You know, before I became one, I thought libertarians were like the survivalist gun freaks from the much loved B-Movie classic, “Tremors.” They were people who, generally speaking, wanted to go live in the middle of nowhere, cut themselves off from the rest of the world with a heavily armed fortress and generally sit around cursing and waiting for the end of the world.

Actually, as it happens, most of the libertarians I know have more in common with IT nerds (which, in fact, they often are) – people who live their lives in the domain of the unrestricted, unregulated free world of the internet where all that matters is skill, ability to deliver and giving people what they want. And everyone, it seems, gets what they want from the Internet. Libertarians look at this, and they compare it with the way the flesh and blood world works, how stifling, rigid and controlled it is and they find the comparison unflattering.

But, it’s true, there’s still an association between libertarianism and guns, and the shootings yesterday and the announcement by the libertarian alliance that they want significantly less gun control has opened this little kettle of soon to be boiled fish all over again.

The argument usually breaks down like this: Criminals get guns no matter what, and they’re more willing to use them when their victims are not likely to shoot back. Ergo an armed citizenry is safer than one where only criminals are armed.

Yet if we accept that an armed population is a population less likely to be victims of crime, this somehow doesn’t come across as a compelling argument in favour of gun liberalisation for most. The debate isn’t even about proving it might work – it’s that most believe that gun liberalisation is not an acceptable means of reducing crime, end of story, case closed, shut up and stop being a nutter.

For the lives saved by gun control – and I don’t actually doubt there have been lives saved – gun control has resulted in a population legally bound into helplessness, creating a toxic environment of fear of crime which drives increasingly irrational responses from Governments – egged on by the Tabloids – to deal with it. When it comes to crime the only option left to the Government is to increase their control and monitoring of us – something we’ve struggled to fight against with the last Government and will no doubt continue to fight all future Governments over too.

So by closing down one particular line of debate and inquiry, one particular approach to maintaining law and order, we leave something just as objectionable and awful – perhaps worse, in fact – as the only option left. Are we really utterly convinced, beyond reasonable doubt, that we have the perfect solution here? Is it really beyond the pale to even question it? The more people say, “You can’t say that” the more I feel the urgent need to say it. Is a sane, rational debate about Gun Control really so impossible? Has the well been poisoned so much that one seriously cannot even discuss it without having to defend accusations of compromised mental health?

No, no subject is beyond debate. No line of inquiry should be ruled out.

We need to understand that whenever a Government steps in and says, “You can’t do this” it changes the population, it has an impact, and that impact is nearly always a mixture of some good with a great deal of negative unintended consequences which demand yet more “right, okay, er…. you can’t do this, either” and round and round, forever and ever. It seems unthinkable that people can believe that gun control is exempt – it’s not.

As a sort of postscript, I’d like to say that the dream of a peaceful society free from guns isn’t achieved simply by passing a law. The law creates a pleasant, reassuring fiction – nothing more.

If we’d truly become that sort of society, if we’re really changed and evolved beyond the need for violence, such regulation wouldn’t be necessary at all. It’s only considered necessary because we’re not civilised enough, not mature enough, not sane enough to be trusted enough to take the decision ourselves. It sends a profoundly cynical, depressing message about what kind of people we really believe ourselves to be.

As of the 1st June, the Bank of England has a new statutory obligation to “contribute to protecting and enhancing the stability of the financial systems of the UK.”

What’s odd about this, from my point of view, is that financial systems and markets can never be stabilised. They are inheriently chaotic. We swing wildly from growth to recession and back again.

True stability would be 0% growth, forever. Everyone keeps making exactly what they’re making, everyone consumes exactly what they’re consuming. Except even that wouldn’t be stable, because we live on a whole planet of different economies, all interacting with ours. Get them to buy and sell the same stuff to us that they’re buying and selling now? It’s never going to happen.

If the Bank of England were to interpret this instruction literally, one would expect them to use any means necessary to keep growth at 0%. Keep the economy under control. Keep it predictable. This is impossible.

Of course they’d never interpret it literally, but this does prompt the question: What is Brown really asking the Bank of England to do? Stability is, and always has been, a Brownian buzz word. A reassuring, friendly catch-all for ‘do good things to the economy’ without actually meaning anything at all.

I want growth not stability. When did growth become a dirty word? When did growth need regulating against?

Let’s talk about a conspiracy. It goes like this: The Lib Dems are being infiltrated by Tories using entryist tactics.  Oh Noes!

The evidence is the existance of Liberal Vision, a classically liberal campaigning group.  Liberal Vision’s problem is that they’re a wholly owned subsidiary of Progressive Vision, a classically liberal think tank that has… gulp… Tory members! Which, naturally, means that local Lib Dem parties up and down the country are, right now, being invaded and taken over by secret Tories. I mean, obviously. 

Back in the real world, Liberal Vision’s members are exclusively Lib Dem and no Tories from Progressive Vision are able to influence anything Liberal Vision does. Yet the conspiracy theories continue… why?

Well, how can you tell the difference between a campaign that doesn’t exist and a campaign being conducted in secret, behind closed doors?

The answer is, obviously, that you can’t. They’d look exactly the same. Hence Great Jewish Conspiracies being stubbornly popular, and now Libertarian Entrist Conspiracies.

Why people look at the complete lack of co-ordinated campaigning between economic liberals, libertarians and campain groups like Liberal Vision and draw the conclusion that it’s all being done in secret, rather than take the most obvious conclusion that there’s no campaign at all is a mystery.

I don’t think it reflects well on the conspiracy theorists that they do this – they can be seen making arses of themselves over on Lib Dem Voice on a fairly regular basis, and Liberator magazine has talked about “us” in two editions now.

So the solution, for me, is to go public, to campaign openly and proudly, and to make associations. Agree to work together to achieve a common goal – even if it’s just trying to get the Lib Dems to drop the bansturbation and obsession with using the tax system to alter behaviours.  The most common criticism I hear about the Lib Dems these days isn’t that we don’t know what we believe in, but rather that we’re not liberal.  That’s just embarrassing. When it comes from Tories it’s humiliating. It’s up to us to do something about it. 

What continues to irk is the deliberate and willful misunderstanding that economic liberalism, or classical liberalism, or libertarianism is somehow conservatism.  If conservatives become supporters of specific liberal measures it is because they have identified it as the means to deliver what they want – it doesn’t make them liberal. 

Some liberals may support the conservatives simply because they’ve implemented a really good liberal policy… does that make them conservative? Does voting Lib Dem automatically turn you into a rabid Pro-EU eco-warrior that wants to send prisoners on holiday? 

This ‘economic liberalism = conservatism’ fallacy seems to serve just one useful political purpose – battering liberals within the Liberal Democrats – and the hated Tory Party – into shamed silence, using every last ounce of residual anti-Thatcher sentiment they can grasp to attack liberalism. And this from within the Liberal Democrats, too! I mean, seriously, what is wrong with this picture? Have I accidently joined a self-flagellation cult?*

The truth is that any sane, rational liberal is going to vote for the most liberal party. If that’s not us, if we persist in trying to sell ‘civil liberties aware social democracy’ as being the ‘real’ liberalism, then we’ve only got ourselves to blame if we lose those votes. You can blast them, hate them, complain about them, but that’s not bringing people in. That’s just telling them they were right to avoid us in the first place. 

The paradox at the heart of this party must be resolved. Sooner the better. 

*Well, if delivering leaflets counts as self-flagellation, the answer’s most definately ‘yes’

It’s hard to know where to begin with the agreement signed by the G20, so I thought it might be interesting to point out all the various words and phrases that trigger libertarian alarm bells – and why. I work on the theory that the majority are desensitised to economic violence, that so ubiquitous and commonplace is political grabs for power that we don’t notice it when it happens.  

It’s an exercise in understanding different political tribes, rather than a typical rant. There’ll be plenty of those elsewhere, I’m sure.

We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible;

The temptation here is to pretend to know what this means, but I’m not going to. I’m going to call the bluff: This is deliberate obfuscation in order to create the appearance of importance and profundity. “We, the people…” it is not.

…our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families

Shudder. The phenomenon of families as the only politically recognised economic unit turns out to be a global one. Is there no escape? What a difference, “our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the rights of individuals” would be. What a profound, world shaking difference that would make. 

…an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions

Libertarians look at this as the alternative to, “an economy based on free trade between all nations of the world” – the alternative being heavy political control of markets – in other words, protectionism if one is feeling kind, and socialism if one is feeling a bit American.

We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary…

It doesn’t take a die-hard anti-statist to be concerned with the idea of the 20 most powerful countries in the world agreeing to do “whatever is necessary.” From a libertarian point of view, there is no more chilling phrase in the English language. It invokes, “The Greater Good” – the ability to act in a way that would be unthinkable if the repercussions on individuals were taken into account instead of the interests of a faceless collective. 

strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust;

says, to libertarians, “we’re taking charge of this.”

an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy

which says “we’re going to raise $1.1 trillion in tax.”

We are undertaking an unprecedented and concerted fiscal expansion, which will save or create millions of jobs 

Hard not to agree with the first part, but whether this saves or creates a single job in the long term – considering how much tax will be required to pay back the $1.1 trillion – is another matter. It makes you wonder – who’s going to get the blame when it fails? Will it be a lack of ambition on the part of the G20 or will the panic stricken borrowing and splurging get the blame? How will we know if they’ve made the situation worse, or prevented it getting worse? As with the aftermath of the Great Depression, will economists continue to argue over this for centuries to come?

we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards 

Which, to libertarians, looks suspiciously like code for, “because we’re shackling our own financial services, we fully intend to make sure that no upstart state can sneak up and steal business from Wall St and the City of London just because they’re now highly regulated and therefore less competitive internationally”

You can hardly blame them for trying to rig the system in their favour – after all, Britain’s biggest export has been financial services and the changes Brown would impose would effectively end our global advantage in this market. Smells like protectionism, and extension of the quasi-Free Trade seen within the EU – Free Trade so long as you follow the very expensive rules that suit the big, powerful states.

Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.

This sounds very much like someone’s trying to reinvent Free Trade, except with Politicians at the heart of the action. Free Trade seems to leave politicians as impotent observers rather than masterful Governers, willing and able to steer the whole of human activity in the ‘right’ way. Global politicians decide the solution requires Global politicians shock news!

to endorse and implement the FSF’s tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms

Corporate Social Responsibilty. Would you like to know the name of a company that spent a great deal of money on CSR? It gave millions to charity, every year and promoted a culture of volunteering and community service in its staff. It gave to the local community, sponsoring local football teams and community programmes. It was carbon neutral. It paid legendary quantities of tax, had cutting edge equal opportunities and diversity policies. It had beyond generous sick pay entitlement, too. That company was called HBOS. Goes to show how useful CSR is. Corporate Social Responsibility is simply about putting private companies under the control of political will. 

In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times;

Ah, the benefit of hindsight.

to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems.

Which to me says, “If there’s one area where protectionism is justified, it’s protecting our economy against low tax economies. With $1.1 trillion of tax to raise, we can no longer tolerate free and open competition between states if the competitive factor is tax. We simply can’t afford to lose.”

We will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras….refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services

The word that jumps out is “new”, don’t you think? 

In summary the whole document appears to be a confused mish-mash of protectionist rhetoric and Keynsian binging being sold as support for (intra-G20) free trade and condemnation of (extra-G20) protectionist measures. So this blog post picked out the more alarming statements, but that’s not to say that there’s not more to be concerned with, or in fact stuff that’s so empty that there’s nothing to be concerned about. Is there anything positive to take away from it? It doesn’t seem like it today. The fact that politicians still consider it useful to be ‘pro-free trade’ and ‘anti protectionism’ at least in terms of the way they describe their policies means there’s some some sanity left in this world. 

But I finish with the scariest word used in this entire document, the one that makes my heart sink:

We…

It’s not just Brown. That ‘we’ says doesn’t matter who you elect, who your Government is, this is what the world is doing. It says, to me, that the world leaders – all of whom face electoral disaster as a result of the recession – have agreed to stick together for their common good. ‘We’, in the context of the leaders of the 20 most powerful states in the world is truly chilling.

Possibly the most exciting title for a blog post ever: “The Nazis versus libertarians” althougth if you’re expecting war based action and adventure you’ll be disappointed.

But LFAT ask a serious question – again raising concerns about the welfare of children in a libertarian society: Who decides what constitutes ‘crime’ against children when the state’s only legitimate ability to act is in response to a criminal act?