Liberal Party of Wizlandia
Liberal Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | LP |
| Leader | Ashley Lavelle (Chief Executive) |
| Deputy Leader | Samuel Mitchell (Secretary of the Senate) |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Newspaper | The Lorenvia Times |
| Think tank | Liberal Policy Institute |
| Youth wing | Young Liberals |
| Ideology | Liberalism Economic Liberalism Civil Libertarianism |
| Political position | Centre to Centre-Right |
| European affiliation | ALDE (Observing Member) |
| International affiliation | Liberal International |
| Colors | Navy Blue |
| Slogan | "Ensuring liberty, opportunity, and prosperity." |
| House of Commons | 264 / 800
|
| Senate | 44 / 120
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| State Legislatures | 1,632 / 4,682
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The Liberal Party, abbreviated LP, is one of the three major contemporary political parties of Wizlandia, along with its main political rivals the Social Democratic Party and the National Party. It is currently in a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party.
The Liberal Party ideology is Liberalism, which incorporates economic liberal, cultural liberal, and civil libertarian positions. On economic issues the Liberal Party favours low broad-base taxation, a free market economy with minimal economic regulations, trade liberalisation, carbon pricing, and maintaining the current Universal Catastrophic Coverage healthcare system. On social issues, the Liberal Party is strongly civil libertarian, supporting open immigration, drug legalisation, legalisation of prostitution, gay marriage, polygamy, internet freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. The majority of Liberals favour a Liberal Interventionist foreign policy of pressuring illiberal nations to adopt liberal and democratic reforms, and also favour continued membership in the World Assembly, although there is a significant faction of non-interventionists in the party.
History
Provisional Government
Cromwell Administration
Xennol Administration
Lavelle Administration
Political Positions
Constitution
The Constitution of Wizlandia was enacted in 2013 by a Liberal-National coalition government, and the current Liberal Party are in favour of maintaining the current structure of government and civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In particular, Liberals staunchly oppose amendments that would lower the threshold of passing a bill from a three-fifths supermajority of both houses to a simple majority, and they oppose amendments that would weaken the Constitutional provisions restraining federal power.
Economics
The Liberal Party support free-market economics, including free trade, investment freedom, and oppose legislation that would increase zoning regulations, occupational licensing regulations, labour regulations, and institute a minimum wage, and laws that would promote collective bargaining, which they describe as rent-seeking behaviour, and instead advocate maintaining Wizlandia's flexible labour market. The Liberal Party support a small to medium sized welfare state in the form of a Negative Income Tax, funded by consumption, income, land-value and carbon taxes, which they believe is a more efficient way to help the poor than interfering with markets. Liberals oppose instituting a corporate or wealth tax, and they tend to opposed high-levels of government borrowing, believing that it crowds out more productive private investment, but they support counter-cyclical deficit spending during economic recessions. The Liberal Party support the independence of the Federal Bank, and oppose any attempts to link the Wizcoin to a fix quantity of gold or to other currencies such as the U.S. dollar or the Euro.
Environment
The Liberal Party support the current Carbon Tax, believing that forcing consumers to internalise pollution externalities to be the most cost-effective method of fighting global climate change. In addition, Liberals support nuclear and hydroelectric power, and tend to downplay environmental concerns regarding the construction of dams.
Healthcare
Historically, the Liberal Party has opposed significant government intervention in the healthcare market, although the modern iteration of the Liberal Party is more supportive of government regulation and healthcare spending. In 2020, the Liberal Party passed the Universal Catastrophic Healthcare Act, modelled after the Singaporean healthcare system, which creating a Health Savings Account and ensured affordable catastrophic care for all Wizlandians, in addition to increasing funding for preventative care and healthcare research. The Liberal Party support the regulation of pharmaceutical drug prices, allowing drug patents to expire faster, forcing healthcare providers to be transparent about prices, and support the use of cost-sharing methods. Liberals oppose making public healthcare free at the point of use.
Education
The Liberal Party consider education to be the greatest provider of opportunity, are oppose any significant cut to education spending. The Liberal Party support increased devolution of education to the states, in addition to supporting the federal school voucher system, though they stress that for private and charter schools to qualify for the voucher program, they must meet certain federal standards and must not discriminate in the students they accept. The Liberal Party oppose any attempts to establish a federal teacher's union, and advocate for policies that would reduce the power of teachers unions at the local level.
Immigration
The Liberal Party support the current open-borders status quo, and have criticised worldwide border controls as a system of global apartheid. Liberals oppose immigration quotas and cultural or language requirements to Wizlandian residency, though they still support a degree of background checks that would prevent known felons, terrorists, and those carrying communicable diseases from entering the country.
Social Positions
The Liberal Party are very civil libertarian, and they support maintaining the status quo of legal gay marriage, legal polygamy, legal incest, and legal soft drugs such as marijuana, and not making hard drug use a criminal offence. Liberals oppose amending the constitution to make hate speech a crime or to increase restrictions on the right to protest, oppose federal restrictions on abortion, and at the state-level they oppose restrictions on first-trimester abortions. The Liberal Party advocate legalising prostitution, believing that making prostitution legal would make it both safer, in addition to increasing women's freedom.
Foreign Policy
The Liberal Party is primarily made up of liberal internationalists and liberal hawks. The party is supportive of Wizlandia's membership in NATO, supportive of sanctions against foreign officials that engage in human-rights abuses, and support international tax competition and free trade agreements. The Liberal Party supported the American intervention into Syria and opposed its troop withdrawal under the Trump administration, have argued for harsher diplomatic sanctions against Russia, China and Myanmar, and support recognising Juan Guaidó as the President of Venenzuela. The Liberal Party support maintaining Wizlandia's status as a nuclear power, and have accused the Social Democratic Party and other pro-disarmament parties of endangering Wizlandian national security.