Or say what you say you really believe?
What have you got to lose that the polls are saying you haven't already? If not now, when?
Here's five things you could try saying that at the moment you're too scared too:
- Abolish the RMA. No, don't say "review," "reform" or refine." Use the 'A' word! Tell people you want to liberate property owners and put a stake through planner's hearts.
- End the War on Drugs. You tell people you're the party of freedom -- and show that you mean it. This would really put the acid on the Green Party authoritarians, and you might even pick up a few of those Green voters sick of their party's ban-everything wowserism. Even just joining with Milton Friedman in saying 'Legalise marijuana' might help you feel better about your libertarian credentials and help you sleep at night.
- Privatise, privatise, privatise. Don't fiddle, tinker or bugger about with Government departments and state assets and "PPPs": sell, give away or otherwise dispose of them all. Give back the schools and hospitals to those using and running them, recognise the property rights that already inhere in beaches and foreshore, and let the government lease the Beehive to hold cabinet meetings.
- Abolish the Treaty of Waitangi and rescind the 'Treaty Principles.' Replace the Treaty with a constitution protecting individual rights, regardless of colour.
- End the DPB. Put a nine-month time limit for the final date, announce that there will be no new beneficiaries accepted to the unaffordable scheme after that date, and start taking those currently on it off it when their kids get to three years of age. You've got a candidate advocating it, so why not start shouting it from the rooftops!
It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees, isn't it? And if you are still alive after all the dust has settled, well then, you really would be a party of freedom, wouldn't you.
[ADDENDUM: My poor arithmetic corrected (Thanks Berend.)]
6 comments:
even if act were soft cock(sorry little l)libertarianz but were consistantly pro freedom (in a soft cock sort of way)they would be fairly good value for money.
This is the main justification some peaple have for complaining that the libz put to much heat on act,but act are quite often totaly oposed to freedom on various issues such as drugs.Thats why they are evasive or silent on such issues.
Muck raking is the best they can do to get media coverage in spite of the fact that if they said any of these things unequivically they would get a hell of a lot more.
Michael, do you normaly speak before thinking? Do you seriously think that if ACT were opposed to freedom on a hobbyhorse issue like drugs, with all the antidrug votes out there, they would be silent about it?
Let's spell this out. ACT is not a religion. ACT is not a cult. ACT is a political party full of free-thinking individuals who believe that free markets and personal responsibility are important, but tend to disagree on a lot of other stuff.
Personally I'd love to abolish the RMA, end the war on drugs, privatise 99% of government, and end the DPB, but a political party is not just about what I think. It has to take in the views of all its members and then come up with a policy which people stick to. And if you don't stick to it, you don't have a party any more. Plus, I'm not sure many people would vote for my ideas anyway - we have a Libertarianz party as proof of that.
BTW Peter, rescinding the Treaty Principles is actually ACT policy.
I count five things...
But I fully agree with four of them.
Berend, you said, " I count five things..." Yes, well done. I abase myself.
Any chance of ACT ever having even three of them as policy?
Blair, you said, "rescinding the Treaty Principles is actually ACT policy." Oddly enough, I thought so to initially, but I haven't been able to find a clear statement to that end. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to point me to one? :-)
I did a search of the ACT website. The words "Treaty Principles" aren't used as such, although the policy documents do say ACT will...
"...Repeal all laws that permit or require any government agency to discriminate against, or to favour, any New Zealander on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity or national origin."
...which is, for all intents and purposes, what the Treaty Principles are.
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