Wednesday, May 30, 2007

A treatise on political economy

Is it just me or is this Autumn bringing out the weirdness? Take for example Peasant, who opines: "Clark's radical communist coterie is promoting a religion of secularism, in which the State becomes God, and any prior claims to truth or authority are deemed traitorous." Nothing unusual about that, I grant you, but Peasant then identifies (as we say in PC-speak) as a conservative classical liberal. What the Friedman is such a thing? Are not classical liberals supposed to be all about free markets? Are not conservatives supposed to be all about other things which are not exactly compatible with such markets?

It's time to decide, Peasant. If you want to be a conservative, then just carry on trying to stop people doing things. If you want to be a classical liberal, then you have to accept that people will want porn and pink things (batteries not included) and the market will provide them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Honestly, Paul, it's elementary. If you can in all sincerity see Helen Clark as leading a "radical communist coterie", then you're deluded enough to call yourself a "conservative classical liberal".

It's not ideology but pathology. Labels for them are mix'n'match. All the good ones are theirs, all the bad ones are ours.

Anonymous said...

If Helen isn't leading a radical communist coterie then why did I vote for her? That's it, I'm off to Australia.

Now *that* is delusion.

Randominanity said...

How about we just let Peasant be all he can be?

Admittedly the possibilities are somewhat frightening but I, for one, would love to see the development of the classical conservative liberal paradigm.

More so if he can carry it off with a a touch of Friedmanish overtones, lighly spiced with a little Engels.

if you're going to be a living contradiction you might as well go all the way.

Paul said...

It could be like playing Kerplunk! You keep adding the ideologies until it all falls down.

bruddah said...

Wow, I'm amazed anyone reads my stuff. Well I guess humans tend to embrace contradiction. I see no reason for the State to go around making pronouncements on what people should be thinking, I guess you would rather atheism was forced on everybody. Forgive me for expressing an opinion

Paul said...

whatever would make you think I might want to force atheism on people. I am a secularist. I believe the state should stay out of religion and religion should stay out of the state. People can and will believe what they want and I am not going to stop them. I will challenge their views, particularly when they concern matters of morality, but I am not going to censor them.