That’s me told

By | | , , ,
4 Comments

Grumpy old man
I feel like I’ve passed some bloggers rite of passage as after leaving what i thought was a light hearted comment over at Captain Ranty’s I was roundly taken to task, and both myself and my humble witterings dismissed as as a young stripling of a Marxist globalist “trying to defend from a moral standpoint themselves living an immoral existence”. This as you can probably tell from my new “More vanity” section rather amused me

Now being an incorrigible sort, but also rather careful of my manners, I just had to reply to determine what insult I’d caused – and to correct what I felt where a few misunderstandings. I’d kind of decided to avoid doing the typical blog post of “ooh look someone said something nasty about me” and leave it there (after all others do it so much better than me), but then well there was the reply. I still don’t know what insult I caused as very little of my comment was addressed instead I seem to have hit a nerve in defending women’s right to dress as they like and the concept of the Slut Walk. So as Harbinger doesn’t want to continue the debate further and pointed out we’d rather wandered from our hosts topic of conversation I can but reply to him here. In a rather less light hearted tone than I’d initially planned.
Continue reading →

0

Tax freedom day

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Tax freedom day

Continuing my grand tradition of being late to the part it would seem that yesterday was Tax Freedom day the day of the year when we on average stop working to pay taxes and start working for ourselves. A mere 149 days into the year and an average of 40.8% of our income gone and that’s the taxes paid. Of course depending on what you buy, how much your earn etc. you own personal tax freedom day may have been a while back or you may have yet a bit to go. Tax freedom day would be a lot later in the year of course if it wasn’t for the fact that the government is still borrowing like crazy, they’d not need to do that so much if any actual cuts were being made. The problem is of course the way each party lavish money on it’s favourites and the next lot aren’t actually cut that so spending forever ratchets upwards. Mind with our credit rating being downgraded by the Chinese that borrowing may well come to a juddering halt.

So as we’ve worked longer to get to tax freedom this year than last, next year must surely be going to be better what with all the cuts. Cuts like Spending 44 million reviving the “change4life” campaigns, or increasing foreign development aid (only 0.7% more of course), or doing up number 10 yet again.

Maybe buying less to reduce the 29 days we work to pay our average VAT bill might be a good starting point (VAT now being forever pegged at 20%+ thanks to the EU). Or maybe support the EU Rerendum lot and thier campaign for referism – so that the government has to actually get our approval for the annual budget rather than just pretending to debate and scrutinise it. Though perhaps any such movement needs to be a teense more aggressive than we may be entirely comfortable with to have any chance of success, it has after all worked for others. In the meantime perhaps we need to start living the good life to avoid the state altogether ?

-3

It’s just pining

By | | , , , ,
Comments Off on It’s just pining

Just for a change I’m really behind all the cool kids in getting round to comment on the recent Libertarian party debacle. I don’t know any of the people involved, though having read Anna Raccoons blog for quite a while if the counter claims against her were true it would be as disappointing as if her claims were true. The entire situation was really enough to make one lose heart entirely, having held quiet this long though does mean that more information has crept out and LPUK have joined the ranks of the major parties in going for the whitewash approach of a limited, unpublished investigation that defends the indefensible. The alternative report put out unofficially by one of those involved does not make for happy reading, one is left in agreement with Katabasis that LPUK “has become nothing short of a full on liability to have anything to do with.” Which may not be an issue as the party may not exist much longer which is in some ways a shame, but perhaps better it die quickly and young than divert peoples energies away from trying to pursue the goals it claimed to stand for.

So what next for fledging Libertarians like myself*? Do we decamp to one of the larger parties and try and influence them? UKIP would certainly welcome us** and some people whose writing I respect have jumped to that ship. I’m not quite ready to do that yet, despite having voted that way previously.

So what next, as the Rally against debt proved (and was discussed afterwards) we need to be better at organising ourselves to get any sort of libertarian message across, and maybe that can be cross party and maybe a loser grouping might well be the way forward. It’s certainly something that appeals to be, a libertarian pressure group, after all look how much influence all those fake charities wield. There’s really no need to be a political party to influence the political agenda these days. If any non-party association type thing springs up I think I’d happy muck in, we don’t need to agree on everythign or have all the answers to start adding a much needed voice of opposition to the general trend towards decreasing liberty and larger state, and maybe by avoiding becoming a political party we might achieve more. 38Degrees and the like suggest it’s very far from the worst way to go – one thing is for sure we need to build and keep up momentum otherwise we’ll always just be a few hundred (or less) standing around Westminster.

* Well sort of I’m probably more old liberal but I think a libertarian voice is vital as a counter balance in current politics – or as facebook might put it “it’s complex”

** Not technically me as I never quite got round to joining LPUK

-2