In Causation and Aggression Stephan Kinsella discusses crimes having the features of intention,means and ends.
What if that’s applied to voting?
Could we say a statist voting with the intent to use the means of government/government intervention to achieve their desired ends in terms of a vision of society, are crime by collaborating in use of aggression?
Would that even make sense?
is this consistent with Kinsella’s theory? My understand is that this is implied.
Furthermore,what about Libertarians voting?
True enough Libertarians often only vote to free people.What about the case of a Libertarian who votes this way while knowing their candidate will also enforce a certain vision on society? are they a collaborator in aggression?
Is there any other cases where Libertarians vote where this could apply?
The action of voting is neutral. You could vote to take someone’s wallet. Strange but possible and would constitute a property rights violation. However if you vote about who likes cake or pie, I don’t think there is a rights violation therefore not a crime. Now whether it is immoral or not is another discussion.
No, voting is not a crime. That’s like saying “speeding” is a crime. There is no victim in either case. However, I do think voting is generally stupid. Why anyone would want to be ruled is beyond me (unless you are voting for someone that wants to let you opt out of taxes, then I don’t think it would be stupid).
I would say voting for a candidate to impose a crime is in itself a crime. Or, in a direct democracy, voting for a policy such as the Holocaust (hypothetically) would be criminal in the libertarian sense.
It’s an unethical act and does little for the cause of liberty, but I don’t see how voting is a crime. Forcing people of a given area to conform with the rulers which voting yields is a crime.
@E. R., I was contrasting it with a crime in the legal sense. Spooner also compared voting to an act of self defense. It seems it can be either, depending on who you’re voting for.
Yes, voting is a crime. And it doesn’t matter who you vote for.
If you voted against Hitler you are still part responsible for everything Hitler did. Cause you have accepted and participated in this system of violence.
If we take a voluntary association this becomes more clear. Say we have a non-profit organisation helping the homeless or whatever and you are part of this group. Now suddenly they put on white capes and start killing homeless that are of the wrong color.
So you keep paying you membership fee? Go to group meetings? Vote in there elections? No, ofcourse not that would make you complicit in the crimes. What you do is to withdraw from the organisation, if you don’t you are a criminal.
The same basic case can be done for the state but it is by no means as black and white as this example. There are many extiniuating circumstances that can be applied because mebership in the state is forced upon you.
For instance one could argue that one voted in self-defence. This doesn’t really hold in a large group but consider you have 2 Nazis and 2 Jews voting on the holocaust. If it is a tie nothing happens. In this case it is clearly self-defence for the Jews to use there vote. But for millions this doesn’t really work as individual votes mean nothing and the outcome is not as predictable. Still you could feel forced to vote and if you do something in response to treat it can be an extiniuating circumstance to some degree.
On top of that one could argue ignorance and the complete insignificance of indivial votes as extinuating circumstances.