Thankyou
Yes, I guess two points - one, I agree that you can have a very communal authoritarian society, this was more a case of "Lib Dems ought to think about community more and in different ways" than "nobody else can think about it". Two, I guess one thing that you might not know is that the LD constitution states that the party must "balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality, and community", so that's why it's to some extent a specifically Lib Dem thing even if not a specifically liberal thing, it's something the party is officially dedicated to promoting!
I think broadly speaking some of these things are thriving, yes, but there are still difficulties. Access is one, a lot of people who would benefit from access to these communities may need more support to be able to engage with them. I'm not sure everyone who wants to engage does by a long shot, and if we take the assumption that it's healthy for people to do so then we should think about what the pressures are that stop them doing so. It's something that happens already on an organising level, and we thought about it for ExiliCon for example, but I think it's an issue that should be on politicians' radars as well.
Another issue, especially outside the huge commercial cons, is just the pressure on organisers and volunteers, who have to take on not just the direct organising but also community and social leadership positions. Sure, people are managing, but I think that more could be done in public advice and helping people know how to do these sorts of things well, how to deal with certain problems/situations involved. I think local government could also think more about provision of spaces for community groups, which is often a difficult issue, and possibly encouraging banks to be a bit less totally armadillo for societies might be nice.
But yeah - the broad point is something that I don't feel any political parties are picking up very well, partly because our political system is based on the premise that communities are physically defined local entities so breaking out and looking at other definitions of community is kind of discouraged I guess.