Liberty: it's an easier sell than you'd think
Something really quite bizarre happened to me today. I was on a BBC political programme – Daily Politics; (My section is exactly 18 minutes in) I was up against a very wily politician, Ken Livingstone; I was being interviewed by a presenter who, in characteristic BBC style, was almost certainly way to the left of me and keen to brand me as the heartless, uncaring, right-wing, public school toff I’m actually not. Yet somehow, amazingly, I emerged from the experience without the usual sensation of feeling so riddled with disgust and disappointment and self-hatred that I wanted to die.
But why?
Well I think it might have something to do with the fact that speaking up for liberty generally and small government in particular is a much easier sell than defending any ideas that smack of Conservativism or being right wing. And I think, furthermore, there may be a lesson here for all those disaffected MPs in Dave Cameron’s pretend Tory party who are absolutely sick to death of their leader’s EU sell-outs, his rejection of tax cuts, his ring-fenced NHS and DFID spending, and his evident belief that it’s the State’s job to “improve” our lives and boss us around: liberty is a very good way of outflanking your opponents.
“So I suppose you’d want guns legalised, like in America?” asked Red Ken. Yes, I agreed.
“And what about drugs?”. Well I’d certainly legalise marijuana, I said.
I don’t think he knew quite what to say.
And I talked about one of the many aspects of Livingstone’s stint as Mayor of London which annoyed me: his crappy Rock Against Racism concerts – staged, of course, at our expense for our benefit. But we don’t need the Mayor of London to tell us that “raaaacism” is bad, I think I said. And we don’t need the Mayor of London to take our hard-earned money and then spend it on our behalf on rubbishy concerts we don’t want to see. “I don’t believe in bread and circuses”, I said.
Easily the most intelligent, articulate political commentary I hear these days comes from people who class themselves as libertarian. It’s the most joined-up political philosophy I’ve ever come across. It’s attractive on a personal, emotional level because it’s pro-human, pro-freedom, pro-the-little-man-against-the-big-bullying-state; and it’s attractive on an intellectual level because it’s based on empiricism, on what actually works as opposed to what ought to work, on how real people choose to live their lives rather than on how government can best implement its latest whacko new scheme to help imaginary people live their lives in a way some interfering wonk thinks might be better for them.
In America, thanks to the Tea Party, they have grown much better at articulating some of these ideals. And yes, admittedly, they have a head start because it has been written into their DNA and constitution since the Revolution; and also because they’ve flirted with this sort of concept before thanks to great men like Calvin Coolidge, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, as well as because of the Founding Fathers. But that’s no excuse for writing libertarianism and the Tea Party philosophy off as an American thing that could never happen over here.
Of course it could. But before the political revolution happens we need the intellectual one. Just as Thatcherism was invented not by Thatcher but by out-there clever clogs at places like the Centre for Policy Studies, so we need more people first to read up and understand why libertarianism is such a perfect political philosophy and then speak up unashamedly on behalf of its many virtues.
We need to free our minds, people. Then maybe, just maybe, our arses will follow. And drive the wretched Camerons, Milibands and Livingstones of this world into the eternal wilderness.
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