Brian Micklethwait on winning libertarian arguments … topical in view of a slight but encouraging shift towards a less headlong fall into absolutism.

Libertarian Alliance Showcase Publication No 3:

David Davis

My good old friend Brian wrote “How to Win the Libertarian Argument” in 1990.

The capture of City Hall by Boris Johnson, commented on below by Sean, is a smaller and less discouraging step towards the abyss of a fully-tyrannised Britain than might have been the case, had Dread Ken won again – or anybody else for that matter. Three election victories and his bumptious self-importance would have been totally insufferable – not to mention the further inevitable slides down into the cesspool of Cubanised stalinism.

Granted that there is of course now a proper Libertarian Party in the UK for the first time, Conservatives ought also to mind their real liberal roots more, come out, and believe in a more libertarian foundation for their policies.

Here’s Brian starting off (the link is above):-

 

The first rule for winning the libertarian argument is that you

must have it.

That sounds fairly obvious, does it not? Yet how many times

must we libertarians listen to self-styled “practical” and “realistic”

comrades, who tell us that the way to argue for the

abolition of income tax or the legalisation of heroin or the

abolition of compulsory education is to start these arguments

by arguing instead for the lowering of income tax by two per

cent, the legalisation of marijuana, and the introduction of

education vouchers. The idea is that having bought these

mild and diluted versions of libertarianism, people will then

be drawn into accepting the more “extreme” manifestations

of libertarianism, as if being enticed into the back room of a

pornography shop.

 

Read more…….

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