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From
Free Life, Issue 34, October
1999 ISSN: 0260 5112 Sir, I have just spent some time reading Free Life No.33, August 1999, and wanted to congratulate you on what is an excellent read. As an LA Gold subscriber, I am delighted that this publication now appears every month. Its insightful, informative and provocative articles always enthral and entertain me. I particularly liked your recent Editorial on the state of the Conservative Party entitled "Come Out of Her, My People". I very much hope that in the months ahead I will find the time to write for Free Life myself. It is such an excellent publication, I would expect it to inspire many other like minded individuals to put pen to paper. With best wishes for the future. Yours sincerely, Dr. Tim
Evans Sir, I wonder if you would be so kind as to cancel my subscription. I have always felt some interest in your viewpoint, if only because sometimes you were funny, in a psychopathological kind of a way. But the not quite loveable eccentricity has a sordid edge to it now, as you have chosen to associate yourself with the American gun lobby. Are you really so brainless as to sucker for their poisonous propaganda, or are you just another American agent like your beloved Tory Party? Don't answer that question, I don't want to know. Anyhow, please stop sending me your sad stream of third rate crap. Tom Sir, I write regarding your Editorial in Free Life No.33. You are without doubt one of "the good guys" in British politics and our political philosophy is almost identical. I too find the Tory Party often infuriating (I was a Conservative parliamentary candidate at the last election, a former National Chairman of the Young Conservatives etc.). Yet despite all its faults, the Tory Party is vastly preferable for free marketeers to the Labour Party. Tony Blair has raped our pension funds, has hiked taxes and is bereft of principles. Please turn your guns on New Labour - they are still infinitely worse than the Conservatives ! With kind regards. Jason
Hollands Sir, The Tory Party has survived the Glorious Revolution and the Corn Laws, I think it can survive New Labour and you. Complaining about it and hoping for a replacement is about as futile as complaining about an iceberg. The Tories are not immoral but are, like Old and New Labour, amoral. They have their own institutional imperitive for survival, and being largely independent of the state they cannot be dismantled by a Labour Government, whether or not the Government use secret service files to libel the largest donors. (Didn't hear you complaining about that abuse of state power- but as New Labour is so morally superior to the Tories then it's better not to look too closely). The point is that the Tories are likely to be here for a long, long time and due to historical accident are at the moment closer to what you and I believe than the alternative. If you are serious about the prospects of withdrawal from the EU and the restoration of clear rights to self-defence who are you going to look to, those whose rhetoric is part of the way towards it but who'll let you down most of the time, or those whose rhetoric is dead against it? I don't care whether this or that Tory is on-side, it's what they are going to be forced to do. A political party survives on fear and greed, if you can tell a party that either it's going to lose a chunk of support (in the ballot box or bank account) or will gain a chunk of support then the party will do it. They do not have the institutional barriers to a Euro-Sceptic position which they did even five years ago, and I don't believe that they are as morally attached to Europe as you seem to believe. As far as self defence goes, I believe that our biggest problem is not politicians (of either party) but hysterical public opinion; for which that morally superior bunch in New-Labour bid for with their nonsense on hand guns. I think too many people on the fringes of politics want to get rich quick, and think that they can hijack the political process by appealing to a political elite to be "on-side" without the back up of public opinion, campaign donors or potential activists. They then get bitter when their new friends in politics don't deliver- but I would say that this is the fault of the unrealistic expectations of immature "factional operators", not the fault of any impersonal political process. If someone in politics or journalism is genuinely on-side then that is an undoubted bonus, but never rely on them, ever. The route to salvation, as you have rightly said lies primarily in personal action, but this route is more and more blocked by government. People will sadly have to get their hands dirty in politics, but the way to do this is the long hard slog of identifying and mobilising sympathetic interests, and educating public opinion. It's not fun, it's not fast and it doesn't make you feel big, but it is the only way to win. A strike at the top of politics looks spectacular, but it is very rarely backed up by any long term gain. I would suggest growing up rather than thunderous denunciations, but then thundering denunciations are quicker and more immediately satisfying. Yours sincerely, James
Spencer Sir, I was struck by your Editorial in the last issue of Free Life - chiefly by how similar it is to the kinds of things people on the Left wrote about the Wilson/Callaghan years after 1970 and then after 1979. As with them, it achieves it power by serious exaggeration. I have interspersed some comments in your text. The Conservatives governed this country for 18 years. During this time, they broke every promise they made or implied. Not True - manifestly not true: for example they promised to reduce inflation, and did - eventually. They promised lower taxes. They raised taxes. Half True They raised indirect taxes - largely because of the economic costs of their idiotic economic policies of the first term. They promised a return to free enterprise. They made state control more efficient. Half True What about privatisation? In any case, out here on the left it is agreed that to achieve "free enterprise" you will need a strong state to keep the poor, unemployed etc quiet. CF miners' strike of 1984 etc. They promised more individual freedom. They made the country into a police state. Wild Exaggeration CF real police states. They promised to make the country respected abroad. They began its abolition by merger into a European federal state. Half True They certainly did "make Britain respected abroad" in certain quarters. (A combination of North Sea, Maggie's rhetoric which appealed to some people, and North Sea oil revenues.) But did they begin to abolish this "country?" You mean state, I guess, in that sentence. Even after the creation of the European super state - which by my reading is receding rather fast at the moment - the countries of France, Belgium etc will still be there. They read out speeches and signed newspaper articles promising a new dawn of classical liberalism. Not True - Well, maybe. I've read quite a bit of the Tory stuff from 1976-79 and I do not remember promises of "classical liberalism" - jeez, hardly anyone in the Shadow Cabinet on 1979 would have had faintest idea of what it was; and most would have abhorred it if they did. They promised bread, and gave us a stone. And when finally driven from office, they left a state machinery so powerful and uncontrolled by law that New Labour has in some respects felt obliged to dismantle it. Comment This is weird, because out here on the left one of the most striking things about New Labour is their acceptance of the impotence of governments and states in the face of markets/capital. New Labour think they are essentially powerless - certainly in the economic sphere. Guess it depends on where you are sitting! Best wishes, Robin Ramsay Editor,
Lobster Sir, Sorry to be contacting from beyond the grave but I hear you have been preaching against the Conservative Party for not achieving enough to gratify the libertarian cause. The real question surely is - what on earth has the Libertarian Alliance ever done in practice for the cause of liberty? At least the Conservative Party pushed through a wide range of privatisations, cut personal taxes, took on the Unions and are the most Eurosceptic Party with a vague chance of winning elections. Of course the LA has achieved a great many practical victories ie. sitting around in Brian Micklethwait's lounge drinking coffee once a month and sending junk e-mails to other libertarians - wow ! That really shows up William Hague's awful record doesn't it. What was that saying about people in glass houses not casting stone? PS Von Mises also agrees with me! Can't get in touch with Ayn Rand - she didn't believe in heaven. F.A.
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