Food for Election Thought

Quotes for votes

Perhaps you have heard rumblings about the upcoming election and its importance in your life. Inextricably linked to such rhetoric is the notion, whether explicit or implicit, that voting is imperative and a “duty” of every citizen. Indeed, mailers claim that your vote is “your power,” and we are all reminded by do-gooders that they do not care for whom we vote so long as we vote—which, to me, is just as disingenuous as saying, “I don’t care where you defecate as long as you defecate!”

However, I write this piece not specifically to persuade readers of my own opinion about voting or for whom to vote (although this episode provides intriguing reasons to do so) but rather to offer a few nuggets of wisdom regarding politics, voting, and the state itself from several thinkers and writers far more cogent than I. It is my hope that you can consider and take some of this wisdom with you as you choose whether to enter the voting booth on Tuesday.

Lysander Spooner

“In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two.”

Václav Havel

“Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.”

Walter E. Williams

“Substituting democratic decision-making for what should be private decision-making is nothing less than tyranny dressed up.”

“Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty.”

“The moral tragedy that has befallen Americans is our belief that it is okay for government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another–-that, in my book, is a working definition of slavery.”

“Always be suspicious of those who…claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us.”

“Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.”

Leonard E. Read

“The kept man is by any sensible definition an enslaved man. Authority and responsibility are companions and go hand-in-hand; they can never be severed for long. Wherever responsibility is reposed, there sits authority in the driver's seat. When Big Brother is responsible for my life, then to Big Brother must I turn for instructions as to how to live my life; I will be ordered how to live it. Nor can it be otherwise.”

“If respect for a candidate’s integrity were widely adopted as a criterion for casting a ballot, millions of us … would not cast ballots. Yet, in a very practical sense, would not those of us who protest in this manner be voting … who, by our conscious and deliberate inaction, proclaim that we have no party. What other choice have we at the polling level? Would not this encourage men of statesmanlike qualities to offer themselves in candidacy?

There is no moral or political or social obligation to vote merely because we are confronted with ballots… Doesn’t this ‘obligation’ deny to the citizen the only alternative left to him — not to endorse persons or measures he regards as repugnant?”

James Bovard

“Freedom consists of more than a mere choice of political masters. Once it becomes stark that ‘the people’ cannot control Big Government, then the democratic sheen of Leviathan is gone and all that is left is … Leviathan. The most important issue is not whether the government rules in the name of the majority but how the government rules — whether its power is limited or unlimited. The more power government acquires, the more likely democracy will self-destruct.”

“The notion that the people is the government is political infantilism — an agreement to pretend that the citizens’ wishes animate each restriction or exaction inflicted upon him. This doctrine essentially makes masochism the driving force of political life — assuming that if government is beating the citizens, they must want to be beaten, and thus they have no right to complain.”

Ludwig von Mises

“Government is an apparatus of compulsion and coercion. It has the power to obtain obedience by force. The political sovereign, be it an autocrat or the people as represented by its mandataries, has power to crush rebellions as long as his ideological might subsists. The position which entrepreneurs and capitalists occupy in the market economy is of a different character. A ‘chocolate king’ has no power over the consumers, his patrons. He provides them with chocolate of the best possible quality and at the cheapest price. He does not rule the consumers, he serves them. The consumers are not tied to him. They are free to stop patronizing his shops. He loses his ‘kingdom’ if the consumers prefer to spend their pennies elsewhere.”

Murray Rothbard

“It should be clear that the name of the political party in power is far less important than the particular regime’s financial and banking connections.”

“… the mass of people simply don’t have the time for politics or political shenanigans. The average person must spend most of his time on the daily business of life, being with his family; seeing his friends, etc. He can only get interested in politics or engage in it sporadically. The only people who have time for politics are the professionals: the bureaucrats, politicians, and special interest groups dependent on political rule. They make money out of politics, and so they are intensely interested, and lobby and are active twenty-four hours a day: Therefore, these special interest groups will tend to win out over the uninterested masses.”

“… the whole point of politics is to ‘divide’ people, to separate people by principle and ideology and to have them slug it out, each trying to gain a majority support of the population.”

“So by voting you can’t say that this is a moral choice, a fully voluntary choice, on the part of the public.  It’s not a fully voluntary situation.  It’s a situation where you are surrounded by the whole state which you can’t vote out of existence.  For example, we can’t vote the Presidency out of existence — unfortunately, it would be great if we could, but since we can’t why not make use of the vote if there is a difference at all between the two people.  And it is almost inevitable that there will be a difference, incidentally, because just praxeologically or in a natural law sense, every two persons or every two groups of people will be slightly different, at least.  So in that case why not make use of it.”

Conclusion

I leave you with the reminder that whatever your choices regarding the election this year, your true power stems from your role in the free market and in your voluntary cooperation with those around you—as a consumer, producer, neighbor, friend, parent, child, and spouse. As Keith Knight succinctly states, in the free market, “no one can take a penny out of your pocket or get a second of your time unless you voluntarily give it to [him or her],” so remember that each daily decision you make is actually a vote in terms of how you choose to utilize your scarce resources, especially time. And those votes have the power to build or topple whole businesses; to help or harm customers; to bolster or destroy relationships; and to raise or impede healthy, happy, and virtuous children who will learn from your example.