I’m prepared to be corrected on this, but my understanding was that when ACT was first formed, there was no accent on “classic liberalism”, whatever that truly means.
I always thought the true intent of ACT was improved fiscal management. Which was OK with me. Then suddenly I’m reading that ACT is the party of quote unquote classic liberalism, and we find it infiltrated by mungbeans from the Libertarians, or Randian Objectivists who are so incompetent in political strategy that if votes were blow jobs, they couldn’t get serviced in a monkey whorehouse if they had arrived with a truck load of bananas.
I’m not surprised the posturing Perigo was behind Don Brash’s foolish gaffe on legalising pot. The Libertarian focus is homosexual marriage and drug legalisation, and these two obsessions are almost all they ever want to talk about. So what they should do is talk about them all they want. In their own damn Party.
Any Libertarian who wants to write a comment explaining why so many of them are in ACT rather than their own party is welcome to do so. It will take a lot to convince me though that they weren’t just there to ride on the coat tails of Rod Hide’s success and effort.
As for the words “classic liberal”, they’ve come to be a warning that you’re about to be discussing things with a pretentious self absorbed wanker who thinks they have cornered the market on ideological perfection, and that everybody else is just confused political trash.
The ACT core should have stood firm and kicked these blathering political incompetents out. They have destroyed the party. Its finished now, so not much to be done. Shame really, because if there is one thing this country needs right now its strong and effective fiscal management, in spite of what other priorities the queers and Objectivists and druggies from the Libertarians might have.
TrueblueNZ 
8 responses to “Vale ACT- Classic Liberalism a Classic F**K Up”
Yeah, all of that “classical liberal” bullshit began in earnest when Catherine Judd became President . . it was her idea to court the “young professional socially liberal” vote, if I recall correctly. Prior to that ACT was all about low taxes, ending the treaty gravy train, welfare reform, law & order and small government. – that’s why I joined anyway.
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. . good piece by Palin in the WSJ today, too.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577040373463191222.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
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Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals, including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets, i.e. the views of Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
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Gee whiz, is it really?
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Here endeth the lesson. We’d never have known….
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Angus, Are you still a member? If not why not join again? If enough conservatives join the party things can change. The party has to listen to members if enough are prepared to speak out. Those who are prepared to work are listen to but there are not enough conservatives in the party prepared to speak out.
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If enough conservatives start a new party, they don’t need to spend all their time trying to change another party. It’s wasted effort, and the ACT party are continuing to self destruct. Bringing in Perigo and Brash was foolish.
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Wasn’t ACT formed as the Alliance[?] of Consumers and Taxpayers?
Interesting how its founding principles got lost inside the toxicity of the Wellington cesspit.
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