Libertarian London - Part 1

(Neil's Note: This is the first part of a story/political manifesto in three parts, originally written in 2010).

I walk northwards along the Albert Embankment in the September afternoon sun.

It’s 2035. I am over 80 years old now; and I cannot walk quite as fast as I could in my prime. But I can still walk well.

The Ugly Years

I see an empty bench, raised on a small dais like many others along the river bank. I have only been walking ten minutes, but the opportunity of a sit-down is hard to resist.

Across the river, I see an early Victorian monstrosity. It used to be the headquarters, from which the politicals and their hangers-on had ruled over us before the Revolution. I am about level with its south end. And I recall a walk I had done twenty-five years ago, also in September. I had sat, that day, on this very same bench.

2010 had been right in the thick of the Ugly Years. In that time, the politicals and their cohorts had set themselves to control us, to rule over us against our wills. They had made bad laws and intrusive regulations to hem us in, and set traps to catch us out. They had imposed more and more bureaucracy on us in everyday life.

They had schemed to violate our rights and to destroy our civil liberties. They had given police more and more powers. They had spied on us, and recorded our movements. They had treated us as if we were no more than bits of information in a database.

Their financial mis-management had all but destroyed our economy. They had taxed us almost out of existence. They had taken away any chance hard-working people had of ever getting decent pensions. And they had kept on thinking up new excuses to take away even more; green taxes and minimum prices on alcohol, for example.

They had spent the proceeds on things which did us no good whatsoever – like wind farms – and on things that were positively harmful to us, like foreign wars, bloated bureaucracies and spying on us with cameras on every street corner. They had taken away the earnings of productive, honest people, and used them to benefit a corrupt political class and its bureaucratic, enforcement, media and corporate Establishment.

Some of the politicals had been a bit less evil than others, of course. And we had enjoyed, in theory, the protection of the rule of law. But the laws that the politicals had lobbied for and made had become divorced from law. And law had become divorced from its essential purpose, justice.

All this had been accompanied by a torrent of rationalizations. Safety, security, health, recycling, helping the vulnerable, protecting children, fighting terrorism – the politicals never tired of inventing good-sounding excuses for the bad things they did to us.

There was lots of vile propaganda, too. We were a blight and a burden on the planet, we were told. We were bombarded with fear and guilt. Fear of terrorism, fear of overpopulation, fear of runaway climate change. And guilt for being selfish, for damaging our environment, for endangering species, for not doing enough to help the poor and needy, for letting down future generations. Our civilization of economic productivity and trade was not sustainable. We had to change our lifestyles drastically. We had to go “green”, and save the planet. And we had to act NOW!

Of course, anyone with half an ounce of common sense knew, even back then, that this was all hogwash.

Sham Democracy

There seemed to be nothing we could do to get ourselves treated as we deserved, treated as human beings. We had, it was true, something called democracy. It let us vote, every so often, for which political party could claim the limelight for a few years. But the corrupt political parties, and the Establishment that fed off them, had had an unshakeable, vice-like grip on power. And the three main parties, all in on the scam, had ensured that dissenters could never grow powerful enough to challenge them.

A lot of the main parties’ candidates, and so a lot of our so-called representatives, didn’t represent anything other than their own party’s political agenda. They were no more than apparatchiks. So, even if an individual’s vote could have made a difference – which it never had, of course - there was no-one who both had a chance of winning, and was worth voting for.

As a result, for decades many – perhaps even most - of those who voted had done so, not for someone they wanted and respected, but for whichever party they disliked the least. Further, as the politicals’ behaviour towards us became worse and worse, many people began to feel alienated from the system. Those who could began to vote tactically, for whichever party was most likely to unseat the one they hated most. (I recalled, for instance, that I had voted Tory back in ’87, purely from a desire to keep Labour out).

I myself had reached, by the early ‘90s, another level of alienation yet. I had come to think that even a vote for the least of several evils is still a vote for evil. I felt contempt and loathing for politics, and for all the political parties. With only a very few exceptions, I felt no fellowship with, or respect for, anyone that took an active part in politics. So, I became a conscientious non-voter. For, not only would to vote have been to dirty myself in the politicals’ muck. But also, to vote for the party that gained power would have been an act of aggression against all those unjustly harmed by that party’s agenda.

There was worse. The “constitution”, under which we were supposedly governed, had for much of the time allowed the leader of the party in power almost unlimited scope to do to us whatever he or she wanted. Back in the ’70s, Quintin Hogg had called the system an “elective dictatorship”. He had been right.

A few in the Establishment had seemed to have become aware, that many people were unhappy with what was being done to them. So they aired schemes, like changing the mechanics of voting. But that was just fiddling with trivia. For it totally ignored the real problem – that the entire system was organized for the interests of the political class and their hangers-on, and against the interests of good people.

Oh yes, and on top of all that there was the EU, and the bad laws it spewed out like an erupting volcano. And there was the UN and its agendas. And, in particular, the green agenda that fraudulently sought to destroy our civilization, and to force us back to pre-industrial times.

Brian Haw Square

I walk on along the river. I watch commuter boats whizzing under the bridge ahead. Thanks to the march of technology, they go a lot faster now than they used to.

I turn left on to the bridge. It’s packed with tourists. I hear American and Australian accents; but the majority seem to be Chinese, or Indian, or Malaysian.

I pass the monstrosity. It’s a museum now; a monument to the follies, the evils, and the ultimate demise of politics.

There’s a lot of traffic in the square beyond. For single- or two-seat electric cars are the way many Londoners get around today. So I take the underpass – it hadn’t been there in ‘10 – to the patch of green in the middle. It’s now called Brian Haw Square, after the peace protester. But all protests are long gone from this spot.

I sit on a bench, and contemplate the Paradigm War. With hindsight it’s easy to ask, why did it take us so long to understand what we needed to do? For it all seems so obvious now.

There had been, for thousands of years of human history, two paradigms, or ways of doing things – an economic way and a political way. And the Paradigm War between the two had reached its crisis point in the early years of the new century.

The Economic Paradigm

The economic paradigm centres on the human individual. In the economic way of doing things, each individual makes himself or herself valuable to others, trades with others, and receives in return his or her deserved rewards.

To make the economic paradigm work in a society, four fundamentals are necessary: responsibility, justice, law and equality.

Responsibility has two aspects. First, each individual is responsible for, at the minimum, trying to be a productive member of the economy. And second, each individual bears responsibility for the effects of his or her actions on others.

The second fundamental is justice – objective justice, or, as I call it, common-sense justice. The idea is, that each individual deserves to be treated as he or she treats others. Those who behave well – honestly, peacefully, productively – deserve to be treated well. And those that behave badly deserve to be treated correspondingly badly.

The economic paradigm, through justice, gives people a strong incentive to behave well towards others. So, it encourages an environment of peace and prosperity. And it supports freedoms and human rights for all individuals. Only one thing may ever override individuals’ rights and freedoms; and that is objective justice.

The third fundamental is the rule of law. The one and only purpose of law, in the economic paradigm, is to implement justice – common-sense justice. Law must start from the premise that no individual deserves, at least in the round and over the long term, to be treated worse than he or she treats others.

For example, those who do not commit aggressions deserve not to suffer aggressions. Thus, law must defend the peaceful against the violent. Those, who do not rob, deserve not to be robbed. Thus, law must defend property rights. And those, who do not defraud, deserve not to be defrauded. Thus, law must defend the honest against the dishonest. Any other kind of “law” is a perversion.

The final fundamental is equality. This is not, as some had seemed to think, equality of outcome, or even equality of opportunity. For equality, in the economic paradigm, is moral equality. What is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa. Another way to describe it is as equality before the law.

Some objected to the economic paradigm, saying that it created winners and losers, rich and poor. But this objection was easy to counter. For those who develop their abilities furthest, and put most in to the economy, deserve all the riches they fairly earn. On the other hand, those that are too lazy or too dishonest even to try to contribute to the economy, do not deserve to be anything but poor.

Some, too, made out that the economic paradigm discriminated against the sick, or the injured, or the disabled. But that, also, was easy to counter. With one word – Insurance!

This is all easy stuff, I think. Even a child should be able to work it out for himself or herself. And yet, for so long before and during the Ugly Years, even the most venerable professors seemed to find it hard to think these simple thoughts, and even harder to articulate them.

The Political Paradigm

By contrast, the political paradigm had centred on the political state, with its long history of violence, war, deceit, intimidation and persecution. In the political way of doing things, those with power simply did whatever they thought they could get away with. And not surprisingly, this included lying, thieving and harming innocent people.

The political paradigm shunned the idea of individual responsibility. It sometimes held common criminals responsible for their crimes, to be sure. But those that lobbied for, made and enforced bad political policies that harmed innocent people, were never held responsible for what they had done to those innocent people.

Indeed, two of the guiding principles of political states had, centuries ago, been sovereign immunity and irresponsibility. Briefly put, “The king can do no wrong.” So, state functionaries were not to be held responsible for the effects of their actions. And they could claim immunity from prosecution for what they did.

Of course, the politicals had tried to make out that this wasn’t so any more. They tried to tell us that officials were as accountable as any of the rest of us. But this was obviously a lie. You only needed to look at one example – the murder by police of Jean Charles de Menezes in ’05, and what followed – to see through it.

As to justice, in the political paradigm, justice meant whatever those in power wanted it to mean. That was why politicals and their authoritarian intellectual cohorts had constantly spewed out nonsense ideas like “social justice” and “environmental justice”.

In the political paradigm, the state could, if the rulers decided they needed to (whether the “need” was real or not), override the rights and freedoms of any individual. That in itself was bad enough. But the state could also be manipulated by the rulers for their own interests and those of their cronies. And they could use their power to hurt those they didn’t like. That was why politics always created and increased injustice. And that was why the Ugly Years had been such hell to live through.

In that time, the rule of law had been supplanted by the rule of bad laws. The law mill had been working for decades at ever increasing speed, cranking out laws. Laws to violate our rights and kill our freedoms, laws to bloat the state and its bureaucracy, laws to re-distribute wealth from the politically poor to the politically rich, laws to impose on us political correctness and faddist agendas. And they took away more and more of our earnings to fuel their nefarious schemes.

As to equality, the political paradigm, like the economic, had had its winners and losers. The winners, the politically rich, enjoyed power, and the unearned wealth and status which flowed from it. And the losers – the politically poor, who included virtually all the honest, peaceful, productive people – were shat upon. The political state in those days, I think, could have been summed up in two words; institutionalized inequality.

Why War and Terrorism Won't Go Away, until Politics and Institutional Religion Go Away

(From the archives - December 31st, 2004).

As we go about our daily lives, we rarely encounter conflict. Most people we meet in the street, or in the pub, or while out walking, greet us civilly – and often cheerily. Those we trade with – those we serve, and those who serve us – do not do violence to us. And the vast majority of them don't try to use trickery against us, either.

Yet, when we turn on the news, most of it is about conflict. We see the latest atrocities from Iraq or elsewhere. We hear of the latest assaults on our liberties, which dishonest politicians are making in the name of protecting us against terrorism.

Obviously, something is badly wrong here. How can it be, that in a world in which so many good people live their lives peacefully and honestly, there is so much conflict? How can it be that, for well more than half a century, there has not been a single year free from war?

To address these questions, I want to begin by looking a long way back. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors lived in sedentary tribes. These societies were mostly peaceful. Power and prestige were acquired by the mere fact of survival into relative old age. And I think I can make a good guess at how the tribal elders of those days reached their decisions and resolved their disputes. I think that long-ago time must have been an age of consensus.

Then, something changed inside the minds of some of the stronger and more intelligent men. They began to desire power – power over others. They did not want to wait to become elders; they wanted power now. They began to develop their skills in combat and in leading people. They started wars to expand their power. They began to cultivate violence and deceit; for, in war, violence and deceit are considered virtues. The old age of consensus turned into a new age, an age of conflict. The peaceful tribe turned into the warlike state.

From that time, almost to the present, conflict has been the dominant theme of human history. Two organizations – state and church – have flourished, that are characteristic of an age of conflict. The state with its institutional violence and theft, and the church with its mental manipulation and mumbo-jumbo. In an age of conflict, the way for individuals to acquire power and prestige is by orchestration of violence, or by trickery, or both.

Then, some five hundred years ago, came the Renaissance. Again, something changed inside many people's minds. People became more individual, more dynamic, more innovative. The change was gradual from the point of view of individual lives, but it was quick compared with the centuries preceding it.

And it was followed by after-shocks. The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the 19th-century entrepreneurial spirit, the 20th-century technology revolution. Each helped to make those it affected more individual, more dynamic, more civilized, or all three. Gradually, people became better able to create and to innovate. With, as consequence, a great increase in our ability to master our planet. And, on the other hand, in our ability to destroy it.

But the organization of human societies has not kept pace with these changes. In the West, the much-touted political system called democracy has failed to deliver the benefits it promised. Indeed, it is breaking itself apart. The factional nature of democratic politics, and the imposition of bad policies, are destroying the very sense of "we" that democracy took its legitimacy from. And in other parts of the world, people still suffer under forms of political government that pre-date the Enlightenment and the Renaissance.

There is huge tension here. As individuals, we honest, productive, civilized human beings have outgrown the age of conflict. Yet our social and political structures are still rooted in that age. They not only permit, but actively reward, violent aggression and deceit. No wonder there is so much trouble in the world today!

One form of trouble much in the news is terrorism. But terrorism is nothing new. In 1605, for example, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the English parliament. And the English still celebrate him to this day! There were also many terrorist assassinations carried out by Anarchists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Modern terrorism, though, has introduced a new feature. This is the, usually random, targeting of people who are merely going about their daily business. Such terrorism dates from about 1968, and its earliest examples were airliner hi-jackings. Since then, the terrorists have added other forms of atrocity, such as bombs in public places.

Why do terrorists do what they do? One thing, shared by just about all terrorist movements, is a grievance. It is well said that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

For example, consider the Chechens. In the 1940s, Stalin had them forcibly transported to central Asia, and they were not allowed back to their homes until 1957. You can imagine why they hate the Russians, even more so since the invasion of the mid 1990s. And why some of them are prepared to take ruthless actions if they think they will aid their cause of independence.

Or consider the Palestinians. Think how they must have felt about having a new, hostile state, Israel, imposed in what they thought of as their territory. However much sympathy Jews deserved after the Holocaust, what happened was hard on the Palestinians. You can imagine that they, and their friends, will have little love for those that did those things – including the British and the Americans. No wonder some of them become terrorists.

These are examples of what I call the Fundamental Problem of Politics. In politics, if your interests are not being taken account of, there is only one way to get your views heard. And that is to start getting really nasty to people. There are many examples of this, not all as extreme as outright terrorism. Such as, the halting – for a little while – of the spiralling rise in British fuel taxes, by the disruptive protest of September 2000.

The Fundamental Problem has a flip side, too. In politics, those who are never nasty to others are likely to end up as victims. In politics, nice guys, and nice gals, come last.

There is a second feature, common to many terrorist groups. That is, that they have a religious component as well as a political. In Northern Ireland, for example, terrorism has arisen out of a long history of hatred between Catholics and Protestants. But a high proportion of terrorists today, including the perpetrators of September 11th, are Muslims. So much so, that some scaremongers have tried to raise the spectre of an army of Muslim militants trying to forcibly convert the entire world to Islam through terrorist acts.

So far, I have talked of aggressions carried out by groups specifically set up for a terrorist purpose. There is, however, another class of agencies of violent conflict in the world. Namely, political governments. And they are very effective at killing people. In the 20th century, they caused the deaths of 115 million people in wars, and another 170 million through government action outside wars. Mao Tse-Tung with 40 million and Stalin with 20 million were the leaders in the Megadeath League. And Hitler weighed in with about 12 million.

Let's put the numbers in perspective. For a terrorist group to match Mao's body count, it would have to carry out a September-11th sized atrocity every day for approaching 30 years. Compared to political governments, terrorists are small fry in the killing stakes.

Ah, say the scaremongers, but what if Islamic terrorists got their hands on a nuclear bomb? Or biological weapons? I, for one, cannot conceive of terrorists getting hold of such weapons without the active co-operation of a political government. Such co-operation would be seen as an act of war. And even the stupidest president or general ought to be able to foresee the inevitable and extreme retaliation. So I don't think it's too likely to happen.

Terrorism is bad. No-one should condone it. And certainly it is prudent to take sensible precautions against terrorists. But political governments, particularly in the USA since September 11th, have gone way further than is sensible. Secret FBI and police searches of homes and offices. Secret wiretaps, secret investigations of financial, medical and travel records. Freezing of assets without notice or appeal. "No-fly" lists that ban people from travelling. Extra barriers for tourists entering the USA. And there's lots more to come.

Meanwhile in Britain, the emphasis is slightly different, but the idea is the same. Detention without trial – though this was recently ruled illegal by the law lords. Special courts without juries. ID cards. More police powers. Curtailment of the right to protest.

I think there is a pattern in all this. It is not that an anti-terrorist agenda is, as side-effect, damaging civil liberties. Rather, it is that the politicians have an agenda that includes destroying liberty, and terrorism offers a good excuse to further it. This also helps to explain the scaremongering about nuclear weapons, and about militants trying to convert the world by force to Islam. If people are frightened, goes the logic, they are less inclined to resist the destruction of their freedoms.

But people are starting to get wise to what is going on. In the USA, courts have begun to strike down parts of the "PATRIOT" act as unconstitutional. And one of the British law lords referred to detention without trial in the following words. "The real threat to the life of the nation… comes not from terrorism, but from laws such as these.”

Politicians make out that they are doing these things in the name of security. But they obviously can't mean our security. For, in stomping on civil liberties, they also open up more and more opportunities for their goons to arbitrarily harass innocent people. That doesn't make us any more secure, does it? Pull the other one, politicos.

And then there is the war in Iraq. I think something shattered when Bush and Blair invaded Iraq. Never again could anyone try to claim that democracies don't start wars. Furthermore, their stated reason for the war – Saddam's weapons of mass destruction – has bounced back to hit them in the face. There were no such weapons.

And I have been very encouraged by the reaction in Britain to the war. For people in general are strongly opposed to it. I have heard figures as high as 70% against it. Yet the politicians, apart from a few loony lefties, seem to have been almost unanimously in favour of the war.

I think there is a new factor coming into play. Something deep down in us is starting to speak to us. And what it is telling us is that politics, war and terrorism, violence and deceit, are no longer appropriate ways for human beings to behave. We have reached a point in the development of our capabilities, where we need a better way of organizing ourselves. I myself am coming to feel this more and more strongly, and I think I am by no means alone. But the politicians, wrapped in their cocoons of lies and spin, don't want to know.

Here is reason for hope. The age of conflict, says something deep inside us, is due to end. Just as, all those years ago, consensus reached the end of its usefulness and was replaced by the more dynamic conflict, so now conflict itself is reaching the end of its road.

What will replace conflict? I believe I can make a good guess. The next age, I think, will be more dynamic yet. It will be an age of and for the human individual. It will be an age of competition, of competence. No longer will power and prestige be acquired through violence and deceit. Instead, individuals will gain them, in an atmosphere of peace, honesty and justice, by making themselves better than others. The power and prestige will go to those who do things better, do things quicker, do things cheaper, do what others can't. The Fundamental Problem will be solved. The good guys and gals will come first, not last.

I will leave to your imagination how much better a world an age of competence would bring, compared with the conflict we have now. But I will make some predictions. The politicians and the terrorists will be seen to have been on the same side – trying to perpetuate the age of conflict. Aggressive violence and deceit will be seen as things of the past, as will the moral Neanderthals that made use of them. Politics, and those that can't survive without it, will be consigned to the scrap-heap of history where they belong.

People will lose the old, top-down allegiances based on nationality and political or religious groupings, and will gain new bottom-up ones, based on common interests and co-operation. War will no longer be possible, since anyone displaying warlike behaviour will simply be frozen out of society. And all rationale for terrorism will fade away, as the happiness of the age of competence heals the grievances of the age of conflict.

Furthermore, I think that institutional religions will die away – with a yawn. They just won't mean anything much any more. And the idea, that anyone could ever have tried to foist their particular brand of religion on anyone else, will come to seem repugnant.

Last, I come to the sixty-four zillion dollar question. How do we get from here to there?

Over to you, dear reader. It's your turn to contribute your ideas.

On the recent UK election

(This is part of a comment I made on one of the blogs I frequent. I don't think it's bad).

As you might expect given my previous statements, I didn’t vote. As I have written elsewhere: “To vote for a political party is to underwrite both that party, and the system within which it exists. It will be taken as an expression of satisfaction with the party’s previous policies, however evil. And it enables the next political government, whether or not you voted for it and however badly it behaves, to claim that you gave it an endorsement of legitimacy.”

Moreover, for me it cuts no ice for anyone to say they only voted tory because the alternative would have been worse. They still voted for the tory party. And the tories won. So, every tory voter bears a share of the consequences of what Cameron and co have already done, and will do in the future.

If I had voted tory, I would have been giving my sanction to their snoopers’ charter, and to all the other evil policies they may choose to implement in the next few years. But by refraining from voting, I have withheld all approval of, and feel no moral responsibility for, any bad thing that Cameron or its minions have done or may do.

Let’s face it; today’s political system has failed. Any system that allows a political élite (or “sovereign”) moral privileges to rule over everyone else will eventually end in tears, no matter how many “bags on the side” you try to put on it. Parliament itself is no more than a bag on the side, a mediaeval attempt to limit monarchical power. Suffrage is just another bag on the side. The fact is, the system is out of date and unsustainable.

A Day Out With Liberty

Recently, I attended the 2015 annual general meeting of Liberty, the biggest organization promoting human rights in the UK. I’ve been a member of Liberty for about 12 years, and I’ve been to their last three annual general meetings.

Now, I’m a radical. That is, I like to delve into the roots of things, and the principles behind them. But politically, I am neither on the left nor the right. For some years, I have identified myself as a minarchist. That is, someone who wants only the minimal government necessary for civilized living. And I’ve consorted for more than 25 years with libertarians – that is, people who want to allow each individual the freedom to do the best he or she is capable of, and to enjoy his or her just rewards. Most of those people, I’ve learned over the years, seem to favour the political right over the left. But Liberty people tend to go the other way.

Normally, Liberty hold their AGM in London. But this year, it was in Manchester. So why did I go all that way from Surrey, where I live?

Well, there were several reasons. First, I wanted to touch bases with my left leaning liberty friends, particularly with an election coming up, and the prospect of repeal of the Human Rights Act if the tories get in. (Would they also repeal Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights, if they could?) Second, I love to explore. I’ve “collected” all the major British city centres except Belfast; and my last visit to Manchester was in 1977, since when it has changed a lot. And third, I find any excuse for a plane ride to be a good excuse. And every flight I take is one in the eye for the greenies.

To the meeting itself, on Saturday 25th April. The venue – University Place in the University of Manchester – was, in my opinion, better than the usual venue in London. More comfortable, and everyone was together all day.

The steward team were young and efficient. Now, it’s normal among libertarians to ask: “where have all the women gone?” I can answer that: “Gone to Liberty, every one!” My best guess is that 80% of the white-T-shirted team were pretty young women. So I dubbed them, of course, the Liberty Belles.

The program(me) was better than in previous years. The opening discussion panel was excellent – Professor Janet Beer, in particular, was brilliant. During the coffee break, I told Frances Butler (the current head honcha of Liberty, and someone for whom I have a lot of time) how much better that panel had been than a similar discussion two years previously, which had included three politicians. She obviously took note; for, five hours later, a change of policy for such discussions was announced. And it went in the direction I had suggested.

There was something new in the air this year, too. For the first time, among left leaning people I sensed the same feelings of anger and frustration and contempt and loathing for the political system that I myself have felt for decades.

I’ll give some quotes and reflections from the day:

• “Accountability.” This word was uttered many times by speakers, panellists and questioners from the floor.
  

• “Bad legislation goes through regardless of which party is in power.” (Bella Sankey, Policy Director of Liberty).
  

• “If responsibility was an issue, it would include half the government.”
  

• “No taxation without representation.” You’d expect an audience mainly of leftists to boo this; but they didn’t.
  

• The Asylum Seekers’ Choir. Not entirely in tune, but getting their message over superbly. They had a deserved ovation. (And no, my right leaning liberty friends, they did not sing “Cum Baya!”)
  

• “It’s the system that is the problem.” (Owen Jones).
  

• “Not a democratic society, but a dictatorship.” (From the floor, echoing Quintin Hogg from 1976).
  

• “The Blairite faction were very authoritarian.” (Owen Jones, a labour supporter).
  

• “There is a sustained attack on the rule of law by the political class.” (Peter Oborne, journalist – on film).
  

• “This all-party attack has been going on for 20 years.” (Peter Oborne again).
  

• “Nationalism and xenophobia are the crack cocaine of politics.” (Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty).
  

Now, I do have issues with some ideas that Liberty people profess. I can’t understand why many on the left seem to have such a visceral hatred of private industry. Nor why anyone with even half a mind could possibly vote for any of the mainstream parties on May 7th. (I have the same problem with my right leaning liberty friends, too; sigh). Maybe I need to get out more, and drink (lots of) beer with liberty friends on both sides.

To go on. My vote for Quote of the Day is tied between Bella Sankey and Peter Oborne. And, if I may, I’ll complete the third side of their triangle, by saying: Bad legislation is not law. (If you are old fashioned, you might prefer Edmund Burke’s version: “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”)

I really enjoyed my day out with Liberty, despite too much feminism (though not as bad as last year). And the following day, I was lucky enough to be able to explore Manchester in sunshine – something which even the locals rarely get a chance to do.

Now, I am one of those rare liberty lovers (perhaps the only one in the UK?) who tries to reach out to both left and right. Sometimes I feel a bit like that statue on the hill near Gateshead; however far I stretch my arms, I can’t quite touch anyone on either side. But I felt touched on that Saturday in Manchester.

Leftists like to talk about solidarity. But I prefer “building alliances.” It is clear that Liberty people and libertarians, even those who identify with the political right, have enemies in common. I think it may be worth both sides’ while to get to know each other better.

Why I Won’t Vote on May 5th (or is it 7th?) – and Nor Should You

(Neil's Note: This essay is from my archives. The date stamp on it is April 28th, 2005.

Ten years on, I could write almost exactly the same essay again... - except for two things. One, I would be far less kind to both the Lib Dems and UKIP than I was a decade ago. And two, I would raise the question: "Who do I vote for to get all the bureaucrats sacked with their pensions cancelled, and all the politicians lined up and shot?")

On the fifth day, of the fifth month, of the fifth year, of the century that would have been the fifth if the calendar had started in 1601, every adult in the islands called Britain is invited to take part in a charade. That charade is called a general election. It's that time of the decade again, when the politicians offer us a chance to rubber-stamp their system. They ask us to select, from among a field of candidates, which best represents our views. Such selections, totted up in more or less complicated ways, are to determine which of two (or perhaps three) criminal gangs is to be granted licence to rule over us against our wills for the next four or five years.

Democracy, say the pundits, brings power to those who represent the will of the majority. Oh, yeah? Let's look at the record. Last time this charade took place, in June 2001, just 24 per cent of eligible voters voted for Labour. 76 per cent of us didn't. 40 per cent of us – only one per cent less than Labour and Tory voters put together – did the honourable thing, and refused to engage in the farce. Did the will of the majority prevail? Not a chance. The lying, thieving gang that call themselves Labour were awarded another licence of all but absolute power to bully and rob us all.

Looking back at Labour's propaganda from 2001, you can see coming some of the crap they have thrown at us in the last several years. You can sense the glee with which they looked forward to wasting more, and more, and more of our money. You can see them limbering up to clobber us with enviro taxes and regulations. With hindsight, you can snigger at their lies about improving quality of life or helping businesses of all sizes. Though I myself, a victim of IR35 – Labour's cynical attempt to ruin my career and the careers of tens of thousands of other honest, productive, one-man business people – am more likely to snarl than to snigger.

And yet, there is much bad that Labour have done, which they didn't bother to warn us about. There was no mention of starting a war. There was no mention of their accelerating destruction of our civil liberties, although that had started before 2001. There was no mention of banning smoking in public.

So, what do B-Liar and its minions have to offer me this time round? My family better off? I don't have a family. My children with the best start? I don't have any children. My community safer? I don't feel any sense of community in bloody Britain today. All Labour can deliver is the same crap as before. More lies, more spin, more taxes, more wasting of the wealth they steal from us, more bureaucracy, more new "crimes,” more senseless laws and more police to enforce them, more violations of basic human rights like privacy, more destruction of liberty.

What of the most obvious alternative, the Tories? I confess that, twenty years ago, the Tories had me fooled. I was stupid enough to vote for them in 1983 and 1987. But I know better now.

What do the Tories offer this time round? A few good-sounding things. One, lower taxes – they have even been talking about possibly repealing IR35, though I'm not holding my breath. However, they still want to spend more. How can that add up? Two, ending "Blair's war on the motorist.” Nice idea, but a bit rich coming from the party that started that war in the first place!

And although (at last) rejecting the EU constitution and the euro, the Tories still want Britain to remain in the European Union. What, then, will they do whenever the EU orders them to do something that contradicts their manifesto?

And there is a strong whiff of the jack-boot about many Tory policies, like school discipline, more police, more immigration controls and a US-style homeland security minister. Furthermore, they supported, at the time, the war in Iraq. And I get a sense that some of them, at least, are eager for more military adventures.

But the worst thing about the 2005 Tories isn't in the headlines. To find it, you have to dig a little deeper. And, when I found it, I almost collapsed in horror. For the Tories have gone green. Not only have they gone green, but they crow about it! They want to "show leadership on climate change.” They even re-cycle green slogans. My local Tory candidate sent out a letter headed "National vision, local action.” Or was that "Think globally, act locally"?

I want you to think, hard, about the effects your vote will have, if you choose to vote for either Labour or the Tories. Will innocent people be harmed by the policies of those you vote for? Do they deserve that harm? What will those victims think of you, when they find out what you voted for?

If you vote for a political party that is currently in power, you are endorsing its record. You are saying, I like what they have done, and I want more of the same. If you vote for Labour, then, you are signalling your acceptance of their culture of lies, spin and invasive regulation. You are approving their destruction of civil liberties, and their use of terrorism as a lame excuse for it. You are rubber-stamping their war in Iraq, and accepting a share of the responsibility for all the deaths it has caused. You are expressing your support for banning fox-hunting, and for banning smoking in public. You are sanctioning their tapping of our e-mails. You are asking for compulsory ID cards. You are condoning their ever increasing theft of our earnings. You are approving their waste of our wealth, and their bureaucracy. You are applauding their arrogance and their treating us like naughty children or lower life-forms.

If you vote for Labour, you are also committing an aggression against me personally. For you are endorsing IR35. You are saying, it's OK, even good, for politicians to cynically destroy my career. You are, in essence, punching me in the face. What do you think my reaction to you will be, if I ever see you in need or in trouble?

If you vote for Labour, you're either stupid or evil. You're either so damn stupid that you don't understand what Labour are doing to good people, or so damn evil that you actively approve of it. Either way, you aren't my fellow human being.

So, what if you pick the Tories instead? Not much difference there. If you vote Tory, you are endorsing not only their current policies, but also what they did in their last spell in power up to 1997. Don't forget that it was the Tories that first made the environment into a political football. Don't forget that the Tories started the witch-hunt against our cars. Don't forget that the Tories screwed up the railways and the education system. Don't forget that, just eight years ago, so many people were so fed up with the Tories that even B-Liar looked like a better option.

And, now they have swallowed the green gospel whole, a vote for the Tories is also a vote for the Big Lie of our time. That is, the idea that human activities are causing runaway global warming (or is it cooling?), which must be stopped by draconian measures. The political establishment are using this climate-change Big Lie as an excuse to suffocate our Western civilization. If you vote for the Tories, you are – as well as buying more police, more immigration controls and the rest – buying the Big Lie. If you vote Tory, you're stupid, and you're hostile to my civilization. And that means you're hostile to me.

So, what of the third lot, that call themselves the Liberal Democrats? They have never had power at national level, so we can't judge them on that record. They do, however, have power at the local level in many places, including where I live. And it's a mess. Their favourite pastimes right now are, one, sending out garishly coloured flyers congratulating themselves on how wonderful they are. And two, closing off key roads for weeks on end to install chicanes and speed-bumps on them.

What of their national policies? They talk of a "green backbone" to all their policies. They have big tax and spend plans. They favour more re-distribution of wealth. They talk a lot of crap about communities. They treat the National Health Service as if it was a god. They favour the EU super-state. They, too, want more police and are anti-car. There are a few small pluses, like their opposition to ID cards and to war in Iraq. But overall, I don't see a big difference between the third lot and either Labour or the Tories. If you vote for them, you're stupid, and you're not any fellow of mine.

So there you have the three so-called major parties. There you have the three criminal gangs that alone have any realistic chance of forming the next government in Britain. Labour, corrupt, thieving and authoritarian, and green underneath. The Tories, corrupt, authoritarian and green, and – despite mouthing about lower taxes – still thieving underneath. And the third lot, green and thieving, and no doubt as corrupt and authoritarian as the others underneath. Add a tinge of racism in each of them – more than a tinge, in the case of the Tories – and there you have your choice.

Choice? What choice? Whichever of the three major parties wins the election, taxes will continue to go up and up, and freedom, the general tone of society and the quality of life will continue to slide down and down. No-one who values liberty, honesty or earned prosperity can vote for any of them.

If you really feel you have to vote, what other alternatives do you have? There are, of course, the extreme greens. But their policies are depraved. The Big Lie of climate change is a central plank in their platform. They are actively against earned wealth. They talk of "reducing our burden on the planet" and "tackling the root causes of demand for mobility.” This is a radical, anti-human agenda. If you care so little about human beings that you want to forcibly impose such policies on us, you don't qualify as human.

Then there is the United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP for short. At first sight, UKIP seems a different and better animal than the rest. They do not, so they say, see themselves as politicians. They are against "ill-conceived intrusive regulation, supposedly to protect our environment, to ensure our health and safety… and to protect us from terrorism.” They say No to "the culture of paperwork, performance targets and spin.” They say No to political correctness. They want "to turn back the culture of regulation and to strive for smaller government.” They are not actively anti-car. They understand the problems, which are stopping very many people (including me) from saving for our own pensions.

But UKIP's main policy, which drives all others, is for Britain to leave the European Union. I can agree with this, though I go further. I would like to see the EU dismantled. My recipe for a Europe worth living in is, open all the borders, sack all the bureaucrats, and pillory all the politicians.

For a few days after I read their manifesto, I thought I might vote for UKIP, assuming of course they have a candidate in my area. For me, a conscientious non-voter of 18 years' standing, this would have been a radical decision. But a few days' contemplation convinced me that voting UKIP wasn't for me. For three reasons. One, though they favour smaller government, their world-view is still top-down, of a state ruling over people, rather than bottom-up, of free individuals voluntarily forming a government to defend themselves. Two, I don't know them well enough to know what I would be getting into. Three, they're not going to win this election anyway.

Next, the British National Party, or BNP. The media tell us that they are neo-Nazi racists. But anyone whose right to freedom of speech is under attack from the political establishment deserves at least some sympathy. If we let them destroy the BNP's freedom of speech today, it will be my freedom of speech that is in danger tomorrow, and yours the day after.

That said, the BNP and other right-wing fringe parties do not interest me. I am not into either racism or nationalism. I see people as individuals, and therefore find it odd, to say the least, for anyone to try to use skin colour as a reason to discriminate against (or for) them. Only how they behave matters.

And I have come to find the idea of nationalism increasingly ridiculous. Most of all when those, that support political policies designed to harm me, try to make out that because of their nationality or residence they have a claim on my resources or energies when they are in need. I find it absurd that, because I was born in Leatherhead, I am expected to feel a comradeship for someone born in Caernarfon or Edinburgh, which I am not expected to feel for someone born in Adelaide, Chicago, Rotterdam or Sofia. I might as well be expected to feel fellowship for someone just because they were born in the same week as I was. (The comparison is apt. For I was born in the same week as B-Liar).

Those, for whom I feel fellowship, are those who are on my side. My fellows are those who, over the long run, benefit me and strive to benefit me, and those who share my values. My kind of community will cherish individual freedom, common-sense justice (the idea that individuals deserve to be treated as they treat others), economic productivity, striving for excellence, honesty and desire for truth. No community, of which I could feel a part, would even admit any of today's lying, thieving, bullying politicians as members.

I will pass quickly over the two parties I call Triveas and St. Creep, that are no more than show-offs for two limelight-craving individuals. And I will end my survey with my friends at the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Now Howling Laud Hope, unlike all the other party leaders, does something for people. He serves beer. A few years ago, I visited his party headquarters, which is a long day's walk from my home. I received a couple of pints from his very own hand, and had an hour's good conversation with one of his South African supporters.

I am amused by some of the Loony policies. I particularly enjoyed the one about changing the day from 24 to 32 hours, so pubs could be open longer. (It would bring lots of work for us software people, too!) But I do not feel that a Loony vote would be sensible or constructive, even if it was available in my particular bailiwick.

So, I won't be voting on May 5th. I shall continue my 18-year honourable record of loyalty to Nobody. And I think you should be doing the same. Stay home, go to the pub, do what you want. But don't go near that voting booth.

I have a truth to tell you, which many will find uncomfortable. Democracy has failed. Today's so-called democratic government does not represent the will of the people, or even the will of the majority (if such things existed). It only represents the wills of the politically rich – those that benefit from the existence of a large, active state. It only represents the bullies, thieves and liars that get their kicks out of ruling over people, as harshly as they can get away with. The rest of us are politically poor. We are oppressed, exploited and unrepresented.

The failure of democracy is part of a much larger failure – the failure of politics as a whole. The top-down system of organizing human societies, which has been in place for 3,000 years and some, has reached the end of its road. The hell we are living through today is its death-throes.

Don't get me wrong. Don't call me an anarchist, who doesn't want any government at all. Government is a regrettable necessity. But government need not – should not – be political. It should not take sides. It should be for the benefit of every good human being who has chosen to give his consent to it. It should not have overarching policies to save the world or anything else. It should not try to force people into a mould. In the words of John L. O'Sullivan, that government is best which governs least.

There is reason for hope on May 5th. Only 60 per cent of eligible voters turned out in 2001. We have reason to hope that, this time, the turn-out will be lower. A turn-out under 50 per cent, I think, would be a major watershed. It would be a strong signal from the moral majority that we don't like or want the politicians and their evil activities.

Where might we go from there? How could we replace the sham of political democracy with something to make government work for all good people? In the short term, I think we need to move to a system where people are governed by their own kind of people. Where individuals know that those who govern them share their values, and are on their side.

One rough-and-ready way this might be accomplished is to allow each party's voters to be ruled, in day-to-day matters at least, by a government of that party. Labour voters, for example, could have what they voted for: lies, spin, re-distribution and wasting of wealth (their wealth this time, not ours) and no civil liberties. Meanwhile, Tory voters can have their school discipline and more police, and can sit back and enjoy the lies about climate change. Better yet, those of us who are non-political, and favour liberty, prosperity and honesty, can have a government that does nothing beyond what government ought to do – defend us good people against the bad ones. The different governments would, of course, have to co-operate in certain areas – notably military defence.

Longer term, what we need to do is actually quite easy. Just tell the truth as we see it. For when good people come to understand that politics and politicians are the root causes of most of our evils today, their minds will turn. We must help them turn the top-down, political view of society that has been foisted on them throughout their lives, into a bottom-up, individual view. We must help them learn to value individual rights – like liberty, property, privacy, freedom of speech and association – and to shoulder individual responsibilities – like economic productivity, non-aggression, striving for justice, honesty and respect for others' rights.

The way to get rid of wars, terrorism, racism, bullying, political lies, re-distribution of wealth, real environmental damage and the other evils of our age is to get rid of politics. Politics has passed its last-use-by date. It is time we took it off the shelf, and dropped it in the bin. An important step towards that is for many good people to unite in a resounding NO! to the politicians and their politically rich hangers-on.

By refusing to vote on May 5th, you can do your bit to help. Thank you.

On Bottom Up and Top Down Thinking - Part 21 and final

21. Enlightenment and endarkenment

Thus far, I’ve presented bottom up and top down thinking as polar opposites. While this is indeed what they are, it’s also true that few people think either in a totally bottom up or a totally top down manner. Each individual tends, by his nature and training, to go one way rather than the other. Those trained in mathematics and science, for example, tend to exert the discipline to think bottom up; while those in “softer” disciplines, like politics or media studies, are far more likely to think top down.

Young children, as I noted earlier, start their lives learning, and so thinking, from the bottom up. And yet, many – too many – seem to reach a point of stagnation. Often, at quite an early stage in their lives, individuals’ mental development seems to stop. And they no longer learn, as they did when children, from the bottom up. Top down thinking seems to take over.

Why is this? I think it’s because they have caught a disease. I call this disease endarkenment. Top down thinking is a symptom of this social ailment. It’s a very serious malady; societies afflicted with it are likely to die, if it isn’t cured. I think of endarkenment as like a cancer – a cancer of the body politic, if you will. And I think of the top down thinkers, or endarkenmentalists, that carry and spread this disease – many of them in high positions in politics, government, academe and the media – as like cancer cells.

The analogy with cancer is, I think, a good one. For, just as cancer cells often don’t stop growing until the host dies, so the cancerous political state doesn’t stop growing until it has consumed its body politic. Just as cancer cells ignore messages sent to them by other cells, so do cancerous thinkers ignore what other people think or want. Just as cancer cells send out messages to other cells to confuse them into doing things against their and the host’s interests, so do cancerous thinkers spew out lies, scares and deceptions to confuse people into acting against their true interests. (They spew out lots of legislation to coerce people into acting against their interests, too). And, just as cancer cells fail to mature and grow up into roles useful to the host, so do most cancerous thinkers fail to grow up into productive, honest, useful members of society.

I’ll contrast this social cancer, which I call endarkenment and whose main symptom is top down thinking, with its opposite. At one level, that opposite is, as you would expect, enlightenment with a small e. Not only is this kind of enlightenment the consequence of bottom up thinking, but it also helps bottom up thinkers move towards further enlightenment.

At a higher level, though, the opposite of endarkenment is also capital-E Enlightenment. That is, a set of values associated with the historical Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.

For, when I try to list the primary characteristics of bottom up thinking, I find myself coming up with many Enlightenment values; or, otherwise said, liberal values. For example: Reason and the pursuit of science. Toleration and a focus on the individual. The idea that society exists for the individual, not the individual for society. The idea that human beings are naturally good. Freedom of thought and action. Natural rights and human dignity. Government for the benefit of the governed. Moral equality and the rule of law. A desire for progress, and rational optimism for the future.

The primary characteristics of top down thinking, on the other hand, are very much opposed to these Enlightenment values. I’ll list a few: Superstition. Collectivism. Orthodoxy, dogma and political correctness. Lies, deceit and misdirection. Faux “equality.” Bad laws and injustices. War. The politicization of everything. State control over almost every aspect of our lives. Hypocrisy and double standards. A climate of alarm and much-ado-about-nothing. These are the things that top down thinkers like, and want to force on all of us. These are the non-values of endarkenment.

So, to conclude. It’s clear, to me at least, that endarkenment – a cancer-like social disease, that leads to top down thinking – is the root cause of the evils of our times. And that endarkenmentalists, those that promote top down thinking, are the cancer cells that carry and spread this malady.

It’s also clear to me what the cure for endarkenment must be. The cure is Enlightenment. That is, we human beings need to re-discover, dust off, re-polish and apply to today’s ills the best liberal values of our past. And to carry them forward into our future.

On Bottom Up and Top Down Thinking - Part 20

20. Which works better?

Now, I’ll ask: Which produces better results in the real world? Bottom up thinking, or top down?

I suppose that, at one level, the answer will depend on who you are. If you’re high in the political or religious establishment, you’ll be better off with top down thinking, won’t you? But for ordinary people – for us human beings – it’s obvious that bottom up thinking produces better results.

For consider what has happened in times and places where top down thinking has been in the ascendant. (That is, indeed, for much of recorded history). Religious and political intolerance and repression. Nationalism, communism, fascism and other kinds of collectivism. Wars and pogroms. Misuse of law, violations of rights. Economic stagnation or even collapse. Not too pleasant, eh?

But now, consider: What if we could make bottom up thinking the norm, rather than top down? Wouldn’t it encourage tolerance, individual freedom, the rule of honest law, respect for rights, economic progress and prosperity? What human being would not prefer these things to the results of top down thinking?