I think I became capitalist pig (oink!), during the last months. It probably happen because of my increasing interest in economics and the Austrian School. Although I don’t know if I am more of a classic liberal, a libertarian, a minarchist or an anarchocapitalist, I’m pretty sure I move around that area (hey! Don’t look me like that, I’m just in my ideological beginnings!).
I live in Spain and we’re having elections soon, and my family has been shocked when I told them that I had no intention to vote. I don’t know how to explain them, so they can understand, my dislike of the state and my love for individual freedom.
As you may imagine, they throw me out the usual democratic stuff ‘but you HAVE TO vote’!, ‘if you don’t like any party’, blank vote’, ‘democracy is very important’, etcetera.
How could I explain them my views without seeming like a brainless utopian?
P.S.: Oh my god, I want to split so bad every time I see a political ad talking of ‘social justice’.
Tell them not voting is like voting to not participate in the system because you aren’t satisfied, or just tell them to go f*** themselves because it’s not their business lol.
Explain your positions to anyone just like you would explain them to yourself. If you can’t explain them to yourself then ask yourself why you hold them.
In my experience, people who aren’t searching for answers themselves cannot be swayed. Avoid conflict with your family and go with them to vote and just spoil your ballot. By doing so you at least show them that you’re doing something and it may offer a window for them to enquire a bit more as to why you did what you did (rather than simply not voting which would seem to them that you’re doing nothing )
Don’t vote for the same reason you don’t try to cool off the sun on a hot day by blowing at it. Your effort won’t change anything.
Although I do have to admit that I finally broke my own non-voting rule when I recently registered so I can vote for Ron Paul in 2012. However I have no intention of ever voting again afterward. It’s probably the same thinking that causes people to play the lottery only when the jackpot is exceptionally large, but oh well.
Abstaining from a vote is done by countries at the United Nations and elected representatives in most legislatures. They consider it to be a valid form of expressing political statement, why can’t the voter in a democracy?
Blank voting can be interpreted as saying - I want democrazy I just don’t like any of the above. I don’t think that is the intention of the OP.
@OP
Ask yourself why are you not voting? Tell your parents just that. Don’t be ashamed of your views. Remember to tell your parents that since you don’t vote you will not impose your (“insane”) views on them
Perhaps. I guess it just depends more on what message is more important to be heard at this time…and how much crap you’re willing to put up with from all these people. At least you have a blank vote. We don’t have that in the U.S. Jesse Ventura advocated a “none of the above” option on every ballot, noting how if enough people did that it would send a pretty strong message (and depending on how the rules worked, could actually affect the election)…whereas simply not voting just gives more influence to those that do vote.
Except it does not send a strong message. I don’t know how it is in US but in Poland here 50% of the people don’t vote at all (we can blank vote here) and you think any of those pigs care? This is gang not a businness. They do whatever they can as long as they can get away with it. Political action is just smoke screen.
I don’t know it was never the case. Depending on a district “non-vote” often accounts as plurality though. Seeing as non voting is stronger message than blank voting I remain sceptical that anything substantial would change.
Again I’m wondering if you ever read my post. Not voting may be a more accurate message (if you’re trying to voice disagreement with the process), but as I noted, all it does is give more power to those that do vote. And depending on what happens if a “none of the above” or blank vote wins a plurality, it would be a much more impactful message, again, as I noted.
“all it does is give more power to those that do vote”
I don’t see how it does, because people as voters don’t have any power at all. Voters after all are just choosing who will have power over them. What is the difference for an ancap? To have power would be to have choice to opt out of the system. Blank voting and proper voting (no matter whether for candidate that actually won or not) give more power to the people that are getting ellected thats for sure - these legitimize institution from which “winners” draw their power and just prolong the agony of the system. I just don’t see how you can win with democracy(assuming that is your goal) using democracy.
And what message is that, exactly? We desperately want and need government of some kind, but none of us have the initiative/ability/wherewithall to actually form a political party ourselves and provide it, so we’ll have to go with the best we’ve got? Isn’t it a bit like McRonalds customers getting surveys to fill out, and they consistently report that the food is terrible and that none of the items on the menu are their “favourite”, but wtf, they still pitch up regularly to buy their crap instead of going to Burger Chief, or maybe even eating something that wasn’t marinated in embalming fluid… Why should McRonalds care that the customers think that all the food on the menu is terrible if they keep coming back to buy it? Surely a government hasn’t lost its legitimacy if the democratic plurarity agrees that any government is better than no government, just like McRonalds is a perfectly legitimate enterprise as long as people are pitching up to buy their food, even if they complain about it the whole time like ingrates.
And this is better than the message that is conveyed when voter turnout dwindles to single figures and beyond? Isn’t the message then that the majority of people are not consenting to government at all, and it’s only a hardcore of religious fanatics who are imposing their will onto the majority? That the proverbial McRonalds is now running around shoving burgers down peoples’ throats? Doesn’t a “democratic” government lose its legitimacy in this situation?
The only half-way persuasive argument I’ve seen for someone like the OP voting is for the sake of his family’s (flawed) perceptions, and not for some sort of general democratic “message”. From his family’s perspective, maybe he’s just being lazy or whatever by not suffering through the same bureaucratic crap they do in order to express their political statement, so going along to suffer with them in line on voting day might not be a bad thing insofar as their perceptions of his actions are concerned. All of this is contingent upon the OP’s relationship with his family, tho, if he didn’t have a family pressuring him, or if he didn’t think their perceptions of his actions were so important, there’d be no reason to go through these motions as far as I can see.
