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TYC is enjoying the summer vacation (and planning some changes for the new season), but we’ve not taken our eye off the ball entirely. Our chums over at KeepRightOnline spotted my Facebook profile picture – lovingly borrowed from a World War II British morale-boosting poster (you may be more familiar with the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ version).
It struck me, though, that this poster - Freedom is in Peril: Defend it with all your might – is deeply apropos the current political climate. The government is moribund, and nothing is more dangerous than a wounded foe. Desperate to cling on to their political existance New Labour are thrashing about for populist, opportunistic initiatives, and you can be sure that Liberty will, as always, be the first victim.
So, as KRO ask, what are you doing to defend freedom?
And for propoganda of your own, http://www.freedomisinperil.com/ do a sound range of ‘Freedom is in Peril’ merchandise.
(I found the site via Facebook’s targetted advertising – how scarily well FB knows me!)
To all our American readers – raise a glass to freedom on our behalf as you mark 233 glorious years of liberty!
The best thing the British ever did for freedom may well have been letting the Colonists win the War of Independence 
“State control over schools will be viewed as an unfortunate aberration, and parents who today home school their children will be lauded as being ahead of their time”
Now we should not be so naive as to assume that this attack on the fundamental right to educate your children away from the State, spearheaded by the great Ed Balls, will be conducted openly. Rather, it will be done in an incremental manner, with each successive concession representing a step towards the loss of parental freedom. This is why it is so essential to fight the government at every step, no matter how trivial it may seem now. Governments given an inch will not hesitate to take a mile, especially where matters of children’s education is concerned.
So what motivation could a Labour government, or the State in general, have for attacking home education? For the answer, one needs to look at the extraordinary effectiveness of home schooling. Research has shown that home educated children tend to have better social skills and to perform as well as, if not better than, their school-educated peers in examinations. This is especially true of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The numbers speak for themselves: the population of home schooled children has risen rapidly in the UK over the past decade, to well over 50,000 today.
Parents who pull their children out of school are exercising the ultimate protest against the British school system, which has since the 1960s been the subject of a gigantic and failed experiment in social engineering. The collapse of standards and discipline, and the replacement of academic selection with selection via postcode or daddy’s wallet, has massively damaged British education. Add to this the incessant targets and bureaucratic interference of New Labour, plus the rise of politically correct curricula that deny British history and promote underage sex, and it is no wonder home schooling is rising in popularity.
In short, home education is an embarrassment for the government. It represents the part of society that its bureaucracy-obsessed managers cannot wield control or influence over. Just as the left has always viewed ambitious working class people with suspicion, so it dislikes parents who do not need its magnanimity or ideologically-driven programmes. And to add insult to injury, there is no evidence that home schooled children are worse off; in fact the opposite.
It was therefore only a matter of time before Labour sought to stick its interfering nose into the lives of parents who bravely flout the system by educating at home. It is imperative for liberty and for the continued success of thousands of children, that home education is defended all the way. There may come a point, many decades hence, when State control over schools will be viewed as an unfortunate aberration, and parents who today home school their children will be lauded as being ahead of their time.
Abhishek writes his own blog – check it out here.
YOU can write for TheYoungConservative. We accept submissions from any young activist of any pro-liberty political party, or no party at all. To dicuss, email us: edward@theyoungconservative.co.uk
At the invitation of the Young Britons’ Foundation, I’ve written a guest post over at YBF.org.uk. Given a free rein as to topic, I took my inspiration from a bumper sticker I found at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February. In the article I argue that Britain doesn’t need change, it needs liberty.
“In the wake of recent events, and for as long as politicians have sought votes, the buzz words have been ‘reform’, ‘change’, ad nausea. But all this is just so much window-dressing. Brown can fiddle with how they’re elected, and Cameron can fiddle with their roll call, but none of this gets close to the heart of the problem: Government is the problem.”
Continue reading the full article over at the Young Britons’ Foundation website
Congratulations to the York University students who organised today’s anti-anti-free markets protest and faced down the baying crowd of some 4,000 assorted G20 Leftists to defend capitalism on the steps of the Bank of England. We spot Messrs Aker and Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and Simon Richards of The Freedom Association, and Nic Conner in the crowd.
H/T Tim Montgomerie for the pictures.
UPDATE: Nic Connor’s report of the protest at ConservativeFuture.com
Freedom Week 2009
Do you want to learn about individual liberty and the free market?
Is the free market the cause of the economic crisis? Or is there another explanation?
FREEDOM WEEK is an annual one week seminar for 30 UK students at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.
Renowned lecturers teach students about the basic philosophy of a free society based on individual liberty and the free market.
Free market think tanks come along and introduce themselves.
The one week format allows students to form a network with fellow students, lecturers and think tanks which will help them to defend freedom at university and in their future careers.
Freedom Week is free for the students, and paid for by private donations.
Freedom Week is organised by Freedom Alliance, a not for profit organisation.
Freedom Week 2009 will take place from 13 to 17 July 2009.
APPLY NOW !
Go to www.freedomweek.org.uk and send us your application.
The deadline for applications is 25 May, but the earlier you apply, the more chance you have of being accepted.
For any questions, please contact JP Floru , or Xander Stephenson
A student friend was reminiscing recently about watching Alvin and the Chipmunks as a child, and when I thought back, I realised the only episode of that show I could recall was the one where they tear down the Berlin Wall:
And there was me thinking it was Reagan…Still, it may go some way to explaining how I ended of the political persuasion I did. We need more pro-freedom cartoons; somehow I doubt the Telebubbies ever inspired anyone to do anything, except perhaps less hard drugs…
(Is that a very young ToryBear at 0.20?)
This has to rank as one of the best ideas we’ve seen in a while.
The folks at Bureaucrash are offering a “Revolution in a Box” to the first 1,000 people to complete a short survey on the Bureaucrash Social website. All you need to do is sign up (it’s free) and answer the two questions (they’re very simple…) and they’ll mail you your kit. The RIAB includes a host of literature, flyers bumper stickers, magazines and other goodies, but our favourite is the spread of six stickers, featuring
- Enjoy Capitalism,
- Freedom: My Anti-Gov,
- Liberty or Death,
- Liberty Will Prevail,
- Taxes = Violence, and
- Who Owns You
Whilst Freshers is still a long way off, this pack could give you some excellent resources and ideas for what to hand out come the new academic year.
If you’re planning to launch a pro-liberty organisation in your area or on your campus then again this pack could well be a powder-keg of ideas to realise that ambition.
Hat tip Students for Liberty
The Conservative Future National Executive Blog has posted a mini interview with Douglas Murray.
Name: Douglas Murray
Role: Director of The Centre for Social Cohesion
What are you currently working on?
A book, three reports, a long-essay, two pieces and a book-review.
Who is your political hero?
Pim Fortuyn
When do you think the next General Election will be?
2010
Why should people get involved with organisations like Conservative Future?
Because we need a political revolution. The left is great at organising, but the right is traditionally hopeless at it. We need to get good.
Pick one thing about the last 12 years of the Labour government that you would change?
The grotesque under-spending and under-equipping of our armed forces.
This interview comes on the back of the recent decision by the London School of Economics to ban Douglas from chairing a debate on campus. Following that decision many activists visited LSE to survey student opinion, discovering that 76% of the populace oppose this gagging order. You can read the full account of the activists’ visit to LSE here.
