Lindsay Perigo What's a libertarian like Lindsay Perigo doing on Muriel Newman's webpage? After all, it's not as if Newman is a libertarian herself. Given her voting record while in Parliament, it would be more appropriate to describe her as a authoritarian neoconservative, along the lines of those who hijacked George W. Bush's Republicans. Given that Perigo criticises them in his New Zealand Centre for Political Research/Scoop article, why is he metaphorically in bed with one? Unfortunately, however, Linz tends not to differentiate between libertarians and neoconservatives, much to the anger of alternative libertarians. They might agree with him on New Right economic issues, but they tend to differentiate themselves far more rigorously from authoritarian conservative statists over issues like impending government criminalisation of benzylpiperazine (BZP) in party pills, giving the Society for Promotion of Community Standards a hard time when it tried to interfere with Wellington Film Festivel schedules a decade ago, and other instances of genuine libertarian activism. To Lindsay's credit, he did support civil unions, but several months ago, he marched alongside the most rabid Christian Right statists imaginable against Sue Bradford's anti-belting bill. Now, he seems to be pursuing an incongruous relationship with Muriel Newman. It's all very well to barrack against the excesses of an overeager regulatory "nanny state", but let's not pretend that Muriel Newman isn't willing to advocate her own state repression in pursuit of social conservative ideological purity, over criminalisation of most drugs, prostitution, and other anathema to her ilk. Goodbye, nanny state, hello, "nunny state?" Come on, Linz. There's nuanced co-belligerency, and there's pandering to neocons. Newman is no friend to liberty/individual freedom, and you know it. Not Recommended: www.nzcpd.com New Zealand Centre for Political Research (Muriel Newman) Craig Young - 25th June 2007