You and I largely share a political philosophy… but our style shows the difference between left & right.

I agree christianity is currently better than islam in terms of political consequences (though both are full of shite). But I think it is important to point out the reason.

The reason is that too many muslims don’t interpret their religion with a post-enlightenment mentality. When they do (and when their economies develop I think they will) then islam will not be a problem. I think it’s important to make that distinction. By saying “libertarian v islam” we prevent muslims considering our ideas. By saying “libertarianism v any-sort-of-socialism (including islamic socialism)” then we are open for business with progressives like Amir Butler.

And we take another opportunity to identify socialism with something bad.

I’m happy to abuse islamic countries for their backward attitudes. When I mentioned “women voting” etc I was trying to make the point that the west was *better* because of those reforms, not worse. I’m a big defender of western civilisation, and was disagreeing with your suggestion that it was decaying.

- I believe the west progressed way ahead the rest of the world after the enlightenment and is now in decline/decay. Decline is due to a move towards socialism and rejection of individualism and reason.

- I was accusing you of having an anti-western bias and being unwilling to judge other cultures and value systems objectively. An example would be stating “unless you mean the values of “no vote for women” or “slavery” or “gay bashing” or “anti-immigration”” and equating them with the west, even in jest. I couldn’t imagine you listing these things in the context of Islam, even in jest. Don’t take this the wrong way it’s just a personal opinion! (and I consider both those traits to be popular with left-wingers (fact), and you a smelly left-wing hippy (joking ).

- Singapore isn’t a model of libertarianism. Singapore proves that free-market conservatism works. You can take a bunch of very different people with different values, religions, cultures and races and with free-market economics and strong (to brutal) social conservatism get them work together to generate wealth and conservative civil society. I personally believe that free markets feed social freedom, but in a conservative society there is an effort to prevent that liberalisation flowing from the economic sphere to the social sphere. Did you really not know this? Maybe not. What social libertarian policies have been introduced in Singapore? (And don’t use the example of legalising straight oral sex in 2007!). My understanding, and experience, is that Singapore is still socially conservative verging on the extreme.

- The only bigotry I show is toward mystic value systems, rejection of reason, tribalistic behaviour, collectivism and statism. I’m happy to stand on this bigotry as a civilised human being in the fine post-enlightenment western tradition. I don’t consider it a virtue to be nice to someone who possesses an undue amount of these traits just for the heck of being nice. You probably do. Good for you.

- As you say “It’s the interpretation that matters.”. The actual words/foundation/teaching/holy book/previous history is largely irrelevant, so unless you want to get all theological about it, why even bother with it. The interpretation and application of Christianity is largely good and has worked mostly for the benefit of human kind. So Christianity good. In its current day context if you feel you need it then go get some churchin’. The interpretation and application of Islam has been mostly destructive, and increasingly so over time. So Islam bad. In this modern age if you feel you need it then, Brother Hicks, you have me worried. Christianity can be ignored and it will probably go way. Islam has proven it needs to be dealt with in some capacity. As you say, they haven’t had their enlightenment yet, so that in itself will result in a strong tendency to making violence the way in which conflicts between value systems are resolved.

- As for the whole political parties discussion, I listened to the inaugural speech of Alex Hawke, thinking I wouldn’t like the guy as an ultra-conservative. He spoke on reducing government and it was good. I think he spoke there, but it might of been elsewhere, on Christianity and capitalism as a basis for society. I don’t hate it. I can work with it. But most importantly it offers a real means of moving forward for liberalism, and this came from an ultra-conservative. As I said, western values are in decay/decline. The fight for liberty and individualism is not going to be easy, and it’s possible the world will fall into another period of overwhelming collectivism and statism. I’m leaning toward the radical approach not being viable, and the gradual claw-back being the only way. People are not drawn to the radical cause, but if you present them with a social order that was present in the few places that liberalism flourished then we may have a way forward that has a hope of ever seeing the inside of Parliament House. In this context I see right being viable, and the left not. If you don’t get that I don’t think this is the forum to present my ideas, so I’m not wasting the time arguing it out. I’ll leave the ALS to pure libertarianism, and indeed, that’s good in itself. I just don’t think it can save us in time. And when I hear “paid maternity leave is a human right” I know times are dire!

You accuse me of “ignoring western progress”. That is idiotic. My whole point was that the west was progressing. I said this in response to your point that the west was decaying. You need to (1) take more effort at understanding english; and (2) make up your mind about whether the west is “progressing” or “decaying”.

If changing reality to fit an argument is “left-wing”, then not understanding simple english and being confused about your own argument must be “right-wing”.

Of course Singapore is not a model of libertarianism. You’re missing the point. Singapore has introduced a number of libertarian policies over the years, and they have worked. Did you really not know this?

You ask why the protectionist party didn’t join with the socialists. I already answered that. A century ago we had (roughly) a liberal democracy. Therefore, conservatives were (roughly) defending liberal democracy. Socialists wanted to change to bigger government… while “whigs” wanted smaller govt and conservatives didn’t want change. The alliance made sense. Now conservatives are defending big government, so the alliance doesn’t make sense.

This has been explained several times. I’m not sure if I can dumb it down any further. Try re-reading the paragraph several times… and if still confused then it’s probably best to give up thinking and just play footy and shoot things.

As for islam… you’re just showing your bigotry. You certainly seem intent on living up to the right-wing stereotype. Of course there is a lot of crap in the Quran. There is a lot of crap in all religion. The entire book of Joshua (6th book of the bible) is dedicated to the god-inspired mass-genocide of a relatively peaceful and free trading sub-set of the phonecean civilisation by the murderous israeli tribe. Nice. Thankfully, (most) christians have stopped killing people when they hear voices in their head… (though it took them long enough).

All religions, when put in the wrong hands, is used to justify stupid behaviour. The difference between christianity, islam, sikhism, hinduism, judaism, jainism, paganism, etc is not that some preach peace and some preach war. They all preach both when convenient and if you want to find it.

The difference is that most christian countries have embraced the values of the “enlightenment” and a large part of the muslim world still hasn’t. That is a problem and we should talk freely of the problem in the muslim world. But the problem isn’t islam itself. The problem is that the islamic world hasn’t had their enlightenment yet. This distinction is evidenced by western (enlightened) muslims like Amir Butler, who follow islam and radical libertarianism.

(regarding the quotes — you can find pro-market quotes all through the quran… and anti-market quotes in the bible… but this proves nothing. It’s the interpretation that matters.)

As for me apparently not insulting religious people… I’m sure nicholas finds that funny. I tease him all the time about believing in “sky-fairies” and following a god of genocide, confusion, jealousy and hypocracy.

So, Singapore’s a model of libertarianism now? Didn’t they just legalise oral sex……for straight couples! Guess that’s libertarian progress for ya!

I disagree that western values are decaying… unless you mean the values of “no vote for women” or “slavery” or “gay bashing” or “anti-immigration”. I didn’t like those values anyway.

Funny. I would expect to find more of all these things in non-Western countries. Next time you get to the middle east (not including Israel) I dare you to walk around hand-in-hand with a gay guy! Human rights didn’t come out of China, sweetie!

(Now you are showing a true left-wing trait – changing reality to suit your argument and ignoring true Western progress in order to portray all value systems as equal).

Australia has a similar, though watered-down, story… with the free-trade party (whigs) and protectionist party (tories) eventually merging to oppose the socialists (labor).

Why didn’t the Protectionist Party join with the socialists? Surely they had more in common? Why would they join with their nemesis, the Free Trade party? Enlighten me with your deeper understanding of history. Or heaven forbid, was there some synergy there?

It’s true that most violent religious socialists these days follow islam… but that doesn’t mean the problem is islam.

OK……..no delusions here. Yes, Temujin there are many fine versus in the Quran and we can consider the wisdom of each one. But that’s as deluded as the Galations 5:1-5 verse in the quotes section at the top of this page being somehow equated with libetarianism. Completely out of context. PS: I don’t believe in a god. I think you do, or do you just not say anti-god things as to not offend the non-christian religions?

I think we have the same definition of conservative. I was just saying that we should be happy to appeal to people from many philosophical backgrounds.

The terms “left” and “right” do not have agreed meanings, and none of the current meanings align with the traditional meanings anyway.

Very few “right-wingers” have any sympathy with actual individual freedom. They are more likely to want to invade somewhere, stop funny looking people from immigrating, oppose gay rights and get more help for pensioners than they are to argue for even simple “right-wing” issues like privatisation or free trade. (eg the NSW Libs are opposing electricity privatisation.)

But when we find a “right-winger” who does appreciate freedom, we should make sure we identify them as a philosophical friend. Yourself for instance.

Likewise… most “left-wingers” don’t have sympathy for individual freedoms. But I’ve met enough that do. And when we find them, we should identify them as a philosophical friend too. Shem for instance.

If forced to pick “left” or “right” I would call myself “left” (though many would disagree — showing the ambiguity of the term). I know plenty of others who do likewise.

This is probably a function of the people we mix with and our attitudes. When I considered myself a “right-winger” I could find lots of excuses to justify my label. When I started hanging around with different people and using a different rhetoric (while remaining radical libertarian) I found a totally different outcome. Certainly — semantics matter.

Your semantics alienates a significant group of potential libertarians… and the reason seems to be that you just have a habit of saying “left evil… right good”. This is why Australia needs to build a separate libertarian movement that avoids the rhetoric of right or left.

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Mick — Contra what you say, libertarian policies have succeeded everywhere they have been tried. 19th century UK & US… 20th century HK & Singapore… dutch social policies… taiwanese trade policies… irish tax policies… chinese property laws…

What you perhaps mean to say is that it’s currently not popular. Correct. But that has happened while libertarians have teamed up with conservatives for the past 100 years. It made sense 100 years ago when conservatives were conserving relatively free markets… but now it’s just a joke.

If the world is going to trend back to freedom, it will require people to fight for libertarian ideas. That cannot be done within the conservative movement. Our success or failure will not be measured by the votes for libertarian parties… and certainly not by votes for a conservative party… but by how policy develops in the future. I’m not sure that we will succeed — but I prefer to fight for what is right, rather than give up.

You think that 19th century UK & US was a “right-wing” movement. Not so. The libertarians of the times (“whigs”) fought against the conservatives of the time (“tories”). It was only when the socialists became a real threat that the two got together. That wasn’t so bad because the conservatives were conserving free-markets… but that has changed now.

Australia has a similar, though watered-down, story… with the free-trade party (whigs) and protectionist party (tories) eventually merging to oppose the socialists (labor).

To not see this might be personal bias or self-delusion on your part. Or perhaps you simply don’t know the first thing about history? I’ll let you decide.

You hate left-libertarianism because you don’t understand it. Right-wingers often hate things that confuse them. That’s why they’re often bigoted. It’s a shame.

I disagree that western values are decaying… unless you mean the values of “no vote for women” or “slavery” or “gay bashing” or “anti-immigration”. I didn’t like those values anyway.

But I do lament the growth of government. The conservatives have to take a large part of the blame for this. I do not (as you seem to imply) support the growth of government. Indeed, that’s why I’m fighting for libertarian ideas. You may not have noticed, but I have had a passing interest in the ALS & LDP & CIS & IPA for a while now.

I agree that enlightenment ideas came from radical and courageous thinkers. They weren’t conservatives.

As for your strange comments about buddha, you should religion to a different debate as it doesn’t help you. Especially as you believe in sky-fairies and I believe in objective reality.

Regarding war… if your problem is with people who want to control our lives by force, then the correct term would be “socialist”, not “islam”. You seem very confused.

It’s true that most violent religious socialists these days follow islam… but that doesn’t mean the problem is islam. If any group pursued violent socialism as a goal they are a problem. We need to identify the enemy correctly or we will never win. The enemy is socialism.

I don’t believe in levitation. Let me know when your sky-fairy talks to you next or when he next breaks the laws of physics.

I don’t think any of want to go to war with Islam, but I think radical Islam wants to do so with us. We need to make a clear distinction there.

I tend to feel that to appeal to the mainstream we just need to bang away at limiting the size and scope of the state – fiscally conservative, socially tolerant. I am not sure what those Liberals coming over to us are disillusioned about, but I would take an educated guess that the expansion of government and lack of fiscal responsibility would play a part.

The Liberals in my opinion have lost their way and in the process all sight of what classical liberalism is about. They will never defeat socialism by trying to outspend and out-nanny state Labor. I have held the opinion for a while, that the way forward is to have a party just based on classical liberalism with the strongly libertarian core behind us, but separate. (You’re going to give me shit over this aren’t you Temujin.)

We should try to appeal to conservatives and social democrats… but not sell out to either. I must have a different perception of the term ‘conservative’ to you, The American conservatives are in no way consistent with our values, nor are they terribly consistent with Republicanism in its true sense.

I tend to find many of the more moderate Republicans to hold views quite similar to mine, although they tend to use the term conservatism as a badge of honor, which is a mistake. Many like myself, and probably most of us hold to values of personal conservatism. This is in no way inconsistent with libertarian values.

Inconsistency doesn’t even arise if we try to persuade others to adopt those values, unless we use fear or violence to achieve the persuasion. Inconsistency does arise however if we try to have those values enforced by the state. Morality is a personal value. Virtue is only present for example if it is the chosen path in the presence of vice.

My perception of political conservatives is that they are narrow minded enough to peer through a keyhole with both eyes, want their views enforced by law, and don’t mind big government as long as it does what they want. Most of them are very bitter that Huckabee is not the nominee. It was noticeable that in his campaign he saw the state in every solution to any problem that was mentioned.

Huckabee recently did a rant in which he blamed all of the problems of the GOP on the moderates and libertarian elements within it. His supporters are currently backing a campaign initiated by John Tanton, to try to replace many of the moderates with ‘true’ conservatives. Jeff Flake had to put up a hell of a fight to keep his spot.