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Capt Phoenix: You've addressed this e-mail to me in error I think. Nevertheless I will respond. New Zealand's point was that we did not/do not want to be defended by nuclear weapons and went nuclear free in an effort to encourage larger states to reverse the nuclear arms build up that was occuring at the time. We did not shirk our defense responsibilites, as you claim: as New Zealand's defense spending increased quite markedly after we were booted out of ANZUS by the US. The US did not respect a decision made by a democratic country through a democratic process. In response to New Zealand's nuclear free ships policy, the CIA attempted to place the Labor Government in a position of corruption (The Maori Loans Scandal), hoping that the Governor General of the country would remove the government from power. It failed. (However, the CIA was successful in using this strategy to remove the Whitlam government from power in Australia in the early 1970s; the government had banned nuclear powered ships from berthing at Australian harbors.) Despite this horrendous act by the US, the NZ government of the time and subsequent governments have tried to maintain friendly relations with the US. It is US policies such as these that make non Americans think that the US only really respects foreign democracies as long as those their decisions align with US interests. New Zealand has never been a isolationist country as you claim; it has always made a contribution to world affairs and is one of only two countries to fight with America in all of the wars and conflicts of the last century. New Zealand's government is not socialist, as the term is used in the conventional sense. Yes, aspects of its social policies are state welfarist (like America's), but its economic policy of the last 17 years has been much more conversative (i.e., neo-classical monetarist) than America's, even Reagan's. We have the lowest and fewest tariffs in the world, no subsidies of agriculture or private industry, a post office that is run on a profit and loss basis, the privatisation of entitlements and the wholesale privatisation of most state owned assets. Indeed, as I stated earlier, New Gingrich's Contract With America was modelled on New Zealand's economic reforms. He said so.

Sorry for not responding to your posts sooner - all weekend every time I tried to log on to free republic, all I got was a "Site Under construction". I was beginning to think the FBI had blocked me out for being too accurate on my suggested strategies... ;)

Regarding your arguments on NZ's nuclear free policy...Have you ever heard of something called "Rupture"? That's when you're having a conversation with someone and suddenly realize that no communication is occuring. It usually comes from the fact that you are both speaking from assumptions about the world that are far apart. It is possible to establish communication after you realize a rupture has occurred, but it involves backing way up, and trying to sort out those assumptions.
I'm afraid a rupture is what I hear when I read your arguments for the moral superiority of the "nuclear free policy". If you want to put in the effort to try to continue the debate, I am willing. I firmly believe in the value of intellectual debate - it is how both free minds and free societies flourish. A wise man once said,"You can call no idea or opinion truly yours until you have defended it in reasoned debate." I consider the warfare of ideas to be close to a patriotic duty. Especially as it's one type of war that leaves both parties stronger, wiser, and freer than they were.

However, it will be a very long discussion, and may deserve it's own thread. The topic here seems to have drifted off into name calling, and I'm not too sure anyone whould still be interested. What do you think?