Tricky times when Winston pulls the strings

New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters ... close to 'kingship'

I hope that the significant number of those who cast their party vote in the Whanganui electorate for New Zealand First are now reflecting on their decision.

Did you hear Winston Peters rant on about the failure of capitalism (don't blame him, he said), but the same capitalism pays our pensions. Worse may be to come despite his perceived view of the failure of capitalism.

My pick is that Winston has done a deal to get both a knighthood and to be the next NZ Governor-General when Dame Patsy Reddy's term is over. The two fit together and that's about as close to the "kingship" he can aspire to.

Just reflect on this - unstable governments are neither good for individuals or countries.

Mr Peters despises the Greens' view of the world, and National - as the largest party in the Parliament - will have the opportunities to dominate many select committees. That is where the work is done in Parliament.

Stand by for fun and games.

DAVID BENNETT, Whanganui

Moral debate

Reading Mandy Donne-Lee's "Atheist morality" letter of October 20 reminded me that, at age 4, I stopped a group of older boys from stoning a rat to death.

Why? Because "it wasn't fair" and "it was cruel". That was pre-Sunday School morality and certainly not scoring brownie points for eternity.

The "logical basis" for the "moral action" was that "fairness" and "kindness" were good; their opposites bad. And my short life experience had taught those "innate truths" about the "knowledge of right and wrong".

In short, morality is a product of natural causes in the form of life experience. Negative experience can cause amoral - even immoral - attitudes and behaviour; positive experience the moral.

All of which is a complete rebuttal of the religious notions about morals espoused by Mandy Donne Lee and David Gash.

Pre-Christian thinkers like Aristotle and the Stoics, like the Jains, Buddhists and Confucianists, were all profoundly moral and ethical thinkers outside of religion, but extremely concerned about the human condition and the need to live well.

More recent modern philosophers - David Hume, Immanuel Kant and currently such writers as A. C. Grayling - have shown by powerfully reasoned arguments how, and why, we should come to moral conclusions as to living well, whether or not there is such an entity as a god commanding behaviour based on reward or punishment beyond this life.

Such recognition should occasion some humility about religion's pretence to own a magisterial place in such discussion, especially the relationship between atheism and evolution, about which their knowledge is wincingly inadequate to the task.

RUSS HAY, Whanganui

Free speech

I agree with D Partner about freedom of speech, we should be allowed to express our opinions in the paper, and also the fact that readers will read and form their own opinions.

I suggest readers revisit his letters attacking Mandy Donne-Lee and myself, compare them to Ms Donne-Lee's or my own that he was replying to, and see who is doing the "vilifying".

Mr Partner has the right to express opinions, of course, as does anyone else. I object to opinions that are expressed as personal attacks rather than reasoned debate, and that are put forth as facts when they are not.

Mr Partner claims that "the majority" support the killing of children just because they are still in their mother's womb, when that is by no means clear. The issue is not as simple as he tries to present it.

He claims to have "no problem with people with religious and right-to-life feelings" despite specifically attacking Ms Donne-Lee for expressing such "feelings", claiming to only be annoyed when those beliefs are "rammed down the throat" of people with differing "feelings" (apparently that "ramming" includes being expressed in a letter in the paper - so much for the freedom of speech claim).

This part of his letter follows three paragraphs trying to deflect the fact that every single place that has legalised so-called "voluntary euthanasia" has proceeded to kill off patients who did not "volunteer" for it. He claims we cannot base legislation on the fact that it would kill off people who are supposed to be protected from such a fatal attack.

So, because some deem it necessary to legalise the killing of people who supposedly "choose" to be killed, we should all accept that others can be killed off without "choice" because that is just "collateral damage".

Now that is an extreme example of "ramming your opinions down other's throats", and it is one that results in death rather than just disagreement.

K A BENFELL, Gonville

Three against one

The All Blacks are to be stripped of their Rugby Championship title.

They received 28 points while the Springboks received 14, the Wallabies 15 and the Pumas 0 - a total of 29. So the trophy will be shared among the three losing teams since collectively they have more points than the winner.

It really is so much fairer isn't it?

ALLAN ANDERSON, Brunswick

Feline fault

In response to a query from the Whanganui Chronicle regarding stray cats, I responded with the following statement:

"If stray or unwanted cats are on a residents' property, the landowner has the responsibility of managing or destroying them."

This was published in an article on October 5, 2017.

It has come to my attention that this statement was incorrect. From a legal standpoint, people are not obliged to euthanise stray cats. I apologise for any confusion this has caused.

WARRICK ZANDER Compliance team leader, Whanganui District Council