Liberal Vision

Hustings for President – 3rd November

A short message from Helen Duffett:

There will be a hustings in east London for Liberal Democrat members to quiz Susan Kramer and Tim Farron – the candidates in the current Lib Dem Federal Presidential election:

7:30pm – 9pm Wednesday 3 November
Woodbridge High School (Wynndale Hall)
St Barnabas Road
Woodford Green, IG8 7DQ

Chair: Helen Duffett

After a speech from each of the candidates, Tim and Susan will answer questions from the audience.

All Liberal Democrat members are welcome, from around London and beyond, so please forward this email to others who might be interested.

Use the school entrance beside house number 205 St Barnabas Road. Car parking is available on-site. Woodford Underground Station (Central Line) is a 7-10 minute walk from the school.

Map here.

For more details, and to offer or request a lift, see the event’s listing on the Liberal Democrats’ Flock Together website: http://www.flocktogether.org.uk/event/6852

The Facebook page for the event is here.

There will be no charge for admission, but donations to cover the cost of the hall will be appreciated!

We hope to see you next week,

Helen Duffett
London Region Liberal Democrats

So if you’re still undecided you know what to do

Joel Burns on Gay Bullying – It Gets Better

I know this video has been circling around the interwebby for a few days but I hope you’ll see why I felt this was worth posting. It’s not everyday you see politicians act in a way that is truly beautiful and very brave.

It is always good to see something that serves as a reminder that we live in an era where there as never been so much liberty. We should be grateful for it, we should use it to remind ourselves what is at stake if we lose and we should strengthen our resolve to fight the numerous remaining injustices that blight. If you have a spare twelve minutes please watch this video.

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Liu Xiaobo

Yesterday Freedom House lauded the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace to Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo. This sentiment has echoed around the web from other freedom loving organisations. I, for one, can’t think of a more deserving winner. If you want to know why then I suggest you read some of his words for yourself:

I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities…..

I firmly believe that China’s political progress will never stop, and I’m full of optimistic expectations of freedom coming to China in the future, because no force can block the human desire for freedom. China will eventually become a country of the rule of law in which human rights are supreme. I’m also looking forward to such progress being reflected in the trial of this case, and look forward to the full court’s just verdict ——one that can stand the test of history.

Ask me what has been my most fortunate experience of the past two decades, and I’d say it was gaining the selfless love of my wife, Liu Xia. She cannot be present in the courtroom today, but I still want to tell you, my sweetheart, that I’m confident that your love for me will be as always. Over the years, in my non-free life, our love has contained bitterness imposed by the external environment, but is boundless in afterthought. I am sentenced to a visible prison while you are waiting in an invisible one. Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes….

I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition, and that after this no one else will ever be jailed for their speech.

Freedom of expression is the basis of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth. To block freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, to strangle humanity and to suppress the truth.

I do not feel guilty for following my constitutional right to freedom of expression, for fulfilling my social responsibility as a Chinese citizen. Even if accused of it, I would have no complaints.

You can access the full statement here.

Must Reads: Military Keynesianism and Government Failure

Two brilliant articles have surfaced recently. One by the excellent Freeman Magazine pointing out, quite rightly, that American Conservatives are actually Military Keynesians and in surprising agreement with them is Keynesian Economist Paul Krugman. They advocate spending a ludicrous amount on Defense, in a manner wholly unrelated to foreign policy and defend it even if it’s so obviously for the purposes of gerrymandering (e.g. Rep. So-and-so has a military base in his district) under the pretense that anything that keeps America safer is a good thing.

But this brings us to the issue of the Tea Party. If this highly diverse and scattered group of (justifiably) angry economic liberals are not just Conservatives by another name then they surely will speak out in the loudest terms about America’s bloated Defense budget:

So listen up tea partiers! Slashing military spending will not only shrink government and help put us on a path to fiscal responsibility while stripping unaccountable, fat-cat defence contractors of hundreds of billions in corporate welfare. It will also strip foreigners, many of whom speak ridiculous languages, of large defence subsidies paid out of your pocket! What’s not to love?

I don’t quite know what to think about the Tea Party movement yet but I imagine wasteful and counter-productive policies like the Defense budget and drug prohibition with prove whether they are really true economic liberals or disgruntled Republicans by another name.

My second article was originally published in 2008 but is just so funny, I thought – since it was doing the rounds – I’d post it again. 5 Government Programs That Backfired Horrifically . Any article that contains this observation:

Have you ever tried to make steel at home? Does that seem like a retardedly impossible thing to do? Congratulations, you are smarter than Chairman Mao.

Must be read and revisited often.

Enjoy.

LibDems say ‘NO’ to Positive Discrimination – GOOD!

Davina Kirwan wins my award for most bonkers post on LDV yet. In it she decries the LibDems for not passing a motion enforcing “the requirement to have at least one BME candidate on shortlists where a Lib Dem MP has resigned, or within a by-election, being lost.”

I’m young, brown and female and I am delighted that members of this Party, young and old, instinctively knew to shoot this motion down. Discrimination, as far as I’m concerned, is discrimination and for the party to sanction it in any form would be a travesty. I’m not personally opposed to an ‘A-list’ but one would hope that it would based on more than a Candidate’s skin colour or gender.

Ms Kirwan’s ad hominem attacks on the Liberal Democrat Party prove her to be completely ignorant of the tenants of liberalism. We didn’t decide ‘not to act because it would be hypocritical’ but because it flies in the face of everything liberal philosophy is founded on.

This is, quite frankly, one of the most offensive Op-eds to ever be published on LDV, in tone as well as content. My favourite part of the article has to be: “how could something that equalizes opportunity be a bad thing?” Err, that could justify a lot of bad things actually… Well done to everyone who made sure the policy did not pass.