There is at least one dumb person in New Zealand

So I understand New Zealanders fuck sheep.

Hey, don’t leave, I was just speaking exaggeratedly, humorously.

Like this New Zealander person Gerry Brownlee said he did; he’s apparently the Leader of the House, which either is a parliamentary office or a fancy name for a bachelor.

Speaking in the Parliament, during the bachelors’ speaking hour prob’ly, he apparently said Finland is a place “which has worse unemployment than us, has less growth than us, can hardly feed the people who live there, has a terrible homicide rate, hardly educates its people, and has no respect for women”.

Which, you know, is accurate in the same way that saying New Zealanders fuck sheep is. Factually, yes just maybe; but as for the implication in it, eh, not so much.

But first the most obvious actual mistake, as in, an untruth, a lie. “Hardly educates its people”, huh? Tough talk about a land that ranks at the top, or even at the supreme top spot, when education is ranked. New Zealand ties at best, but usually ranks lower; so I suppose this particular comment must be the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. In case Mr. Brownlee doesn’t understand that joke, we can send a spare psychology graduate or a dozen to explain it to him. That’s the difference between first place and some ruddy loser seventh place, ey, Kiwis?

(You could quibble about how accurate those measures of education are, but “hardly educates”? Then again, I could innocently and without any malice observe that I understand Mr. Brownlee is a high school-level woodwork teacher by education; I shouldn’t demand too much knowledge of, you know, world affairs or political tact from him. It’s not like he is the parliamentary leader and Transport Minister, representing the biggest party in… oh, wait.)

And “has a terrible homicide rate”? True, but that’s just because we always invite people like Mr. Brownlee to personally observe what Finland is really like. Then there’s a little accident, and the rate goes up a bit.

And “no respect for women”? This is really unkind of you, Mr. Brownlee. I know New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893 while Finland didn’t until 1906, so we’re a pioneer merely in Europe, not on world scale; but that’s still terribly petty. In Finland, we just had a female President for two terms. How many female presidents has New Zealand… oh wait, I forgot this proud and upright land whose parliamentarian bashes us has no president but just a prime minister; their head of state is the proud, modern, democratic Queen of fucking hereditary eunuch-dictatorship England. Should I think we should have made Tarja Halonen a queen, a similarly castrated antiquated museum piece life sacrifice, to show our respect for women?

Then again, I gather the first female prime minister of New Zealand was Jenny Shipley, in 1997, while Tarja Halonen was elected President only in 2000; it really seems Finns have no respect for women, at least from the very strict New Zealander viewpoint.

And though we have legal equality, I suppose you could argue there’s a pay gap and under-reporting of rape and domestic violence and still a lot to do; but if that lets you get away with a dismissal like “no respect for women”, then on behalf of every single Finnish feminist may I suggest the various indiscretions of lonely farmland boys equate to “New Zealanders fuck sheep”.

For those that wonder, this is my calm, polite and measured mode of response; there has been hardly any swearing yet.

And as for unemployment? Round six-half in NZ; round seven-half in Finland. Curse you, you New Zealanders and your strict evaluations!

As for feeding the Finnish people, god, don’t you know how fat we are?

But since I don’t want to be too hard on Mr. Brownlee, and I want to charitably accept his later comment that his words were satirical, yet with a grain of truth in them… well, don’t worry, Mr. Brownlee. I don’t bear a grudge.

Just you New Zealanders stop raping sheep, children and your Maori slaves, which is a satirical comment with a shadow of fact in it so no hard feelings, and we’re okay.