The other day I wrote a sweary ripping into the new blog Liberal Conspiracy. However, I decided not to publish it on the basis that it was unreasonable to simply launch into the attack on the basis of the words Libertarian and Left being combined so I decided to wait for a bit to see if the articles would convince me I had been wrong.
So did they? Did they bollocks. They are not Libertarian, they are left. I thought that the combination would be odd but it's not a combination at all, just lefty wibbling.
Authoritarianism and leftyness go hand in hand of necessity, (taking peoples money away and controlling their behavior "for their own good" requires compulsion).
I genuinely do not understand why they have adopted the Libertarian label since it seems antithetical to their views.
Libertarian meat eater, right wing in the sense of conservative with a small c.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
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6 comments:
Um, we haven't adopted the libertarian label anywhere. We use liberal, which is clearly not the same as libertarian.
Please ignore this post as I was being a bit of a retard.
However, I would still say that to be liberal in the original sense would not involve authoritarian solutions that seem so popular over at LC.
I'm off to scourge myself in punishment or possibly drink beer.
Drinking beer is always good :)
Just another further clarification. I classifiy myself as a liberal - but there are different kinds of liberals. We are, broadly, social liberals, which does require some state intervention for various basic services.
We feature some people who prefer state intervention a lot, others who are much more libertarian. May the best ideas, led by an evidence based approach, win.
Sunny,
We've had just over ten years of increasing state intervention and this has rather shown up it's limitations.
Regarding liberalism and state intervention I fail to see how a liberal can support compulsory education until 18 for instance, (e.g. Mike Ion's article). By all means make it easier for people to return to education if they feel the need later but why keep them in against their will for no good purpose?
Anyone who has ever taught will tell you that above a certain age, (cue arguments about the precise age but certainly by 16), some enthusiasm for the process must come from the student for education to have a positive effect.
Left libertarianism isn't odd either - just rare. Its original usage was of the left and some people still think it should be (well me and a few others!) It is difficult however to be so often placed in the same category as advocates of nationalisation and a strong state.
Ian I can believe that left libertarianism is rare, vanishingly so. The two terms seem to contradict each other almost entirely.
Any explanation of how it could work gratefully received.
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