Michael Laws – a clown too far?

'Petty terrorists' must be stopped - Laws
Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws compares New Zealand gangs' lawlessness to violence in Zimbabwe and says the army should be called in to crush them if necessary. His comments come after several gang-related incidents in Invercargill and Hawke's Bay last week. "There is only one way to deal with these petty terrorists. That is to outlaw gangs and provide police with the resources to crush them," he said. "If that involves bringing in the army, then so be it." The influence of gangs in effect created "homes-away-from-home in prison". "Until politicians and police headquarters grow some testes, then gangs will continue to recruit new kids, engage in organised crime and kill people."

Oh Lord, where to begin? I used to like Michael, after reading his very good book, The Demon Profession , you got the real feeling that Michael was a very principled voice within NZ First and took his responsibilities as an MP very seriously, however since then he has bloated into Talkback reactionary dog whistle speech that seems more intent at creating heat than any light. This latest outburst is perhaps his worst to date, setting the Army on NZ citizens because we have decided those citizens are ‘terrorists’ is perhaps the most ill thought out, backward, fear mongering bullshit I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. The Army? Michael wants to turn the Army on it’s own citizens? He then, without even understanding the irony, invokes the collapse of Zimbabwe as a reason why we should use the Army, of course in Zimbabwe Mugabe has in fact used the Army on his own citizens and managed to do that by painting his opposition out as traitors and terrorists. The way we deal with organized crime in NZ is by reforming the old SFO and attack the financial structures that allow Organized Crime to prosper and have the assets to keep ahead of the Police, as for street gangs, the societal alienation that drives much recruitment for gangs needs to be tackled while a much quicker Court system would hand out quicker Justice so that gang members do perceive that there is a direct counter reaction to their actions, with Court cases taking almost 2 years at the moment, there is no immediate effect felt. These are structural and resourcing issues and would go much further in finding solutions than the madness of suggesting we have the Army turn their guns on a splinter group within society and crush them in some type of bloodbath that Commissioner Laws envisions would be an Apocalyptic cleansing of the filth from the planet, only someone drinking deeply from their own well of bullshit could ever believe that is a solution.