The fallacy of voting
Political ·Sunday March 21, 2010 @ 18:25 EDT (link)
Fallacious crap like "if you didn't vote you can't complain" abounds. The only way that could be legitimate is if one believed in the system, it was a close enough race to make a difference, and the candidates were substantially different in areas the voter cares about. Let us examine each of these areas.
First, the system is a farce. Step back and consider the idea that 50% plus one of a group get to violently force their ideas on the rest of the group; that they can rob the productivity of the entire group. It is something that of course that 50% plus one will support, but then any tyrant would claim that whatever method lends legitimacy to his edicts is right. Let me also confront the fallacy that not permitting this system of "tyranny of the majority" allows for a 50% minus one "tyranny of the majority". To not use force, to not steal, to not do violence and enforce edicts—this is not tyranny. It can never be tyranny to fail to do harm. Initiation of violence is wrong: nothing justifies it, not numbers, not popular support, not high-sounding principles of "equality" or "social justice" that are thin veneers over envy and redistributionist robbery. Voting, even democracy itself (absent everyone in a group agreeing beforehand to be bound by such a poll) is a farce; not voting is a legitimate protest against it.
Second, the race must be close enough to make a difference. In a precinct solidly for one party or candidate, you can look later and determine that your vote added to either the losing side would do no good. "What if everyone thought this way?" the ignorant masses cry. That is both moot, because everyone doesn't feel that way; look at the numbers; plenty of partisans or supporters of hopeless causes get out and vote, and irrelevant, because you are only responsible for yourself.
Last, the candidates. Usually it's Republican vs. Democrat in the United States. They sometimes talk a different talk, but frequently we see them voting for the same wars, tax increases, entitlements, and regulations, and government growing only fractionally less under the Republicans than the Democrats, and certainly not shrinking as it should. Why bother when on the important issues, there's no difference? Does it matter if the Democrat preaches peace but votes for war and funding of war, or if the Republican preaches smaller government but votes for increased entitlements, or if the representative claims to be against abortion but will never face a vote on it?
Of course, similarly it is also reasonable to complain if you voted and someone else was elected, or if your guy was elected and isn't doing what he promised or implied (or what you hoped), or if he is doing all that, but still not accomplishing anything because the body of which he is part goes against him. You have never contracted to be dictated to and robbed by any individual, and hence not by any group either, whether you participated in the sham that formed them or not. Similarly, you have probably not agreed to the Constitution (see Lysander Spooner's essay "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority"), or if you did, not to particular interpretations, nor signed a particular contract relating to it, and even if you had, if one party violates any element, as the federal government has, the whole contract is void.
Voting is a mind game. Make use of it when you can, but don't be deceived. It's today's soma, a pacifier and an illusion of choice for the masses to stop you from realizing that government is violence and the moral barrenness of a majority of a group pillaging the rest under color of a holy idol labeled democracy. Is it surprising that when the warmongers in Congress "spread democracy" they spread violence? A vote is a poll about which inmate you'd like to be raped by, and "None of the above" isn't offered as an option.
Sometimes a good one does slip through. What do I mean by "good"? Do I mean someone that will pass bills that will benefit me financially? No, unless those bills are repeals of other bills. "Good" is anti-government. "Good" shrinks government, repeals and overturns laws and regulation and fails to pass new law. I was saying recently how government is violence and hence evil, and asked "What about Ron Paul?" And here it is: Ron Paul (and representatives like him) are not government, they are antigovernment (in the sense of matter and antimatter). He's a positive force because he's trying to roll back and limit the violence and the robbery. Voting for him (if the race was close) or any other "antigovernment" candidate is a good example of using a corrupt system toward a good end. If Congress consisted of such men, they could repeal the unconstitutional welfare-warfare state in a week, propose a few amendments to ensure it will never return ("Leave now, and never come back!"), and then pack up and go home.
Books finished: Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays.
