I go both ways on voting. I don’t hate those who vote, but still feel iffy about voting myself. All the same, I enjoy quotes from certain pro-liberty individuals about why voting is not really a good thing (and its understandable for them to think so). Of course, most of us are familiar – I think atleast – with Lysander Spooner and maybe HL Mencken’s thoughts on this. Post some quotes that are anti-voting or anti-democracy. I actually found this quote from Emma Goldman about woman suffrage really good and apt (especially for an anarcho-communist):
"The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent laws prohibiting nearly everything… everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the twentiethcentury fetich have taught woman nothing. But, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured.
Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman’s greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? The most ardent suffragists would hardly maintain such a folly. . .
if voting changed anything they’d make it illegal."
“Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they’ve told you what it is you want to hear.”
“Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.”
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
““Good government” is a paradox. Any people so decent as to be capable of implementing it would be better off without it, and any people so rotten as to need it would be incapable of implementing it.”
“Every election is a sort of advanced auction of stolen goods.”
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat every problem as a nail.” - not much related to voting, but more the tactics you end up endorsing.
Are we not better off with the dictator that plunders less?
If we vote, we are increasing the chance that the mob will be right.
Once again, don’t we want to increase the chance that our rights are not taken away?
These quotes are not against voting at all, they are simply against democracy. There is an important difference. Sure we have a terrible system, but I do not see how we are better off if we have no say in the system at all.
ChaseCola, I agree, those quotes are more geared towards criticising democracy than voting, but I didn’t have any others that fit more closely the subject at hand.
As to your questions, I don’t view voting as a purely utilitarian matter. Since my libertarianism is based first and foremost on ethics (self-ownership, non-aggression) then in order to be consistent with my ethical system, I shouldn’t be voting as it would create an inconsistency between ends and means, and also encourage the system.
As I’ve said somewhere else though, if you don’t care about ethics, or care about utilitarianism more than ethics, then go ahead and vote.
P.S. John I have no idea where those are from, but I’ll do a google search for them later and edit my post.
I find the ethical arguments against voting unconvincing, but none the less I am abstaining from voting for a few reasons:
One vote has ~0% chance of actually doing anything.
It’s a good way to strike up a conversation about your beliefs if you are so inclined (when people ask who you’re voting for and you say “no one”).
Even though there is nothing hypocritical about voting for smaller government, people will try and paint you as a hypocrite anyways, and this avoids that whole mess.
You’re advocating a stateless society, so why the hell are you voting now (I’m assuming you’re an anarchist)? It’s not hypocritical if you’re a minarchist, but it is if you’re an anarchist. It might not be meaningful to you but if you want to be able to claim some sort of ethical and moral higher ground, you have to be consistent. Revealing inconsistencies in other people’s ideas while having some yourself is a bad idea, not that I’m saying that everbody should be perfect or anything, but not voting isn’t exactly difficult. Read more SEK3, he explains very well the futility and, if I remember correctly, the inconsistencies of voting.
Good idea about striking up conversations though, I hadn’t though of that as my introductory line before
You must be consistent in order to have any valid ethical basis. The goal is no government. You cannot dissolve government by using government as your means. You must instead setup or participate in some sort of alternative institutions (agorism basically).
Your self-defense argument doesn’t make sense either, since if you were to consistently apply it, every time someone from the government came to take your money, you would protect your property with deadly force. But you don’t (I’m assuming). And so pleading with your overlord in the form of a vote does not constitute self-defense.
The goal is to end the current coercive system; it’s not inconsistent to be opposed to initiating coercion while at the same time voting against a tax increase; it just doesn’t follow. In fact, it’s sinister to imply why should allow leftist advances to take place.
We disagree entirely.
People rarely fight back against taxation because the government has bigger guns, better guns, and more of them.
Pleading with your “overlord”? What overlord?
I have the ability to vote myself money from other individuals, and other individuals have the ability to vote themselves money from me; that’s what’s so evil about democracy. The system isn’t so much “us versus them”, it’s individuals versus other individuals. When everyone else has that kind of power, you have to push back to keep them from running all over you.
I sympathize, but this is a republic. Voting on a referendum to cut taxes fits your argument nicely. But voting for McCain? You may think you’re voting against socialized medicine, but he will claim you’re voting for an invasion of Iran, and act accordingly. What’s the point of voting for your favorite thief? The founders would be the first to say that a representative republic is doomed if there are no righteous men to do the representing.
In 2000 I was much more open to your argument. But I’m humbled by the fact that, had I voted at that time, I would have voted for Bush. We’d have been better off if Clinton managed to beat the 22nd Amendment and spent the last eight years turning the Oval Office into (more of) a brothel. Bush out-spent Clinton, out-murdered him. And in the end, Bush wasn’t even any better at controlling his D*ck than Clinton. Clinton’s thrust itself at women’s faces; Bush’s shot a hunting buddy and funneled billions to Haliburton.
I prefer the politician who would have the least ability to do anything; this election cycle, I prefer Hillary, then McCain, then Obama as a distant last.
In 2000, Al Gore would have been the best president, and in 2004, John Kerry would have been the best president.
On left and right labels and libertarian strategy:
I am sick to death of left and right labels. I cannot stand them. I do not like applying them often and feel as if I am taking part in something filthy and ignorant when I do. Even in the contexts of left as revolutionary and right as ‘conservative’.They are virtually meaningless and entirely mutable. And I think they basically are but a tool of state to create false dichotomies.
There are those who want freedom and those who do not. There are those who want a revolution in ideas and those who do not. There exist men who take part in honest life and those who quite simply do not. Those of a slave mentality and those of the rebel mind. Criminals and honest men. One cannot hang with thieves and expect no ill results… especially upon your own character.
There are, as Nic puts it: the revolutionaries, and as I would put it: everyone else. In this “everyone else” bucket is placed all the slop who support institutions of murder or even use the institution of murder to rid themselves or others of the institution (a result of ignorance or of outright fraud). Though I might argue that they float at the top of the bucket of shit they are still taking part in this filth and refuse to see where they lie and why they can never leave. Only those crawling out, hanging over the edge, or sitting on the floor outside of it, are the folk who shall bring about any damn change. Escape! is the means, to overturn the vat of shit is the goal, and to destroy the vat itself a dream.
Albert Jay Nock once said that there are political and economic means. Voting political buffoons (like this Ego guy and others who are genuinely evil men… I do not think ego has any real malice in him, he is but misguided…) and those who wish change the world by involving themselves in honest trade and friendship outside of the corruption and war of politics. Enabling the flourishing of the rebel, the producer, the honest.
Mises said that any attempt to imitate market means in political economy is to but ‘play market’ and is doomed to failure. He was absolutely right. And in this market for liberty, I do NOT intend to ‘play market’.
You’re only saying that because they never became presidents. You have no idea what they may have been capable of. Green communism comes to mind…
Are you serious? You do realise that by voting you endorse the institution through which you vote. Have you heard of vicarious liability? It doesn’t matter who or what you vote for, eitherway you vote within the framework of a coercive institution, and are thus liable for any coercion that occurs. Not only are you liable for your own taxes, but you condemn others to taxes too.
Think of it this way. The amount of freedom individuals have under the state are not so much determined by the laws, but by the authority of the state. If the social conditions are right, the state can grasp almost complete power in very short time periods (remember Hitler?). When I say social conditions, I mean the appearance of the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of citizens. In trying to push through Libertarians to seats of power, you end up placing good people in government, but this can never last. Its actually very destructive, because these good people will boost the image of the government in the eyes of the citizens, and soften them up for any government expansion. At that point in time, whatever laws may have been rolled back becomes irrelevant, since they can be re-enacted in a very short time.
You have to realise that no matter how many good people you place in the power of a coercive and evil institution, they will still cause evil.
Push back the power to steal by exercising that very same power?
You’re not punching the state that is stealing from you, you’re endorsing it, while hurting a bunch of other people. Sure some of those other people contributed to punching you, but some of them didn’t. As I said, vicarious liability.
Don’t equate voting with using public goods such as roads. Voting is optional, using roads or other goods you are coerced into using does not constitute a choice, at least no way near the same choice, as the consequences are very different.
That’s called hypocricy. Voting while critising the entire institution through which you vote. Don’t expect people to then take you seriously. Calling yourself an anarchist already emotes large amounts of mockery. Tell them that you’re also voting and you can be sure they won’t be taking your ideology seriously, because you yourself do not consistently believe in it.
And then they can be re-rolled back again. Your anarchic society also can be rolled back and the statist society re-enacted (e.g. wasn’t there some kind of agorist enclave back in the 80’s?). Every generation has to fight this battle. Thus your point is not a weakness of reformism but rather a fact of nature, which reformists deal with by emphasizing the importance of grooming leaders and which agorists deal with by ??? (from my perspective, it seems like denial is the preferred strategy, but I’m hoping to be shown otherwise).
Let’s say that I am vocal about my belief in the tyranny of democracy (which I am), while, at the same time, I vote against a state initiative to increase taxes. How on Earth am I endorsing the system? It’s self-defense, my friend. If you don’t vote, the leftists/statists will run all over you faster than they already do.
I didn’t use the example of roads! I used the example of depositing a Social Security check. If I can afford to not deposit my Social Security check, am I endorsing the system by doing so? Of course not; you’re simply living in an unfair system.
