November 18 Debate Closing Statement (November 20, 2005)
By-Election Statements
November 18 Debate (Yee Hong Centre)
Closing Statement (Approximate)
Again, I’d like to thank all of you and the sponsors of this event for giving me this opportunity to express my views.
I’ve been living in this riding for the past 5 years. I’m concerned about the direction things are going in this country, and that’s why I joined the Libertarian Party.
The Ontario Libertarian Party is an official political party with its own constitution and governing structure as with other political parties. Our purpose is to present the Libertarian alternative to the public. If you’re interested in learning more about Libertarianism and our Party, please get in touch with us. We have some information available here tonight.
I would like to quote from the 19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat, who wrote The Law. He believed that government is basically the use of force, and is legitimate only as an extension of the right of its citizens to self-defense. He considered socialism or the type of government we have in Ontario or the type of government he experienced in France to be organized plunder or theft.
He put it like this:
When justice is organized by law — that is, by force — this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. The organizing by law of any one of these would inevitably destroy the essential organization — justice. For truly, how can we imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without it also being used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose?
If you like the government controlling you and taxing you and controlling others, if you like the Smoke-Free Ontario Act and the property rights violations of the Greenbelt Act, if you want things to keep going on and on the way they are going, then just keep voting for the other parties.
Otherwise if you want a freer society, vote Libertarian, vote Alan Mercer on Nov. 24.