Back To Basics

Happy New Year to everyone and best wishes for 2016.

As you’re aware, I haven’t published anything here at LibertyGibbert for the last six months. I am undergoing a bit of a career change, and have been tied up with study for much of that time. I have also made good on the commitment I made after the 2013 bushfires, and a good deal of my time is now devoted to community-based volunteer work. One thing on top of another, and blogging has been for me very much a third-order priority.

I thought I might have another go at it this year, but with a somewhat different direction. I have little interest in writing any more about politics, which is the same old human venality, year in and year out. Similarly, writing any more about Global Warming would be a bit like maintaining a fixation with the Y2K bug. I may do something at some stage should the mood take me. But really, there are so many writers who cover these subjects so much better than I ever could, that I feel as though anything I add would be superfluous.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Octocentenary Of Liberty

Signing of the Magna Carta, 1215Just a quick word to commemorate one of history’s greatest advances in the cause of Liberty.

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Posted in Australia, Libertarianism, UK | 4 Comments

A Little Perspective, Please

Bali NineFour hours ago, Australian nationals Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the heroin-smuggling syndicate known as the “Bali Nine”, were executed by firing squad on Nusakambangan Island in Indonesia. A ten-year-long media feeding frenzy might now finally come to a halt.

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Posted in Australia, Libertarianism | 13 Comments

UK Election 2015 – How Much Difference Will It Make?

UKElectionLogo

Just a quick conversation starter while I’m out the back cutting wood. The UK general election, to be held in ten days’ time, could be a watershed in western politics, not just the British variety. Or it could be yet another business-as-usual fizzer.

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Posted in UK | 10 Comments

The ANZAC Centenary

They shall not grow old,
as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
we will remember them.

LEST WE FORGET.

25th April, 1915

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The Right To Discriminate

HateCrime…or, depending on your viewpoint, the right to freedom of association, the right to be a bigot, or the right to uphold the principles of religion.

At first glance, it looks straightforward enough. Mike Pence, the Governor of the State of Indiana, is reported to have watered down a bill that would have protected Christian businesses from being forced to provide services which ran counter to their religious principles. The example most frequently cited is Christian bakeries and florists being forced to supply gay weddings.

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Posted in Libertarianism, United States of America | 8 Comments

Israel Speaks

(call to order and intro begin at 22:20)

Wow. I mean, WOW.

I have heard some great speeches in my time. Some years ago, I posted on this blog Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech supporting Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. I was personally present at the steps of the Sydney Opera House in 1986 to hear Pope John Paul the Great, and four years later to hear Nelson Mandela speak to the Australian people as a free man. In 1997, along with millions around the world, I watched with sadness as Earl Spencer eulogized his recently-deceased sister.

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Posted in United States of America | 19 Comments

It’s The Westminster System, Stupid

AbbottTurnbullReporting on the Australian Labor government’s palace coup in 2013 was both instructive for me and jolly good fun. Fun, because I personally loathed many of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd administration’s policies and could not wait for them to be booted out of office. Changing leaders only months out from a federal election all but guaranteed they would be fired by the people in short order. Instructive, because it has made plain that the balance of our system of government has tilted markedly in the past half century.

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Posted in Australia | 59 Comments

Some Random Jottings To Start The Year

Happy New Year everyone.

I’m still neck-deep in work at the moment, and might not have time for anything lengthy till the end of the month. But here are some conversation starters, the main issues of the last two months which you are at liberty to pick up on or not.
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Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Seasons Greetings For 2014

Sorry I’ve been AWOL folks, but there hasn’t been any time to scratch my nose, let alone blog. I’m involved in a sort of side project that has ballooned, and looks set to become my new full-time career when it’s complete in a year’s time.

Anyway, I’m off on holidays as of today. I have a couple of half-completed articles that I may get around to finishing at my leisure, so if you’d like to be notified when they come out then subscribe to this site if you haven’t done so already.

In the meantime, may you and yours have a very merry Christmas and a New Year filled with joy, prosperity and freedom.

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments