As a proud New Zealander I have to take issue with the accuracy of some the points that you made here Brother Cranky.
The blue flag with six yellow stars is in fact the Australian flag. Our flag has only four stars:
The Union Jack means that we are part of the Commonwealth with Britain. The FOUR stars, the Southern Cross, are what the missionary Samuel Marsden saw in the sky when he gave the first New Zealand Christian Christmas service to Māori in 1814.
Although the NZ economy is based on tourism, dairy products, forestry and sheep
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/New_zealand
- we do in fact have less sheep than Australia and a smaller population of idle sheep farmers. Australia also has a famous song called 'Tie me kangaroo down sport' :
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...897637,00.html
which describes
marsupial bondage.
If you look closely at the sheep suit you will notice that it is surrounded by people wearing silly-looking green and yellow hats with corks hanging off them. Green and yellow are the Australian sports colours and the corks are to keep the nasty Aussie flies off them
. New Zealand sports clothes are usually black with a silver fern on them.
The furry in the sheep suit is in fact 'entertaining' Australians in Australia.
The protestant work ethic is so strong down here: the belief in capitalism and the freedom of the individual has meant that some view us as apathetic. Many New Zealanders have strong faith and beliefs but we have developed them at distance and independently from most other civilised countries.
We have fewer catholicks than Australia and fewer gothtards - Australia was the country that 19th missionary James Denney called "The Most Godless Place Under Heaven" and the name stuck. For our size, New Zealand has many full-
immersion baptised and Biblical Christians. I was baptised in my local Baptist Church in 1986.
New Zealand has only been a peaceful country in recent history, which is mainly because we have had a number of socialist leaders like B. Obama. Before we were settled and taught the ways of white folk by English missionaries my Māori ancestors were barbaric tribal savages. The basis of my ancestors' society was 'Utu' which loosely translates to 'An eye for an eye'. Every little grievance was settled by personal conflict. Since the 1850s most Māori leaders have had Faith in God and many have been Born Again.
For over the last hundred years almost every conflict that the United States and Great Britain has been involved in, New Zealanders have played a part. Most New Zealand soldiers have been volunteers, such as the famous 28th (Māori) Battalion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_Battalion
Māori as an indigenous people have been treated better than almost all other first nations people in the world. New Zealand was colonised rather than invaded and most tribes got on with the, then, mostly British settlers. Māori have a Treaty with the government which has meant that all Māori have affirmative action plus grounds to settle any grievance that has occurred - and most of the important ones have been settled. As an example, nearly half of the fishing industry is owned or controlled by Māori. Surviving ancient Māori rock-art and most semi-precious stones like greenstone belong to the tribe that is associated with the land where they are found, and cannot be sold or traded without the consent of the tribe.
The Sex Trade in New Zealand is thoroughly regulated, which means that the rate of AIDS and drug use among whores is controlled. Whores even have their own trade union: http://www.nzpc.org.nz/ Many of us fight to return New Zealand to Biblical Christian Values, such the criminalisation of prostitution, and we need your prayers.
YIC
Bryan.