KYOTO, JAPAN — According to sources, a secret lab located in the Kyoto Prefecture of Japan reportedly leaked a devastating virus that has caused millions of people around the world to call in sick to work.

ARLINGTON, VA — Firefighters were called to the scene after several eyewitnesses claimed to have seen President Trump setting fire to a local Tesla dealership this morning.

"In no other Western democracy does the ordinary citizen so enthusiastically offer themselves as a sacrificial vessel for the errors of their rulers. In no other civil society are people so eager to drape themselves in guilt not their own, speak in a borrowed tongue they do not understand, and recite protocols they do not believe—just to win the favour of cultural gatekeepers they neither elected nor dared challenge. In modern New Zealand, this is not called confusion. It is called reconciliation. And it is strangling the 'republic of reason.' ...

"The average New Zealander believes they are good, fair-minded, and kind. And yet, they are told constantly that they live on stolen land, speak a colonial language, and benefit daily from the suppression of an indigenous people. This contradiction is unbearable. It creates a psychic tension that must be resolved—not with critical thinking, but with compensatory behaviour.

"So, they compensate. They sprinkle their speech with Māori words, not out of fluency but as offerings. They attend pōwhiri and pretend to understand its form. They sit on plastic chairs in air-conditioned government buildings and bow their heads solemnly as karakia are recited before reports on bus routes and waste disposal. The absurdity of the context is ignored, because the ritual is not about meaning—it is about atonement. Every mispronounced 'kia or'” is an apology. Every silent moment of reverence at a public hui is a plea: Please don’t judge me for history. I am one of the good ones. ...

"It is tempting to see this as mere virtue signalling. But that phrase, while accurate, is too casual. This is something more pervasive: a psychological restructuring of identity around perpetual apology. ... In New Zealand, citizens protect the ideological system that burdens them with cultural obligations not their own, because the alternative—standing up and saying 'this is not my guilt to carry'—would isolate them from polite society. They would be called racist. Or coloniser. Or worse: ignorant.

"And so, they consent. They normalise. They absorb the new rites with grim enthusiasm. ...

"The cost is not only borne by those who dissent. It is borne by the entire citizenry, who are denied the right to speak as equals—not because someone silences them, but because they silence themselves. ...

"This [cost] is not metaphorical. It is embedded in local government planning, where iwi consultation must be undertaken not by the Crown, but by the ratepayer. It is found in education, where Māori epistemology is presented not as one knowledge system among many, but as sacred truth. It is found in law and medicine, where cultural considerations override evidence, and where failure to understand tribal expectations becomes a professional liability. These are not expressions of biculturalism. They are acts of bureaucratic displacement—where the Crown shrugs off its historic responsibilities and says to the public: you carry this now. ...

"But the cruelty of this pact is that it can never be fulfilled. The shame does not diminish. The obligations do not reduce. The expectations only grow. Because the more one proves loyalty, the more one must keep proving it. The performative must become perpetual....

"What is needed now is not defiance, but clarity. Citizens must recover the ability to distinguish between respect and self-erasure. Between cultural inclusion and ideological submission. Between historical accountability and personal guilt. The Treaty may impose duties upon the Crown—but it does not impose them upon every individual who happens to be born here. One can honour history without inheriting its sins. One can affirm Māori dignity without abandoning civic equality. ...

"[T]he modern trend of cultural self-flagellation is not justice—it is neurosis. It is the psychological aftershock of a nation that has lost confidence in itself."

~ Zoran Rakovic from his post 'The Altar of Atonement: How New Zealanders Came to Worship Their Own Submission'

Yes, it's accurate to call Te Pāti Māori a racist party — both its constituencies and policies are race-based. Like Wee Willy Jackson, who spoke yesterday against them being banned for 21 days, they view everything through a lens focussed on race."The world is watching'" said Jackson, "and this type of punitive punishment will enshrine and entrench in world political commentators, and certainly the Māori Party, that this place is indeed racist and that there's no hope for this place. That's how bad that decision is."* TPM MPs and other were happy to pile on and magnify his point. "Everyone can see the racism," said Takuta Ferris. " It is hardly being hidden." "Racism-whistling," said Marama Davidson. "Racism," said Ms Hapi-Clarke. Racism, racism, racism.