Personal Responsibility versus State Control

People often grumble about intrusions into their lives by officialdom then, whenever there is a problem, they are the first to shout for government action. Government action then means more intrusion into our lives and so on. What the 'government should act' brigade need to understand is that they are asking for those stinking scroungers known as politicians to do more damage and boss us around even more every time they shout 'the government should do something'.

The more the state intervenes and bullies the more society, whatever your perception of society is, seems to become increasingly dysfunctional. So the more dysfunctional society becomes, the more the state interferes and so on. Familiar?

Yesterday saw another one of those obnoxious state sponsored ads telling us what to do and what not to do, a bit like those other great totalitarians the Nazis and the communists used to broadcast. Last night's had a pretty ugly image of a pair of nostrils and was designed to make me stop snorting coke, regardless of the fact that the only thing I snort is a hayfever remedy, and obviously not in November.

Too many charities have now become extensions of the state, selling their souls and their noble ethos for easy money from the government, or you and me to be accurate through our taxes. Hence you then get sick adverts hectoring us about beating our children. These organisations have to justify their existence, and pay some huge salaries, so they sensationalise and exaggerate to shock us into donating.

Then yesterday it was announced that children are to be taught about domestic violence in schools. It is to become a subject in the personal, social, health and economic education part of the curriculum. Topics include: alcohol, drug and tobacco awareness; bullying; sex and relationship education; sexuality; careers advice; personal finance; healthy living; body image and how the body changes; personal well-being.Teaching domestic violence will be compulsory by 2011. Teaching or brainwashing? Where are the parents? Is the state now the parent, the parent merely the economic unit and breeding machine?

Domestic violence is sick and needs to be dealt with but are we always told the truth. The only time I have witnessed domestic violence was some years ago and it was the wife beating the husband. When I gave a witness statement to the police they told me that in London at that time it was roughly 50:50 when they were called out to 'domestics'. It isn't always big hairy thugs beating up the little woman, in that case she was about 5'00" and he was a 6' builder.

But the incidence of domestic violence, thankfully, is tiny although obviously huge and life ruining if not threatening for the victim. But introducing it into schools is making a thankfully rare event appear like an everyday happening to kids living happy lives in harmonious families. That is plain wrong and is likely to create more problems further down the line. On the really dark and scary side how many kids, when told not to do something, immediately go out and give it a try?

The problem is that government thinks it can come up with answers to everyting in a formulaic way, but life doesn't work like that. Government is turning the whole populace into potential victims or potential villains. It has created, through its actions and its propaganda, an unhealthy nation where a man outside the school gates is likely to be lynched by the mob for being a 'paedo' when he was there to collect his grandson. The husband of the woman who falls and ends up with a bruise on her face is likely to be hauled in by the Domestic Violence Unit for beating her. The newsreader who impersonates Trevor McDonald in rehearsals is accused of racism rather than imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.

Have no doubt, we are deeper into a police state than many people wish to acknowledge. But in 2005, despite CCTV cameras sprouting up all over London, we had the London bombings. CCTV, the hardware of the police state, couldn't protect us and neither will the propaganda, the brainwashing software of the state improve our lives or protect us. Personal freedom, liberty and resposibility are what we need.

When the government introduce the Hedonism Bill, prepare for complete and abject misery to follow.

God Save Our President

The couple on the left haven't just met on an OAP speed dating evening, you can tell by how grey they are, especially him, let's face it under normal circumstances I am sure they would find each other thoroughly unappealing. You can tell straight away that he wouldn't be scintillating company, he just looks drab and dreary, probably because he is the President of Belgium. But now he's your president too, if you are unfortunate to be enslaved within the European Union that is.

Ladies and gentlemen the old grey fella in the picture is the first President of the United States of Europe, President van Rumpy Pumpy! The woman is one of Gordon Browns old slags, Baroness von Ashton van der Upholland, your EU Foreign Secretary. Known hereon as The Odd Couple. President von Rumpy Rumpy, upon becoming Fuhrer, asked to see a doctor claiming he was suffering from amnesia. It was a brief consultation, in fairness there is usually NO consultation in the EU, and he was reassured that he hadn't forgotten the election, he hadn't actually been elected.

It is quite apt that the first President should be a Belgian as Belgium too is a failing state cobbled together by the ruling elites of Europe to suit their purposes. In 1831 the Saxe-Coburgs had a spare monarch who should have become king of England, but for an unfortunate chain of events, so Leopold was instead plonked onto the throne of the bastard state of Belgium.

The one consolation is that the artificial states of Europe, apart from Belgium, have now disappeared-Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia the USSR. Belgium has only survived because the ruling elites want it to survive and it has been the model for the development of the current monstrously undemocratic supranational body known as the European Union.

So the Saxe-Coburgs were integral to the development of Belgium, and Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha has demonstrated in recent years that the German monarchs are only interested in their own selfish survival. The only way forward in a post-EU democratic state, be that Great Britain or an independent England, will be as a republic. Our monarch has done nothing to stop our freedoms and liberties being eroded and no longer deserves our support.

The monarchy is an anachronism and should be abolished.

Proposed Wirral Meeting

Libertarianism is growing and needs to grow much more. There will be a General Election next year and local government elections in many areas in May. Everybody who wants to see less government interference in the lives of ordinary people, lower taxes, a more effective criminal justice system and lower taxes should now be contributing to an effective alternative to the major parties which offer nothing but more of the same and inexorable movement towards national bankruptcy.

As another stage in building the Libertarian challenge to our incompetent government and its ineffective opposition I am planning to start regular monthly meetings in the Wirral part of the north west region. Dates are not yet fixed, but from taliking to one or two people the most likely choices are evening meetings on a Tuesday or Wednesday. No place has yet been fixed. It is most likely to be a pub in Birkenhead or within a few miles of there.

The meetings are intended to be friendly, informal and not limited to LPUK members. Anybody who thinks that Libertarianism might be for them is welcome to come along, check us out and chat.

If Wirral would be closer for you than Manchester or Carnforth I will be very interested to hear any suggestions for day, time and venues for meetings. I am likely to finalise arrangements for the first meeting shortly after the national AGM/conference on 28 November so I would like any suggestions by then.

If you use Facebook there is also an unofficial north west Libertarians Facebook Group where you can keep up with meetings and take part in discussions:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=167615597519&ref=ts

North West Libertarians: Upcoming Meetups

The North West branch of the Libertarian Party has been holding a series of informal meetups in Carnforth and Manchester. Normally these are every month, but the schedule's had to be re-arranges slightly due to having to fit them round the upcoming AGM in Bristol, and also the fact that Christmas will soon be on us. The dates for the next two meetups have now been set:

On Saturday 21st November, there will be a meetup at the Kro 2 Bar, Oxford Road, Manchester, starting about 1.00pm. This is an easy pub to find, there are always tables available and the food's inexpensive if you want to eat. We normally grab a table near the bar, so we should be easy to spot. If you're coming by car, I recommend parking up in the multi-story car park on Charles Street, which is only a short walk away, and is very cheap at weekends.

On Sunday 13th December, there will be another meetup in the Lounge Bar of the Royal Station Hotel in Carnforth, starting about 12.30pm. This is just across the road from the famous railway station which was used as a location for the film "Brief Encounter". This is a nice bar that does decent food - the Station Burgers are both reasonably priced and very filling. It's also intended that this meetup should serve as the Christmas get-together for Libertarians in the region, as the next meetup's likely to be in January.

Both of these meetups are open to anyone if you'd like to come along, talk about libertarianism and see if we're the sort of party that you'd like to support.

Chris Mounsey at the Libertarian Alliance Conference

The Libertarian Alliance is an independent, non-party political thinktank that has been around for years. They have no direct connection with the Libertarian Party, but they did invite our Director of Communications, Chris Mounsey, to speak at this year's annual conference. It's a pretty interesting talk, in which Chris describes the development of the party so far, our first couple of election campaigns, and briefly outlines some of our policies.

LAConf09, Chris Mounsey: "The UK Libertarian Party" from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

Geraldine Smith MP – Coward or Bully?

Gregg being out of the country at the moment, and unable to access the North West Libertarians blog, he called me up to ask me to copy this post across from his personal blog. Frankly, I was stunned when he told me what had happened - whatever else is wrong with our elected politicians, we do generally expect them to at least keep to a civilised standard of behaviour. The full text of Gregg's post follows below:

Tonight, Tuesday 10 November, I was sat with my wife having a quiet drink in the centre of Brugge. Then my mobile rang, so I felt I should answer it, I was extremely concerned as it was my elderly father, and something was obviously wrong. My parents were distraught and I had to calm them down, they are both elderly and quite vulnerable and not in the best of health.

So what had happened? Well tonight they received an extremely unpleasant, threatening phone call from my local Member of Parliament, Geraldine Smith. She apparently "ranted and raved" about their only son, threatening to sue me, take me to court etc. because of some comments on my blog. I think I have soothed them without the need to return home early, I hope so, even though they were both obviously badly shaken.

It seems that a post of mine in June quoted a House of Commons library source that was wrong, she (Smith) had not, it seems, been on a women only shortlist in 1997. In effect, I had been misled by the House of Commons. Nothing new there then! Sorry about that and I will perhaps seek an apology myself.

Now then, to matters now. With all her allowances it took the genius team of Geraldine Smith nearly 6 months to pick that up. As they said nothing to my parents, or another blog I write for, anything about her expenses claims, which I also wrote about in June, I assume she is happy with that piece.

You can visit both posts if you track back, using the side bar, to my June 2009 blog posts.

So next time you want to throw your weight around Geraldine, pick on me, not my elderly parents.

That's that. I would now like you to apologise to my parents. If you haven't when I return then I will take matters further.

The Royal British Legion - Flanders' Field of Poppies

The Royal British Legion - Flanders' Field of Poppies