Brushfires of liberty

Let me answer a couple of questions about Libertarianz that ACT supporters often ask us by re-posting a comment I made on Aaron's blog:

Andrew asked me, "Do you plan to get more votes than last time?" Here is my reply.

Clearly every party does, Andrew. Clearly too, none of us have any control over the number of votes cast, do we? But not all of us judge success in this way.

"By the way, you still haven't really answered my question on your party's outrageous claims that you "promise to get Govt out of your pocket, out of your face, and out of your life." How will you do this??"

Short answer: Cultural change. Longer answer: by making a revolution in people's minds for the idea that their life is their own. As Samuel Adams said (quoted by somebody recently I understand ) "It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

But there are no shortcuts, as ten years of ACT parliamentary activity and scandal-mongering has surely shown you. As we Libz always say, our aim is not necessarily for our candidates to get to parliament--we are nothing if not realistic--but for our ideas to get there. Rest assured they will be there long before we ever will. A political party is just one vehicle for those ideas to be heard, argued, expounded and thought about; one giving a platform that wouldn't otherwise exist, and one that helps to get the ideas there.

Actually Andrew, if you read my blog regularly you would find that rather than shying away from the question, I've answered this question numerous times, here for instance, especially in the article linked from that post.

In short, you don't measure the truth of ideas by how popular they are, you measure them by whether or not they're right; and if you're keen and honest you then work to ~make~ the right ideas popular. And as I said, there are no shortcuts. I challenge you to spend your three years in the wilderness by joining with us in trying to make that happen.

If you really do want a longer argument, have a look at this: Putting the 'P' Word into Politics.

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And if you really think ACT is "75% libertarian" as one delusional obsessive claimed here on my blog this morning, then in this last week of a campaign in which they're going down anyway why don't they stand up for what they say they believe in. As I said months ago, here's five things they can do to ensure they at least go down with the principles they claim to have, rather than trying to stay alive by living on their knees.