Sean Gabb's Blog

I have just come back from holiday in the Ukraine, and this has spurred my thoughts on the “unfairness” of the difference in the lot in life experienced by members of different nations. Is it unfair that some people are born in Switzerland and others in Somalia? Is this just a variation on the different life chances of people born into different social classes in a single nation? Why are some nations doomed to poverty and others destined for prosperity? Whose “fault” is this? And should we feel uneasy about it?

It seems this question is very apt in terms of libertarian discussion. Clearly some people within a society are born into families that afford them advantages. Some whole nations may be said to be advantageously placed compared with other nations. If you read of people starving in a famine somewhere in Africa, one way of looking at it is that it could have been you: you did not deserve to be English; national identity is a product of chance. This is what Cecil Rhodes referred to when he said that to be born in England was to draw a winning ticket in the lottery of life. It is not quite the winning ticket nowadays, but it is still a decent outcome compared with most other alternative economies that we could have been born in.

There is a certain awkwardness discussing this issue with members of nations down on their luck. Clearly you wish to sympathize with decent people in such nations. Were we to trade places with them, we might find that they were able to make more of the opportunities in an economy like England, where many have grown effete and complacent, than many English people actually do. On a one-to-one basis, it does seem unfair that some countries are just poorer, which limits the life chances of all their inhabitants.

The Ukraine is a good example. It is difficult not to be sympathetic to individual Ukrainians, living in a country whose official GDP is smaller than in 1991, when the Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union. Apparently, living standards are higher, as the black economy accounts for around half of the economy, and so GDP statistics do not capture all economic activity. Nevertheless, it is hard to argue that the Ukraine has recorded a creditable economic performance since 1991.

Individual Ukrainians did nothing to make this so; they can do nothing to make it no longer so. This is the case in all nations, of course: individual people lack the power to control the nation’s destiny. A Ukrainian I know lives on the fifth or sixth floor of a building of flats with no lift, and shares with friends. There is no living room; the kitchen is big enough for one person to stand in; the furniture is basically just firewood. Such flats have central heating, but turning it on is determined centrally by the city: there is no “on” switch to turn on the radiator yourself. In a cold snap in autumn, the temperature in the flat is the same as in the street outside.

Prices of most things are the same as in the West. This is particularly the case with imported items or technological goods. Locally produced milk and cheese would be cheaper than in the West, of course, but most consumer goods are no cheaper in the Ukraine, or even more expensive in the Ukraine, than in England. I think this reflects the purchasing power of Tesco and other large English shops.

Average wages in the Ukraine are around £130 a month. Clearly such Ukrainians are condemned to a wasted life compared with citizens of most other European nations. You can buy poorly decorated flats in buildings constructed of pre-fabricated panels for around £30,000, or more in Kiev. Many Ukrainians were, however, handed their Soviet-era flats for a small fee years ago, and some families are lucky enough to have acquired several such flats from expiring grandparents and the like. Consequently, people are often able to survive on little in a way that would not be the case in England.

While there is a tax system, it is disorganized and few people are asked to make returns. There are few services from the government. Healthcare is supposedly free, but hospitals generally require those they believe can pay to buy needles, food and other consumables for their loved ones in hospital, or even to tend to them themselves in hospital. Good care often requires cash bribes to the doctors. But in the end, in the Ukraine, your money is your money, and not the government’s, and this is one plus factor compared with countries such as the UK.

Clearly, on a one-to-one basis, one can only be understanding towards Ukrainians, given that a country sandwiched between the EU and Russia, not wanted by the EU and under economic siege from Russia in the past year or two, forms the backdrop to their lives.

However, the behaviour of the government reflects the national culture to a greater or lesser degree in all countries. The country is dominated by oligarchs, and at all levels of society people imitate the abusive behaviour of their overlords by demanding bribes. Encounters with the police often require bribes. All other encounters with the bureaucracy require cash inducements. Even on an individual level, Ukrainians seek to rip each other off. If you leave your ID card in a bar, they might hold it for you, but won’t give it back to you without charge. They know the money and time it would require to get a new one from the police, and so they will demand a “holding fee” from you, for having looked after it. In England, this is called “stealing by finding”.

Ukrainians are not easily admitted to the EU partly because of the behaviour of the population. If the Poles and Lithuanians have sponsored significant crime waves in England, then I must warn that those nations have nothing on the Ukrainians. Fraud, theft, blackmail, prostitution, pimping, drugs trafficking—all these crimes would see a large boost were Ukrainians present in large numbers in the UK.

The trouble is that, to a large extent, nations are their own worst enemies. The “tragedy” of developing nations is that culturally they inflict their situation on themselves. The situation is similar to the unprogressive culture that prevails on sink estates in the UK, where it is hard to unpick whether those communities are “victims” of a lack of social opportunity and the easy availability of welfare, or whether those communities are in fact problem estates who are visiting their own problems on themselves. To a certain extent, both at the estate level and at the national level, both explanations are true when the situation is seen from different angles.

I wouldn’t like to emphasize the point to Ukrainians, but England was poor once. Reading of the way children were treated in the factories of Lord Shaftesbury’s day, one cannot help but realize that England had to make its own way out of its plight. There were no World Banks or rich nations to offer assistance; just the long slog of finding appropriate economic policies to foster socioeconomic development.

Countries like the Ukraine may make little of their advantages, but they do live in a world where much of the conditions for rapid growth have been put in place for them by other countries. They did not invent the light bulb, or electricity, or railways, or motor cars, or computers, or the Internet; and yet they benefit from all of these. A world market exists: the Ukraine does not need to conquer India and go to war with Imperial China to enforce a global trading network. Appropriate policies would see rapid economic growth as the already existing technology of other nations was transferred quickly.

Ultimately, the world does not owe the Ukraine a living. IKEA pulled out of building a store in Odessa more than a decade ago, because the land prices were higher than in London or New York and it did not wish to pay bribes to local officials. Land has a manipulated price in all countries, and IKEA believed that corruption was at the heart of the high cost of investment. If the Ukraine wishes to receive investment, it must do something about corruption.

It is difficult for individual Ukrainians to influence the political process. The discussion in the Ukraine is of how much it costs to become an MP there. How much do you have to pay in bribes to get elected? Election results are not believed to be the genuine result of popular opinion. Most MPs in the Ukraine are resistant to reforms that would reduce opportunities for corruption.

Consequently, Ukrainians are left hoping the new government will do enough to clamp down on corruption and move the country into a more Western orbit, without really being able to force the government to do so. To that extent, the situation is “unfair”.

However, individual Ukrainians betray a mercenary and greedy approach to life that limits the ability of a Westerner to sympathize too deeply. Not all Ukrainians would invest the money they have in businesses or in English lessons or even in saving for a flat. Clearly there are many small businessmen in the country, but their ranks are dwarfed by the numbers of Ukrainians who spend all their income on clothes. They wish to show off Armani suits and Versace bags. They have detailed knowledge of the expensive perfumes that are in fashion at the moment. Women—and men—spend a fortune on hairspray and take an hour to get ready to go to the shops to buy a pint of milk. Everything in the country is for show: to show others you are fashionable and you have managed to keep up with the times and the latest brands.

Despite the fact they are the second-poorest country in Europe after Moldavia, the average Ukrainian would turn his nose up at an Android phone, such as I have. It has to be an iPhone for them. Why don’t they economize and put the extra money towards self-improvement of some type? They seem to want everything now, the same as it is in the West. Yet prosperity has been centuries in the making in the UK.

It is difficult to avoid the view that Ukrainians have added their contribution to a situation whereby they are towards the bottom of the economic rankings. They don’t seem to understand that you can be happy and poor: you can live in a small flat, and if you are with loved ones, you will manage one way or the other to be happy.

One can admire the tendency of Ukrainians to be aspirational, while deprecating their materialism. That libertarians admire aspiration is not the same thing as saying that libertarians believe material things are the only desirable things in life or even the central objects of desire in life. In the end, a country never gets to be a prosperous society until it has other values than materialism. Capitalism (and the Common Law) are ultimately founded on social trust, which implies that something other than material values must come first: it is this that Ukrainians lack. Until they understand this, unfortunately, Ukrainians will deserve to be less well-off.

Filed under: Liberty

Mustela nivalis

��The Bible is ���an anti-socialist document���. This is one of the quintessential conclusions of Gary North���s multi-volume economic exegesis. However, how does this assertion equate with some biblical statements, especially in the New Testament, which are rather critical about ���the rich���?

Let���s take the famous story of the rich man who is told by Jesus to sell everything he has, give the money to the poor, and to follow him. Under these conditions the rich man, who originally wanted to follow Jesus, declines. Then Jesus says the well-known words: ���it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.��� (Matthew 19:24) So it seems that Jesus/God doesn���t like the rich very much.

However, there is a proverb (13:22) in the Old Testament which seems to directly contradict this dictum: ���A good person leaves an inheritance for their children���s children, but a sinner���s wealth is stored up for the righteous.��� Meaning that a) it IS possible to be rich and ���good��� in the eyes of God and b) in the long term, maybe the very long term, the righteous will inherit everything, and the sinners will be disinherited. In history that is, in this world, not the next.

There are clear indications in the Gospels that Jesus adheres to this proverb. Think of the parable of the prodigal son: the initially unrighteous son loses all his money, but when he returns to the father, crushed and repentant, he is rewarded, spiritually but also materially. Think of the parable of the talents, which, in the version told by Matthew, ends with: ���For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.��� Obviously, ���having��� something does not here only mean material goods. But it does include them.

So, on the one hand, the rich will have a hard time entering the kingdom of God. On the other, the righteous will become rich. How to solve this conundrum? The easy way would be to point out that the rich man that prompted Jesus��� words about camels and needles was a) young and b) a ���ruler���. In other words, he had not worked for his riches, but had received the equivalent of modern day tax money. Incidentally Jesus does not ask every rich man he meets to ���sell everything and give it to the poor���, only this one man.

So there is some merit in the this-individual-rich-man argument, however it is a little too easy: Jesus talks about ���someone who is rich��� in general, for whom it is near impossible to enter the kingdom of God, not ���this particular man���. A more comprehensive solution is that Jesus recognises that with additional riches come additional responsibilities. This is what is also meant in the conclusion of the parable of the talents, mentioned above. The richer we become, the more responsibilities we assume. Responsibilities towards God and his people that is. Because if God is not recognised as being at the top of the hierarchy, someone else will assume that position. For many really rich people, that someone tends to be either their crony in government or they themselves. This is basically the message in all parables where a rich man comes up short, e.g. the parables of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21) and of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). It���s never the fact that they were rich that condemned them. It���s that they thought they were sovereign in their decisions and did not need to heed God���s commandments or the finiteness of their lives. A stance that becomes easier to assume the wealthier one is materially. Thus the growing difficulty to pass the ���needle test��� the richer one is.

However, this solution is not yet entirely complete. Why, if the righteous will inherit the earth, is it ���almost impossible��� for ���the rich��� to enter the kingdom of God? Gary North thinks that this dichotomy ���points to a world-transforming Christian revival in the future that will change the theological confessions of the very wealthy.��� (G.N., The Covenantal Structure of Christian Economics, 2015, p. 229.) In other words, Jesus��� dictum applies to most of the rich in his day and today. However, sometime in the future the proverb shining through some of Jesus��� parables will negate Matthew 19:24, North asserts. This would indicate a true and lasting revival expected by those Christians who are, like Gary North, ���postmillennialists���. They expect that mankind will experience a long phase of blessings in history prior to Jesus��� second coming and judgment, as a reward for individual and institutional adherence to God���s commandments. That is why the postmillennial outlook is optimistic.

If however the camel-needle-dictum has permanently overturned proverb 13:22, ���then the wealth of the just is laid up for the sinner.��� (G.N., ibid, p. 230) And this would then remain so for the rest of history. This is the basic position of ���amillennialists���, which seems to be the default position of most of the remaining European Christians nowadays, consciously or not.

This is the fundamental reason why the Christian faith is in retreat all over Europe and the West as a whole. Christians have given up ���the good fight��� because in their heart of amillennialist hearts they believe that ���the wealth of the just is laid up for the sinner��� ��� so why bother? Why indeed. As I have said in earlier posts, there are strong indicators for a direct connection between long term adherence to Christianity and the rise of individual freedom and general wealth in history. If we don���t reconnect freedom to its historical spiritual foundation, it is very likely doomed. However, Christianity needs to break free of its current amillennialist ���slave morality���, to coin a Nietzschean phrase. A morality which, as Gary North shows, is not necessarily inherent to it.

Looking at this analysis from the libertarian side, North offers libertarians a way to counter the rather powerful ���moral depravity��� accusation levelled against libertarians: ���In a libertarian world, the rich will lord it over us all���. The counter argument North offers comes at a price: Libertarians would have to give up the notion of ���sovereign individual��� and follow Jesus. Which at the moment, to be honest, looks like a sure recipe for even more marginalisation.

However, libertarians should certainly consider Christian ���postmillennialism���. The moral, one could say spiritual, strength of some non-Christian and atheist/humanist movements today is largely down to their own brand of postmillennialism: promising a better future for all, in some cases even a kind of heaven on earth, if only everyone adheres to their commandments. Christianity is already a historically proven main contributory factor of the development of freedom and general wealth. Once Christians and libertarians recognise this, once they rediscover their common roots, and once they (re)discover postmillennialism for themselves, they can again become a force to be reckoned with for the benefit of mankind ��� and for the glory of God.

Filed under: Liberty

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Filed under: Announcements, Liberty

At 6pm today (BST), no further comments will be taken on this site. At some point later in the evening, every post and comment put here between the 1st August and the closing of comments will be reproduced on the new site for our Blog – http://thelibertarianalliance.com. The only posts and comments not to be carried across will be these notices of the move. When this happens, the big switchover will be complete.

I am a little disappointed by the ease with which we have moved the Libertarian Alliance Blog. I thought it would take months of hard work on the new blog, and that it would take ages to carry our readers with us. I was also worried that our regulars would start moaning about the very different look of the new blog. In fact, it took a couple of hours to set up the new blog and to carry the material across. About half our readers have already moved across. Our regulars also seem to have appreciated the advantages of the new format – which shows equally well on most reading devices. We should probably have done this a few years ago.

Though it is now active, the new blog should be seen as a work in progress. We still have much to learn or relearn about CSS scripting. Colours and font sizes are liable to change back and forth without notice. There will be failed experiments. Above all, we are nerving ourselves for the epic job of amalgamating our blog and website into one place. This will certainly take months. But the first part of the job we have set ourselves will soon have been done.

 

Filed under: Announcements

From today, all new posts to this blog will be made on our new site – http://thelibertarianalliance.com/ Comments should now be open to all.

From the close of business on Friday the 5th September 2014, no further comments can be posted to this site. All posts and comments up to that date will be copied across to the new site. In due course, all posts will be indexed with a new set of categories.

Now, does anyone know how I can centre the horizontal menu bar on the new site? My CSS skills are being taxed to the limit.

Regards,

Sean Gabb

Filed under: Liberty

Dear All,

If you are one of our regulars, I strongly advise you to visit and familiarise yourself with our new Blog – http://thelibertarianalliance.com. Though it is very different in appearance, it is much better than the old one. But you will need to get used to it. Since we are inclined to have the switchover this coming Friday, you should be looking now.

I have put a test post on the new Blog – “Welcome to the Kevin Carson Centre for Puritan Studies” You are welcome to leave test comments on this, and to report back any problems you have. For the moment, you will need to register to leave comments. This restriction may come off once the Blog goes live – or, if all our regulars register, we may leave it on to discourage spammers.

Please DO NOT leave comments anywhere else on the new Blog. If you do, you will commit an offence against all my notions of intellectual order. Also, please DO NOT leave comments on the pages that are linked to at the top left. Sooner or later, I shall find how to turn off comments there, and I don’t welcome any in the meantime. You may, however, make any comments and suggestions you please. We may take them into consideration.

Regards,

Sean

Filed under: Announcements, Liberty

by Richard North

Blogging: everyone’s a critic (not) Journalism – and especially political journalism – is about criticism. The meat and drink of the oeuvre is taking people, governments or other institutions to task, either for not doing things, for doing things, or doing them badly.

If they do things well, they are largely ignored. A functioning system doesn’t make headlines (although it might if we ever had a government IT system that worked). By its very nature, the media concentrates on “bad” news, and on criticism rather than plaudits.

Strangely though, those very journalists (and their employers) who so freely dish out their criticisms of all and sundry tend to be rather unenthusiastic about being on the receiving end.

In the old days, of course, there was no problem. Letters to the editor, attacking a story (or its author) has no chance of being published, while there was a “gentleman’s agreement” between proprietors, that “dog shall not eat dog” – one that largely holds to this day. With the exception of Private Eye, them media did not attack other media.

What then brought the biggest change since newspapers graduated from their leafleting origins, was the introduction of the internet. It had several effects, the first and most obvious being online commentary.

For the first time, readers were able to air their views on the material they were being offered, without the approval of the letters’ editor. However, there were the dreaded moderators, who for a while held the line (and some still do), removing any content that attacked either the medium or the author.

While many posters have thus been banned, there has developed a sort of uneasy vade mecum, whereby you are permitted to attack the author in general terms – although not too often – but you are not allowed to attack the host, the specific media which carries the piece. Mostly, though, generalised attacks on the media are permitted.

As a result, within certain limits, commenters often get a free pass when attacking online authors, many of whom stand above the fray, choosing not to defend their work against what is sometimes a torrent of rather unpleasant abuse – on the very sensible basis that it is unwise to get into a fight with a chimney sweep.

Into this unholy mix comes the political blogger – of which there are three broad types: the media-hosted; the party affiliated; and the diminishing band of the non-aligned, such as EU Referendum, who neither have media backing nor support any particular party.

Sticking with the non-aligned, un common with the legacy media, we are able to take people, governments or other institutions to task, either for not doing things, for doing things, or doing them badly. Sometimes we can do it better – sometimes the media, with its greater resources and contacts, will take the lead.

But, non-aligned bloggers also enjoy the unique position of being able to criticise the media. The party affiliated blogs will not do this, and they are in bed with the media, but we can and do take on the giants and point out their all too frequent failings – a process that is so easy at times that it is embarrassing.

To my certain knowledge, the newspapers know of their critics, and hate the criticism, but adopt the tactic of ignoring it – much the same tactic they used with UKIP in the early days. They don’t link to us and, where others place links on their comments, they very often (but not always) disappear.

However, this means that, as bloggers, we are out on our own, and more so if we are attacking party-affiliated blogs and well as political parties. Some bloggers take great offence, believing that – unlike the general media – they should be immune from criticism. This belief they often apply to their own comments, ruthlessly deleting those who seek to contradict them.

This brings me to the main point of this post, which is to explore the relationship between bloggers and their readers, and with that sub-set who comment on their posts. Here though, quite obviously, I can only speak for myself – although I am fully aware that some of my observations will apply elsewhere.

The reason why it becomes necessary to take time out at this stage is that there is a certain proportion of commenters who have a seriously distorted view as to the nature of blogging – and what bloggers may or may not owe to their readers – and vice versa. Basically, I want a post on record, to which I can link, when I have to confront certain commentators, without having to write a specific response each time.

Firstly, in order to set the scene, I need to explain why I blog, and why I am still blogging after more then ten years – one of the longest-serving non-aligned bloggers in the country. And, as with any complex enterprise, there is no single answer.

The first and main reason is that I am Christopher Booker’s researcher- and have been for over 20 years. I don’t work for the Sunday Telegraph (although I used to do so) but for him personally, on issues related to his column.

Before even blogs (and the internet) became established, I used to write every week for him a number of news briefings on specific subjects, that he could use in his column. Some were by request. Others were more speculative, others were markers, to flag up developing issues which might become relevant later.

Initially, I was sending these to Booker by fax, and then when we both got internet (and the computers that went with them), I used to send him e-mails. Because some of the content was of use and interest to others, I would also send copies to an expanding mailing list. Eventually, several hundred people were getting my briefings each week.

For a lot of reasons, it then made absolute sense to migrate onto a blog, making it more accessible, and reducing the time it took to administer an e-mail list. And initially, it enabled me to widen it out to include a co-author, Helen Szamuely, who has since migrated to her own blog.

The second trigger which brought us into the blogosphere was the promise of a referendum on the then EU constitution by Tony Blair, back in 2004. We thought it would be a good idea to provide information for “no” campaigners which was not then (or now) being provided by the media or the political parties.

Thirdly, I had by then developed a business as a political analyst and free-lance researcher, providing political and other clients with briefings on specific subject. As with Booker, some were commissioned – some were general, background briefings. And once again, for a lot of very good reasons, it made sense to publish these on the blog – sometimes as a primary mechanism of communication.

Fourthly, the blog gave me (and Helen) a visible platform. Determinedly independent and knowing that no one else could be relied upon to host my material, it gave us a mechanism to reach a larger number of people than we could by normal means; it offered a small opportunity for soliciting donations to help keep the bailiffs from the doors; and it strengthened our influence in certain political quarters.

Of the major reasons for blogging, though, there was one more: the comments system, which gravitated into a forum and then become a comments system as well. The opportunity to get feedback from a wide range of readers has always been one of my main motivations for blogging, as it is through these that one learns a very great deal. Thus, by and large, I welcome criticism, and even insults. In fact, as Winston Churchill might possibly have averred, there is no finer art than the well-crafted political insult.

It appears, though, that this brings me into conflict with a number of my commenters, many of whom – used to the legacy media way of doing things – believe they have a free pass to criticise me on my own blog, while remaining immune from any response. Some are thus free with their insults (some not even realising they are being insulting) yet take grave exception when I respond in kind.

That brings me to the first point that I need to make: I do, most sincerely welcome feedback, and have no problems even with insults (as opposed to abuse). My main (but not my only) criterion by which I judge comments is whether they add value.

Thus, a comment that tells me I am wrong, without telling me why (especially when I am not), is of no use to me. A comment which picks up any one of my numerous errors is welcome, and treasured – even if I do fight my corner sometimes, before accepting a disputed point.

But what I won’t accept is gratuitous abuse, irrelevant dogma or those who complain when I respond in like manner to their own insults, whether deserved or not. This is a blog written by an adult, for adults. Expect as good as you give.

The second point I need to make is more obscure. It is in response to those readers – very often identified by their own statements to that effect – who seem to believe that, by reading my blog, they are doing me some kind of favour.

Usually attached to that is some kind of condition – an assertion that if only I modified my writings in some way, they would read more of my posts, and more people would come flocking to the blog.

Of course, I am fully aware that if I wanted to maximise hits, I would need to research what my target audience wants to see and then tailor my output for them. That assumes, however, that I am in the business of maximising hits, which might have been the case once, but certainly is not any longer.

In this, I have to introduce yet another reason for blogging. Essentially, I do it for myself, in the first instance because I enjoy writing, secondly because writing about things focuses the mind and helps me make sense of them, and then the output I am often able to make use in writing books for publication.

That latter process started with The Ministry of Defeat, and carried over into The Many Not The Few, and is currently informing Flexcit, where I am able to try out and develop ideas, before committing using them in a publication.

The point that emerges from this is that there is a hierarchy to my audience. Primarily, I write for myself, and then I write for Booker and a very small group of clients and influence-makers. If there was no-one else involved, and no other readers, my output would largely be the same.

Only then, therefore, is the blog available to the general reader. And make no mistake here – I welcome readers to the blog, and enjoy having you all follow my work. But as you owe me nothing (although I’m incredibly grateful for the donations), I also owe you nothing – individually or collectively.

Essentially, I write what I write, and if you care you read it, I am pleased to have provided something of value. But for those who deliberately turn away from it because what I write does not meet with your approval, that is your loss, not mine. Non-readers, and even regular ex-readers, are of absolutely no interest to me.

To conclude, I come to a comment made on my son’s blog, Complete Bastard. He is something of a chip off the old block, but he is his own master – I do not tell him what to write, and nor would I dare without the risk of learning some colourful additions to my vocabulary.

His comment came from Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked Online, not a publication I read very often, who opined: “Must say that you and your dad’s ‘no one understands the world except for us’ schtik is getting a bit wearisome… sorry, gotta be honest”, to which Peter responded in his own fashion.

By coincidence, I got something on EURef comments the very next day, declaring of my Carswell piece, declaring: This is the usual analysis. Richard North the sole person on the planet with true insight, any intelligence or honesty. Every other jourmo (except CB most of the time) politician, blog poster etc. is stupid, has no understanding, is corrupt etc … Sadly this is why Richard will always be on the outside looking in, instead of moving and shaking events himself. I think my response more or less covers it, bringing us rather neatly back to where we started:

At least try some original thinking will you? I’ve seen this meme floating around for over a year, and it is about as weak now as it was when the first pathetic attempt was made to float it.

It is, of course, the classic “straw man” argument. It does not stand up to analysis because the authors rely on sweeping generalisations rather than address individual issues. Mostly, that is because when they have tried, they fail.

Thus, they hide behind their generalisations knowing that, as long as they avoid any specific detail, they can never be challenged on it and be shown to be wrong. On reflection, though, if it keeps jealous inadequates in their comfort zones, who am I to argue? They need their little myths to console them.

The real point, though, is that, on the “outside”, we cannot rely on “prestige”, the appeal to authority, or the other stratagems the establishment relies upon to pursue their arguments. Instead, we have to our research and get things right – otherwise, we have our readers only too keen to tells us that we’ve got it wrong.

Nor will you find me disputing that we get it wrong occasionally, but I think on balance we get it right more often. That’s why, I suspect, we attract so much hostility. And that is why, on balance, I don’t really care.

 

Filed under: EvilEU, Liberty

Once you’ve had a good laugh at this, you may wish to consider how other countries deal with nuisances without ASBOs and without turning the police into an army of occupation. The Czechs, of course, nowadays have a greater commitment to personal freedom and responsibility than we have. SIG

Filed under: Humour, Law, Police State

Transferred from Comments to main posting. SIG

by “Roger”

I have long been sceptical of UKIP’s commitment to a referendum. Suppose the Conservative Party scrapes its way back into office in 2015, gives us a referendum in 2017, and the British people vote to leave. What then? We will be outside of the European Union, but that won’t mean much if we have the same parasitical class of authoritarian social-democrats ruling over us. We will still have the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, the Communications Act and a vast range of other laws codifying political correctness as state ideology. The Proposed New Independent School Standards came from our own ruling class, not from the marauders of Brussels and Strasbourg. People like Michael Gove and David Cameron are the ones who support the ideological encroachment of the state into private education, and their efforts would persist regardless of our formal relationship with the European Union. There are other EU countries which have no such problem and are not being forced by Brussels to clamp down on true independent schooling.

If the Scottish end up voting for independence and being denied quick accession into the European Union, it will be an interesting case study. Will the severance of ties with the EU (even if only on a transitional basis) transform the SNP and Labour from a group of politically correct pansies into defenders of true civil liberty? I think not. One impetus behind the Scottish independence movement is a heavy resentment towards the Conservative Party because of its perceived desire to cut down the welfare state; this is similar to the anti-Troika rhetoric of the popular socialist movements in Spain, Greece and Portugal, who are raging against “austerity” and all cuts to public spending. The SNP itself views the authoritarian “Nordic model” as an aspirational ideal, which hardly bodes well for Scotland’s prospects if it leaves the United Kingdom. Norway is a good example of a European country which exists outside of the EU, but nonetheless has a stifling officialdom with deep layers of red tape, sky-high tax rates, and a judiciary which is all too happy to imprison people (“Islamists”, “racists” and so forth) for thoughtcrimes.

All of that said, I am no friend of the European Union, nor am I here as its apologist. It is a malicious institution, but it is not the only cause of our woes. I would be happy to leave today, because doing so would deprive our ruling class of its whipping boy and force them to be held accountable for constitutional atrocities like the Human Rights Act. It would also, as mentioned in other comments, remove one layer of government.

By the way, Spiked published an interesting piece earlier this week which touches on the same issue:

“Framing the discussion on human-rights laws simply in terms of Euroscepticism will only avoid or confuse the debate. What happens in the Strasbourg court is far less important that what is happening in courts north of the English Channel.”

 

 

Filed under: EvilEU, Liberty

We are in the process of moving our Blog here:

http://thelibertarianalliance.com/

It may take another week to get to get things right. There is still work to be done on the indexing and the colours and the general information pages. Until then, the new Blog remains closed to comments, and the posts and comments go only to the end of July. In due course, however, this Blog will be closed to new comments, but will remain standing for the foreseeable future. When the new Blog goes live, our people will be able to post and and comment as before.

The advantages of the new Blog are as follows:

1. It has a proper domain;

2. It is much easier for us to configure;

3. It is much easier for everyone to search;

4. It will look much better;

5. It will allow us eventually to incorporate the vast archive of Libertarian Alliance publications from www.libertarian.co.uk

We began this Blog at the end of 2005. We had no strategic purpose, but thought we should do something to take note of the blogging craze. Since then, it has become one of the largest and most popular libertarian blogs. It has more than 6,000 posts and 30,000 comments – some of these latter as long as and more interesting than the original posts. It makes sense that we should now take it seriously, and even that we should allow it to swallow up what we long believed was our main website.

We will make a further announcement closer to the switchover. In the meantime, please add the new Blog to your RSS feeds and click on the Follow button.

Regards,

Sean Gabb

 

Filed under: Announcements, Liberty