I think the most underappreciated quip about politics comes from that seminal work The Sovereign Individual by Davidson & Rees-Mogg where they observe that:

“Too little attention has been paid to the fact that electoral politics lures disordered, messianic personalities into positions of power.”

I endeavour to bring as much attention to that fact whenever possible, the point still seems lost on the majority of the populace. Aliester Crowley once posited that what separates man from animal is “the desire to be important”, politics is the arena of choice for those too talentless to take a stab at celebrity.

Canada’s political system is as homogenous and as removed from the actual will of the people as is our cousin’s to the south. Every few years we get to choose between Tweedledee-Dee and Tweedledee-Dum, nobody asks us anything terribly important. Should we be sticking our noses in Afghanistan’s business? Is it time to get rid of that income tax that was introduced as a temporary measure until we win World War I? Should be seeking Deep Integration with the US?

None of that really gets put to the voters. Instead we’re given the choice between one brand of homogenized sludge or another, more of the same. Tax and spend, redistribute other people’s property. Stick our noses in other countries affairs.

There are no viable alternatives in Canada. The Liberal party is just the Conservatives minus the neo-con ideology, and the NDP’s are a pack of raving pinkos. The Green party is an emerging alternative that will eventually brush aside the NDPs on the left, the only alternative for the protest vote, for an end of politics-as-usual, the only party that stands for something that isn’t positively brain dead in this country is the Libertarian Party.

In a nutshell Libertarians believe that everybody should be free to pursue their own interests provided their activities do not infringe on anbody else’s rights to same. Pretty simple, pretty sensible. Why we are not living this way in a supposedly progressive western society is utterly beyond me. Libertarians believe for the most part, that if there should be any government at all, it should be a minimal one in place to protect the property rights of it’s citizenry and the sovereignty of the country from external aggressors. The Wikipedia page on Libertarianism is a good primer/digest on the subject.

The Canadian Libertarian Party is now fighting for its life. Every three years political parties need to get 250 signatures filed to retain their political party status and the Libertarian Party is about 100 signatures away and has until the end of the month to do it.

It seems silly that they’re having a hard time coming up with 250 people who don’t see the Libertarian “live-and-let-live” values as the essential core message of progressive Western society from the Renaissance onwards.

I am not a big “joiner” of groups. Crowds bother me, herd mentalities make me sick and lemmings are just lemmings. But it is important for there to exist in Canada a political party who puts fiscal responsibility back into Convervatism, and the personal liberty back into Liberalism and calls the entitlement programs and redistribution of wealth of the Left for what is, which is essentially coercion and theft.

For that reason, and it is with a somewhat heavy heart and a sigh…I am joining the Libertarian Party of Canada and filing my papers as an official member, and I urge all like minded Canadians reading this to do the same by the end of June.

Do it today, and for once in your political life your endorsement will be important, it will make a difference and your actions will actually count for something other than as a rubber stamp for the same old same old bullshit politicians.

» DO IT NOW «