Thoughts on Freedom

Australian Libertarian Society Blog

They got one thing right

… and it wasn’t the bit about renewables.

June 19, 2008 - Posted by TerjeP (say tay-a) | General | | 16 Comments

16 Comments »

  1. [...] for Get Up (more failed socialist economics), but as Terje over at Thoughts on Freedom points out, they got one thing right. [...]

    Pingback by skepticlawyer » Pointless populism, parts #3 & 17 | June 19, 2008

  2. Get Up is just a front for Labor normally, so this is refreshing.

    Comment by DavidLeyonhjelm | June 20, 2008

  3. Didn’t they have candidates in the senate in the last election?

    Comment by Ben | June 20, 2008

  4. >> Get Up is just a front for Labor normally, so this is refreshing.

    What a load of crap!

    Comment by James | June 20, 2008

  5. Yes GetUp are a bunch of socialists, but I think there’s room for a libertarian version of them.

    It could be called HandsOff!, like GetUp! it would be non-partisan, but would campaign against givernment regulation, interference, and nanny statism.

    Comment by Papachango | June 21, 2008

  6. James, you are kidding yourself if you think GetUp isn’t a labour front.

    Comment by Mark Hill | June 21, 2008

  7. I don’t think GetUp are a Labor front, at least not explicitly. I would call them more of a socialist front.

    They probably have a few Labor people in there, but I reckon many more would be Greens and Socialist Alliance supporters.

    They campaigned pretty hard for Labor in the leadup to the election because they hated Howard, but now Rudd’s in he’s not socialist enough for them.

    Comment by Papachango | June 21, 2008

  8. People here seeing GetUp through left-right, capitalist-socialist, lib-lab, libertarian-interventionist prisms are sprouting the kinds of C20 nonsense that has got us as far up shit creek as we are.

    All we’ve seen here is rational video, timely and well-made, from an organisation that is is more issues-based than ideological and (relatively) more bottom-up than top-down.

    Comment by Alphonse | June 21, 2008

  9. Just because GetUp is bottom-up and issues-based, doesn’t mean they don’t hold political positions that can be identified. They have clearly and consistently supported policies which involve more government involvement and a distrust of voluntary coordination. That means they are interventionist. It is therefore not surprising that many GetUp members are Green/ALP supporters.

    While a libertarian version would be nice, there aren’t enough libertarians. It’s difficult enough to fill up a few groups and one political party… let alone proposing that we spread our efforts even thinner. If libertarians want to help they should support a current group, not create yet another micro-group.

    Comment by Temujin | June 21, 2008

  10. While a libertarian version would be nice, there aren’t enough libertarians. It’s difficult enough to fill up a few groups and one political party…

    Comment by Temujin | June 21, 2008

    I reckon you’d be surprised if you got out there and spread the message a bit more. You might find a fair few who are libertarians without knowing it.

    Here you need to take a leaf from Getup’s book.

    It’s ironic really, for an organisation that generally opposes the marketing practices of corporates (and possibly marketing in general as a tool of capitalism), the one thing that GetUp does quite well is market itself.

    Comment by Papachango | June 21, 2008

  11. I think GetUp are probably best defined as a political activism group who aim to get leftist governments in power and keep them in power, while continuing to lobby them for their own pet causes.

    This makes them in practice, if not in theory, a Labor front.

    Comment by TimT | June 25, 2008

  12. There probably is room for a libertarian version of GetUp though. I’d join that.

    Comment by TimT | June 25, 2008

  13. There probably is room for a libertarian version of GetUp though. I’d join that.

    Ahem. The LDP?

    Comment by DavidLeyonhjelm | June 25, 2008

  14. How is Ben Buckley going in the Gippsland by-election, BTW?

    Comment by Mark Hill | June 25, 2008

  15. Thanks David, but I’m thinking groups that have political interests but are independent of the political process.

    In order to agitate for smaller government, and for greater responsibility by individual citizens for their freedoms, beyond the demands of the welfare state, I think it is necessary to have individuals working outside the political process. There’s no point in fighting for greater freedom from an interventionist government if no-one does anything with that freedom.

    Comment by TimT | June 26, 2008

  16. [...] at the demand for petrol, while Terje Petersen and various others love the GetUp YouTube video on Rudd’s FuelWatch scheme.Should small-l liberals defect to the ALP? Mark Bahnisch is [...]

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