Sean Gabb, Should Voting be Compulsory? from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties institute, today condemns the banning of the radical group Islam4UK as a violation of the right to freedom of speech. [Under the Terrorism Act 2000, a group can be banned if it "commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for, promotes or encourages terrorism or is otherwise concerned in terrorism". Islam4UK disagrees with the Western occupation of Afghanistan, and has made its opposition plain. The banning order will come into effect on Thursday and will make it a criminal offence to be a member, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.]
Speaking today in London, Dr Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, comments:
"The rights to freedom of speech and association are fundamental to a free society. So far as these rights are diminished, that society becomes less free. I was born in a country where these rights had been enjoyed for centuries. I have reached middle age in a politically correct police state where the Government is now trying to criminalise dissent.
"We do not agree that British soldiers in Afghanistan are rapists and murderers. We were offended by the decision of Islam4UK to say this in a march. We certainly would not welcome the transformation of this country into an Islamic state, which is desired by Islam4UK. However, the group has not attacked life or property within the United Kingdom, nor has it recommended attacks on the life or property of any identifiable British individual. This makes the group a victim of oppression by the British State.
"Just because we may disagree with or be offended by certain views does not give us the right to suppress those views. We support the right of Islam4UK to oppose the war in Afghanistan and to argue for an Islamic takeover of the United Kingdom. In the same way, we support the right of others to argue that Moslems should have no right to live in the United Kingdom. The Libertarian Alliance believes in equal liberty for all to speak their minds. Free speech that does not include the right to give offence is not free speech. It is the political equivalent of decaffeinated coffee.
"If people are upset by what they read or hear, let them ignore it or argue against it. There is no place in such debates for the Thought Police."
The Libertarian Alliance believes:
* That the Race Relations Act 1976 should be repealed;
* That the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 should be repealed;
* That, pending repeal, the Race Regulations subsequent to these Acts should be withdrawn;
* That those sections of the Public Order Act 1986 dealing with speech and publication should be repealed;
* That those sections of the Criminal Justice Act 1998 dealing with "racial aggravation" of offences should be repealed;
* That the Commission for Racial Equality and all similar organisations should be abolished, and their records burned;
* That the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 should be repealed;
* That all the Terrorist Acts should be repealed;
* That all those convicted of thought crimes under the above laws should be pardoned and, where appropriate, compensated;
* That the Human Rights Act 1998 should be amended to protect the right of people to say anything they like about public issues, and to associate or not associate as they please.
"In the British Constitution, Church and State are joined. The Queen is head of both. There are 26 Anglican bishops in Parliament.
The weak argument for disestablishment is that only a minority of people in Britain are Anglicans. Why should Catholics or Jews or Muslims or atheists defer officially to an institution that does not represent their beliefs?
This is not in itself a good argument. Establishment is part of the Constitution. If I move to Pakistan or Ireland, I would have to put up with the existing establishments there. Why should it be different with us? If it should be different, it is because the Church of England has ceased to be either intellectually or theologically respectable.
Anglicanism used to mean Cranmer and Hooker and Tillotson and Warburton and Paley. Malthus and Sydney Smith were Anglican priests. These were men who combined distinction in theological and secular learning with a broadly tolerant outlook.
Nowadays, priests and bishops seem to be less interested in preaching the Gospel than in preaching an embarrassingly naïve socialism.
It may be arguable that the true message of Christ is socialist. It may also be argued that the laws of supply and demand are as much part of the Divine Order as the laws of motion – and that Christians cannot validly pronounce on either without some study of the secular sciences that have uncovered them. If this is true, it is not enough for an Anglican priest to read The Guardian, announce that “God is love” and then make other than embarrassing pronouncements on interest rates and distribution of property.
Now, the problem here is not that so many Anglican spokesmen appear to be of the Left, but that they seem wholly unaware of any other theological perspective on economics and politics.
With this, I regret, goes their almost casual rejection of the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in favour of new versions that are devoid of literary merit.
The Church should be disestablished because it has, in a sense, disestablished itself. It has made itself an object of derision where not of contempt. It should not be allowed to continue representing itself as England at prayer.
The practical argument against disestablishment is that the monarchy would be destabilised. Again, the monarchy has destabilised itself. The settlement by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was that we would regard the monarch as the Lord’s anointed. The monarch would, in turn, safeguard our liberties. Without mentioning any other dereliction, Her Majesty this year allowed ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, despite its implications for how we govern ourselves, and despite the promise by the Government in 2005 that what became the treaty would not be ratified without a referendum.
Since the monarchy is at best on probation, therefore, and since the Church of England cannot be defended as it has become, the arguments for disestablishment strike me, however sadly, as too strong to be brushed aside.”
"The world may or may not be on the edge of financial collapse. But the present run of banking crises is only the latest consequence of the ending of the gold standard. Since 1914, and more particularly since 1971, the ability of governments to create unlimited amounts of fiat money has led to bubble after bubble, each one larger than before. Financial markets have become little more than casinos. Immense resources have been diverted into the promotion and management of speculation. All other economic activity has been subordinated to and therefore distorted by such speculation.
"The latest set of problems, brought on by fooling lending on property in America, is not a failure of the free market system. It is ultimately the effect of government monetary policies. The answer does not lie in some new set of regulations, which may prevent the next speculative frenzy. The true answer lies in the return to a more sensible and more honest set of monetary arrangements.
"We mean by this the return to a fully convertible gold standard.
"The Libertarian Alliance calls on the British Government to do the following:
* To order the conversion of all foreign currency reserves held by in the Bank of England into gold;
* To sell every reasonably marketable asset of the British State, to convert the proceeds into gold, and to lodge these at the Bank of England;
* To revalue the Pound, so that all claims on the Bank of England were equal to the gold reserve of the Bank of England:
* To impose on the Bank of England a legal obligation to pay all claims on it in gold, on demand and without limit:
* To impose on the Bank of England an obligation to do all within its ability, and nothing other than this, to maintain the new parity between the Pound and gold:
* To impose on all deposit receivers operating in the United Kingdom (unless explicitly exempted by contract) to pay all claims on them in gold, on demand and without limit;
* To make the directors or, if they are without the jurisdiction, the most senior management of all deposit receivers in the United Kingdom personally responsible for any failure to make such payments:
* To impress on any foreign government or central bank that might choose to fix a parity against the Pound that no assistance whatever would be given to maintain such a parity.
"We note that these measures would bring about first a severe devaluation of the Pound, and then a credit squeeze that deflated the value of real and financial assets. But this is what we seem already to be facing. A return to the gold standard would provide us with a stable financial system, and would tend to protect us against future bubbles, and would abolish the need for intrusive financial regulation.
"We also note that a fully convertible gold standard would make all money laundering laws unenforceable, and would severely limit the ability of the British State to finance its activities by the unlimited sale of bonds to the banking system. We would unreservedly welcome both these effects.
"We look forward to a Britain, and preferably a world, in which fiat money has become as unusual as state ownership of telephone networks, and in which paper and electronic money is a rare substitute for gold and silver and copper coins."
