Once again, the case against electoral politics
Sheesh! Every time I make nonvoting, antipolitics statements like those I’ve made here recently about campaigning for Ron Paul, I get hit with scoldings for under-appreciating the "fine work" of libertarian candidates and their electoral efforts — comments like the ones you’ll find attached here.
So I feel compelled again to offer the same response I have so often before: some of my best friends are voters, but I’m a longtime nonvoter who believes “anarchists” and “radical libertarians” who rely on electoral politics to “liberate” themselves are both unimaginative and philosophically inconsistent. If it’s humiliating to be ruled, how much more humiliating is it to choose your own masters? I’ve talked about this many times before, including here, here, here, and in a recent interview with Sunni Maravillosa.
My libertarian critics should also check out a couple of nonvoting “classics”:
Abstain From Beans, by Robert LeFevre
Party Dialogue, by George H. Smith
Labels: antipolitics, leftlibertarian, nonvoting, ron paul
posted by Wally Conger @ 11:28 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I'd vote for anyone who openly states he wants to dismantle the power from the inside. (The only other option is violent revolution, right? Has political power ever been eliminated in any other way?) If by some odd chance he were to win, just look at it as the only marginally meaningful step toward freedom in our lifetimes, and keep pushing.
Are there are any other articles by Robert LeFevre about voting?
A few other LeFevre pieces can be found at www.voluntaryist.com/lefevre. They're not necessarily about voting per se, but they do discuss aggression...and that's what politics is all about, after all.
Silent Critic,
"The only other option [to voting] is violent revolution, right?"
Have you ever heard of civil disobedience?
Wally
Tax protestors get thrown in jail to catcalls of disdain from the masses, who look to their oppressors to ensure that no one escapes. You can't civil disobedience your way back to honest money. And I have the (possibly seriously mistaken) impression that civil disobedience is generally viewed as a political tactic to shift power, not eliminate it. I'd rather send an unambiguous message.
Silent Critic,
"And I have the (possibly seriously mistaken) impression that civil disobedience is generally viewed as a political tactic to shift power, not eliminate it."
You should really take some time to re-read Thoreau.
It is possible to have a nonviolent revolution. This philosophy is called "agorism".
It is possible to set up a private fair monetary system via civil disobedience. I write about this on my blog http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/social-credit-monetary-system.html.
I call this "The Social Credit Monetary System."
All you have to do is find some other friends who want to start using a fair monetary system. You trade with them and don't report your transactions to the government.
I agree that voting is a waste of time. http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/voting-scam.html
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