Posted by Randy Barnett:
Sean Gabb's Advice to the Tories:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_15-2009_02_21.shtml#1234966804
Sean Gabb of the [1]Libertarian Alliance in the UK is a sharp and
provocative speaker and writer. Two nights ago, he gave a fiery
address to the Conservative Future, a group of young Tories. Here is
how the group reported the speech on its website:
Last night Dr Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance, gave
an impassioned speech in the cause of liberty to members of
Conservative Future at the monthly Star Social event of the Cities
of London and Westminster Conservative Future, of which I am
chairman. In it he bluntly laid bare the actions that a truly
conservative government should take, and his fears for the likely
incoming Conservative government.
It was fiery oration, and no doubt shook some of the audience who
came with more blissfully sedate views. But it underscored the
importance of the conservative movement, the broad church of
organisations and individuals which generates the ideas to drive
forward the pursuit of liberty. All who attended were of the
opinion that whilst they may or may not agree with Dr Gabb, he was
an excellent speaker with fascinating ideas.
For my part, I think memories of his speech will live long in
attendees� memories, and, uncomfortably perhaps, at least at first,
they�ll come to see some of the wisdom therein. There can be no
question that more young people need to hear from Sean and his ilk,
purveyors of fresh thinking.
You can read the transcript of the speech [2]here along with a bit of
introductory commentary. I hesitate to provide any excerpt because the
speech hangs together as a whole--and you especially want to read the
hostile questioning as well as Gabb's responses. But perhaps the most
interesting juxtaposition is his advice to abolish the BBC immediately
upon obtaining power:
[Y]ou should not try to work with the Establishment. You should not
try to jolly it along. You should not try fighting it on narrow
fronts. You must regard it as the enemy, and you must smash it.
On the first day of your government, you should close down the BBC.
You should take it off air. You should disclaim its copyrights. You
should throw all its staff into the street. You should not try to
privatise the BBC. This would simply be to transfer the voice of
your enemy from the public to the private sector, where it might be
more effective in its opposition. You must shut it down - and shut
it down at once. You should do the same with much of the
administration. The Foreign Office, much of the Home Office, the
Commission for Racial Equality, anything to do with health and
safety and planning and child protection - I mean much of the
public sector - these should be shut down. If at the end of your
first month in power, you have not shut down half of the State, you
are failing. If you have shut down half the State, you have made a
step in the right direction, and are ready for still further cuts.
But retaining welfare and national health care.
Following from this, however, I advise you to leave large areas of
the welfare state alone. It is regrettable, but most people in this
country do like the idea of healthcare free at the point of use,
and of free education, and of pensions and unemployment benefit.
These must go in the long term. But they must be retained in the
short term to maintain electoral support. Their cost and methods of
provision should be examined. But cutting welfare provision would
be politically unwise in the early days of our revolution.
The purpose of moving on the former but not the latter is explained
this way:
Let me emphasize that the purpose of these cuts would not be to
save money for the taxpayers or lift an immense weight of
bureaucracy from their backs - though they would do this. The
purpose is to destroy the Establishment before it can destroy you.
You must tear up the web of power and personal connections that
make these people effective as an opposition to radical change. If
you do this, you will face no more clamour than if you moved slowly
and half-heartedly. Again, I remember to campaign against the
Thatcher �cuts�. There were no cuts, except in the rate of growth
of state spending. You would never have thought this from the the
torrent of protests that rolled in from the Establishment and its
clients. And so my advice is to go ahead and make real cuts - and
be prepared to set the police on anyone who dares riot against you.
This last remark about the Thatcher "cuts" reminded me of how I felt
during the Reagan administration. Reagan was loudly and persistently
condemned for making radical changes to the size and scope government
that he never made. So it always seemed to me that he would have been
no worse off politically had he actually had made the radical changes
for which he was blamed. Then at least his supporters would be
heartened and the benefits of these changes would be felt. But not
making the changes, but being blamed for having done so, was the worst
of both worlds. So too with the Bush Administration, though Bush's
critic have a hard time keeping a straight face when they accuse him
of promoting Laissez-Faire. Still, how much worse would Bush's
political standing have been if he had actually done what he was
accused of doing? I would wager his approval rating would have been
higher. 30-35% opposition to any Republican administration is fixed.
So you don't get to Bush's low approval numbers without substantial
disapproval from his base. However, although I do not know either man
personally, I suspect a big difference between Reagan and Bush is that
Reagan truly wanted a smaller government and Bush truly did not.
References
1. http://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/
2.
http://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/sean-gabb-speech-to-conservative-future/
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