Trump lines and those who are anti Trump. It doesn't matter how blatantly absurd this particular ruling was or this particular legal action happened to have been in their mind, I think they still would have said, in actual fact, this is a good outcome. They'd still be celebrating it because this is what happens. People often fall back into their tribal allegiances in moments like this. And they'd probably justify it, I would imagine, by saying things like, okay, this might not be the most rock solid case in the world, but he's got away with so much else. This is really important. Or maybe they might be saying to themselves, this might not be the most rock solid legal case in the world. It might be a little bit dodgy around the edges, but we've got to do whatever it takes to keep him out of the White House because that would be far worse, et cetera, et cetera. Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, people who are pro trump, they are absolutely decrying this. And they are saying that, look, this is absolutely an outrage, this is an injustice and everything else that they are saying. And I think that even if this case was legitimate and you didn't have any independent people actually saying, like Joe Biden, voters who are legal experts actually saying things like, this is actually a flawed piece of political machination, if there weren't any of that going on, it was actually legitimate stuff, they would still be decrying it. They would still be saying he's being targeted, et cetera, et cetera. What's happened here is a lot of people have just fallen back into that tribalism, they're not really reasoning. And again, this just points to one of the fundamental flaws in liberalism. It's utopian belief that we are all just reasoning individuals, and you take off all the shackles and we will just reason our way to the truth. That's not really what's going on here. But at the end of the day, here's what I think about all of this. I think the anti Trump crowd are fooling themselves if they think that this is anything other than a short lived and very passing victory. And that's leaving aside the fact that there are already legal experts saying that this is highly likely to be overturned once it gets to a higher court. So once it gets out of this sort of kangaroo court type situation that looks suspiciously like a banana republic use of politics to target a political opponent, it's not great. The optics on this just don't look good at all for America. But regardless of what people are saying in regards to the fact that they think that it will get overturned when it goes to a higher court, or that if it goes to a court of appeal or a state court or something like that, then clearly this whole thing will be chucked out, even if that wasn't to happen. The simple truth is this. This is a case, I think, where people who are anti Trump might have won a battle, but ultimately, they are losing the war. So they've won the battle to lose the war. And there's two ways that this will go from here. And in both cases, they will have lost the war. One is the better of the two options, and that is the first one, that this will energise the voter base towards Donald Trump. They will see that this doesn't look good, they will see the political machination and they will come out in force and start voting for Trump, when previously they might not have voted for Trump. And so it will actually result in Donald Trump being re elected, which is option number one of how they will end up losing this war. Even though they might have won this short term and very pyrrhic sort of victory here in this moment, the other way that they could lose the war is a whole lot worse. And I really hope this isn't the one that we see. And what that will be is that this particular political machination, the weaponisation of the courts against a political opponent in such a very blatant way, could well actually amplify the already toxic divisions in America to an even worse and more dangerous level. The kind of level where people actually start engaging in violent behaviours. And you start to see political violence as a regular, normative kind of thing. Because make no mistake about it, this is a very typical human trajectory. When you get groups of people who believe that they are being disempowered and they have no other option, you usually start to see the extremes starting to rise to the top, and that's not a good thing at all. I really hope that doesn't happen. But either way, the people who are celebrating this now, what they don't seem to realise is that ultimately, this won't be a victory for them. It just won't be at all. It would have been far better if they had actually figured out ways to move through this Trump era, this Trump period, without all of the insanity and without all of the extreme politicization and everything else. And I don't know how that's possible, because a lot of people, ultimately, they have abandoned God, they have abandoned faith in any higher, transcendent good. And so politics is all they've got left. All they have, really, to grapple with is this temporal, finite realm, this earthly life that we live. And so everything becomes a life and death struggle. There is no higher justice, there is no eternal perspective. It's all about the here and now. And so it becomes a fight to the death. And sadly, that's what I think is just a likely outcome of all of this. If option one doesn't come to be that Trump doesn't get reelected. So none of this is great. At the end of the day, there's no real victory in this. It's just yet another example of a very messed up and broken political system in America. Which brings me to point number two today, which is tepati Mori. The Mori party here in New Zealand have issued a declaration of political independence, according to this news report in front of me. And what they have done, apparently, is they have now begun the process to establish their own Mori parliament. Here's what their statement says that they've issued. Enough is enough. No longer can we allow this very house, that's the parliament, to dictate our rangatiratanga. We will no longer let decisions made by this house determine our oranga. So that's our welfare, the oranga of our people, our Mokapona, the land, and te iwi mori katoa. We now begin the process of establishing our own parliament. Our people will design what this looks like for us, nobody else. Now, I don't know how else to put this, but this clearly would seem to be seditious behavior and sedition, whether you look it up in the dictionary or whether you look it up in the New Zealand Crimes act, section 81 and its description of what sedition is. It says this a seditious intention is an intention to a bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against her Majesty or the government of New Zealand or the administration of justice or b to incite the public or any persons or any class of persons to attempt to procure otherwise than by lawful means the alteration of any matter affecting the constitution, laws or government of New Zealand. And then it goes on to list another couple of examples of what also qualifies for sedition. But even those two alone, clearly this behavior would seem to fall into that category. This is not great stuff, what's going on here. It is extremely divisive and I think destructive to social wellbeing in this country. To have people inside our parliament doing this kind of thing, it's not great at all. But ultimately this lacks integrity. This is not like the situation of an MP who might be elected and then for whatever reason they have a falling out with their party. And so they carry on in parliament for the rest of their term as an independent. They keep representing the people who elected them to be their representative. But they do that as an independent MP outside of their previous political party. There's no moral issue there. There's no lack of integrity there. But there is in this case. Because if they really did have integrity, what Tepati Mori would have done yesterday is they would have issued a statement saying as of today we are resigning from parliament. We will no longer receive any of the taxpayer funded salaries that we are receiving. We will no longer receive any of the taxpayer benefits, perks, et cetera. We will not receive any sort of welfare or payment or funding or grants that come from the taxpayer by way of this parliament. Instead, we are now leaving and we are going to set up our own new parliament. If they had integrity, that's what they would do. But they haven't done that. They've stayed in parliament. They are still receiving their salaries, as far as I'm aware, and all the other perks and benefits. And they are claiming at the same time to be setting up a parallel alternative parliament. This lacks all integrity, but we shouldn't be surprised by that because this is not a virtuous and good thing to do. I do think though that we actually need to take this seriously. Now these guys might be bourgeois revolutionaries. And make no mistake about it, they are. As far as class and wealth situation goes, they are sitting above most of the rest of us normies, they are earning more than we are. They're in a more privileged position than the rest of us. They are bourgeois revolutionaries. And regardless of the fact of whether or not this will actually go anywhere, it's highly likely just to flounder and go nowhere. And therefore this might be looked at with a certain sense of ridicule, and people might consider it to be a joke. But I think we do actually need to take this seriously. This is not a good thing. The problem here is that even if these guys are bourgeois revolutionaries, someone else who's listening to them and is inspired by them might actually start taking this sort of stuff seriously. And what they are saying has the real potential, very real potential, to foment actual political violence in this country. It is not good. And if you are a serious, integrity filled, virtue driven member of our parliament, then you shouldn't be acting in this way. This is not good. It is one thing to criticise and to be robust in your criticism of the system, and to speak out against what you view to be injustices, or to speak out in areas where you think change is necessary, but it's a whole nother thing altogether to be doing what they are doing here. And I did wonder to myself, tongue in cheek, whether or not there will now be a new part two of fire and fury. Remember that fire and fury documentary where they were making out there was a big threat with all of these people around the parliamentary protest and how this was going to be the unravelling of social cohesion and liberal democracy? I wonder if they're now going to actually make a follow up to that documentary about what happened yesterday with the Mori party, because it would seem that that kind of behaviour would fairly and squarely fall into that exact same category, right. Of bringing down social cohesion and bringing down the very structures of government within our country? And will the disinformation project be critiquing the various claims that are being made by members of the Mori party about how this parliament is targeting them? It is oppressing them. They don't have equal rights with the rest of non Mori New Zealand. Are they going to be critiquing any of that? I'm not going to be holding my breath, which is why I want to leave you with a very beautiful quote from Vaslav Bender. For those who don't know Vaslav Bender, he is the christian dissident, the catholic man who lived under the hard totalitarianism of the marxist regime in Czechoslovakia. And he is particularly prominent during the seventies and eighties, in that particular period of their history, he is a contemporary of the more well known Vaslav Havel. But in actual fact, Waslav Bender was a very deep thinker. And although he doesn't get the same credit, he's the guy who actually came up with the concept of things like the parallel polis. When you're living under a totalitarian regime, you actually have to ignore the regime and create your own community of goodness, truth and beauty that carries on living goodness, truth and beauty in the midst of such dark and difficult times. Now, his writings are hard to get in English. He's not as well known as some of his contemporaries, so it's a little bit harder to actually get his writings because not a lot of them have actually been translated into English. But I finally managed to track down his book, a hardcover copy of his book, the long Night of the Watchman, which is filled with his essays from 1977 to 1989. It's a great book, a really great read. Just to give you a bit of an insight into this guy's particular character, he's got a real beautiful wit about him. One of the things I was reading one of his essays just the other night, and he's talking about in this essay a particular incident where the communist party was pressuring him. He was effectively undergoing a sort of trial, if you like. And he was about to be fired from a position that he had. And he said that one of the scrutineers, the director, who was sort of scrutinising, interrogating him, basically suggested that perhaps Vaslav Bender's good mood was actually because of the fact that he had some secret hidden income from abroad. And Vaslav Bender says in this essay, in that moment, I was really upset and incensed about this, because here I am, this married father of five, and I'm thinking about the perilous situation of my finances. And I was about to try and defend myself and say, how dare you? And then he said, all of a sudden I remembered, actually, I've got hidden treasures in heaven.
[00:16:17] And then he goes on to say this. But since I had some doubts as to whether the director would consider heaven to be a domestic or a foreign institution, I decided to stay on topic and stick to the matters at hand instead. And so this is how this guy is thinking through this process of being interrogated by these communist overlords. It's really quite a beautiful thing. But I wanted to leave you today with a great quote of his about the beauty and importance of family life and I think this is a really, really important thing to end on. Because at moments like this, it can be very tempting to sort of lose your peace. So it can be very easy to lose your peace. Don't be like all those other people out there who are losing their peace at the moment. And in order to ensure that you don't lose your peace, you've actually got to proactively cultivate peace. You've got to return to what CS Lewis would call the first things. If you put the first things first, everything else falls into place. And there's something truly beautiful and important about family life. So if you're struggling with your peace at the moment, go back to your family, be with them, live family life well. Get offline, go and do some good and humane things that aren't twitter or tweeting about the current political crisis in the world. Here's this beautiful quote from Vaslav Bender about the profound importance of family and the three gifts that he says family gives to a person. The first gift illustrated here is the fruitful fellowship of love, in which we are bound together with our neighbour without pardon, by virtue simply of our closeness, not on the basis of merit, rights and entitlements, but by virtue of mutual need and its affectionate reciprocation. The second gift is freedom, given to us so absolutely by the family that even as finite and in the course of the conditions of the world, seemingly rooted beings, we are able to make permanent, eternal decisions. Every marriage promise that has kept every fidelity in a family in defiance of adversity, is a radical defiance of our finitude, our finite nature, something that elevates us and with us all created corporeally, as in bodily higher than the angels. The third and final gift demonstrated in family fellowship is the dignity and unique role of the individual. In practically all other social roles, we are replaceable and can be relieved of them, whether rightly or wrongly. However, such a cold calculation of justice does not reign between husband and wife, between children and parents, but rather the law of love. So fellowship, freedom and the dignity of the individual are all found in the family. So get back to your families, love them well, and you will find your peace. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the dispatches.
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