EVERYTHING I SAY IS RIGHT
THE DEEP AND PROFOUND THOUGHTS OF CITIZEN STUART, MANCHESTER BASED LIBERTARIAN, TARGET SHOOTER AND SPACE ENTHUSIAST. EVERYTHING I SAY ON THIS BLOG IS MY OPINION, AND NOT NECESSARILY THAT OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY.
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CONGESTION CHARGES - LABOUR'S TAX ON THE WORKING CLASS
Regular readers may have noticed that there's an anti-congestion charge banner on the left hand side of my blog. To be honest, I've been meaning to blog about this issue for some time. For those who don't know, our Labour overlords are trying to impose a congestion charge on Manchester, similar to the one in London. If this goes ahead, anyone who commits the heinous act of driving into Manchester at rush hour will be charged. There's a postal referendum currently taking place on whether or not to accept this and the suspiciously well-funded pro-congestion charge lobby have been flooding the city with posters showing pictures of supposedly average people saying they'll vote for the charge because "I won't have to pay the charge when I go to see the match/when I pick up the kids from school etc." They're also promising massive improvements in public transport, and claiming that 90% of people won't have to pay the charge. I take the massive improvements in public transport bit as seriously as any politician's promise. Let's take that estimate of 10% of people who will have to pay the charge at face value. Who will be the main group of people who end up paying? People who have to be in a certain place at a certain time - in other words, people who have to be in work on time. And not everyone is going to be able to take the bus. Take myself for instance - I do a lot of temporary work, which means that an agency could phone me today and say they want me to start a job at 9.00am the following day. That job could be anywhere in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire or possibly even West Yorkshire. I'm pretty flexible about where I'm willing to work because I've got a car. If I depended on buses, I'd have to stick to the routes I know, which basically means the centre of Manchester, Middleton or a few other places. This would cripple my ability to support myself. I'm sure you won't faint with shock to learn that I've voted against this scheme. Apart from one guy, everyone I've talked to has been against congestion charging (and most of my friends don't have cars), so I'm hopeful that the referendum will go the right way. However, it is a postal ballot, and there have been problems with those in the past. We'll see. If the pro-charge statists do win this one, watch out, because it'll be coming to your town next. I also find it interesting that everywhere I drive at the moment, I seem to run into road works. It's almost a good thing I'm between jobs, those road works must cause a massive amount of congestion at rush hour. It's typical of Labour (and LibLabCon generally) that when considering Manchester's moderately bad rush hour congestion problem, their first thought is to hit the working poor with a big stick. There are plenty of non-coercive ways to reduce congestion in big cities. I remember reading an idea that the noted libertarian economist David Friedman outlined in his book "The Machinery of Freedom" years ago. His idea was that local councils could encourage car sharing by the simple method of allowing motorists to pick up passengers and charge them a set fee along specified routes (so if you're commuting into work in the mornings, you could pick up a fellow commuter at a stop and drop them off at another stop along the route). The drivers get their trip into work subsidised, the passengers get a cheap ride and there's hardly any expense setting up the scheme. That's just one idea, there are several more described on the Stop the Charge website , it's worth a look. Drivers are already paying for their tax disks and fuel duty - we don't need to be paying another tax, especially when there are better alternatives.
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IT IS LEGAL FOR THE POLICE TO KILL YOU
At least that's what I infer from Sir Michael Wright's statement to the jury in the inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, forbidding them from reaching a verdict of unlawful killing. You may think that it's up to the jury to decide whether there's a case to answer here, as they've seen the same evidence as the magistrate and should therefore be capable of reasoning it out for themselves. But apparently not - apparently the magistrate is more intelligent than the combined brainpower of a random selection of twelve citizens. In which case, what's the point of having juries at all?
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I AM SO ****ING GRATEFUL TO THE WELFARE STATE
A bit of background to my current situation: I've been in and out of work this year. Since being laid off from what was supposed to be a permanent job in January, I've been alternating periods of unemployment with various temporary jobs, though employment agencies. My last job that lasted a few months ended about two and a half weeks ago. When you're unemployed, the first day off work's a novelty, but after that it becomes a bit of a drag - especially if you've got a pile of debts, which isn't exactly an unusual situation these days. So after a fortnight out of work, I didn't mind taking a temporary job. Just two days doing a bit of data entry work that was urgently needed at a factory a few miles from where I live. The work was repetitive, but most work is, and it made a change to work in a place where people actually make things (as opposed to pushing money around or trying to sell people credit cards). I had a bit of trouble getting to work yesterday because of the snow and ice (and our useless council seem to have neglected to get the gritters out), but I still got there on time and it was an OK place to work. It made a pleasant break from the daily grind of job hunting. Of course today I'm back to being one of Brown's millions, so I had to go down to the JobCentre to declare the two days I'd earned. I was given a short statement form to fill in and sign, no problem. Then I asked the woman at the JobCentre how it would affect my JobSeeker's Allowance. She said I would be allowed to keep the first £5 from my earnings and the rest would be docked from my JSA. Wonderful. What should I do with the £5? Buy another yaught? Put an extension on the house? Really, is this is what people pay their taxes for? We have a system that is overcomplex, overexpensive and - worst of all - actually discourages people from working. I'm still not sorry I took the job, as it got me out of bed early and gave me something more productive to do than endlessly scanning the job sites, plus hopefully the agency will find me something longer term next time. Just don't try telling me that the welfare state in it's present form is there to support the poor - whatever the intentions, it's actual effect is to keep the poor in poverty by blocking them from raising themselves up. |
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THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY AGM
I had to get up early yesterday (about 10.00am) so I could drive over to York in order to attend the Libertarian Party's very first Annual General Meeting. I haven't been to York for years, so I was expecting to have trouble finding the place, especially as half the drive was through thick fog (alternating with bright sunlight, just to help my headache along), but as it turned out, finding the venue itself (the National Centre for Early Music) was easier than I expected. The difficult bit was finding a place to park up. I managed to find a car park (the most badly designed car park I've ever been in, with an extremely narrow ramp that seemed to serve as both the entrance and the exit) and I paid £7 for parking, but at least I got to the AGM in time. It was quite a nice venue (a converted church or similar) although I did half expect Christopher Lee to turn up in a cape! The meeting was reasonably well-attended, considering we're still a small party in the first year of our activities. Most of the business of the AGM was to do with approving various amendments to the party constitution - probably most important was the amendment to allow the formation of regional and local groups and branches. There was a lot of interest in doing this - it's the logical next step for a growing party - and I hope some of us in the North West of England will be able to get something going next year (watch this space). Other things on the agenda was the Treasurer's Report (we're not rich, but we're at least in the black), re-election of the National Co-ordinating Committee and the election of members to the Judicial Committee. There was a break part way through for coffee and biscuits, which provided an opportunity for a bit of socialising (and also to get my caffeine fix) and a bit of discussion about election strategy. I have to admit that I didn't make much of a contribution myself, due to a combination of tiredness and a headache (probably brought on by lack of caffeine) but at least I retained enough of my marbles to understand what everyone was saying. Overall, I thought it was a good first AGM, and a clear sign that we're becoming a serious political party. We won't storm into Paliament next year, but we all know that we're in it for the long haul, and as long as we keep making progress there's no reason why we won't get there eventually. Some of the attendees went to the boozer afterwards. I would have liked to have done this, but for various reasons (partly financial, since I'm between jobs at the moment, and partly because I hadn't had much to eat and wanted to get home and have some tea) I decided to get back to the Command Module and drive back to Manchester. Driving out of York at night in the fog turned out to be a fairly surrealistic experience, and I made at least one wrong turn, but it didn't take me too long to find my way to Leeds and then onto the M62. So although I was tired, poverty-stricken and generally feeling deathwarmeduplike, I'm glad I went. I'll go again next year if at all possible (and I expect I'll be meeting up with other LP members before then). And next year I'll hopefully be able to stay for a pint or several.
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LIBERTARIAN PARTY SUPPORTS BRITISH AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION ON ID CARDS
Libertarian Party Support For BALPA Over ID Cards Press Release .........................................
For a bit more background to this, here's a statement from BALPA about their dispute with the government: PILOTS WARN ON ID CARDS
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HOW TO GUARANTEE FAILURE
"In whatever creative activity you're involved with, perseverance doesn't ensure success, but quiting guarantees failure. So whatever you do, don't quit, and you can do just about anything - even reach the stars." Warren W. James, presenter of Mike Hodel's Hour 25 .
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PIRACY ON THE HIGH SEAS - A TRADITIONAL ANSWER TO AN OLD PROBLEM
A major news story this week (almost as prominent as the Strictly Come Dancing business) has been the hijacking of the supertanker Sirius Star by Somali pirates . The usual political talking heads have been quick to condemn this action, but a bit slow to come up with practical solutions. Sure, the areas of sea around Somalia are patrolled by various nations' navies, and they do their best (the Indians and French having done some particularly good anti-pirate work recently) but the sea's a big place and complete coverage is impossible. It's also a problem that's likely to get worse - it was bad enough when these pirates were limited to hijacking smaller craft, but now that one gang has proven the feasibility of hijacking a supertanker, how long will it be till some terrorist group has a go? Never mind ransom, imagine an oil tanker being hijacked and then either blown up or deliberately run aground in a spot where the oil spillage is likely to cause the most trouble - or a cruise liner being taken over and the crew and passengers being massacred. So, given that the military aren't going to be able to guarantee complete protection to all commercial shipping at all times, isn't it about time we went back to traditional remedies? What did they do about pirates a couple of hundred years ago, apart from getting the navy to hunt them down and hanging them when caught? What did they do in addition to military action and the legal process? They allowed merchant ships to arm themselves. Can you think of any sensible reason why the same can't be done today? OK, the owner of your typical African fishing boat isn't going to be able to afford much in the way of defensive hardware, but even just an AKM or a shotgun or two could well be enough to at least give them a chance of scaring off any gang of scumbags who try to board them. As far as oil tankers go - well, their owners can basically afford any level of protection short of a carrier escort. Just as an example, imagine if the captain of the Sirius Star had had a locker full of automatic or semi-automatic rifles ready to distribute to his crew in case of trouble. Better still, I don't see any reason a ship like that couldn't carry a bit of light artillery, of the sort appropriate for blowing attack boats out of the water. I'm sure the UN would hate the idea, since individual and voluntary collective action for self defence is basically against its dominant statist ideology, and gun-grabbers everywhere would faint with shock at the very thought of it. So I don't see a downside. Unless you're a pirate.
Really, wouldn't it look nicer with a couple of gun turrets?
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