Non-Voting Archive
Dissenting Electorate: An Anthology of Non-Voting
This book will rock your world!
"By voting, it is clear that each voter endorses the governmental system under which he or she lives. By the act of voting, each voter is saying: It is right and proper for some people, acting in the name of the State, to pass laws and to use violence to compel obedience to those laws if they are not obeyed." Column by Carl Watner.
"Women are human beings, and consequently have all the natural rights that any human beings can have. They have just as good a right to make laws as men have, and no better; AND THAT IS JUST NO RIGHT AT ALL." A classic by Lysander Spooner.
"Even in these circumstances, however, I would still refuse to vote against Hitler. Why? Because the essential problem is not Hitler, but the institutional framework that allows a Hitler to grasp a monopoly on power. Without the state to back him up and an election to give him legitimized power, Hitler would have been--at most--the leader of some ragged thugs who mugged people in back alleys. Voting for or against Hitler would only strengthen the institutional framework that produced him--a framework that would produce another of his ilk in two seconds." Another classic by Wendy McElroy.
"Instead of voting on Tuesday, why not talk to someone you know about Liberty, Peace, and Justice? Why not discuss some honorable alternatives with a niece or nephew who is in danger of joining the military or the civilian bureaucracy? Why not spend an hour or two trying to come up with ways to avoid, elude, or undermine leviathan, or cast it into disrepute?" This powerful column by Nicholas Strakon is a MUST-READ.
"From the standpoint of the individual, voting is not effective for sanctioning one or another candidate and his future actions, as I've shown; but it is effective for sanctioning the whole apparatus of permanent rule and one's own permanent role as one of the ruled. Habitual voters like to tell conscientious non-voters that if they don't vote, they have no business complaining about what happens later. If anything, the reverse is true." Another powerful, MUST-READ column by Nicholas Strakon.
"I used to love it--there was a heady rush in following my candidates, and cheering for our side, and just knowing that God in Heaven agreed with us and only if the voters on the other side could just see the truth! Then election night! I always took election day and the day after as personal days, because I would stay up and watch results till the networks and CNN began interviewing members of their janitorial staff. Then, friends and fellow addicts and I would discuss it all till the wee hours of the morning, at which time we would grab breakfast and tune back in to get results from the races too close to call earlier." Column by Jeff Baxter.
It's Time to Vote, With Your Feet
"Removing yourself from the political marketplace is not only morally right, it is also spiritually and emotionally liberating. Highly recommended. There’s no time like the present to join the growing body of former voters who have abandoned the State’s support system of feigned legitimacy." Column by Joe Blow.
"Voting only results in more of the status quo: more empty promises, more taxes, more government, more spending, more entitlements, more hegemony, more global policemen, more wars, more expensive 'solutions' to nonexistent and/or induced problems that only Leviathan can devise and impose on its citizens forever." Column by Joe Blow.
"When we place voting into the framework of politics, however, a major change occurs. When we express a preference politically, we do so precisely because we intend to bind others to our will. Political voting is the legal method we have adopted and extolled for obtaining monopolies of power. Political voting is nothing more than the assumption that might makes right. There is a presumption that any decision wanted by the majority of those expressing a preference must be desirable, and the inference even goes so far as to presume that anyone who differs from a majority view is wrong or possibly immoral." Another classic by Bob LeFevre.
"The harm in voting, what I never saw lurking in the corners, was the moral responsibility. Sure, if my candidate wins, and he does something stupid... then part of the moral responsibility lies with me. What I didn’t know is that I’m still responsible when my candidate loses and the other moron does something equally idiotic. Why? Because I took part in the system that put the weasel in. I not only took part, I embraced the system. I became the system." A funny column by Joe Bommarito that most of us can identify with.
"After 35 years of voting in every election, I have recently joined the swelling ranks of non-voters. I am a conscientious objector." Column by Joe Bommarito.
Instead of voting. Column by Wally Conger.
Trading Buttons and Balloons for Ideas
Stop campaigning and start reading and thinking. Column by Karen De Coster.
Why I Will Not Vote for Myself
"I can no longer go along with it. I cannot participate in a system that promotes force under the guise of majority-rules and a perverted sense of freedom. This is why on November 5, I will not vote in any election, including my own." Column by Brian Drake.
Rob's column about why people vote.
"My
Hoppean secession from party politics isn't an abandonment of the battle
for liberty. On the contrary: It's redeployment to the front lines.
Freedom can't be achieved through politics. Voting can't build liberty
any more than flapping our arms can make us fly. And as Lew Rockwell has
pointed out, the whole idea of "public policy" is an
anti-liberty fraud. The fields where freedom will be won are
philosophical and ethical . . . mental and moral . . . personal,
not political.
Pulling the Legitimacy Plug: Choosing Not to Vote
Column by Joe Blow.
Pulling the Legitimacy Plug (Part 2): Choosing Not to Vote
Column by Joe Blow.
"Remember that the proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution....Unlike other revolutions, it calls for no organization, no violence, no war fund, no leader to sell it out. In the quiet of his conscience each citizen pledges himself, to himself, not to give moral support to an unmoral institution, and on election day he remains at home. That’s all." Column by Wally Conger.
"The more people that participate in murder and theft, the thinner the blame is spread. One man who kills is branded a murderer, but one million who kill in unison are hailed as citizens. A single thief can be stopped with locks, but what of ten thousand thieves, with the power of your own sanction behind them? How does participating in organized theft prevent you from being robbed? After claiming power over the property of others, how can you complain when they exercise the same power over you?" Column by John Lopez.
Libertarian Politics: An Oxymoron
"We must repudiate the fundamental idea of politics: that our lives are not our own, but belong instead to whoever gains political power. We have to defeat the means, not the man. Refusing to participate in politics denies our enemies a powerful weapon--our own moral sanction of our enslavement and murder." Column by John Lopez.
"Far from being a means of demonstrating my commitment to the ideals of constitutional government, my vote has become an excuse used by the minions of our corrupt system to continue their evil. Voting implies that one will abide by the decision of the majority, even when one's own side fails to gain victory. When you or I vote today we are broadcasting to the vermin infesting our system that we will follow their orders and directives, despite the unlawful nature of their actions. To vote is to place our stamp of legitimacy on the corruption of American legal and political principles. I will no longer do so." Column by Patrick Martin.
Column by Ronald Neff.
Column by Butler Shaffer.
"Yet he is told that he is blessed to live in a democracy. Why? Because he can vote! And if he is outvoted by people who want the government to take his money and give it to them? Well, too bad. Those are the breaks. And after all, he can use his vote to defend himself against other voters. That, he is taught, is freedom." Column by Joseph Sobran.
Voting as a Self-Defense Strategy
The Best Political Ad I've Ever Seen
Compare this AWESOME page to the asinine ads that are now on TV and radio.