Too right wing for a Libertarian

[Marmora Man]

Is Mr Shelbrooke MP stupid? What matters more is how stupid he thinks we are. His proposal to restrict access to booze & fags for those receiving welfare benefits is insultingly worthless to achieve his stated end.

Make his proposal law, and, if If I'm on the jobseekers, and I want a drink or a smoke, all I'll have to do is buy half a dozen chicken legs for a friend, who will then buy me a bottle of own brand gin or a packet of twenty.

Also, how are shopkeepers to know who's on benefits unless we're all kitted out with ID cards that will let anyone and everyone know our employment status?

Or, if the unemployed are to be paid by giving them some kind of charge card, it will simply be another step towards the abolition of cash transactions.

Another point worth making is that being out of work or generally poor and on benefits is no fun. It's plain sadism to try blocking those on benefits from drowning their sorrows.

By all means, cut down on systematic fraud by largely foreign gangs and by those working inside the welfare system. Also, make it easier for people to get off welfare - by cutting taxes on low pay and cutting regulations on micro-businesses. But leave the genuinely helpless to enjoy the few pleasures that are still not illegal.

[Otta]

I'd not heard about this, but the whole putting added pressure on the unemployed in order to somehow convince them that getting a job would be a good idea is just ridiculous. Yes there are SOME people who will happily sign on, whilst earning off the book, and living quite well, but for the most part people are desperate to climb out of their situation.

The idea you outline put me in mind of Compulsory income management in Australia. Indigenous Australians treated like shit, not welcome in a lot of work places, turn to drink because life is so crap, and then get told the government are going to give you food vouchers instead of money.

[DaveR]

Isn't the point here that the proposals are the opposite of libertarian (as well as being stupid and offensive)? A nanny state is still a nanny state even where nanny turns out to be over strict and kind of joyless.

[Loz]

To answer the question posed in the title... to me, 'libertarianism' transcends simple left/right politics. But as you go too far left or right, the chances of the person being libertarian greatly diminishes.

[Marmora Man]

To clarify - I generally take a libertarian stance. For a majority of EDF readers Libertarianism is roughly equivalent to a s wiggle eyed, right wing, carpet munching Europhobe.

I wanted to draw attention to the fact that my kind of libertarianism is the more nuanced and liberal kind that prefers small government with a minimum of state interference.

[El Pibe]

"carpet munching"?!!?!?

are you sure about that?

[Otta]

HAHAHA, Good spot El Pibe! MM, I think we can safely say that no one on this forum has ever thought of you as a carpet muncher!

[Huguenot]

Never really saw libertarianism as a conservative ideal.

I'm sure there are many overlapping objectivess which could make them uneasy bedfellows, but British conservatism is obsessed with natural order and hierarchy, authority and control.

[Loz]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Never really saw libertarianism as a conservative ideal.

>

> I'm sure there are many overlapping objectivess which could make them uneasy bedfellows, but

> British conservatism is obsessed with natural order and hierarchy, authority and control.

But you could also quite easily argue that the left wing is also obsessed with authority and control, in fact more so. Which is why I argue that libertarianism transcends simple left/right politics.

[El Pibe]

As I've said, libertarianism is about freedom to behave as libertarians would like everyone too.

There's no sense of irony because they see as other behaviour as an aberration from the norm, therefore allowing it is the opposite of liberal behaviour it's specifically enabling perversion therefore against the freedom of those who wish to live free from aberration.

Funny really.

I consider myself a common or garden liberal, live and let live i say.