LP “Statism wrong and unsustainable.”

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. – Daniel Hannan (Devalued Prime Minister speech)

In Australia our eco-friendly government has massively increased the size of the public service, much of it in the area of environmental authoritarianism. They are forever banging on about ‘sustainability’ and the need for studies to be done on the issue. There has never been an inquiry though on whether the size of the government we have, is in itself sustainable.

The LP’s Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the Libertarian National Committee has raised the issue in reference to the S&P downgrade:

I’m sure you have heard the news about the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating.

I’m not a finance expert, so I don’t know exactly how important the downgrade itself is. I think it’s one more sign of what Libertarians have known for a long time: the Democrats and Republicans have created a giant welfare-warfare state that is beginning to collapse under its own weight. And I see no sign that they are going to change their behavior. 



Rumour false; UKIP / LPUK confusion.

During the last 24 hours reports emerged from the US indicating that the Libertarian Party of the UK was being deregistered and that the United Kingdom Independence Party was inviting their members to join them.

This seems to have been caused by the following notice on the UKIP website:

UKIP Welcomes Libertarian Party Members.

Following news of the proposed deregistration of the Libertarian Party of the UK, UKIP Executive Chairman Steve Crowther has said that the party will extend a warm welcome to former LPUK members who wish to join or rejoin UKIP.

“The values and beliefs of UKIP and the Libertarian Party are very closely aligned,” he said.

“While we may not agree on everything, our shared commitment to freedom, personal responsibility and minimal government interference in our lives is absolutely clear. UKIP is a party making real progress, under a new management team, and is now firmly established as the ‘fourth force’ in British politics. 
”Now is the time for all libertarians to put our shoulders to the same wheel. Former LPUK members will be able to make a valuable contribution to our mission to wrest power from the political elites in this country, and hand it back to the people.”

A check of the LPUK website reveals that there has been something of an upheaval, with three members of the National Coordinating Committee resigning in the wake of an internal inquiry which revealed no wrongdoing but criticized some of the practices as sloppy. While these people have expressed a wish to deregister the party, it is not happening. A posting from the Nominations and Membership Secretary, Simon Fawthrop, states:

The Government bubble.

On a recent post, I received a comment from Jack McHugh that caught my attention stating:  

 “The grievance is chronic fiscal irresponsibility, now become acute fiscal extremism.

 The target is an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating and bipartisan political class that no longer represents the will of the people.

 The goal is to send that political class packing and restore genuine representative government, with whatever policy implications that entails. (I wish I’d said that no. 45,648.)

 In following up I arrived at The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which in their own words “is a nonpartisan research and educational institution devoted to improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens. The Center assists policy makers, business people, the media and the public by providing objective analysis of Michigan issues and by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions from a free market perspective.” 

 In their Blog I found an article; “The Government Bubble” by Joseph G. Lehman which reminded me of a post “Do you believe in bubbles,” by Terje, and another, “Herd instinct and Crowds,” by Ron Kitching, which is about a different book but a similar theme, (crowd mentality.) For this reason I thought it might be of interest.

The Government Bubble

(Note: The following commentary appears as the President’s Message in the Spring 2009 issue of “Impact,” the Mackinac Center’s newsletter.) .