To Vote or Not to Vote?

That is my question.

Election 2024 is coming up. Once again, it’s…

“The most important election in our lifetime.” (*insert dramatic music*)

(Who knows? Maybe this time it’ll be true.)

A lot of you wonderful people are new here, having just subscribed over the last month or so. I certainly cannot expect you to have read through the entire corpus of my work over the last year. So allow me to summarize…

About a year and a half ago, I became (for lack of a better term) an anarchist. Even before that, I had reasoned my way to the moral impermissibility of any form of involuntary governance.

For years before, I began to suspect, and then over the last year finally fully realized and accepted, that systems that use voting (yes, even our vaunted constitutional republic) do not solve this fundamental problem.

That does not mean that elections do not matter at all. They do. It does make some difference who gets elected. But…

1. It does not make as much of a difference as it seems to us when we are locked into the blue vs. red paradigm, and

2. The whole system is fundamentally immoral, so voting is propping up something fundamentally immoral.

Consequently, I have been struggling with the question of whether or not I will vote this November. And I must tell you—I am very much leaning towards not.

As I have passionately emphasized in the past, I respect those who are still fighting the good fight, trying to keep the state from getting worse. Fighting against encroachments on our liberty. Fighting against continued and further violations of our rights, and of natural law in general. I do not believe that those efforts are meaningless. But there does have to be some end in sight. It cannot just be this “democratic” slog in the mud, generation after generation, forever.

Nonetheless, I also have moral considerations before me as an individual human…and as you know from reading my work, moral considerations—the first principles that emanate from natural law—mean a great deal to me.

Here are a few such considerations that spring to mind:

#1 — I don't like the idea of picking my overlord.

Since no one has the ontological authority to rule me, why should I voluntarily pick someone to do just that? Isn’t that like slipping one’s head in the hangman’s noose? Why make it easy for them? Why validate the lie?

#2 — I don't like the idea of picking anyone else's overlord.

It’s one thing to do it to myself—at least that is my choice. But isn’t it even more morally problematic to do it to someone else? That is exactly what voting does. Since democracy forces decisions and modes of life upon everyone whether they want them or not, voting is, ultimately, an act of violence.

#3 — Voting legitimizes a system that is not consensual.

There are no two ways about it. Voting is not consent. You did not agree to the system, and the system that has been foisted upon you is not rendered consensual by the fact that you can vote in it. Vote or don’t—things will still be done to you that you did not agree to. Win or lose the election, and the same thing is true.

Voting sends a message—at very least a moral one—that you are okay with the lie that voting constitutes “the consent of the governed.” It doesn’t.

If you still think that the system is consensual, then consider this, from the Declaration of Independence:

“It is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….”

Are you still clinging on to the belief that such an alteration or abolition is possible? Did you miss what happened in 1865?

You’ll notice that the above verbiage appears in the Declaration, not in the Constitution. The Federalists were not about to allow for the easy and legal abolition of their system. And those men were closer to the mark on first principles than just about any living person in power now. What hope do we today have for a legal and peaceful secession?

In other words…that is one more way in which the system is nonconsensual. The notion of signifiant alteration or abolition of it, or of being “allowed” any legal establishment of “new Guards for [our] future security” is a pipe dream.

Voting might have been the most consensual thing they could come up with at the time. So what? That means it’s the only way, forever? Are we so lacking in imagination and initiative?

#4 Democracy is cruel

The system, when functioning normally, requires that one group gather enough political power to force another group to bend to its will. Democracy is an endless scrum of people trying to get the upper hand over other people. To take money from other people. To force their ideas on other people.

Read the Spooner quote at the end of this piece. Is that what you want? For yourself? For your children? Forever?

This isn’t good. This is evil. Especially because we know better.

As a longtime patriotic conservative, the words “We, the people” always held a special meaning. But now, I have seen the truth. “We, the people” is a euphemism for endless gladiatorial combat that keeps us fighting each other, while our Caesars laugh and grow fat.

When we vote, we pull our fellow man down into the pit with us.

#5 Do you really want to be responsible for what this country does?

As a longtime patriotic conservative, the word “country” also held a special meaning for me. And if that word means our neighbors, the land beneath our feet, and the principles that animated our Founders, then it still does. But if it includes our government in any way, then I want nothing to do with it. Now more than ever.

If you vote, you are participating. This means that you can, in a sense, be considered responsible for what ‘your’ country does.

If you do not vote, then you can rightly claim that you are not responsible. Yes, they are using your tax money to extort, exploit, and explode people…but you can rightly say that they took that money against your will. Increasingly, I find myself not wanting to have to “own” anything this country does.

For all these reasons, and more, I find myself strongly considering not voting.

On the other side of the ledger is the practical consideration that Candidate A might truly be worse than Candidate B. I am aware of that argument. I made it myself for most of my adult life. I’m just not sure that’s enough anymore.

I have been called an idealist for leaning away from the practical and toward the moral before, and I’m okay with that. It certainly won’t give me any trouble sleeping at night.

I might even sleep a little better.