- Defence of the Realm.
- Law, order and justice.
- Social cohesion.
- The creation of wealth.
Defence of the Realm
Surely the ultimate no brainer here? If you do not defend the realm you end up with no state in which to have Liberal ideas or any of your own ideas.
Law, order and justice
I think most Liberals would put this high on their list too as if you do not have laws you can't have things like property rights and then can't create wealth or much else. Whilst that is true there is a much more important reason for it and why it is number two on my list, which is that the lack of it causes social problems and threatens social cohesion. You can't get everyone to buy in to the justice system but you need as many people as possible to do so.
Social Cohesion
Why oh why is that anywhere I hear you ask. Simple really. Without it the state withers and dies and it is then unable to carry out objectives 1 and 2. As social cohesion breaks down, birth rates drop, children are brought up in less ideal circumstances etc. etc. leading to a reduced population with a reduced identity and will to defend the realm.
So I do think Government has some business here, but it is a very intractable issue as everyone takes different views. The best way of dealing with the issue is through leadership rather than law. One of the interesting things about David Cameron is that he is prepared to lead where he is not prepared to legislate which is a good thing.
So I do think Government has some business here, but it is a very intractable issue as everyone takes different views. The best way of dealing with the issue is through leadership rather than law. One of the interesting things about David Cameron is that he is prepared to lead where he is not prepared to legislate which is a good thing.
The Creation of Wealth
I can't see any serious liberal opposition to this, and I suspect no one cares what Scargill thinks so I will leave it at that, bar commenting that economic liberalism is key to achieving it.
I think the order in which I place my priorities is what separates me from Liberals, whose key ideas from my point of view have been assimilated into the Conservative party.
26 comments:
I haven't got any clearly articulated ideas on this, but I think "Defence of the Realm" needs a little unpacking, because the idea of the nation state is one on the decline due to the very success of globalising liberal tendencies.
Why I think this is the case is as follows:
- the main military battlefront in the C21st is not one between nations, its between ideaologies. Liberal Democracy vs Theocracy
- enviromental issues are no respector of nation states
- liberal ideas in trade are now so fundametal to the world economy that its difficult to see how protectionism could work in future. Put simply, how would we feed ourselves if we were physically cut off from the rest of the world's economy?
So yes, whilst the state has a duty to protect its citizens, it can no longer undertake that duty without in effect pooling its sovereignty with other like-minded countries and peoples.
I consider myself a (small-l) liberal and I think that the functions of the state should be limited to protection against force, theft, fraud, to the enforcement of contracts, and so on.
Tabman, I can see your Euro fanatic tendencies coming through.
We pool sovereignty by agreeing to be part of NATO for example, without compromising our
nation state.
Ultimately the defence of the realm is too important to cede to others, but sharing in a
common defence strategy such as NATO makes sense. We still have our own weapons.
As to the battles of the 21st Century being an ideological one, they frequently are. They
require both military AND political means to deal with them. Incidently there is a larger threat
from China and its authoritarian ideology.
Whilst it is true that the nation state may look less important, given the nature of the world I
could not disagree more.
CB, So if you are a small l liberal, where do you stand on other issues, and indeed which way does your politics lean?
"Tabman, I can see your Euro fanatic tendencies coming through."
Benedict, I can see your Tory Euro-preujdices coming through :-)
Read the comment again:
"So yes, whilst the state has a duty to protect its citizens, it can no longer undertake that duty without in effect pooling its sovereignty with other like-minded countries and peoples."
Isn't that exacty what NATO is? The Commonwealth? Nowhere did I mention Europe, yet you chose to highlight it.
It might surprise you that one can be in favour of greater European co-operation where appropriate (and, as I pointed out, there are many areas where issues are no respector of national boundaries) and at the same time be critical of the EU as it is currently structured, as I am.
I would also add that whilst we might "have our own weapons", from what I read about Trident we wouldn't be able to fire them without asking the Americans first. That's hardly independent is it?
"Benedict, I can see your Tory Euro-preujdices coming through :-)"
No, I just could not resist the dig! Sorry...
However your discussions of things like NATO and the Commonwealth show the importance
of the nation state co-operating with other nation states rather than becoming obsolete, which
was the implication of your first comment, even if it turns out that is not what you meant.
On the trident issue, I have heard similar and agree. If there is a veto it is about as useful as a
chocolate teapot and we should build our own nuclear weapons even if it costs more.
What do you mean by "other issues"? I already told how I think that the functions of the state should be limited. The other issues should be everybody's own affair.
I'm an independent. I have some sympathy for the Lib Dems, but they aren't liberal enough for me, especially in the economic issues. And the conservatives are too conservative for me, especially in the social issues.
As far as I can tell CB, that makes you the big L Liberal, with the Lib Dems the small l liberals.
Traditionally a big-L liberal means a member of a Liberal party (but not necessarily a supporter of liberalism as an ideology), whereas a small-l liberal means a person, who is a supporter of liberalism as an ideology (but not necessarily a member of a Liberal party).
Benedict - the key word there is "co-operating".
That implies some degree of choice in the matter. I would argue that in the current world that we live in we can't not co-operate; the only "choice" comes over the degree to which we do so and with whom we choose to co-operate (and in many cases there isn't any choice in that either). The idea of England "going it alone" on any issue that extends outside our borders, if it was anything other than myth in the first place, just doesn't work.
And before you mention Switzerland, the Swiss have been forced to change many of their ways, and those they haven't are largely because it suits larger economies, and their "clients", to leave Switzerland as it is.
We do have a choice about co-operating and we can and have gone it alone, in both the Falklands and Sierra Leone. In the former of course the SDP leader now Lord David Owen said we COULD not take them back and we should move on.
Our interests will not always lie with others and some times others will do some very silly things.
I was thinking wider than just the military sphere.
And if you recall with the Falklands, there was the certain issue of Sidewinder missiles that proved crucial for Air Defence. Where did they come from? The USA.
Our defence industry is no longer unilateral.
" I was thinking wider than just the military sphere."
Well, we were talking about defence of the realm, though obviously sea levels rising is in effect an attack on the realm.
AS for our defence industry, not it is not a unilateral afair, and to some extent it has not been since the 30's.
I agree with you re David Owen (splitter!) though :-)
I think the general point is that we are always going to have to work with other countries in supra-national blocks; best to accept that fact and work hard to shape them on our terms.
Tabman, do we really have to work with other countries? Such as Prussia against Napoleon. I thought we had been doing that for ages.
I am pleased we agree on David Owen.
Mr John.. Where to start...
I said the prime directive of the state was Defence of the Realm, with the creation of wealth 4th on my list, though I would concede they are all linked to a greater or lesser extent.
Do you have a source for your proposition that war, medicine, religion and insurance are the largest money gatherers/ distributors? I would have though transport would be on there as well as food and housing as there are lots of people involved in them.
You say "In this respect any state-system based on the four tenants put forward is flawed. What is derived from the application of the solution is merely temporary because there is no fix."
Well, I don't think there are any permanent fixes, so I don't see that as a flaw. Perhaps you have an idea for a permanent fix, or a different set of things which are the prime directives of the state?
We have always pooled sovereignty on a case by case basis, forming alliances of various sorts for various reasons to protect our interests and always will. We have for the last 150 years changed allies less often then we did in the past and that is good because it leads to stability.
On the trading front we used to be a net importer of food before the second world war, so there is no change there either.
I have seen no argument as to why defence of the realm should not stay top.
Ben - another thought. I am for pragamtic interaction at the most appropriate level.
You argue that Conservatives are pragmatic, but most of the Tory reaction to the EU is emotional:
- "Never give up the pound"
- "Want the Queen's head on our currency / symbol of our independence"
- "Never subsume to Brussels authority"
etc etc
Surely the rational thing to do would be to examine each on a case by case basis, not rule out under all circumstances.
PS - you are very lucky to have such activity on your blog; most novice bloggers wait months to get a single comment!
Interesting comments Tabman, Perhaps i've almost got you converted :-)
On the Eu, pound etc. your looking at us dealing with it on an emotional level is a bit like going to one of those loony aledgedly Muslim groups and assuming all Muslims are extreame. In short it is the one liners that get the head lines not the deeper underlying argument.
Quite a few of us have been against much of the Euro project not because we don't like Europe, but because we do. We recognise there are differences between countries and see that as a positive thing.
Various different people in our party have differing reasons for being against the Euro. not the least of which is that at the last minute they rejected our suggested name "Quantum Unit of International Denomination, which I think you woudl agree is supra national and could appeal anywhere. Of course it would have been known by it's acronym.. QUID.
Actually there are sound reasons for objecting to it, not the least of which was a lack of trust on our part that all of its emembers would be fiscally responsible and that they would not be punished either. We were right and I think that debate is dead now.
On the Brussels issue it appears the Lib Dems are comming around to our view that moving power up is not always a good thing.
As an observation on the "European Project" is that i feel too many political leaders in Europe want to get knowm for their part in building it, rather than considering what it is they are trying to build and the correct pace at which to build it.
On the blog front, my firts post which was a sort of "oh well, I got a blog by accident" had a post in reply fairly quickly.
I may have no got the bug. On one ranking system I am around the 70 mark, or number 4 on politics. I have also found that I am refered to by some directories I was not aware of.
Interesting... I wonder if I should unleash the ruthless inner self publicist? After all I can blame it all on the Lib Dems (Well Bullseye anyway).
John R, I will be writing a whole piece on the laughably named "war on terror" so if you would like to email me links to information you think I should consider please do. I may have given the game away that I am not going to be singing its praises from the roof tops though...
However as I won't be able to write much over the next two days I expect to get it done over the weekend.
I also wonder if we are not reaching an understanding that pragmatism is a very important part of governing which of course is anti ideology. In taht case maybe we are all Conservatives but just arguing over what we feel pragmatic about?
Interesting points John R, but if I can comment on IT alone, it seems bizarre to me that Government is not content with going for big IT solutions it is looking for massive ones, where in rality a lot of smaller competimg systems written to the same standard would do a better job....
But the old habits of Whitehall die hard.
(A good thing in the military, not so useful for moving forward)
Why not continue this discussion in the Liberal Views forum with more participants?
Anonymous, I don't mind if people want to debate elsewhere, I started this blog by accident, and have decided to use it to explain my views.
If people want to discuss my views they are much more than welcome.
Ummm... What I meant ia that you might be interested to join the Liberal Views -forum. The participants are liberal-minded people from different parties.
Fair enough, Anonymous, if I get the time I might pop over and have a look.
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