Sunday, January 29
Liberalism: A double-edged sword
UK: PARTIES, IDEOLOGIES
While I do have a lot of respect for the sincerity of the Lib Dems, I feel that their party's position is often contradictory or untenable. At the core is a belief in freedom, but trying to apply it to policies and to parliamentary votes leaves the party with a huge question that has divided the party since it began. No, I should say it was a rift that was crudely bridged but never healed. What the Lib Dems are divided over is this: Does freedom mean government stepping back and letting people do what they want, or does it mean government standing up for people's rights? Mr Oaten (before he ceded in the leadership contest) mentioned the free vote on smoking, saying it's his view that liberalism means government shouldn't stop people from smoking (or at least, he was on the smokers' side in that particular vote - I don't think he's in favour of zero regulations). The problem is that a commitment to freedom can also be read as "non-smokers should be free from suffering because of the unhealthy decisions of smokers". Smoking is not an individual issue or an individual's right any more than it is my right to play incredibly loud music at 2 am in a residential area.
A government that believes in freedom must be ready to protect the freedom of its citizens. That's why we have police, that's why we have laws. The law and the government is there to intervene when one person's freedom impinges on another's: in situations like this, Liberalism often can't help. The way I see it, this is where the SDP element of the Lib Dems steps in and says "There's no use declaring people's rights and freedom if we're not going to protect them in some way".
When the Lib Dems elect their leader, they need to set out the basis for the Lib Dem's voice in Parliament. Either they pick a traditional Liberal Party stance, alienate the SDP members, and lose seats to Labour in the cities, they go for the SDP line, and create an alternative Labour Party - which risks losing southern seats to the Tories (although with Cameron in, that may happen anyway)... unless they realise that the Lib Dems' position can only realistically be maintained by arguing for both kinds of freedom, and accept that to get to grips with any policy, we have to understand and both sides and weigh them up appropriately. If you pursue that ideology with vigour, you will end up with a strong Lib Dem Party with a clear message. Start to make claims towards a traditional Liberal laissez-faire ideology, and you have got to either dump most of the protection of freedom policies or lead a party into an election with a gaping inconsistency in your manifesto. Michael Howard claimed the Lib Dems were trying to be "all things to all people", and said that any attempt to form a clear policy would destroy them because of it. The challenge of the next leader will be to turn a party formed of many local strongholds into a national party with a single message, a party that is one thing to all people.
UK: PARTIES, IDEOLOGIES
While I do have a lot of respect for the sincerity of the Lib Dems, I feel that their party's position is often contradictory or untenable. At the core is a belief in freedom, but trying to apply it to policies and to parliamentary votes leaves the party with a huge question that has divided the party since it began. No, I should say it was a rift that was crudely bridged but never healed. What the Lib Dems are divided over is this: Does freedom mean government stepping back and letting people do what they want, or does it mean government standing up for people's rights? Mr Oaten (before he ceded in the leadership contest) mentioned the free vote on smoking, saying it's his view that liberalism means government shouldn't stop people from smoking (or at least, he was on the smokers' side in that particular vote - I don't think he's in favour of zero regulations). The problem is that a commitment to freedom can also be read as "non-smokers should be free from suffering because of the unhealthy decisions of smokers". Smoking is not an individual issue or an individual's right any more than it is my right to play incredibly loud music at 2 am in a residential area.
A government that believes in freedom must be ready to protect the freedom of its citizens. That's why we have police, that's why we have laws. The law and the government is there to intervene when one person's freedom impinges on another's: in situations like this, Liberalism often can't help. The way I see it, this is where the SDP element of the Lib Dems steps in and says "There's no use declaring people's rights and freedom if we're not going to protect them in some way".
When the Lib Dems elect their leader, they need to set out the basis for the Lib Dem's voice in Parliament. Either they pick a traditional Liberal Party stance, alienate the SDP members, and lose seats to Labour in the cities, they go for the SDP line, and create an alternative Labour Party - which risks losing southern seats to the Tories (although with Cameron in, that may happen anyway)... unless they realise that the Lib Dems' position can only realistically be maintained by arguing for both kinds of freedom, and accept that to get to grips with any policy, we have to understand and both sides and weigh them up appropriately. If you pursue that ideology with vigour, you will end up with a strong Lib Dem Party with a clear message. Start to make claims towards a traditional Liberal laissez-faire ideology, and you have got to either dump most of the protection of freedom policies or lead a party into an election with a gaping inconsistency in your manifesto. Michael Howard claimed the Lib Dems were trying to be "all things to all people", and said that any attempt to form a clear policy would destroy them because of it. The challenge of the next leader will be to turn a party formed of many local strongholds into a national party with a single message, a party that is one thing to all people.
# posted by Phugebrins @ 12:08 
