Tuesday, March 02, 2010

The Notting Hill Tories simply don't have the popular touch

Politicians of principle stand ready for your crucial vote, because voting really makes a difference

Sir Bufton Huffchester beats his chest again about the Notting Hill Tories, and their pathetic inability to have Brown 20 points behind in the polls.

Here's my pointless Austrian propaganda, tacked to the piece, which might provoke a little sport if I'm lucky:
Jack Maturin on March 02, 2010 at 09:33 PM

Is Cameron playing the strategic game? This election is surely one to lose. Labour have borrowed everything, to try to reflate their burst bubble, and the borrowed money runs out the day after polling day.

Then there will be swingeing cuts, because otherwise there will be printing presses running day and night to pay government salaries, causing massive inflation, possibly even hyperinflation.

Is it better to let Brown have to do the cutting, and then come in with a much stronger mandate in a year's time, after the country has imploded, to do what needs to be done (i.e. taking an axe to red tape, taxation, and the client state), with the long-needed Austrian brutality this deserves?

Or are Cameron and his mob just a pitiful shower of lightweights who have no idea what they're doing?

Only you, Sir Huff, can know the answer to this. Especially because if Labour get in again, they will so gerrymander the electoral process as it will become impossible to ever vote them out again, thus eventually causing the end of democracy in this country, when the people realise they are being taken for idiots by the ruling socialist class.

But does this matter, if the Tories are going to remain so indistinguishable from Labour on virtually every policy, except which apparatchik gets to push the buttons controlling the Westminster train set?

Personally, I'm not going to be troubling the polling station staff on the day of the big beauty parade. I've got more important things to do. Like cleaning my gutters.

Because whatever anyone does, the British Government still gets back in again. And until someone dares threaten to actually cut this monster down to at least half its current size, we're going to remain in a permanent economic depression, worse even than the one the Japanese have spent the last 20 years enduring following similar feeble economic policies to Mr Brown (and similar to the ones proposed by Mr Osborne, within the range of statistical noise to Mr Brown's).

Yes, there'll be lots of hot air in Westminster, as the productive and the talented quietly leave this country to all those who want to live off the back of everyone else, but voting in the next election is absolutely pointless.

Even angels dancing on the head of a pin have greater differences of opinion than the current squalid set of chancers fighting for the keys of Downing Street.

7 comments:

Andrew said...

What do you make of Peter Hitchens' argument that if the Tories don't win this time then they will implode, paving the way for a true conservative alternative?

Not that Hitchens' hopes and yours are perfectly aligned of course.

Jack Maturin said...

It's impossible to have a 'real' Tory party.

We are not saddled with Cameron/Osborne/Letwin through sad accident.

We are saddled with these dribbling lightweights because the process of democracy forces all 'successful' (i.e. those who actually manage to acquire power), to become 'centrist' socialists.

If you need to gain 51% of an electorate to win power, because there are always more 'have nots' than 'haves' in society, you always need to promise to rob the 49% of 'haves' to give the looted pelf to the 51% of 'have nots'.

Margaret Thatcher was an aberration caused by the creation of the SDP in the 1970s. This temporarily split the left, allowing Her Blessedness to slip through the cracks in-between. You'll notice, however, that even she remained a firm supporter of the EU and a strong state (e.g. national curriculum etc).

Once the left had healed over this difference they regained power again, under the Aegis of Tony Blair. The socialists will probably retain power through the socialist David Cameron or the socialist Gordon Brown (though Mandelson will replace Brown immediately after the elction, should he win, with someone more suitable.)

If the Tories do lose the election (and they might), then as Sean Gabb has probably accurately predicted the future of democracy in this country won't really matter anyway, because Mandelson will so gerrymander the system that it will become impossible ever to shift the Liberal/Labour ruling class from power ever again, through democracy.

Not that even this matters, because all power has transferred to Brussels anyway, and Westminster is simply a local sideshow to keep the natives amused. UKIP will possibly end up being outlawed, in the same way that people talk about the BNP being outlawed, for daring to threaten the elites of the EU.

So, a pretty bleak outlook there.

The answer? To spread the ideas of freedom, the most coherent and cohesive of which are supplied through the Austrian school, and when the democratic/socialist system collapses (as it almost inevitably will), then 'we' are ready to step forward to fill the vacuum with freedom and morality (especially of not stealing from others).

Enlightened self-interest may even be tolerated again, where if you let me be with my property and stop stealing from me, then the massive explosion of wealth that this attitude will create will greatly benefit everyone, just as it did in the industrial revolution.

Though in reality, I think our salvation will arise through secession, and inspiration will arise from abroad. Also, once the IMF's proposed world fiat paper currency collapses, the way will be left open to an international 100% reserve gold standard. And when that happens, governments will finally be put back on the leash again, and freedom will grow when governments are once again constrained by always having to live within their annual budgets.

As socialist territories collapse and fracture, particularly with the collapse of fiat currencies, freedom will spring from the fractured pieces. At least, that's the hope.

A completely independent England will be a far easier place to re-introduce freedom to than the English territory of the EU monolith.

The Soviet Union collapsed. The US Empire is on the verge of collapse. The EU Empire will also collapse. When they do, much smaller territories will then be reborn from them, in which freedom may once again blossom.

continues...

Jack Maturin said...

Personally, once Texas is independent, then I'm heading there. That really will be a great nation. Hopefully they'll let me in! ;-)

Though England may still surprise me. Who knows what might happen? You never know, UKIP could even become useful. But no-one within it, including Farage, inspires me.

The only politicians in this country who give me any hope are Hannan and Johnson. Perhaps they may arise if Cameron collapses? It's hard to tell, but generally, democracy is gradually collapsing, and this collapse will continue.

The Greeks were right to think the Athenians were mad to try it. We were mad to try it to, but it will end. Though there will be much gnashing of teeth before this happens.

Andrew said...

Cameron and the Conservatives are annoying me even more than usual so I would be quite happy to see them losing.

I was having a discussion with a colleague just a few days ago about the tendency of democracy to encourage looting from the 'haves' - this earned me a few pejorative rhetorical blasts.

This may not be place for it but what would you have in place of the current system?

Jack Maturin said...

Well, Andrew, this is an anarcho-capitalist site, so ...errr...

Anarcho-capitalism.

No government necessary. Life, liberty, property. Peace, prosperity, freedom.

It's a long way to there from here, though. So I'll take the following:

Secession from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

Secession from EU.

Commodity-based money (probably gold, but silver has historical merits), and a 100% commodity reserve.

Abolition of the Bank of England. This is the most important constriction of government power.

This automatically limits the government's power, through the inability to inflate to both cut taxes and increase spending at the same time.

All government promises must then be fulfilled from current income. As everyone hates paying more in tax to increase government spending, then government spending will be finally controlled.

This will bring an automatic increase in freedom and an automatic slashing of the client state

Then privatise everything that moves.

Then privatise everything that doesn't move.

Then privatise everything else.

Government will shrink as a result. It may even shrink to the point where we only need a tiny government, possibly even a proper Liechtenstein-style monarchy.

The further break-up of England, into Cornwall, Yorkshire, London, and the shires, all becoming independent territories (all using gold or silver standard private monies, minted and distributed by private minters - they'll probably settle on a standard fineness and weight of gold or silver - heck, they may even end up back with a silver troy pound).

Eventually, the withering away of even the tiny monarchy, though probably just kept for fun, as with the Prince of Monaco, Duke of Luxembourg, etc.

I'll be in the independent Texas by then, anyway, so good luck with however it goes! ;-)

Unlikely? Stranger things have happened at sea. It ALMOST worked once in America, until that criminal gangster George Washington got on his horse, pretending to be George IV, and crushed the whisky rebellion.

There were so close. But, alas, no cigar.

Andrew said...

So no government at all?

Jack Maturin said...

Wikipedia:

Anarcho-capitalism is an individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through compulsory taxation, and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. According to anarcho-capitalists, personal and economic activities would be regulated by the natural laws of the market and through private law rather than through politics. Furthermore, victimless crimes, and crimes against the state would be rendered moot.

A good introduction:

Democracy: The God That Failed

Or try these books, here:

Anarcho-Capitalism: Initial Bibliography

Leading Anarcho-Capitalist web sites:

HansHoppe.com
AntiWar.com
Guido Hülsmann
LewRockwell.com Blog
Libertarian Papers
Mises Economics Blog
Property and Freedom Society
StephanKinsella.com
WalterBlock.com

In the tradition of Murray Rothbard virtually all modern Austrians are anarcho-capitalists, though Mises himself was not. There are still some Hayekian Austrians, and most of these people also believe in a minimalist state.

The contention of the rest of us, is that you need to wipe government out completely, otherwise like cancer it will re-grow and re-spread from whatever remnant you leave it with.

Because once you grant any body the ability to 'rule' a territory, and the right to charge people whatever it decides, for monopolistic justice services rendered, no matter how 'constrained' by constitution, or grand charter, then it will abuse these rights and grow to become the usual governmental monster, always as big as it possibly can be.

Witness for the prosecution: The United States government. Founded in liberty and now the most dangerous rogue state in the world, with nearly a thousand major military bases in hundreds of the world's countries, after starting out with a superb initial foreign policy of no foreign entanglements.

Read through the Bibliography above.

You'll be an anarcho-capitalist in moments, especially if you can de-program your brain from the matrix that has been imposed upon it from the moment of your birth, most particularly by organs of the state, such as the state education system, and propagandists, such as the state broadcasting system, known in this country as 'The BBC', and also by state-licensed media, eg. Grauniad, Labourgraph, etc.

Alternatively, you can keep swallowing the blue pill.