Why We Should Stop Apologizing For Our History

On the rare occasions that I wade into the political situation of a foreign country, I inevitably receive a lot of very impassioned feedback from the locals. That’s especially true when the country is relatively small. Discussing political developments in a tiny, out-of-the-way country is a bit like talking about, say, anime, or the video game industry. Ordinarily, it won’t take long until I’m swarmed with people who insist that I’m in way over my head. After all, I’m a podcast host in Tennessee, talking about some country thousands of miles away. They’re the ones who are actually living through whatever nightmare I’m describing, so naturally they can probably pick me apart on the details if they want to.

That’s why I was surprised to see the reaction after my commentary on New Zealand on Friday. It wasn’t remotely what I was expecting. In case you missed it, on Friday I discussed the outbreak of a primal, stone-age war chant on the floor of New Zealand’s parliament. Here’s a mercifully short clip of the chant, which is all over the Internet at this point:

The lawmakers in that clip — who identify as “Maori,” the allegedly indigenous people of New Zealand — were furious about a bill that was introduced by a politician named David Seymour. The bill had a pretty simple premise that should’ve been totally uncontroversial. It would restore equal rights to everyone living in New Zealand.

On Friday, I pointed out that these supposedly indigenous lawmakers are a shining example of why it’s a bad idea to kowtow to any demographic group — particularly one with a violent and brutal history like the Maoris. Even if you spend decades showering them with reparations and affirmative action, as New Zealand has, they’ll still act like petulant children. Giving them free stuff only emboldens them further. They’ll turn your government into a laughingstock as they demand even more privileges and handouts, indefinitely. It’s like a real life version of the children’s book “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie,” which has proven to be one of the most prophetic works of literature of our time.

What I didn’t realize when I made these points is that, actually, the situation in New Zealand is even worse than I thought. It’s deteriorated in ways that are actually difficult to comprehend if you live in the United States, even given our trajectory towards racial “equity” and DEI and so on. And, as demonstrated by the comments I received, all of this is happening to the dismay and bewilderment of many people living in the country.

But it has happened to them — in the same way it’s happening to alleged “colonizers” all over the world, from Canada to Australia. This is a global problem that’s getting much worse with each passing year. We’re not just talking about reparations here, as unjust as reparations are. We’re not just talking about the denial of “equal rights,” as serious as that is. Those are abstract terms that paper over what’s actually happening, which is truly disturbing.

Here’s just one example that someone living in New Zealand sent in, in response to the commentary. This may be one of the most dystopian, vindictive policies you’ll ever hear about. And it’s the kind of thing that can happen when your government decides that “indigenous rights” matter more than equal rights.

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It turns out that, without holding any kind of vote, New Zealand’s public health system has decided to allow so-called “Maori” patients to skip ahead in the wait list for surgery. Solely because these patients identify as Maori, instead of colonizers, hospitals will give them preferential treatment. And this change happened in secret. It was only exposed when some reporters received a tip about what was going on.

As the Guardian reports: 

A new algorithm used in some New Zealand hospitals means Māori and Pacific patients for elective surgery will be pushed higher on waiting lists than those of other ethnicities with identical other factors like level of sickness, location and time on a waitlist. At this stage it will only be applied to elective surgery and not to emergencies.

That last line is supposed to make this seem better, somehow. But it doesn’t. First of all, the fact that a surgery can be classified as “elective” doesn’t mean it’s not an important surgery. A hip replacement procedure, which is necessary to alleviate extraordinary pain, is considered “elective.” So is gallbladder surgery. Elective surgeries are often a big deal. And there is no universe in which someone’s race should decide who gets access to them, unless you just want white people to suffer for the sake of it.

On top of that, this is clearly a stepping stone to making race-based healthcare the norm, across the board. If they’re willing to delay an elective surgery for a white guy, why exactly wouldn’t they delay his emergency surgery, too? What exactly is the reason that wouldn’t be acceptable? Nobody has explained that. And we know why. It’s because that’s coming next. 

Hospital administrators in New Zealand apparently thought they could implement an algorithm like this without telling anyone. And once it was exposed, they weren’t ashamed in any way. Instead, they doubled down on it. 

For example, a professor of public health at the University of Auckland gave this comment to the Guardian: 

We’ve had these inequitable differences in health outcomes for decades. And it doesn’t appear that we’ve been able to affect the changes that we want. If you don’t make these courageous decisions, like introducing a ethnic dimension to the decision making, we’ll never make the changes that we want to make in terms of health outcomes.

To restate: He says it’s “courageous” to “introduce an ethnic dimension to the decision making.” That’s either a quote from early-90’s Rwanda or New Zealand today. Take your pick.

The thing with a surgery waitlist is that it’s a zero-sum game. When you give someone a boost, you’re hurting someone else. So the solution is telling these Maori people to get in line and treat them like anyone else. Maybe they should have some self-respect instead of constantly freeloading and demanding special privileges. They don’t need an “equity adjuster” that prevents a white guy from getting the surgery he needs. They need to take some responsibility for their own culture and its many problems.

But in New Zealand’s media, which is mostly controlled by the government, the “equity adjuster” is being portrayed as a positive development. The Maori are happy about it, we’re told. And that’s all that matters. Watch:

This is what those politicians who were doing the “Haka” in parliament were upset about. They don’t want this kind of overt anti-white racial discrimination to end, because it benefits them. After all the billions of dollars in reparations payments and all the apologizing and land acknowledgments and flying the Maori flag, they still want to deny the “colonizers” access to surgeries. This is why they’re opposing a bill that would restore equal protection under the law.

From the comments I received, this is just one of about a million other examples of the indignities that people living in New Zealand have to deal with. 

One of them reads:

I work for a council in NZ. It’s super racist. We have a whole team dedicated to grifting and apartheid. Our senior leadership team are all on board with the grift. It’s disgusting.

Another reads:

It’s horrendous here in NZ. I work for a govt dept. Before and after every meeting we are required to say a Maori prayer. Regular cultural ‘supervision’ is mandatory.

Here’s another:

Matt is spot on. Here in NZ we’ve apologised, paid compensation and seen privileging of the ‘Maori perspective’ at all levels of government, media, academia and bureaucracy for decades. It’s never enough and just leads to more and escalating demands.

It goes on and on. Many people also pointed out that New Zealand has something called “Maori electorates,” which are basically DEI for the government. There are seven “Maori electorates” in New Zealand, and 65 normal electorates. In the Maori electorates, only self-identifying Maori people can vote. That’s how the woman who tore up that bill got into parliament. So they rigged the whole system to get these Maori in government, and then the Maori turned the government into a laughing stock.

People made a few other important points in response to my commentary as well. One of them is that it’s pretty much impossible to define who qualifies as “Maori” anymore, as you’d expect. They have the same Elizabeth Warren problem we do. But maybe the most striking comments were the ones where people said that, in New Zealand, you’re not allowed to be honest about any of this.

One of the comments reads:

so refreshing! In New Zealand, we can’t mention this. Thanks Matt for making this clear to everyone.

Here’s another:

Great video Matt. Come down these ways and do a talk please. If we explain NZ like this in NZ we get labelled a racist. It’s not racism, it’s truth. David Seymour is part Maori.

There are hundreds of comments like this. In New Zealand, you’re apparently not allowed to mock these Maori chants. You’re not supposed to tell them to stop freeloading.

As unfortunate as that is for people living in New Zealand, the truth is that the problem is much bigger than any one country. It’s now endemic to the western world. Exacting vengeance against the colonizers is now an explicit goal of public policy. And Left-wing politicians are latching onto any pretext they can find in order to justify more of these crackdowns.

A year ago, for example, I went into some detail about the mass graves hoax that’s been unfolding in Canada. The idea was that ground-penetrating radar had supposedly found graves at various sites that were once occupied by Canada’s “residential schools.” These were boarding schools that were funded by the Canadian government and run by Christian churches. 

According to the Canadian media and Canadian politicians, the graves provided evidence that Indians endured horrible abuses at these schools, to the point that Indian children were buried on-site. Dozens of churches were promptly set on fire in Canada, which the country’s prime minister said was an “understandable” response.

The problem is that, to this day, none of this has panned out. They haven’t found a single, confirmed gravesite at these schools. All they have are suspicions, which always turn out to be false.

In Kamloops, for example, we were told that ground-penetrating radar had supposedly identified hundreds of unmarked graves. They also reportedly found the tooth of a juvenile nearby. But a year or so later, we learned that the tooth actually belonged to an animal — and that the “unmarked graves” were really a septic field.

How has Canada’s government responded to these revelations? You can probably guess. They’re responding the same way they respond when you question the narrative on climate change. They’re accusing you of “denialism.” In fact, members of Canada’s parliament are proposing legislation that would make it illegal to tell the truth about the complete lack of unmarked graves at these residential schools. They want to label the truth as hate speech. Watch:

Well, maybe your “lived experience” didn’t happen. Maybe it wasn’t an experience at all, except in your fevered imagination.

Again, the point here is to provide a pretext for a wave of anti-Christian violence and, ultimately, destroy Canada as a Western country. That’s their only goal, and you can see it everywhere in Canada.

For example, the country recently implemented “indigenous sentencing circles” for serious crimes including assault and theft. This is where, instead of a judge sentencing someone, they sit in a circle and talk about how tough life must be for the criminal. Watch:

As the video continues, they go on to claim that actually, these sentencing circles are even harsher than Canada’s normal court system. And actually — unfortunately for Canadians — that might be true. Even outside of these “sentencing circles,” traditional courts in Canada are allowing so-called indigenous people to commit crimes with impunity.

Recently in Canada, for example, a man slashed the throat of a complete stranger on the train. The victim was 65-years-old, and the assailant very nearly severed the artery in his neck. But the judge decided that sending the perpetrator to federal prison would be a bad idea. Why? 

As the Calgary Herald states:

[The judge] said the generational trauma European society has caused to Indigenous communities had to be addressed. ‘The history of colonialism has to be taken into account,’ he said.

Therefore the stabber received a sentence of less than two years in a provincial jail.

Yes, the “history of colonialism” and “generational trauma” have to be taken into account when you’re dealing with someone who tries to murder a guy on the train. Maybe it’s okay to stab random white people. That’s the message they’re sending when they refuse to throw this criminal in prison for the rest of his life.

This kind of “sentencing” is happening all over the place now. In Australia the judges are allowing criminals to put on performances in the courtroom, before they’re allowed to go free.

As The Nightly reports: 

A New South Wales district court judge … invited a teenage criminal appearing before her to be sentenced over violent home invasions to give a ‘welcome to country’ in the middle of her courtroom. … The 17-year-old teen had pleaded guilty to breaking and entering the homes of a 92-year-old and an 88-year-old woman — who he also admitted to sexually touching. The elderly women were left traumatised. .. A ‘welcome to country’ usually occurs at the beginning of a formal event and can take many forms including singing, dancing, smoking ceremonies, and/or a speech. It is performed by traditional owners, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have been given permission from traditional owners, to welcome visitors to their country.

So the judge lets this guy do a fun little dance then releases him on parole after sentencing him as a child. This is a 17-year-old who “sexually touched” — otherwise known as sexually assaulted — elderly women, and instead of throwing him in prison for the rest of his life, he gets to effectively become an “officer of the court” and perform some ceremony to make a mockery of the entire judicial system. And then he walks free.

The point of all of this couldn’t be any clearer. Last year there was a referendum in Australia called “The Indigenous Voice referendum.” It would’ve modified Australia’s constitution in order to create more carve-outs for so-called “indigenous people.” The referendum failed, thankfully, in part because its backers were so explicit about what they were attempting.

A professor named Marcia Langton, for example, stated:

People who are opposing the Voice are saying we are destroying the fabric of their sacred constitution. Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly what we are doing.

Pretty much anywhere you look in Australia, in day-to-day life, you can see how this strategy is being implemented. They even do land acknowledgments on buses in Australia, to send the message that Australians don’t actually own their own land. Watch:

Australia, like most of the West, has a HUGE problem with white guilt. Those pushing white guilt will use ANY means to do it; in Australia's case, it is mostly the Aboriginal issue. Here's an announcement on public transport that exemplifies what I'm talking about. RT THIS! (1/6) pic.twitter.com/A7m9JCCMQu

— Way of the World (@wayotworld) March 24, 2023

Just like in New Zealand, all of this deference doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s never enough. The “indigenous folks” just keep coming up with more and more demands, which usually entail giving them more and more money. And as one Australian politician pointed out recently, it’s not clear exactly where that money is going. Australia even set up something called the “National Indigenous Australians Agency,” with the goal of advancing “reconciliation,” and now billions of dollars are unaccounted for. Watch:

I won’t play the guy’s full speech, but he goes on to draw the wrong lesson from all of this. He points out that the “indigenous agency” is embezzling money. But his solution is to give the money to “indigenous people” directly. In other words, even as Australian politicians point out the obvious fraud of “reconciliation,” they still want to participate in it. They still want to pay for the alleged sins of their ancestors. They still agree with the underlying premise that colonization was a horrific evil that we have to make amends for.

But that isn’t true. European colonization has been, on balance, a force for good in the world. If you don’t believe that, try comparing the life expectancy of “indigenous” Australians, Canadians or New Zealanders pre-colonization to what they are now. They’re doing a lot better today than they were hundreds of years ago. They’re not bartering with severed heads any more in New Zealand, or eating the flesh of their enemies. They’re using money for commerce now — money they often don’t even have to earn. Instead of doing their Haka dance half naked outside of their mud huts, they’re doing it in the halls of parliament. 

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The only way to move past this endless guilt is to recognize that the so-called “colonizers” never committed any unique acts of evil. Whatever alleged atrocities they can be charged with — slavery, torture, mass murder, et cetera — were committed, often in much more brutal forms, by the natives that they conquered. But there are many unique blessings that colonization has brought to the world. That list would include pretty much every conceivable thing that makes our lives enjoyable and worth living today. It’s time for us to start taking pride in our history and speaking up to defend our ancestors.

We also have to start being honest about these native cultures that are so often romanticized and idealized. They were not peaceful people living in harmony with each other and nature. The real world did not bear any resemblance to Disney’s “Pocahontas.” In reality, these were violent, brutal, primitive conquerors who were in turn conquered by a superior civilization that was — at the absolutely very worst — just as brutal as their own. Though often they were downright gentle and progressive by comparison. All across the world, both sides slaughtered and enslaved. But only one had a propensity to eat their captives, or rip their still-beating hearts out of their chests.

I’ve gone through all of these examples to make the point, as I did on Friday, that we need to avoid a similar regression here. We’ve already seen signs of it happening, of course. Kamala Harris openly proposed allocating disaster relief on the basis of “equity.” During the lockdowns, government scientists floated the idea of giving certain demographic groups preferential access to the COVID shot. The Biden-Harris administration provided various benefits, including farm aid, to certain people on the basis of skin color. And so on.

But as bad as things have become, this cancer hasn’t yet metastasized here to the extent it has across the world, in places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia. One of the top priorities of the incoming Trump administration should be to ensure that it never does.