Liberty Alone

I’ve changed my RSS reader from Gregarius, a web based reader I ran on a computer at my parent’s house to Google Reader.
This change was prompted by having too many feeds for Gregarius to cope with and a desire to start decommissioning that server (although it still has all my emails on it).

In the process of moving things over, I added the LibDem blogs individually, this enables me to remove the local only blogs which I don’t ever read and has also made me notice a couple of blogs as distinct entities rather than just part of the general list.
Unfortunately, this may mean missing out on new blogs, perhaps someone could make an RSS feed of changes to the blogs on LibDem Blogs? (otherwise I’ll have to write a script to download a list of blogs and compare it with a previous one… I could then put that in an RSS feed).

Another idea for LibDem blogs is an OPML feed. It would have made importing all the blogs individually much easier…

I’ve also changed my blog roll to use the OPML file for the blogs I have in the reader (minus a few private feeds). This is achieved with this widget.

I’ve updated my blogroll a bit (and actually enabled it).

Its still not complete so please don’t be offended if I don’t link to you. If you link to me then let me know in a comment and I’ll add you.

On Friday I saw Tom Papworth and recommended Reason. Given we were both somewhat inebriated this may have been forgotten, so I thought I’d mention it here, along with other blogs and sites which I think are essential reading for liberals:

First up is Reason, a US magazine dedicated to ‘Free Markets and Free Minds’ which to me sums up part of the essential core of liberalism. Its a libertarian magazine which covers many areas from Science Fiction to liberal Iranian freedom fighters. It is an American magazine, so it does give a nice view from the other side of the Atlantic and expect some pro-gun arguments. They do publish all the main articles from the magazine online as well as much more, and they have a great blog Hit & Run. The magazine itself is astoundingly cheap to subscribe to (especially with current exchange rates) or it can be acquired in many Border’s stores.

A hop across the Channel takes us to Brussels and the Globalisation Institute relocated there from London. Fighting for a liberal Europe, the hero of the think tank is Richard Cobden, possibly the greatest Radical ever who really should be a greater hero of the modern Liberal Democrats than he is.
The GI is a great resource for liberal, pro-European arguments and should chime well with LibDems.

Closer to home, in Oxford lies my current favourite LibDem blog, that of Jock Coats. His posts are always interesting and he’s really helping me reshape my view of the 1906 Liberal Government and many of its policies, and the way they’ve been perverted. Definitely a true radical, he really aspires for a liberal future for the country. He may be the LibDem version of a gold bug, seeing LVT as a solution to many problems as a gold bug sees a gold standard, but he does make very good arguments in favour, and LVT is something the LibDems need to come back to.

Coming to London, and I think possibly my most controversial choice would be the Adam Smith Institute. Primarily associated with the Tories, I think it is a great mistake for liberals to ignore them, coming as they do from a strong liberal background. Their blog is insightful and definitely has some ideas for liberals everywhere.

Lastly, heading over to Portugal is one of the UK’s best known bloggers, Tim Worstall. Again, there’s much for all liberals to glean from his blog. He’s especially good at trying to expose flawed thinking and lazy statistics. If you don’t read his blog then start.

With all of the above, you will probably find something to disagree with. Perhaps their priorities are not the same as yours, or you think the reasoning is flawed. They are all well within the broader liberal tradition however, and it is well worth considering their points of view, even if its to harden your resolve against them.

Digesting my morning’s serving of blogs, I read an article by Paul Walter about some developments in Northern Ireland.

This reminded me of why I read blogs. I don’t have time to trawl through news sites or to read newspapers and read blogs, so I read blogs because they provide much more diverse commentry on news items I’m interested in, plus much random things which I didn’t know I’d be interested in and some good gossip ;)
There’s no way I’d have picked up on the NI story without blogs.

The only problem with blogs is I do find it hard to read large chunks of text off a computer monitor, they do however save paper :)
Roll on electronic paper, then I can download blog posts to it over night and read them on the way to work :)

Google has announced a change to its algorithm to combat that beloved technique of letting the world know what you think of a person - googlebombing.

Probably good news for people actually searching for information about ‘itiot’, ‘prat’ or ‘lying bastard’, but one more method for bloggers to amuse themselves is now gone…

For me the most outrageous point made by Tim Ireland in his attack on Guido was that Guido may cause the rest of the political blogging scene (such as it is - its not a unified group anyway) to have restrictions put upon it.

This may be a legitimate worry - the way our government behaves makes this even seem likely - but it is no reason to censor yourself (or ask others to do the same). It is giving in to the very concern you have - the government’s ends have been achieved without even the need for active intervention. When people start behaving this way the authoritarians have won, we fear them sufficiently that we don’t do anything which may raise their ire, no matter how legal it actually is.

This is actually the most insidious and most effective form of censorship. It is silent and thus raises little objection. Restricting your freedom voluntarily to ensure that freedom is not lost leaves you with no real freedom.

As for Guido - if he libels someone, they can sue him for it. There’s no need to resort to legislation.

Finally - on the internet, censorship is difficult - the only way to do it is with something like the Great Firewall of China, which requires the apparatus of a totalitarian government and even then doesn’t work particularly well - dissidents will find ways around the firewall and will be able to hide their actions. If laws are brought in, then sites will migrate to foreign countries under pseudonyms. A great opportunity for third world countries though - hosting political blogs for dissidents… (or for places like Sealand.

In short, the suggestion that we should censor ourselves is short sighted and plays into the hands of those who would silence us. It ushers in some of the most sinister aspects of totalitarian regimes.

It is of course inevitable that there will be discord in the blogging world - people will disagree, there will be trolling, astroturfing and incredible pettiness.

We’ve had Bob Piper v. Prague Tory and now, as I’m sure everyone is aware Tim Ireland has taken aim at Guido Fawkes.

This is being debated all over the UK political blogsphere, its resulted in quite an increase in Guido’s traffic - not quite the desired result.

I will not be removing Guido from my blogroll, I find the arguments to be unpursuasive.

Firstly, Guido is free to do what he likes with his blog. Its his property. If he doesn’t wish to do what Tim thinks he should then that’s fine, its up to him. Guido deletes comments - he makes no bones about that.

Secondly, Guido is Guido - anyone with any sense knows that not every political blog is like him. We cannot start censoring blogs because they cast others in a bad light - we’d never have any blogs - we all do things which are ill advised. Politicians would dismiss blogs anyway, we’re only the little people anyway.
The big part of this claim however deserves the longest response - maybe even a separate post, but fear of restrictions on free speech should never cause you to limit your speech voluntarily.

Thirdly: ‘Mr Scoop’. And? So what? This smacks of jealousy to be honest.

Fourth: We are all opportunists - I think Tim is using this to stir up traffic. That’s opportunism. Somebody else could have done it? Well true, but they didn’t - Guido did it first, good for him. He hit upon a winning formula, lets congratulate the entrepreneurial spirit here.
Guido also attacks all parties - not just Blair. He’s been having a go at Cameron recently - some Tory boy.
Perhaps the informants are making their own decision to go to him. I mean, its a free exchange, nobody forces them to (unless its their job). They’re using Guido, he’s using them, they both gain. Nothing wrong with that.

Fifth: Guido states a policy he is free to implement. You can disagree if you like (indeed, I do) but that’s no reason to boycott him. Guido is also not really a neo-con. That’s sloppy application of the term if I ever heard it.

Sixth: (these really seem to go on a bit…): I doubt the right people will ever get in for Guido - and if he turns pro-establishment - do you really think we are all so stupid we wouldn’t notice? And that’s his choice anyway. He doesn’t share your views - no reason to attempt to censor him.

Seventh: If Guido likes showing us how big his stats are (oooh-err missus) then he can. So what? Are we impressed - not particularly. Perhaps a bit envious - but I’m not Guido and don’t blog like him.

Eighth: Publishers are a private business - no need to disclose where their money comes from. Just take a reasonable pinch of scepticism over them if you wish - agendas become fairly clear.

Ninth: A political difference - Guido seems to be an anarcho-capitalist - I think what comes after is fairly well defined by others - try Murray Rothbard for example.

Tenth: Guido may have prejudices - we all do. So what? We can decide for ourselves what we think. I havn’t detected any homophobia in Guido’s posts. That podcast was Guido and the Monkey stirring up some shit.

Eleventh: Ummm… in your view. Perhaps Guido felt that the theory you espouse was not correct. We do all read other sites though, we can discover information elsewhere.

All in all, lots of these come down to apparent envy of Guido’s success and a very condescending view of his readership. It is not anyone’s place to try to censor anyone else, certainly not for ‘our own good’. We decide whether to read Guido’s blog. Tim has said what he wants to say as is his right. He’s given us information, which we can choose to interpret in our own way- just as we do with Guido, Tim doesn’t know whats best for anyone else.

I will continue to read Guido. Tim has reminded me to take what he writes with a pinch of salt, something we should do with many sources of information, but overall, he’s not succeeded in persuading me.