What’s right with Libertarians

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Yoinked directly from The Devils Kitchen from a rather excellent article by Bella Gerens, I think this really sums up a huge amount of what I find appealing and a good thing about the Libertarians:

Libertarians don’t fight with left-wingers, they fight with each other. It’s the only ‘mob’ you’ll ever see where the crowd hears a rousing speech and says to one another, ‘You know, I’m not sure I agree with him. He misses Friedman’s point about the fact that…’ and then argues all the way to the pub, where they’d all much rather be anyway.

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A fiscal miscellany

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Back to talking about the economy again I’m afraid, and you know it’s got bad when even the BBC have noticed something’s wrong (H/T Penny Dreadful). Sadly it seems that the terribly dangerous deflation we should all worry about hasn’t happened, instead by printing a metric truck load of cash we’ve got inflation. Which really wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone, and at least we can inflate our debt (which ok screws over all of us that can’t just vote ourselves a pay rise) but at least the countries credit rate isn’t heading rapidly towards junk status like say Greece. Greece being in the unenviable position of having a tanking economy, a populace that doesn’t like cuts and a rapidly dwindling set of people that will lend them money. Oh and being part of the Euro they can’t easily default or devalue their currency, and the great and good in Brussels are really not keen on people leaving the Euro. So with belts tightening all round where will their next bail out come from? Why the IMF of course as we’ve just terribly generously agreed to pay them an extra 9 billion pounds in membership fees next year. With cuts being such a hot topic this was of course agreed to in parliament by means of a Statutory Instrument and so won’t ever get debated – much simpler that way.

Still it’s not all gloom we’re told that by the next parliament we’ll stop giving £280 million a year to India in aid. Which given the aid they give to Africa, the nuclear and space programs they probably won’t miss all that much. Which still leaves the puzzle of how when we’re borrowing more money every day our politicians don’t calculate the amount of money we have spare to give away as zero. Never fear though the EU has sprung to our aid in response to our Government actually saying they were disappointed at the EU wanting even more money Guy Verhofstadt has suggested we could save money by just letting the EU take over everything (officially). To help that “saving” along the majority of MEP’s just voted in favour of the EU getting more money, and being able to tax us directly.

All that said if we could actually just get our glorious leaders to stop giving away money we don’t have, to support institutions we neither want nor need, things could actually be looking up as unemployment has (reportedly) peaked, and manufacturing may be still increasing. We could maybe even stop spending money trying to prevent global warming as it looks like a mini ice age is more likely. Now if the our learned representatives would only consider doing soemthign sensible with tax things could actually improve.

Of course I doubt if even William Hill would give you odds on that happening.

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Happy Birthday Magna Carta

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Magna Carta of 1215Today is the 796th anniversary of the first great charter – the magna carta of 1215. Now some people think that it’s pretty much a busted flush these days, having been all but entirely repealed. Others seem to think that it’s irrelevant because we’re now a parliamentary democracy though the evidence suggests that despite them changing our passports to say “citizen” rather than “subject”* we are still actually a constitutional monarchy. Just because parliament acts like it’s supreme (and sadly the monarchy lets it) doesn’t make it so, just as just because parliament would like us to think they can repeal the very charter that created them doesn’t make it so. Though of course in our day to day lives we are in the position of the scrawny kid arguing with the school bully about how they can’t just make up the rules “because they say” – we may be right but our nose is still going to get bloodied and our lunch money stolen.

On the counter argument it’s worth noticing that even the corrupt troughers have of late appealed to Magna Carta and they weren’t told to go away because it’s all been repealed, instead the courts said it didn’t offer them the protection they hoped for. Surely if it was all nicely repealed as people would have us believe the courts would have just said so:
“Sorry old chap, that’s just not the law any more”
That they didn’t do so in such a public case is very telling, and it’s not just in that case other cases keep cropping up suggesting that the Magna Carta is alive and well. If as the evidence suggests we are in fact still a constitutional monarchy and that parliament can’t actually repeal charters and treaties that pre-date it – much as they’d like to or failing that have us believe they can. Then several things follow from that one of the more interesting being that Captain Ranty and his fellow travellers in lawful rebellion are in fact in the right.

This doesn’t mean that they won’t get a bloody nose, or that the state won’t trample all over them if they feel so inclined. But it does mean that they are right, and it’s always worth fighting for what’s right. It may not achieve much and it may mean travelling with a bunch of people that currently sometimes come across as well a bunch of loons, but then again not so long ago talking about global elites got you an instant tin-foil-hat and that’s changing. So joining the lawful rebels in being right may not achieve much, it needs to be done carefully as it will likely flag you up as a trouble maker, and thus asking for a bloody nose – but it does look like it’s the right thing to do. Just don’t be surprised when a corrupt government with scant concern for tradition or the rule of law ignores the rule of law when it tells you that your ancient rights won’t protect you. That though surely is all the more reason to fight for them. You may just be a gnat irritating the giant, but enough gnats can make that giant uncomfortable and get it to move and if there’s enough of them they’re damned difficult to swat. I’ll be getting my paper work in order shortly, just two letters left to send.

* I’m actually really quite annoyed about this.

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