If you live in a country that will have an election this year (i.e. the USA) will you be voting? Why or why not? I am more interested in your thoughts about the concept of voting itself than I am about a particular candidate or political party. Thanks.
I voted in the Australian Federal Election last year. I had just turned 18 and thought I would do it. Despite my efforts the party I voted for didn’t win.
Voting is an irrational act. If you look at the voter turnouts of Western countries you’ll see that 30-60% of people have correctly figured out that voting is a waste of time.
Here is a fancy formula for figuring out if you will vote: P(V)**.B + D > C
Where P(V) is the probabilty of your vote swinging the election, B is the benefit you will gain if your party is elected, D is your percieved duty to vote, and C is the cost of voting (ie rolling out of bed on a Saturday). Since P(V)= 0, then it boils down to whether “Duty” exceeds Costs.
That’s why there are loads of “Rock the Vote” and “Vote or Die” campaigns aimed at people trying to get people excited about voting. Countries like Australia even go so far as instituting compulsary voting.
That was a bit of a rant. So the lesson is: don’t vote, play the lottery instead.
I have gone back and forth on this issue. At times I have supported voting. At times not. But right now the way I look at voting is as self defense - especially when there are referenda on the ballot. There will be this year. If there were a referendum on the ballot where you live to “nationalize” your property would you vote? What if there was a referendum on the ballot to take away some of your liberty? I view this as self defense. It may not be very effective. It may be like putting a thimblefull of water on a blazing fire but it is one more act against the machine. If I choose to vote this year it will not be for Obama or McCain or that LINO (libertarian in name only) Bob Barr. If I choose to vote this year it will be for Charles Jay http://www.cj08.com/
As Rothbard put it, when you vote you’re either being robbed or you are the robber.
This is the case whether I vote or not. If I choose not to vote I am still subject to the same laws. The government will not let me pay fewer taxes just because I did not vote.
I probably won’t vote. Besides the lack of any good candidates (possible exception in the Boston Tea Party?), I think that voting will only be effective when the ruling class is weak, divided, and desperate, ie; not now.
Charles Jay is running as the POTUS candidate for both the Boston Tea Party and the Personal Choice party. The ruling class may not be weak or desperate but they ARE divided.
Voting is self-defense and can only ever be self-defense in the instance of a a referendum. Anything else is just throwing support behind a temporary tyrant.
I will not be voting, because the choice is between a socialist and a socialist who pretends to be a capitalist so as to co-opt the ideology of free markets and “disprove” its ideas, thus paving the way for more socialism. When open socialism fails, they go back to the co-opter who mitigates whatever losses for the state there may be. Frankly, one’s time is better spent in tax revolt, in whatever form it may be, than voting for politicians who pretend they like these ideas but will only serve to weaken their legitimacy. (See Ronald Reagan, for instance.)
No, I won’t be voting.
Ha ha ha!
The squad car will be arriving at your house shortly.
Where do you live? In the United States we have more than two candidates.
I voted for some tasty doughnuts yesterday.
I used to like Dunkin Donuts but the quality of their product has gone down hill recently. I now prefer Publix.
I’m going to picket the next time we have an election. I will have to find out about the bylaws for that. I probably have to stand far away from the polling station.
That’s an interesting idea. If you could get enough people behind you, the distance thing wouldn’t matter much. Imagine a solid ring of people around a polling place with signs saying “Don’t Vote, It Only Encourages Them!”…
cool [:P]
Turn off your video games for a couple hours, allow your body to manufacture Vitamin D under direct sunlight and just do it. My only regret doing it alone would be that no one could video or photo it. I got a couple good looking female cousins. Maybe I could bribe them to hang out. I would be guaranteed to attract some attention. [:)]
Or is that too VULGAR for the library libertarians? [;)]
I actually have quite a good (farmer’s) tan, thank you very much! [:)]
Actually, thats my kind of vulgarity!
I am literally a library libertarian - seriously I AM a libertarian librarian - I work in a library. I see nothing “vulgar” about the human body. A healthy human body is beautiful, not vulgar. Only violence, oppression and dishonesty are “vulgar” in my view.