As Paul Staines mentioned below, the Irish Young Progressive Democrats explicitly state they are not libertarians and just a glance at their agenda reveals that they are not friends of liberty by any stretch of the imagination. This party is just another bunch of statists pushing the conventional theft based ‘welfare’ politics of old, claiming responsibility for:
· Introduction of a minimum wage
This is tantamount to saying it is better for you to not have a job at all than to have one at wages that offend someone else.
· Huge increase in overseas aid
In other words ‘we have been taking money from you by force and give it to people overseas that you did not choose to give it to via one of the vast number of voluntary international charities’.
· Taxi cab liberalisation
Oh right them… I guess at least someone in the YPDs might have read a book review about a book at about some unpronounceable Austrian free market economist
· Increased social benefits especially pensions
i.e. theft by the state
· Increased funding for education
More theft by the state to fund an activity in which the state has no legitimate role whatsoever
I look forward to being invited to Paul Staine’s next garden party with food cooked over a barbecue lit with both his Tory Party and Progressive Democrat Party membership cards.
