Richard Nikoley recently posted “Is Collectivism Relative?” (well, the url is titled as such anyway). In the post, Richard asserts (among other concepts) one of the same ideas he presented at The 21 Convention 2011, that voting is not only a massive waste of time, but insulting to anyone and everyone else on the receiving end of the action.
Well, surprise, to a very large extent, I agree with Richard. In fact I will make a confession, I am 23 years old, and have never voted — not even once.
Considering how much I write about politics on this blog, this should come as a surprise to most, but not to all. A few of you I think, will immediately understand why this is so.
For those of you that don’t, the answer to this paradox lies in the respects in which I agree with Richard, that voting is not only a waste of time, however little, but is also insulting to those on the receiving end.
I would go so far as to add that voting, in most cases today, is also an insult to every man in history who has stood for life and liberty. Not only, but especially the founding generation of the greatest country on earth. Most people that vote are not aware of this, but this does not change the nature of the action, in being an insult, and a severe one at that.
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How is voting a waste of time and in what way is it pinnacly insulting?
Voting is a waste of time today, in all cases except one, because it is a victory for “evil” — it is a sacrifice of the good for the benefit of evil, in which case, only evil can win. And so what is the one scenario where voting is appropriate, not a waste of time, and a good use of your efforts? Primarily when it helps to reverse and undermine the motor that is driving the world towards total collapse, the bottomless motor of moral treason.
The motor that states that voting can in any way, be used for such things that are not optional.
Translation: the consequences of voting can include the initiation of force in human relationships. Which is fundamentally a reversal of the proper role of government, as well as the stated and subsequently legal purpose of government in the federal American union of united States.
Secondarily, and as a by product, voting can be useful for anything that is optional in human relationships — such as, who should be the chief executive officer of our federal union, when it rejects the initiation of force. The fundamental and proper execution of government being held as absolute, the operating officer being a temporary inclusion, such officer not having the delegated authority to initiate force through government against any individual or group of individuals, unless and until such individuals violate the rights of others first.
This is the proper and only legitimate use of voting: things that are optional.
I however find the secondary use inconsequential so long as the primary use is an issue unto itself — so long as it is even up for debate, that voting can in any way, and on any scale, be used to initiate force against another human being or group.
No exceptions, no ifs, ands, buts, maybes, kindas, sortas, or anything of the type.
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So what does this all mean?
It means, Richard is right, if your vote furthers, in any way and to any degree, the notion that voting is moral, justified, or even legal in America, and any State there of, if it will force anyone to do anything. This subsequently means that voting for any man or woman who seeks to hold public office, who does not grasp man’s absolute, individual right to his own individual life and exercise there of, is a defeat of the good, and a victory for evil.
This is why I will never vote for any man or woman on earth who does not hold such a conviction. To do so would be to betray my own self, and everything I have chosen to hold as a value in my life on earth. I love my life to much, and respect yours so greatly, that I would never and will never do such a thing.
On the flip side, men who hold such a conviction, and seek to reverse, to destroy this moral disease, are very much worth your time supporting and voting for. Men who completely and entirely reject the notion that voting — meaning government guns in this case — can be used in any way to enact violence against you.
Violence in the form of involuntary tax, military slavery, “legal tender laws”, and so on — and of course, the attempts at violent arrests made by law enforcement officers for rejecting these institutions (it is worth mentioning here however that the vast majority of “federal law enforcement officers” are walking contradictions, such law enforcement agencies not being authorized under the federal constitution, making such officers, who swear oaths to the United States Constitution, illegal law enforcement officers, which is a bizarre concept to say the least).
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You have a right to your god damn life. Fucking act like it, and refuse to vote for any man who cedes even once inch of man’s absolute right to his own existence. Consequently, what makes this refusal moral, also makes it a moral imperative to support men who have a real potential to make a major and lasting impact on government, and the history of not just a nation, but the entire world.
Men like Ron Paul.
A man who seeks the power to immediately end illegal wars, end drug prohibition, abolish the federal reserve, abolish the IRS, abolish the income tax, permanently abolish the potential for military slavery, and get government the FUCK out of your life.
In conclusion, Richard is right, in all respects, unless and except when voting is used as a tool to reverse the idea that your vote can in any way dictate the fundamentals of someone else’s exercise of their own life (assuming such individual has not forfeited their rights through the violation of the rights of others). Subsequently, voting can be useful for anything that is optional. I however fail to see the importance of this unless and until the initiation of force is, by any means necessary, detached from your “vote”.
Which is in essence saying that your “vote” no longer has the legal power to end my life, enact serious bodily injury against me, seize my property, obstruct my freedom, etc.
I would challenge Richard to argue to the contrary (while adding that Richard donated a significant sum of money to Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign).
– Anthony Dream Johnson
“except when voting is used as a tool to reverse the idea that your vote can in any way dictate the fundamentals of someone else’s exercise of their own life”
I thought America was a democracy, and actually believed democracy to be a good thing, until I heard it explained by Aaron Russo for what it really is;
“The fact of the matter is if you ask 100 people on the street what kind of government this is supposed to be, 99% of them will tell you a Democracy. But that’s a LIE. That’s an illusion. The word Democracy is not written into the Constitution one time, it’s not in the Bill of Rights, it’s not in the Declaration of Independence
The founding fathers HATED the idea of a Democracy. They thought it was the worst form of government there is, and I agree with them. Because in a Democracy, 51% of the people control 49% of the people. If you’re part of the 49% of the people, you’re not Free. America was founded as a Constitutional Republic. And in that Constitutional Republic that we have, 99% of the people can’t take away the rights of 1%.
You have your rights because you were born with them.”
Thank you for that. A Constitutional Republic is so intuitively correct that I am shocked that I had never heard of the term before now. I had never given Democracy a second thought and so the glaring flaw of inequality it bears was never noticed despite being in plain sight. ‘Divide and conquer’? Smart, if you want to let the people turn against each other over banal, emotional political platitudes while you run the show in the background.
A system in which everyone has their rights [re:cake] and can eat them too (optionally, of course)? Reminds me of how 1% of the people (i.e. the rich who own 95% of the fiat currency) can play with the rights of the other 99% as they see fit?*
*numbers pulled out of ass. General idea remains.
Bingo.
Dr. Peikoff offers a counterpoint:
“Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because “both are bad.””
Hmmm … something seems mighty fishing about Dr Peikoffs comment. I think his comment implies something very bad. Perhaps I am “smelling” a contradiction. Reminds me very much what I saw a hippy say in London this past June — that if you are not willing to stand naked in front of a large audience, you are ashamed of your sexuality.
Which is total nonsense. Your sexuality, like your happiness, is a very private, personal matter in most respects and in most situations. Making it’s public unveiling at the very least, highly irrelevant.
So you’re saying it’s an insult to vote for the lesser evil even if you do it to protect your life and give yourself the better chance of survival and happiness?
Not at all. I’m saying that short range thinking and action that results in temporary “better chances” of survival and happiness, contribute incrementally to the long range destruction and total collapse of a free society, therefore dropping your chances for survival and happiness to 0% in a long enough time span, or at most, the chances for your children and their children.
The short term cure is the long term, lethal poison.
This is what Dr Peikoff is failing to realize in that statement.
I’ll agree I respect Ron Paul’s integrity: he knows what he believes in and won’t compromise that. The fact that I disagree w/ his politics does not diminish my respect for him. But let’s be honest, you nor Ron Paul are going to govern this country in 2012 bud
and I do not mean that as a dig, an insult, etc. Just the reality that what you and Mr. Paul advocate is not what a significant portion of our country (I being one of them) believe, for better for worse, and for whatever reasons each inidividual has.
leona helmsley said, taxes were for little people.
Likewise Voting too is for little people….the masses who think they collectively have power through the vote. so sad.