To Our New Members

Comments

7 responses to “To Our New Members”

1. 

   David Farrer

   March 24, 2021

   Tam,

   I just send out this e-mail to candidates in Edinburgh Central:

   Dear Candidate,

   For the first time in many elections, I find myself quite uncertain about which candidate to support.

   I am writing to all of the candidates in Edinburgh Central and would like you all to answer each of these questions:

   1. Do you support lockdowns?

   2. What is the cause of inflation?

   3. Should all nations be independent?

   4. Who should pay for higher education?

   5. How should unemployment be reduced?

   6. Is freedom of speech under threat?

   Best wishes,

   David Farrer

   Reply
   1. 

      Tam Laird

      March 26, 2021

      Thanks for your questions David.

      1. No I do not, I demand they are lifted immediately and would oppose any further lockdown restrictions
      2. I’m not an economist. There may be many contributing factors. But the unrestrained injecting of fiat currency into the economy is certainly one of them.
      3. All nations who wish to be and all individuals who wish to be
      4. The recipient(or recipients parents/guardians) should pay. If the recipient is unable to pay, then private benefactors.
      5. By dismantling regulation such as minimum wage laws, removing barriers to entry such as occupational licensing and generally getting government out of the way of entrepreneurs and small business owners.
      6. Yes. Undoubtedly. Probably more than at anytime in the last 100 years. Anyone who says it isn’t simply ignores the facts.

      Reply
      1. 

         [email protected]

         March 26, 2021

         My answers:
         1. Agree, although private property owners can impose their own lockdown rules.
         2. A trick question! I go by the original definition of “inflation” – namely an increase in the supply of money. Rising prices (other things being equal) are the consequences of the inflation. In this sense inflation can be perfectly OK – for example a discovery of new gold deposits. New loans issued by banks are also OK as long as the taxpayer isn’t made to bail out imprudent banks.
         3. Agree with Mises here – a group within a larger existing nation can through a referendum obtain independence. But, as Mises points out, this can go down to ever smaller groups. After Scottish independence I may well support independence for Dumfriesshire. Guess where I was born! And why not independence for Annan? It has a harbour and a distillery…
         4. Anyone who wants to pay for anyone’s education using their own money is OK. Probably would be in Tam’s order though.
         5 and 6. Agree completely.

         Reply
2. 

   Adam Lachlan Macdonald

   March 26, 2021

   Hi Tam,

   I don’t have any real experience in event organising and that sort of thing but I would be happy to help out with things like door to door leiflet posting and setting up a table with information booklets and/or leiflets at events like gala days in my local area, assuming I get permission from the event organisers.

   My local area includes towns like Larkhall, Stonehouse, Hamilton and Ashgill, plus a few more, which are all in South Lanarkshire.

   Thanks.

   Reply
3. 

   David John Golding

   April 2, 2021

   Hi.

   I am very interested in your party after many years of seeing no feasible alternative to the almost fascist like SNP and the crazy bureaucracy of conservatives, labor, liberal and the like. However, after reading the majority of your website, one question I have remains un-answered.

   What, if any measures would be taken to safeguard the lives of disabled people under libertarian ideals? With no or lesser welfare, how would people that are unable to work (for various reasons) be able to survive, afford health care, medication, care workers, personal support assistants etc? Has this been considered or would people in this position be forced to fend for themselves in a country already lacking much knowledge and experience with many disabled issues, especially of the mental health variety.

   I would imagine finding volunteers to fill these rolls would be very difficult as it already is extremely difficult to find the right help, with or without money and most NHS services are sub-standard and lacking in empathy at best. As things stand, there is at least a good amount of money available to people to try finding their own care and even then, it’s slim pickings, especially in smaller areas around Scotland.

   I am 99% behind most of your policies but would like some clarification on this and what your parties plans would be to cover these kind of situations relating to health and financial care for those who can not commit their already limited physical, mental or emotional resources to paid work. Some people will never be able to sustain themselves and without some form of well planned measures in place, their futures would quickly become very bleak indeed.

   Thanks in advance and all the best.

   David John Golding

   Reply
4. 

   Jeremy F Shearmur

   April 26, 2021

   Last night, I completed my postal vote for the Scottish Libertarians. This morning, the election material came through the door. Had it arrived yesterday, I’m not sure that I could have voted for the party. Why? Because the opposition to lockdowns seems to me to be daft. The topic is a big one, and I can, here, only be brief. But our rights have to be understood as limited by harm that we do to others. We don’t, say, have a right to spray poison about, and what constitutes poison is something about which we don’t have common-sense knowledge. The issue of what harms we do and don’t have a right to do, is a matter for technical legal decision, and it needs to be informed by current science. It would be good if this could be handled through the courts; but – as Hayek has argued – we may need emergency action to be taken by governments. We may have misgivings about the process; but what comes over as opposition to draconian lockdowns as such, seems to me both silly, dangerous – and, I would argue, un-libertarian!

   Reply
   1. 

      Peter S.

      April 29, 2021

      Hello Jeremy,

      I think the initial impulse for lockdowns is easy to understand and government intervention during an emergency – a pandemic – may be defensible from a minarchist perspective.

      But a year is a very long time for an “emergency” and there’s a few things that are hopefully clear by now.

      We have learned that the science to justify the initial lockdowns was sketchy from the start.

      We have learned that far from being a “technical legal decision”, decisions that are made are strongly influenced by political exigencies, opinion polls, media environment and so on. This is not much of a surprise for libertarians. We know that there are no impartial angels that will benignly rule us, only real and very flawed human beings.

      We have learned that there is no real evidence that lockdowns are effective… but since they are popular, they will continue.

      As libertarians we are especially mindful of the ‘ratchetting effect’, where government powers acquired during crises rarely go away. It is also noteworthy how public opinion shifts in a climate of fear – measures that would be considered tyrannical a year ago are now part of the public discourse. We are also mindful that crises and emergencies are perfect opportunities for power grabs and crackdowns.

      We have learned that our caring government doesn’t have much of a problem sacrificing parts of the population, even if inadvertently. Vulnerable people in care homes unfortunately attest to that.

      It is also, sadly, not surprising that once the government has chosen a course of action, it seems to remain ignorant of major side effects of its actions, where the cure is likely to be much worse than the disease. Libertarians have written entire libraries about this tendency alone.

      Personally, I think it’s about time to challenge the entire premise of lockdowns. And I do think that it’s important that someone opposes them – especially since there doesn’t seem to be any real opposition to them. I think the lockdowns are dangerous by themselves and will have dangerous consequences in the long term, especially if unopposed. Although, of course, I can understand if people disagree.

      Reply