|
Elections and the Lesson of Frodo
But
democracy is a sham, and elections are lies, illusions, intended to
allow the State to work its will and to convince the People that its
will is really theirs, and that Wrong is Right. The
underlying premise of an election is, of course, governmental politics
(hereinafter referred to simply as “politics”), and the underlying
premise of politics is, of course, power.
Politics is power. It’s
force. As George Washington
so clearly and aptly said over 200 years ago, “Government is not
reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a
dangerous servant and a fearful master.” There
are two ways to obtain something: You can use reason and obtain it
consensually or you can use power and obtain it non-consensually (yes,
someone can give it to you, but gifts are consensual – the giver gives
freely just as the recipient receives freely).
You can either make a consensual agreement with another to
willingly exchange something you have for something he has, or you can
take it against his will. Another
example, put more bluntly: a man wants a sexual relationship with a
woman. Again, he can do this
either consensually or non-consensually.
We all recognize in both of these brief examples that the first
choice is decent, respectful, and moral.
The first is right. And
we all recognize that the second is indecent, disrespectful, and
immoral. The second is
wrong. When
an individual acts non-consensually, we call him “evil,” but when a
government – when “our” government – does, we call
it “good.” Yet what
are governments but individuals with certain badges, uniforms, titles?
And what then justifies their immoral actions? The
answer: nothing. Politics, then – which is force, which is power, which is non-consensual – is the moral equivalent of rape, the moral equivalent of theft and of murder. And this, of course, is exactly what governments do: They rape, they steal, and they kill. They take what they want. Politics is immoral. To
talk of politics, then, is to talk of immorality.
Talking about it and thinking about it in terms of politics makes
it seem polite and intelligent, makes it agreeable.
It makes it acceptable. After
all, it’s the smart people, the involved people, the concerned and
caring people, who pay attention to politics!
Consider, for example, two people discussing a tax cut.
One might say it’s too much while the other claims it’s not
enough. Each of them is
intelligent and well-meaning. They
each have reasons and facts a-plenty to bolster their opposite points of
view. But just in talking
about it and discussing it in those terms, they accept the basic premise
of taxation, and in so doing they accept, as any of us do when we talk
and think in those terms, the essential immoral premise upon which the
State bases its Power: that Wrong is Right and that Satan is God; that
War is Peace, that Freedom is Slavery, and that Ignorance is Strength. Accepting
politics and political solutions is to accept immorality.
And by putting on their grand federal show every few years, as
well as the countless lesser state and local shows every autumn, the
State co-opts its more intelligent, its more concerned and caring,
people by getting them to talk politics.
It gets them to search for and accept political solutions to
every conceivable problem. And
accepting political solutions – accepting politics, accepting
immorality – allows the immoral State to work its will and even have
these intelligent, concerned and caring people believe it moral and
good. Elections
also help the State to convince the People that its will and the
People’s will are one and the same.
After all, the People are the State!
Elections allow the People to choose their leaders and thus their
laws. Therefore, if the
State chooses to increase taxes, it so chooses because it is the will of
the People and is therefore moral, therefore good.
If the State decides to go to war, it so chooses because it is
the will of the People and is therefore moral, therefore good.
If the State decides to implement the Final Solution, it so
chooses because it is the will of the People and is therefore moral,
therefore good. As
Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes in his brilliant book Democracy:
The God That Failed, in a democracy: “The
distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class
consciousness of the ruled become blurred.
The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists .
. . . Accordingly, public resistance against government power is
systematically weakened. While
exploitation and expropriation before might have appeared plainly
oppressive and evil to the public, they seem much less so, mankind being
what it is, once anyone may freely enter the ranks of those who are on
the receiving end” (p. 48). But
the People are not the State as surely as the Jews were not the Nazis.
The captives were, and are, not the captors.
It is, as Hoppe says, an illusion, one fostered by the ideas of
“democracy” and “elections,” that gives the State the ability to
steal your money, your rights, your very life, and then tell you
straight to your face that it was all your idea, that you approved of
it, because the People are the State, and the State is the People. Because
War is Peace. Because
Freedom is Slavery. Because
Ignorance is Strength. Because
Wrong is Right, and Satan is God. As
Americans, we rarely if ever question Power, just as rich children
rarely if ever question money. We
were born to it. We worship
it. We crave it.
We fight over it constantly, like the spoiled, rich, immature
children we are. We’re
addicted to it in so many ways, large and small – from the power to
light our bedrooms in the morning to the power to brutally invade weak
nations on the other side of the world.
We vainly believe that we can do good with power, with force.
If bad things happen, it’s not Power that’s at fault; it’s
the person in charge of it. We
believe that Power, like technology, is neutral, and can be used for
good or for evil, and that if the right people, people with their hearts
in the right place – people like you and me – had that power, we
could set the world right. We
believe that Power is only evil if it’s in someone else’s
hands. But
Power is evil in anyone’s hands.
In fact, it’s perhaps most dangerous in our own hands, so
convinced are we that we wield it for “good.”
I have little doubt that, in their own minds, Hitler and Stalin
and Mao all thought they were doing “good” even as they murdered
millions and millions of their countrymen. In
the Lord of the Rings, only little Frodo the hobbit could be trusted to
carry the Ring of Power because anyone else would have used it, thinking
he was doing “good.” And
even Frodo was tempted as he made the long, difficult, dangerous journey
to destroy it. He very
nearly died. But in the end
(and with unexpected help), he did succeed. We
have to make the same long, difficult, dangerous journey.
We must destroy the Ring of Power.
There is no guarantee that we, like Frodo, will succeed.
But we must try. And
the first step is to stop dignifying governmental electoral politics by
giving it any credence whatsoever. We
have to recognize its inherent immorality and realize that any
participation in electoral politics, any belief in political solutions,
is participation in our own degradation, our own slavery.
As Étienne de la Boétie
wrote in his essay The
Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude almost
500 years ago: “You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking
action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and
you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant
to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you
will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled
away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.” Free
your mind, as they say, and the rest will follow. But, like Frodo standing at last before the Crack of Doom, you may find it harder to do than you think. |
Nine
people who wish to become the Democratic Party nominee for President of
the 
