1901: Death of John McKenzie

August 6, 2019

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand History, 6 August, 1901, the death of loathsome Liberal John McKenzie (61yo.)

Possibly the most corrupting, rabble rousing, smelly, political Frankenstein ever to wreak economic havoc over New Zealand. Old Jock, I hate this old toad!

“He had grown up in Scotland and one of his earliest memories was seeing the inhabitants of Glen Calvie, huddled around small fires on a rainy Saturday, in the grounds of Croick Church but too proud to enter the building itself which would be disrespectful.  These were victims of the Highland Clearances, some of the last to be dispossessed of lands they did not own by a Chieftan they trusted to lead and care for them.  The messages that some of them scratched in the diamond-shaped panes of the church’s windows can still be seen.  He never forgot the sight and strove to make New Zealand a place where a working man could own his own land. “- Sir John McKenzie – the forgotten memorial (2018); Otago Taphophile

Very generous apologetics. But what can we expect from this history blogger from Otago? You want to study history, Otago University is the only place to go. But that means Professor Tom Brooking. But he loves the Liberal Socialist Thugs, especially Jock McKenzie. So you’d better too if you want to pass!

I do appreciate seeing pictures of the old cairn’s broken remains though. Very fitting that it should have been crumbling at the point Reform rode to victory, stomping McKenzie’s legacy under foot quite literally in 1913.

The Real Jock

In the 1870s The British Empire was possessed by one of those periodical bouts of Victimhood Culture. The British Liberal Party and ‘Lefty’ radical groups (eg heard of Karl Marx?) started making hay out of an anti-property rights movement (‘Anti-landlordism’.) They also published exaggerations in polemical literature about the so-called ‘Highland Clearances’. A history of victimhood and betrayal and deprivation toward the crofters of Scotland was born. Victimhood Culture had found a lie it could take root in.

When this VC wave hit the shores of New Zealand Mr Jock McKenzie was a struggling shepherd on bad land near Shag Point, Otago. If I remember correctly¹, he had abandoned his betrothed (wife?) in Scotland to shoot through to New Zealand and it wasn’t working out. Jock’s main centre was the town of Palmerston, named after Lord Palmerston (image right) who had been the leader of the Liberals and Prime Minister of  Britain. Jock ditched honest work for politics yet even a liberal Scot in a district of liberal Scots settlers who named themselves after the Liberal leader wouldn’t have him.

The 1870s VC wave came: Jock rocketed up to became Palmerston’s Most Preferred Haggas-eating Liberal and was at last elected to Provincial Council (1871) then House of Representatives (1881.) When the next 20 year cycle of VC struck², Jock and his fellows became the New Zealand Government under the Liberal Party Era (1890-1912.)

Wreaking r-selected Havoc upon New Zealand

With his best frenemies (Ballance, Seddon, Ward, Reeves,..) Jock twisted God’s Own Country into a regulatory and paternalistic Big Brother State. They had colonised the levers of power like a virus and set about changing the national environment for optimal climate control to grow more r-selected persons such as themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for evolutionary processes to play themselves out! I just draw the line at giving any Moral Culture or Reproductive Strategy (r or K) the power of The State to fight its battles.

Jock’s speciality was taking over industries for Mafia/State control. He expanded the Department of Aggriculture beyond all belief, forcing Kiwis to have to use State-licenced abattoirs for processing our meat. His passion was attacking K-selected Members in The House, such as his attack upon John Hall. Because of his abhorrent bad breath, a jar of pickles was always close by to mask his secretions. These jars he would throw at people he did not like as the image (above, left) shows.

McKenzie traded on his central myth of the Highland Clearances to rabble rouse class division in New Zealand too. Like Marx, Jock identified the big estate owners as class enemies and went about “busting up” their properties to give them to the little guy. In 1893 Jock pretended to take credit for smashing Cheviot Estate and made sure the propaganda reflected that. Happily for the Anarchist, the name for the new town created, McKenzie, did not live much longer than the corrupt old crook himself and the people of Cheviot reverted to their customary title.

Statist History will teach you all of the above facts but what is not obscured is likely to be approved of. To the r-selected and The State, Jock is a national hero. An Anarchist History of New Zealand offers a different point of view where we do not take for granted that The State is benevolent. Outside the Staterix it becomes possible to question that a Knight who had two hill-top monuments built to his memory might not be such a squeaky-clean guy after all.

—

1 Been a while since I read this book; Lands for the People? The Highland Clearances and the Colonisation of New Zealand – A Biography of John McKenzie; Tom Brooking (1996)

2 Kate Shepherd Victimhood Culture c.1886-1893

Image ref. Carte de visite depicting Lord Palmerston, 1863; Wikipedia

Image ref. McKenzie monument; Otago Taphophile

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