Organising your feeds

How do you organise your feeds? If like me you have loads of the things, you can't just sling them all on a single page. Well you could, I suppose, but it wouldn't be very easy to work with would it? In some ways this is like the old and rather important question that perplexed us as teenagers of how to organise the record collection. Alphabetically? By genre? Or perhaps like David Davis's books, there's always the "artistic" approach of organising by size and colour. In my teenage years my system was very much equivalent to slinging my RSS feeds on a single page - in other words my records were generally flung around the living room floor or piled up in a corner.

Nowadays I'm much more organised, and my RSS feeds are organised into tabs - one for liberals, one for statists, one for the rest of the political sites, plus tabs for specialists, two covering the different sides of the climate debate, plus one each for reference sites and things related to my work.

Who should go on the liberals tab is a tricky problem, and there are many sites I waver over. Particularly tricky are the Liberal Democrat blogs. LibDems all seem to know that they are supposed to be economic liberals as well as social liberals, but they are just to wedded to their statism to let go completely.  There are a lot of sites with the word liberal in their titles on the Statists tab. There are exceptions though - Jock, Liberty Alone, Tom Papworth to name a few. Here's a new one, recently promoted from the ranks of the "others", and blogging up a storm at the moment too - Charlotte Gore. Well worth a read.

Adam Smith in bronze

The long-awaited statue of Adam Smith is due to be unveiled in Edinburgh next month at a ceremony on the Royal Mile. To mark the occasion the ASI has organised a debate on the motion that "This house would prefer to be led by the invisible hand". For the motion will be Michael Forsyth, Madsen Pirie and a former world debating champion. Against are MPs Brian Wilson (Lab) and Alex Neil (SNP) together with a former Observer Mace champion.

Who knows, I might even drag myself away from my rural idyll for one of these.

For anyone interested, the details are:

RECEPTION AND DEBATE Thursday 3 July 2008 In The Caves, 8-12 Niddry Street South, Edinburgh EH1 1NS (off Cowgate) 6.30pm for 7pm

UNVEILING OF THE ADAM SMITH STATUE Friday 4 July 2008 High Street, Edinburgh, near Parliament Square and the Mercat Cross 12.00 noon for 12.15pm.

Great illiberals of the past - Locke and Mill

Stephen Tall has added his name to the list of those who think that David Davis can't possibly be a liberal because of his support for the death penalty.

I was amused to see that a commenter on Stephen's piece points out that one of the prominent supporters of the death penalty was none other than John Locke, who opined:

Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. 

Chris Dillow, a man who is never likely to be mistaken for a Tory, has also posted at length on this subject and, rather amusingly for me, calls in his support none other than John Stuart Mill, who apparently said:

I defend this [the death] penalty, when confined to atrocious cases, on the very ground on which it is commonly attacked-on that of humanity to the criminal; as beyond comparison the least cruel mode in which it is possible adequately to deter from the crime…What comparison can there really be, in point of severity, between consigning a man to the short pang of a rapid death, and immuring him in a living tomb, there to linger out what may be a long life in the hardest and most monotonous toil, without any of its alleviations or rewards--debarred from all pleasant sights and sounds, and cut off from all earthly hope, except a slight mitigation of bodily restraint, or a small improvement of diet?

As I've said in an earlier posting, many people seem to mistake "views commonly held by liberals" with liberalism itself. All these Liberals are going to have to explain to me how a the holding of a view that was shared by the two greatest philosophers of the liberal movement can be diagnostic of not being a liberal at all.

More Illiberal Democrats

Amazing to read that a Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Carlise, is arguing that national security is a civil liberty is truly remarkable.

Will Nick Clegg throw him out of the party? 

Why do the LibDems think we should be in the EU?

A LibDem MEP called Chris Davies bemoans his colleagues decision to hide the EU Auditors' report on the Union's finances over on Comment is Free.

"Taxpayers could be forgiven for believing that there are more honest people to be found in prison than sit in the European parliament." This was my comment after MEPs voted on Tuesday by majorities of more than 2:1 to prevent publication of auditors' reports that reveal the flagrant misuse of public money by some.

All very commendable, I'm sure, particularly as Mr Davies appears to have put himself in the firing line by standing up in this way. It's probably just as well that he's an elected representative though. If he were a humble (or even a not-so-humble) eurocrat he would have found himself out on his ear long before this.

It's amazing how the political classes keep up their support for the EU in the face of every scandal, every destructive regulation, every cock-eyed directive that emerges from the doors of the EU edifice. I never understand how the LibDems can bring themselves to join the happy throng singing the praises of the supranational joys of rule from Brussels.

Whichever way you look at it, Brussels is delivering the opposite of liberalism. For the LibDems to support it makes no sense. Brussels gives us centralised government and big government. Really big. This is supersized government with extra fries and a stonking great tub of lard to dip them in. All served up in a gilded trough that will tickle the fancy of even the most discerning snout.

"But don't worry!", say the LibDems. "The EU will change. We are working to change it.They are coming round to our way of doing things."

And what about the corruption? As Mr Davies failed to point out, the EU auditors have now refused to sign off the Union's accounts for thirteen years on the trot. "Ah, but the corruption is taking place in member states", say the LibDems. "Don't worry, they'll change. We're working hard on it."

And the lunacy of EU governance. What about that? The Common Agricultural Policy, The Common Fisheries Policy, The Reach directive, The Biofuels Obligation? "Don't worry. They'll see things our way soon", say the LibDems. "There are new faces in European capitals. An opportunity is coming to change the EU for the better."

After all these years, and with what? nothing to show for the LibDems' persuasive powers at all? it all rings rather hollow, wouldn't you say?

Liberal Youth

According to this, the LibDem youth wing is to be relaunched as Liberal Youth. They were previously called Lib Dem Youth and Students.

Is there any significance in the party dropping the "Dem" bit from the party name. Are they to be liberals, pure and simple, and not just another more-than-usually-woolly social democrat party?  If you look at their policy documents they still seem to be the old orgy of tax and spend that have characterised the party's platform of recent years. There is, however a suggestion that the whole range of policies will be revamped following the relauch. Let's hope so, but let's not hold our breath either, shall we?

The answer to global warming

...is central planning and management by target. According to this LibDem, anyway.

Plus ca change.....

....plus c'est la meme chose.

Jock Coats, commenting on the previous post, says that he's sticking with the LibDems as he believes they are becoming more liberal.

Meanwhile, Eaten by Missionaries notes that Nick Clegg's first act as leader of the LibDems is to propose banning something. (Advertising directed at children, since you ask).

Some more thoughts on the Lib Dem leadership

Liberal England is pondering the positions of the "Lib"Dem candidates on the subject of education. It appears that here at least there are some differences in their outlook, with Huhne speaking out against them:

But we should not fool ourselves that either insurance or vouchers will improve the quality or the fairness of public services. They will certainly do nothing, unlike local democratic control, for community responsibility and cohesion.

So if I understand it correctly, in Mr Huhne's opinions, the answer to the shambles of the education system is to make local bureaucrats answer to local politicians. It's funny, but I can't actually think of a single instance of this arrangement, in any area of public life, actually working. You have to wonder if he's on the same planet as the rest of us.

Meanwhile, Clegg is mildly in favour of education vouchers, but is not persuaded that ignorant proles should be allowed to use them outside state schools. So his position appears to be that shuffling children around between different state schools is the answer to all our problems. State monopolies are fine so long as you can get a crappy education at whichever school you like.

It's amazing that these men, who aspire to lead the party of Mill, seem to be blind to the possibility that liberalisation might actually solve some of the problems. I mean, if the LibDems aren't going to suggest liberal policies, what is the point of them?

Jonathan signs off thusly:

So it seems that both leadership candidates are going to disappoint me.

 Me too.

What's it got to do with him anyway?

So Gordon has pulled the plug on a plan to allow councils to run pay-as-you-go rubbish collecting schemes.

I've got mixed feelings about it really. Yes, the councils would have gone price-rise crazy. It would have been unpopular with voters.

But why on earth does a local council have to ask central government how it should deal with rubbish collection anyway?

Incredible popular delusions and the madness of statists

Another week, another round of stories of failure in the public services.

On Wednesday, OFSTED reported that half of all secondary schools fail to give children a good education. Today come stories of patients flying to eastern Europe for dental treatment, something that at least appears to be rather more comfortable than the alternative approach of extracting ones own teeth with a pair of pliers.

To someone from the developed world - you know, somewhere like America or Singapore- the medieval barbarities of modern Britain must be truly shocking. Here they seem to be viewed as "just the way things are". Take the Liberal Democrat response to school failure. Their spokesman, David Laws, who is alleged to be on the right of the party, seems to think that the problem will be solved by

a new educational standards authority and a genuine devolution of the power to innovate to all schools.

When you think about it, this is utterly bizarre. The education system is in crisis, and is failing children absolutely, and all  the party can come up with is a new layer of bureaucracy and a bit of local decision-making.

And while the political parties micturate into the wind and dream of shiny new bureaucracies, the public shrugs its collective shoulders.

Can nobody out there beyond a few bloggers ask the fundamental questions of why a state monopoly is the only acceptable answer to the question of who should deliver health and education in the UK? Why does nobody in the MSM write about Singapore-style healthcare accounts or Swedish-style education vouchers? Why are the public not clamouring for them? It's as though the whole country is operating under a mass delusion - a mirage of a wonderful world in which the man in Whitehall does actually give a fig about what consumers want, and that a state-run monopoly does actually deliver a half-decent service.

In the book from which this posting borrows its title, the delusion is always shattered, the bubble burst by the sudden realisation that it is just that - a delusion. Tulips are not worth a fortune, investors loose their shirts, the scams are seen through. Eventually people will see through the "public services" scam too. A straw will blow in on the wind and the camel's back will be broken.

When that will happen is anyone's guess. Only a few lonely voices are calling for fundamental change. But until they are heard, a lot more childen will remain illiterate and a lot more people will suffer or die for lack of treatment. 

Huhne

Guido notices the launch of the Chris Huhne for leader website, and wonders how they managed to put it together so quickly after the departure of the Minger.

It's not entirely clear what he means by the the two sentences in his byline, but I can probably guess. By "A fairer society" he means "take money from people who have earned it and give it to people who vote for me". I think it's reasonable to assume that he doesn't adhere to the Walter Williams school of social justice:

I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?"

In other words, Huhne is making a direct appeal to the socialist side of his party. Let's have more government intervention, chaps. Viva la revolucion!

Sentence two is an appeal to the liberals. "People in charge" tickles the tummies of all the small government types without actually promising anything. It's presumably meant to conjure up visions of devolved power, with perhaps a frisson of individualism, but at the end of the day it's vague enough to mean just about anything between anarcho-capitalism and a Lib-Dem junta.

Assuming though that this second bit is meant to convey a small government message, do you think the contradiction with the first, statist sentence has occurred to anyone in the party or do you think it was planned?

Harsh liberalism

Jock Coats has a very good article up on what he calls the "neo-puritans" - those who would roll back relaxation of the cannabis laws, twenty-four hour drinking and so on.

On drugs, Ming and Clegg should speak out right now, while the issue is to the fore, about our own party policy for decriminalization and social supply of cannabis and a full commission on the best way to handle all drugs in future.

We know that up to 80% of property crime at least in some places is related to the illegal drugs industry. We can wipe that out almost entirely almost instantly, and save billions - perhaps the equivalent of a fifth of the public sector budget.

With the savings we can be harsher on people who use their new freedoms to harm others.

Which is the crux of the matter of course. When Joe Public sees people fighting and puking in the streets at two in the morning, or selling drugs of streetcorners, his natural reaction is that twenty-four hour drinking is a nonsense. He wants to see the status quo ante restored and views any argument to the contrary as, well, liberalism gone mad. So when Jock says that we can be "harsher" on people who abuse their new freedoms, he's right, but this point needs to be expanded. The whole argument will be shot down in flames unless it is explained to people why it will be safe to go out on the streets at night after the repeal of the drugs laws. What exactly is the proposal for dealing with drunken yobs? Why will drugs not be sold at my childrens' school gates?

Personally, I would be in favour of corporal punishment, something that Chris Dillow argued for recently. I would have thought the reintroduction of the birch or the stocks would concentrate even the dullest minds among drunks and drug peddlers, and it would certainly reassure people that a liberal approach was not the same as anarchy.

Harsh punishment for people who abuse their freedoms is probably a necessary condition for a free society. We can have puritanism and soft punishments, or freedom and harsh ones. Proper liberals need to demonstrate that they understand this. Until they do they will be written off as "woolly liberals" by society at large. 

Illiberalism breeds illiberalism (again)

Guido and Iain Dale both stick the boot in to the senile old git leader of the (allegedly) Liberal Democrats. Once again, they've seen a problem caused by illiberalism and have adopted a policy of further illiberalism to deal with it. One really does wonder whether they can mention their own party's name without putting their tongues in their cheeks. (Perhaps they should rename themselves the "Liberal" Democrats or even the LiberalDemocrats).

The latest wheeze is to only permit farmers to sell development land to the council. It will be for a "fair" price, of course - apparently ten times the agricultural value is what the Commisar party feels it's worth. It's so illiberal I don't know where to start. Do the People's Revolutionary Liberal Democrats not understand the point of private property? That it underpins free societies? Can they not see that they are simply proposing an extension of the corruption that already engulfs the planning process - the land will simply be sold on to the developer who pays the largest bribes. (Hmm, the Liberal Revolutionary Democrat Fraction are big in local government aren't they?- perhaps I'm beginning to understand their thinking. No doubt it has also crossed their minds that the price of agricultural land is falling while development land is rising in price, so the politicians' cut should grow quite nicely in future).

Jock Coats reckons that farmers are currently engaging in rent seeking (see comment at 1.22, here). This is utterly bizarre. The state removes people's ability to do what they want with their own land, and if they try to get that right back again they are rent-seeking? Whose land is it anyway, Trotsky?

Someone called Tim Leunig (apparently from the LSE) describes the policy as "liberal and localist" (comment at 4.44 here). This is quite frankly, crap. It is simply an abomination of the language to describe price fixing as "liberal". It's liberal in the same way as incomes policies were liberal and look at the damage they did. (And don't try to impress me with Michael Gove thinking they're a good idea either - pointing me at another bunch of statists makes my case better than it does yours, Mr Leunig).

Let me spell it out. Scrap the bloody planning laws and let people build where houses are needed. (And I say this as someone who has just bought a house next to a field which may well get planning permission for the local landowner to build a load of houses on). 

Liberal Democrats - pah! The Labour party with jaundice, more like.

Lib Dems forget the Liberal bit

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have outlined what they will do if they win power after the May elections to the Scottish Parliament. This was a wonderful opportunity for Nicol Stephen to show us that the party could stand apart from the others as the voice of economic and social liberalism.

The BBC reports the considered thoughts of the cream of Scottish LibDemmery here. The main policy positions are:

• Recruit 1,000 new community police officers
• Scrap the graduate endowment
• 100% of electricity to be generated from renewables by 2050.
• 100 new and refurbished community health centres.
• Smaller class sizes as well as new teachers and sports coaches.
• An entitlement for all two-year-olds to have up to 15 hours a week in a supervised playgroup.

So to sum it all up in a sentence, the "Liberal" Democrats actually plan to make the state quite a lot bigger. Well, when you look at the renewable energy position, the "Liberal" Democrat position might be characterised more precisely as "meaning to make the state absolutely colossal". To acheive this they are going to have to raise taxes to pip-squeaking levels - this is going to need massive subsidies. I'm not sure the 3% leeway the Treasury allows the Scottish executive over tax rates will actually be sufficient to cover the funding gap. Certainly the sop that Stephen offers to business of a cut in business rates is going to be a drop in the ocean when it comes to trying to stop an exodus of talent and business south of the border.

Brian Micklethwait, in a discussion on 18 Doughty Street the other day, said that he thought the Liberal Democrats had become slightly more Liberal recently. From this sorry, sorry announcement from the Scottish party, it's very hard to see this.