I know, I know, this close to the election, I seem to be chattering on and on about it but voting is one of the cruxes of why slave people think they’re free thanks to the ballot box.
My father passed away last year and he was a die-hard believer in voting and duly registered in the state we live in when he moved in with us. I recently drafted a letter to the county registrar asking to deregister him from the rolls and did the same for myself. Years ago, I had a tilting at windmills moment and decided to run for state senate so I registered in order to do so. The process was so repugnant and I had conversations with so many of the election illiterati in the local venues that I withdrew and thought better of it.
I would speak before my friend, Brian Miller, before he mounted the lectern so he would appears moderate in light of my unorthodox and radical views. He was running for Congress and one of the only candidates in 2010 to do so with Ron Paul’s imprimatur. I knew the end was near when I saw a loathsome Neanderthal toting a sign with George W. Bush’s visage with the legend “Do you miss me yet?”. I simply thought the entire polity was barking mad who would even participate in the electoral nonsense.
I was a big fan of Ernie Hancock’s campaign for Secretary of State in Arizona in 2006 where he urged people not to vote.
A quick review of why voting is tyrannical:
Voting is violence.
If voting could change things it would be illegal.
Candidates are behaving in the extraordinarily narrow constraints of both legal and government approved standards.
Two party systems incentivize monopoly.
Increased suffrage across sex lines and socioeconomic strata correlates to an increasing size in government.
Voting is an illusion of granting legitimacy.
Have you ever wondered why obviously tyrannical regimes like China, the USSR and Cuba hold elections even though the results are a foregone conclusion? There are only two likely answers: legitimacy and a “voice” in law enforcement. The former is obvious to the casual observer but the latter not so much.
How many times have you heard the usual suspects crow on about the importance of a voice and that you may not like the behavior of the regime but you have a choice in which creature you select to “represent” you and they carry the philosophical water?
Strip any government of its policing and law enforcement function and no one will comply with the edicts issued by the elected mandarins and in the US, the venal and corrupt executive that lords over the land like an occupying force. Whether it is the land of the free or a Russian gulag or a Chinese labor camp, cops make governments work; they are the sociopathic pointy business end of all collectivist endeavors.
I was listening to National Pinko Radio in the car this morning and the newly minted FBI Director, James Comey, was whining and complaining about the lack of transparency in new communications devices impairing his ability to spy on the polity. This latest installment of an American Lavrenty Beria and his high-tech NKVD takes the reflagging of the mission of the FBI as a national security organ very seriously. There is no liberty or freedom that will be left unexamined by this totalitarian aspirant.
It then struck me, if no one voted, what excuse would the usual collectivist apologists proffer for the excesses of government? In other words, how many times have you heard a friend or neighbor say either there ought to be a law or if you want to change it then vote a candidate in. Their a priori assumption is that a candidate must be selected to manage every aspect of their life.
This is why even totalitarian societies like the ones I described earlier do the kabuki dance of voting. It’s a sophisticated rationalization and cover for government abuse and mayhem through the simple shamanistic notion of blaming the victim because they approved the power in the first place. I’ve often described the US as a crazy patchwork quilt of the Milgram/Stanford experiment harnesses to a vast herd of Stockholm Syndrome patients. No matter how ineffective and murderous the regime, the elected psychopaths and their nomenklatura simply point at the masses of duped participants and claim the holy writ of protection by majoritarian tyranny. Sort of like the serial killer standing over the bloody corpse of his latest prey, pointing at him and caterwauling the victim made him do it.
This is the same sordid excuse you hear from the government gang of thugs known as police and law enforcement. They consistently present the reverse defense of Nuremburg to absolve them of all the crimes and mayhem they have committed as the armed agents of the state.
So to simply add to the list of why voting in a government-sponsored contest is immoral, reprehensible and just plain stupid, you remain a slave who happily and blithely slips a suggestion in the box for your next plantation owner. By doing so, all the mandarins and rulers will look serenely on as they see the next dupe upon whom they place all the blame for their psychopathic behavior.
Remember that all collectivist act like toddlers with guns and a license to kill. Don’t be surprised if your vote has lethal consequences.
Friends don’t let friends vote. Period.
I share your philosophy. It never ceases to amaze me that people equate “not voting” with “giving up”. I equate “not voting” with being the first step in my duty to fight for Liberty.
David,
Indeed, you’re correct. The government obedience classes drilled it into their skulls for years.
Well said as always, Bill.
Ben
Bill,
You made mention that you went to the county registrar to deregister yourself and your father. Were you sucessful? Is it really that simple?
Very simple but they are not used to the process so you have to guide them through it. I suggest the first step is a return receipt letter to the registrar and stay on them and get confirmation.
Update: Just got an email today confirming both our deregistrations from the voter rolls.
Bill –
Just ran across your site and agree with most everything you write. Especially when it comes to voting. I haven’t voted since 1996 and will never vote again regardless of the candidates or issues on the ballot. I just wrote a similar piece about voting because of the upcoming midterms. Here’s the most salient reason I don’t vote excerpted from my own essay –
“In the end the biggest reason I don’t vote, the only one that truly matters is that inevitably my vote is an act of aggression against others. The Declaration of Independence, one of the foundational documents that governs this country states correctly that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. The key to that phrase is that our rights are unalienable which means non-transferable. I can vote to give away my freedoms but I cannot vote to take away yours. If our rights are unalienable (non transferable) then they cannot be usurped by a voter or group of voters and yet that is the crux of all voting. All voting is about taking something from someone and giving it to another or appointing someone lord and master over others against their will.”
This one point is almost never discussed. Voting is contrary to the NAP and is one of the most violent acts a person can engage in.
David
David,
Brilliant paragraph and I bolded the money quote in your response. Thanks for the kind words.
Please visit David’s site: https://thirdway.crosstherubicon.us/why-i-dont-vote/
Bill
Wow, well said by all. I really like this one, Bill. The idea behind it is something near and dear to my revolutionary heart.
It always seems important to drill down to the crux of things and work back up to the commission of the act of exercising one’s liberty.
In light of your essay I see consent, specifically withdrawal of one’s consent, in a form of sublime secession.
After all, secession can only be secession when one begins with himself first. In my mind indeed, for those in power require consent, illegitimate as it is to begin with, from those they rule over, for illegitimate regime can only utilize illegitimate consent because they are illegitimate to begin with. It’s a tyrants circle jerk.
Of course, our illustrious class of tyrants who infest and invest our society can always resort to total force of arms doing away with the ruse and theater of the con of representative serfdom.
Truth be explored, I would surmise the military banana junta option is far less profitable, fraught with physical existential dangers for said corruptoscum, it being profoundly far more expedient in the long run to permit millions of useful dupes to perpetrate their own willing slavery, (illegitimate consent), instead of employing totalitarian use of the gun to commit mass murder and gulag systems.
Breaking the chain of this symbiotic love affair between the gulled/willing dupes and their Nomenklatura masters becomes an imperative to higher order resistance to tyranny. I think also, this system of tyranny is fragile in the sense withdrawal of consent becomes an increasingly powerful form of resistance in direct relation to the increasing illegitimacy of the leviathan.
One thing about withdrawal of consent involves the question of a plurality of people who do so. Where and how does such a plurality become undeniable, where it becomes a force that can not be reckoned with by the leviathan. Just what constitutes a plurality in the scope of resistance to tyranny, abolition of the state, and what I would like to believe ideally would be the natural evolution towards secession?
After all, it takes hearts and minds to foment revolutionary movement towards liberty. That movement is only viably possible in the form of a grass roots uprising. Just when, how, is it a plurality worth its salt?
And, even what is a plurality in the context of freedom?
I think the importance of it can not be underestimated.
I think too, the more cunning and intelligent forces behind the curtains of tyranny go to lengths to deny the creation of a plurality of people of liberty. Divide and conquer is a very effective tool in a tyrants tool box. We see it in a myriad of subtle forms of social manipulation and engineering. We see it in various forms directed towards destroying culture of self determination, morality, moral responsibility, principles and convictions involving individual and tribal independence and self reliance, faith and indomitable spirit.
It is apparent, ridiculously so, once the idea is grasped, withdrawal of consent, such as a plurality of people who refuse to participate in voting for their slavery, is quite simply a symbolic middle finger of go fuck yourself the “elites” can not do a thing about. As consent is something that can only be given, even tacitly, it can not be forced,it can’t be taken, coerced, or forced. Consent is a voluntary condition, regardless of the ruses and cons created to illicit it, it is still choice. What withdrawal of consent is, is understanding that choice. A very dangerous and powerful thing.
Just what is a plurality though?
Somehow, and I can not define my intuition and instinctual perception of how important one is, it is such an elusive concept, a plurality is somehow potentially the defining element in the movement and awakening towards liberty. Like a splinter in your mind.
What say you, Mr. Buppert?
Can you define it? Am I barking up a tree?
It seems a leap of reasoning I cannot wrap my mind around.
Doug,
Thanks for your thoughts. One of the answers lies in this short story by SF author Eric Frank Russell. https://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php
Holy Cow Bill! Thanks for the link.
Read that when I was 14, it was great then, it got a lot better with time.
I can really appreciate it now in ways not possible before as a kid. Been passing it around to everyone I can.
I think it is important to rephrase my question to you.
Bear with me please, I struggle with how to put this in words and convey what I’m seeking here.
This great piece Then There Where None defines movement towards liberty, the essence of freedom. Here is what I’m trying to visualize right now, in this living world, the time that comes to us, at what point does such a plurality become what it was on the terran ships crew here today. I always intrinsically understood the power a plurality possesses can destroy the state. It is the nature of one which makes it something which can not be stopped. Can not be denied.
I believe it is more than possible, that it is happening. But it requires a certain gravity in any given circumstance, a kind of caveat maybe, or is it a combination of things which creates this unstoppable thing, and in the context of our time, at what point does it become what it is? You see it with Harrison and his crew members, how it catches like wild fire, and BAM! it’s on like Donkey Kong.
This here forlorn old republic is ripe for the likes of Myob! It ain’t no little spacecraft and a few thousand men. Its one big crazy messed up stirred up conflicting mass of hundreds of millions of people. Like a hundred thousand ants on a soap box all trying to be heard at once with exterminators trying to gas em all to keep them quiet. The only way Myob! works is naturally, it can’t have leaders, it needs none, it isn’t organized or can it be an organization, it is movement of people, but it isn’t a movement, it is grass roots, but its roots are nebulous, doesn’t need a destination to be what it is, but it relies on destiny, yet a destination only makes it stronger, it has no use of centers of power, but it is powerful beyond any thing, the people of it are powerful beyond and kind of power, yet they have no power but absolute power over only themselves individually.
So where are we at, Bill?
If you don’t vote, you are allowing the megacorps to take away our freedoms, with no resistance at all. you can claim that you remove your consent, but the government has bigger guns than we have, and will use military law to enforce their rule upon us, if we let them have too much power, which they will have if we let the corporate/government sponsored candidates win. VOTE INDEPENDENT/3RD PARTY. DON’T FALL FOR THE MEGACORPS’ TRICK OF GETTING US TO NOT VOTE, THUS ALLOWING THEIR SPONSORED CANDIDATES TO WIN WITHOUT OBSTACLES
I need not reply, you make a very good case for NOT voting.
I am always amused by your line of reasoning in supporting the legitimacy of the serial killer beauty contest.
Your logic is the same as using a toilet that doesn’t flush until its filled to the brim even though I took no part in the festivities and also holding me accountable for the mess because I didn’t shit in it.
Unbelievable statist nonsense on your part.
It does not matter who votes. It only matters who COUNTS the votes. As shown repeatedly in MANY elections now!!!
You are wrong. Anyone who does not vote, and who propagates the idea to not vote, is allowing the corporate-bought, 2 party system to win without any obstacles. The only way to beat the two party system is to vote for an independent or 3rd party candidate, who is speaking out about taboo subjects of foreign and domestic violence and incursions on our freedoms. Also, seek out those candidates who are being blocked and ridiculed by the mainstream media and privately owned debate system, which is a sure sign that they are not bought off. That is the ONLY way to beat the megacorps’ efforts at buying the election, into which they pour millions of dollars, which btw wouldn’t be necessary if the elections were rigged, and a foregone conclusion. You state empty words about declaring your freedom from the system, while allowing the system to increase their noose around our necks by bribing politicians, that you have passively allowed to become elected, to pass the NDAA, patriot act, etc. So, you are increasing the powers of the state which you say you reject.
Pingback: Another Brick in the Wall: The Myth of Implied Consent - The Libertarian Institute
Sheila Pan… Ever see The Matrix? Great movie. Watch it again, you’re the “battery” in it.
Anarchy then? Has anyone reading this seen any evidence of that form of self rule working? If you are advocating for the dismantling of the leadership appointment process of our nation, then perhaps an alternative?
Here’s my alternative: pick up a rural phone directory and close your eyes and randomly choose a few people to fill the positions in government. Can’t be any worse than the vermin at the top of the Federal government.
Having been born in Baltimore, I’m somewhat biased but believe The Sage pithily said it best (maybe 1st?):
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
I have a friend who is a soft lefty-raised in Malibu with plenty of money & upper class friends. She has told me for years to NEVER register to vote. She holds the opinion that you are spied upon if they have your freely given information. And voting makes no difference. Sadly, I now have to agree.