As we tear through the statute book,
we’ll do something no government ever has:
We will ask you which laws you think should go.
– Nick Clegg, to the British public
You’ll be free to do anything you wish.
If you don’t like controls – repeal them.
– Mr. Thompson, offering John Galt the job of Economic Dictator
Nick Clegg is promising (CHT Tom Palmer) all sorts of libertarian goodies, including “the end of the controversial ID cards scheme” and “the scrapping of universal DNA databases.” Other state intrusions to be abolished include “limits on peaceful protest,” the “storage of … email records without good reason” (whatever that last means), and schools’ right “to take a child’s fingerprint without parental permission.” Clegg and his Tory allies are supposedly planning to inaugurate the “most radical redistribution of power from the state to the people for 200 years.”
Yeah, yeah, it all sounds sexy. But I remember the Reagan and Republican “Revolutions,” Bush I’s “no new taxes,” Clinton’s “era of big government is over,” Bush II’s “humble foreign policy,” and Obama’s “hope and change.” As for Clegg’s side of the pond, I remember Thatcher’s Hayekian rhetoric and Blair’s antiwar rhetoric.
Let’s just say I won’t be holding my breath.
If people want freedom, they should think about taking it rather than waiting for some politician to keep his promise to give it to them.