"if you choose to endorse the system by voting you can't complain; you voted for it! Were you expecting a different outcome than the one you got, despite thousands of years of examples of total government tyranny?"
"Voting is, by definition, granting your stamp of approval, and not just for the individual towards which you cast your ballot, but for the system itself."
"Voting is, by definition, granting your stamp of approval, and not just for the individual towards which you cast your ballot, but for the system itself."
Earlier today, I saw this article in my feeds. The first image is exactly in line with the first point I quoted above. As for the second... well, I'll just reproduce the article's reasons on why you should not vote. I've bolded the relevant part, although I think the entire list is valid:
"1. Voting in a political election is unethical. The political process is one of institutionalized coercion and force. If you disapprove of those things, then you shouldn't participate in them, even indirectly.
2. Voting compromises your privacy. It gets your name in another government computer database.
3. Voting, as well as registering, entails hanging around government offices and dealing with petty bureaucrats. Most people can find something more enjoyable or productive to do with their time.
4. Voting encourages politicians. A vote against one candidate-- a major, and quite understandable, reason why many people vote-- is always interpreted as a vote for his opponent. And even though you may be voting for the lesser of two evils, the lesser of two evils is still evil. It amounts to giving the candidate a tacit mandate to impose his will on society.
5. Your vote doesn't count. Politicians like to say it counts because it is to their advantage to get everyone into a busybody mode. But, statistically, one vote in scores of millions makes no more difference than a single grain of sand on a beach. That's entirely apart from the fact that officials manifestly do what they want, not what you want, once they are in office."
2. Voting compromises your privacy. It gets your name in another government computer database.
3. Voting, as well as registering, entails hanging around government offices and dealing with petty bureaucrats. Most people can find something more enjoyable or productive to do with their time.
4. Voting encourages politicians. A vote against one candidate-- a major, and quite understandable, reason why many people vote-- is always interpreted as a vote for his opponent. And even though you may be voting for the lesser of two evils, the lesser of two evils is still evil. It amounts to giving the candidate a tacit mandate to impose his will on society.
5. Your vote doesn't count. Politicians like to say it counts because it is to their advantage to get everyone into a busybody mode. But, statistically, one vote in scores of millions makes no more difference than a single grain of sand on a beach. That's entirely apart from the fact that officials manifestly do what they want, not what you want, once they are in office."
Of course, then the rest of the article veers off into crazy town: "American and its government used to be so great when it was libertarian-focused, but now you shouldn't vote because everything has gone to hell. I hate sounding unpatriotic!" Yada yada yada.
The reality is, anyone in any setting having the ability to say, "do as I command or I'll throw you in prison or shoot you" is bad. Even in a small household with just five people, where the scale is much smaller, one person having a monopoly on force is terrifying! Whether it's five people or four billion, the principle doesn't change.
The day the American government was formed was a dark day. It doesn't matter how "libertarian" it once was; in the author's own words, "the lesser of two evils is still evil."