Liberty Alone

Over at the Libertarian Alliance you Sean Gabb has put up some interviews made in 1991 for a documentary about Liberty.

One of the interviews is with Ian Anderson of the National Front. In it, he espouses a very socialist and Marxist view of liberalism. The free market, he states, allows for accumulation of wealth which leads to oppression of the masses by the rich. He trots out many of the same (incorrect) arguments against liberalism that the socialist does.
The only difference I can tell is a focus on ‘racial problems’ and enforced segregation.
Although he claims that he’s not a socialist because he wants power to be ‘given to the British people’ not to the government. However his focus on enforcing particular solutions (collective ownership by the workers) is distinctly socialist in the broader sense.

I think this really does show that National Socialism, is not simply a form of fascism, its also a form of socialism.

The scariest thing for me is that if you took away the context of Nationalism and the National Front, much of it would be agreed upon by many Liberal Democrats.

Here’s the video:

It seems that some disaffected libertarians are trying to start a Libertarian Party.

Its interesting that this is being started, especially given the Libertarian Alliance’s position of not starting a political party, a position which was also the position of the winning Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize essay.

One of the main reasons for this rejection is that it is bound to result in internal strife. Libertarians tend to be rather a fractious bunch, despite a common commitment to individualism and self-ownership, they differ a lot in opinions and tactics. Its not just between the anarchist and the minarchist, its between agorist, geolibertarian, Rothbardian, Friedmanite (that’s David Friedman not Milton), mutualist, natural rightists and utilitarians and many many more. The LA seems to attempt to be a home for all sorts of libertarian, a political party on the other hand will become the home of one particular view, or descend into eternal squabbling.

I, for one, am not contemplating jumping ship, even if the party had some success. I agree with the aim of reducing government, of holding abusers of power to account and restoring our civil rights, but the Liberal Democrats offer the latter two and the first is well within our scope (if its not focussed on today), and the LibDems offer a far better platform for these ideas.
The vision is then sullied by anti-EU jingoism and militarism. These both leave a nasty taste in my mouth. They are too pugilistic. The EU has many faults which we should be addressing, but I still find the EU-nihilist view too extreme for the moment (perhaps I’m too optimistic about the possibilities of reform), the militarism - well, I agree the government treats our troops abysmally, but to place them at the centre of policy seems a bit much and rather like national willy waving. (Of course, some minarchists would argue that legal system and military are the only purpose of the state and so they would naturally be at the centre of policy).

I think this new party, if it gets up and running seriously, will just be just like the libertarian wing of UKIP, some good ideas, but with a strong reactionary right wing element. I suspect it will also serve to drag down the name of libertarianism even further into the quagmire of right wing slurs from which it suffers.

I’ll watch with interest, but I don’t hold up much hope.

Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance has written a very good article attacking censorship in general and specifically the recent attempt at outlawing holocaust denial.
He asserts the purpose of free speech in society very well, both how it allows us to see the debate which leads to discovery of the truth even without us understanding everything and how denial of free speech prevents this process and gives apparent credence to the outlawed view.

Read is here

(hat tip: Samizdata)

The recent government proposals to raise the smoking age to 18 expose the lack of principle and the illiberal outlook of this government and raises difficult questions around responsibility and the nature of adulthood.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance highlights the nature of this government in the press release made on this issue. Rather bluntly he says:

We note with some amusement that in Tony Blair’s New Britain, a man may sodomise a schoolboy in a public lavatory, and the police must look the other way; but if he gives the boy a cigarette afterwards, he will soon be committing a criminal act.

The press release goes on to say the former (with consent naturally) is a good thing, however the way it came about, and the reasons for the proposed raising of the smoking age are for the same reasons, not some ideological reason, but the government prostituting itself to special interest groups in the hopes of gaining votes, and probably money (although I doubt they’d be so stupid to make any deal on these grounds).

Quite rightly, the gay lobby argued for equalisation of the ages of consent. The fact that this is a liberal position to take however meant nothing to the government, they simply want the good press.

Similarly, although wrongly, various lobby groups, including medical professionals (who increasingly take the view that they are the guardians of our health and lifestyles) argue for increasing the smoking age. True, they mean well, but it is not the government’s job to tell us what to do with our own bodies. When they do this, we start to become possessions of the state and not free individuals.

There is no liberal argument for raising the age limit for purchasing cigarettes. Some will try to argue that its for people’s own good, but the government should not be saying what we may or may not do for our own health. Others will try to argue that it costs the NHS money. Well, cigarettes are taxed heavily, isn’t that money meant to be for the NHS to offset the costs to it of smoking (this leaves aside the fact that the NHS is illiberal).

Even if you did argue for it on health grounds and advocated government intervention in our personal lives, this is an inconsistent argument. Sex can be very dangerous to your health, yet we trust 16 year olds to be able to decide whether to have sex and how to do it if they do. We allow 16 year olds to join the army, a job which almost certainly risks your health and even your life.

This leads onto the question of responsibility and adulthood. Colin Ross makes good points on his blog about this. We have no clear definition of what we can or cannot do. Responsibilities which come with adulthood are spread around, arbitrarily, over many ages. Colin summarises these, revealing many I didn’t know existed.

Surely, if someone is responsible enough to know that having sex with someone under the age of consent is illegal they are responsible enough to have sex? If they’re responsible enough to smoke, why not drink? Why not drive? Or vote? If I’m considered responsible enough to decide to fight and possibly die for my country, why can’t I vote?
This area is ripe for discussion, I don’t know what the answer is, except surely we should have an age at which a person is considered an adult and has the responsibility which comes with it. The only reason to have such variegated age limits is to deny responsibility to young people which just feeds into a culture of irresponsibility, fueled by numerous other governmental initiatives to remove personal responsibility and create state dependence.