Edward Abbey:The Rule of Law

"If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested.  If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law." -- Edward Abbey

Madison, Bastiat, & Friedman: On human-nature and government...

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." ~James Madison, Federalist 51


"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? ~Frédéric Bastiat

["Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us?" ~Milton Friedman]

Lysander Spooner: On voting

NT.6.2.1	Let us consider these two matters, voting and tax paying, separately. And first of voting.
NT.6.2.2	All the voting that has ever taken place under the Constitution, has been of such a kind that it not only did not pledge the whole people to support the Constitution, but it did not even pledge any one of them to do so, as the following considerations show.
NT.6.2.3	1. In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters. But owing to the property qualifications required, it is probable that, during the first twenty or thirty years under the Constitution, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or perhaps twentieth of the whole population (black and white, men, women, and minors) were permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting was concerned, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth of those then existing, could have incurred any obligation to support the Constitution.
NT.6.2.4	At the present time, it is probable that not more than one-sixth of the whole population are permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting is concerned, the other five-sixths can have given no pledge that they will support the Constitution.
NT.6.2.5	2. Of the one-sixth that are permitted to vote, probably not more than two-thirds (about one-ninth of the whole population) have usually voted. Many never vote at all. Many vote only once in two, three, five, or ten years, in periods of great excitement.
NT.6.2.6	No one, by voting, can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which he votes. If, for example, I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot be said to have thereby pledged myself to support the government beyond that term. Therefore, on the ground of actual voting, it probably cannot be said that more than one-ninth or one-eighth, of the whole population are usually under any pledge to support the Constitution.
NT.6.2.7	3. It cannot be said that, by voting, a man pledges himself to support the Constitution, unless the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large number of those who do vote. It is rather a measure of necessity imposed upon them by others, than one of their own choice. On this point I repeat what was said in a former number,1 viz.:
NT.6.2.8	“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. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man takes the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot – which is a mere substitute for a bullet – because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
NT.6.2.9	“Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby meliorating their condition. But it would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the government itself, that crushes them, was one which they had voluntarily set up, or even consented to.
NT.6.2.9	“Therefore, a man’s voting under the Constitution of the United States, is not to be taken as evidence that he ever freely assented to the Constitution, even for the time being. Consequently we have no proof that any very large portion, even of the actual voters of the United States, ever really and voluntarily consented to the Constitution, even for the time being. Nor can we ever have such proof, until every man is left perfectly free to consent, or not, without thereby subjecting himself or his property to be disturbed or injured by others.”
NT.6.2.10	As we can have no legal knowledge as to who votes from choice, and who from the necessity thus forced upon him, we can have no legal knowledge, as to any particular individual, that he voted from choice; or, consequently, that by voting, he consented, or pledged himself, to support the government. Legally speaking, therefore, the act of voting utterly fails to pledge any one to support the government. It utterly fails to prove that the government rests upon the voluntary support of anybody. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are.
NT.6.2.11	4. As taxation is made compulsory on all, whether they vote or not, a large proportion of those who vote, no doubt do so to prevent their own money being used against themselves; when, in fact, they would have gladly abstained from voting, if they could thereby have saved themselves from taxation alone, to say nothing of being saved from all the other usurpations and tyrannies of the government. To take a man’s property without his consent, and then to infer his consent because he attempts, by voting, to prevent that property from being used to his injury, is a very insufficient proof of his consent to support the Constitution. It is, in fact, no proof at all. And as we can have no legal knowledge as to who the particular individuals are, if there are any, who are willing to be taxed for the sake of voting, we can have no legal knowledge that any particular individual consents to be taxed for the sake of voting; or, consequently, consents to support the Constitution.
NT.6.2.12	5. At nearly all elections, votes are given for various candidates for the same office. Those who vote for the unsuccessful candidates cannot properly be said to have voted to sustain the Constitution. They may, with more reason, be supposed to have voted, not to support the Constitution, but specially to prevent the tyranny which they anticipate the successful candidate intends to practice upon them under color of the Constitution; and therefore may reasonably be supposed to have voted against the Constitution itself. This supposition is the more reasonable, inasmuch as such voting is the only mode allowed to them of expressing their dissent to the Constitution.
NT.6.2.13	6. Many votes are usually given for candidates who have no prospect of success. Those who give such votes may reasonably be supposed to have voted as they did, with a special intention, not to support, but to obstruct the execution of, the Constitution; and, therefore, against the Constitution itself.
NT.6.2.14	7. As all the different votes are given secretly (by secret ballot), there is no legal means of knowing, from the votes themselves, who votes for, and who votes against, the Constitution. Therefore, voting affords no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the Constitution. And where there can be no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the Constitution, it cannot legally be said that anybody supports it. It is clearly impossible to have any legal proof of the intentions of large numbers of men, where there can be no legal proof of the intentions of any particular one of them.
NT.6.2.15	8. There being no legal proof of any man's intentions, in voting, we can only conjecture them. As a conjecture, it is probable, that a very large proportion of those who vote, do so on this principle, viz., that if, by voting, they could but get the government into their own hands (or that of their friends), and use its powers against their opponents, they would then willingly support the Constitution; but if their opponents are to have the power, and use it against them, then they would not willingly support the Constitution.
NT.6.2.16	In short, men’s voluntary support of the Constitution is doubtless, in most cases, wholly contingent upon the question whether, by means of the Constitution, they can make themselves masters, or are to be made slaves.
NT.6.2.17	Such contingent consent as that is, in law and reason, no consent at all.
NT.6.2.18	9. As everybody who supports the Constitution by voting (if there are any such) does so secretly (by secret ballot), and in a way to avoid all personal responsibility for the acts of his agents or representatives, it cannot legally or reasonably be said that anybody at all supports the Constitution by voting. No man can reasonably or legally be said to do such a thing as assent to, or support, the Constitution, unless he does it openly, and in a way to make himself personally responsible for the acts of his agents, so long as they act within the limits of the power he delegates to them.
NT.6.2.19	10. As all voting is secret (by secret ballot), and as all secret governments are necessarily only secret bands of robbers, tyrants, and murderers, the general fact that our government is practically carried on by means of such voting, only proves that there is among us a secret band of robbers, tyrants, and murderers, whose purpose is to rob, enslave, and, so far as necessary to accomplish their purposes, murder, the rest of the people. The simple fact of the existence of such a band does nothing towards proving that “the people of the United States,” or any one of them, voluntarily supports the Constitution.
NT.6.2.20	For all the reasons that have now been given, voting furnishes no legal evidence as to who the particular individuals are (if there are any), who voluntarily support the Constitution. It therefore furnishes no legal evidence that anybody supports it voluntarily.
NT.6.2.21	So far, therefore, as voting is concerned, the Constitution, legally speaking, has no supporters at all.
NT.6.2.22	And, as a matter of fact, there is not the slightest probability that the Constitution has a single bona fide supporter in the country. That is to say, there is not the slightest probability that there is a single man in the country, who both understands what the Constitution really is, and sincerely supports it for what it really is.
NT.6.2.23	The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes – a large class, no doubt – each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,”2 and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

Rothbard's conclusion on Konkin's value

"And yet, Konkin’s writings are to be welcomed.  Because we need a lot more polycentrism in the movement.  Because he shakes up Partyarchs who tend to fall into unthinking complacency. And especially because he cares deeply about liberty and can read and write, qualities which seem to be going out of style in the libertarian movement.  At least we can count on Sam Konkin not to join the mindless cretins in the Clark TV commercials singing about “A New Beginning, Amer-i-ca.”  And that’s worth a lot."

Murray Rothbard

Rothbard: On politics & voting....

"And yet, all this pales before the most important problem: Is a Libertarian Party evil per se?  Is voting evil per se?   My answer is no. The State is a Moloch that surrounds us, and it would be grotesque and literally impossible to function if we refused it our “sanction” across the board. I don’t think I am committing aggression when I walk on a government-owned and government-subsidized street, drive on a government-owned and subsidized highway, or fly on a government regulated airline. It would be participating in aggression if I lobbied for these institutions to continue.  I didn’t ask for these institutions, dammit, and so don’t consider myself responsible if I am forced to use them.  In the same way, if the State, for reasons of its own, allows us a periodic choice between two or more masters, I don’t believe we are aggressors if we participate in order to vote ourselves more kindly masters, or to vote in people who will abolish or repeal the oppression.  In fact, I think that we owe it to our own liberty to use such opportunities to advance the cause. Let’s put it this way: Suppose we were slaves in the Old South, and that for some reason, each plantation had a system where the slaves were allowed to choose every four years between two alternative masters.  Would it be evil, and sanctioning slavery, to participate in such a choice?  Suppose one master was a monster who systematically tortured all the slaves, while the other one was kindly, enforced almost no work rules, freed one slave a year, or whatever.  It would seem to me not only not aggression to vote for the kinder master, but idiotic if we failed to do so.  Of course, there might well be circumstances—say when both masters are similar—where the slaves would be better off not voting in order to make a visible protest—but this is a tactical not a moral consideration.  Voting would not be evil, but in such a case less effective than the protest.

But if it is morally licit and non-aggressive for slaves to vote for a choice of masters, in the same way it is licit for us to vote for what we believe the lesser of two or more evils, and still more beneficial to vote for an avowedly libertarian candidates."


-Rothbard


http://www.anthonyflood.com/rothbardkonkin.htm

Rothbard: On the practicality of Konkin's agorism...

"When we consider, then, the vital importance of wage-work, black markets are already severely limited, and the agorist scenario for the ultimate libertarian goal falls apart.  And then there is the final stage where black market agencies use force to defend illegal transactions, tax rebels, etc. against the State.  Although Konkin doesn’t acknowledge it as such, this is violent revolution, and it is simply an historical truth without exception that no violent revolution has come dose to succeeding in a democratic country with free elections. So that way is barred too. And it hasn’t succeeded all that often even in a dictatorship.  The Soviet system has now been oppressing its citizens for over sixty years; and there has been a widespread black market all this time.   And yet there is still the Gulag.  Why hasn’t the black market developed into a Konkinian agora or, even hinted at such?" - Rothbard  http://www.anthonyflood.com/rothbardkonkin.htm

James Madison: The General Welfare Clause

"With respect to the words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them.  To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

James Madison

Chris Rock: Let's get rid of taxes...

"Let's get rid of taxes.  Taxes are why we left England. White people said, "They're taxing everything.  Let's go!"  That was over 300 years ago.  They thought they were doing a good thing, now taxes are even higher and there's no place left to go!"
Chris Rock

Jefferson: If Congress can do whatever in their discretion...General Welfare

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

Thomas Jefferson

David Crockett: Charity & Congress

"We have the right, as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so as to appropriate a dollar of the public money."

~David Crockett

Auberon Herbert: appeal to you to free yourselves from these many systems of state force, which are rendering impossible the true and happy life of the nations of today.

"We, who call ourselves voluntaryists, appeal to you to free yourselves from these many systems of state force, which are rendering impossible the true and happy life of the nations of today. This ceaseless effort to compel each other, in turn for each new object that is clamored for by this or that set of politicians, this ceaseless effort to bind chains round the hands of each other, is preventing progress of the real kind, is preventing peace and friendship and brotherhood, and is turning the men of the same nation, who ought to labor happily together for common ends, in their own groups, in their own free unfettered fashion, into enemies, who live conspiring against and dreading, often hating each other."

~Auberon Herbert, from A Plea for Voluntaryism

Do not be surprised, when the next time, an angry mother/father/brother/sister/cousin, commits an act of atrocity, against innocent people...

     Do not be surprised, when the next time, an angry mother/father/brother/sister/cousin, commits an act of atrocity, against innocent people, out of a tragic but desperate need to make his/her perceived enemy, feel the hurt he/she feels, do not be surprised, if he/she says, "I do not hate you for your freedom, I hate you because you brought your terrorism to my home, with your drones, your bombs, your guns..." http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_PAKISTAN_SLAIN_MILITANT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-01-22-07-51-15

Blaise Pascal: Can anything be more ridiculous than ...

"Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him?"

~Blaise Pascal

Charles Eliot Norton: The voice of protest...is never more needed...

"The voice of protest...is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum...is bidding all men...obey in silence the tyrannous word of command."

~Charles Eliot Norton

Rothbard: [The State is]... monopoly of the use of force

The State is: "that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion" -Rothbard (Anatomy of the State)

Charles A. Beard: the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen

‘‘You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.’’ -Charles A. Beard

Thomas Burke (1777):unlimited power cannot be safety trusted to any man or set of men on earth

“The more experience I acquire, the stronger is my conviction that unlimited power cannot be safety trusted to any man or set of men on earth. No men have undertaken to exercise authority with intention more generous and disinterested than the Congress…. [How} could individuals blessed with peaceable domestic affluence… endeavor at increasing the power with which they are invested, when their tenure of it must be exceedingly dangerous and precarious…? This is a question I believe cannot be answered but by a plain declaration that power of all kinds has an irresistible propensity to increase desire for itself. It gives the passion of ambition a velocity which increases in its progress, and this is a passion which grows in proportion as it is gratified.” –Thomas Burke (1777)

Brutus (1787, prob. Robert Yates) on Taxation

This power [taxation], exercised without limitation, will introduce itself into every comer of the city, and country — It will wait upon the ladies at their toilett, and will not leave them in any of their domestic concerns; it will accompany them to the ball, the play, and the assembly; it will go with them when they visit, and will, on all occasions, sit beside them in their carriages, nor will it desert them even at church; it will enter the house of every gentleman, watch over his cellar, wait upon his cook in the kitchen, follow the servants into the parlour, preside over the table, and note down all he eats or drinks; it will attend him to his bed-chamber, and watch him while he sleeps; it will take cognizance of the professional man in his office, or his study; it will watch the merchant in the counting-house, or in his store; it will follow the mechanic to his shop, and in his work, and will haunt him in his family, and in his bed; it will be a constant companion of the industrious farmer in all his labour, it will be with him in the house, and in the field, observe the toil of his hands, and the sweat of his brow; it will penetrate into the most obscure cottage; and finally, it will light upon the head of every person in the United States. To all these different classes of people, and in all these circumstances, in which it will attend them, the language in which it will address them, will be GIVE! GIVE!

Mises: Action is purposive conduct. It is not simply behavior, but behavior begot by judgments of value,...

“Action is purposive conduct. It is not simply behavior, but behavior begot by judgments of value, aiming at a definite end and guided by ideas concerning the suitability or unsuitability of definite means. . . . It is conscious behavior. It is choosing. It is volition; it is a display of the will.”

-Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science p. 34

Law is justice...

"Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice—under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility—that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve—slowly, no doubt, but certainly—God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity."

—Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Does Voting Legitimate the System?

Recently, the question of voting has come up in conversation with those generally self-identified as voluntaryists interested in non-violent communication and I decided to put some of my thoughts down on paper (so to speak) I've yet to listen to the podcasts that Wes recommended but I'll try to give them a listen in the next couple days before my upcoming camping trip and those arguments  might require modifications to my current thoughts but I wanted to get my thoughts out first and then consider the possible counter-arguments. So here is the draft of my thoughts on the matter as of now, I hope it is interesting to some:

   Does voting legitimate the system? I would contend, that it does not, nor could it ever, in any case, legitimatize any action violating the NAP (non-initiation of aggression principle). Voting in its only ethical-practice, would be merely the agreement, requiring individual consent of each person participating, to make a corporate decision, affecting those participating, through a process of majority vote (democracy); or said another way, at best, voting would be a process in which each individual would agree to consent to a contract/agreement in which the outcome or result of that contract/agreement, is to be determined by an agreed upon number or percentage of votes.

     This version of voting, in no way violates any individual's life, liberty or property, as in this ethical-practice of voting, each individual consents to the process and any individual not so consenting would be outside-of/immune to the terms of the contract/agreement of the individuals that would choose to enter the contract/agreement.  Like any other agreement or contract, each person's individual consent would be required for the terms of the contract/agreement to be legitimately applicable upon those individuals consenting and like any other contract, any party may lay claim to breach of the contract, at which time the contract is dissolved such that the agreement is effectively no longer in place [though some party might be entitled to damages based on various possibilities of fraud or perhaps detrimental reliance] but point remains, that any contract/agreement may be broken by the extrication of any party; just as while in marriage or civil-union between persons might be considered the most solemn of agreements, even this may be terminated by either party, at any time, for any reason.

     However, voting in its ethical-practice is not the voting which is employed in the current political establishment and does not conform to principle of contract/agreement; the "vote" as we are familiar with it, rarely requires the consent of each individual to be affected/considered-to-be-bound, but rather it assumes prior consent of all individuals in a particular geographical confine and therefore denies the possibility of consent or extrication.  This predetermined consent, in no way represents actual consent of any particular individual, nor could it ever be considered a legitimate contract, for it such could be the case then we could envision/propose various abuses of the principle.  One counter-example might be of Jimmy-Bob the cell-phone salesman, who under the errant-principle of presumed consent of a contract/agreement, could presume consent for every person in a particular geographic confine, for a cell-phone contract for an indefinite period of time; if you lived near Jimmy-Bob's place of business, Jimmy-Bob would deliver a cell-phone to you and charge you $50 a month for the contract/agreement that Jimmy-Bob has presumed for you.  If the errant-principle of presumed consent were valid, then any person could presume consent for any other person for any contract/agreement that the former could imagine.  The presumed-consent contract of Jimmy-Bob, assumes that you that you owe Jimmy-Bob $50 a month, whether you use the cell-phone that was delivered or not for an indefinite period of time, was never a legitimate agreement between Jimmy-Bob and you in the first place; the entire contract was a fantasy of  Jimmy-Bob's mind and was never in fact an agreement between Jimmy-Bob and yourself.

    So the voting that we are only too familiar with today, presumes consent or agreement, where no consent or agreement has ever, in fact, been given; but it does another thing, the current political process of voting as we commonly know it, also does not permit any individual to meaningfully opt-out/extricate-from of the presumed agreement.  We may often hear people say, “Well if people don't agree with the system, they can always move to some other place!” and while this unbelievably makes sense to a lot of otherwise generally rational people, it in no way conforms to our ethical response to ethically similar scenarios and in fact, begs the entire question (presumes correctness of the presumptive consent, before the issue of the presumptive consent is determined).   For if such a response was in keeping with ethical assessments of ethically-similar scenarios, such an errant-person would similarly tell a woman that she must remain in a marriage to which she had never consented and then tell her, “If you think your husband is abusive and you don't like it, you can always leave your children, friends, and property behind and runaway.”.  I do not think it would be overly inflating the case to suggest that this same reasoning would could also consul suicide as a possible means of escape of the abusive forced marriage.

      I would not think it the position of rational, ethical person, to say to a woman abused by her husband, that SHE should run-away and hide from her abusive husband; but rather, rational/ethical persons would contend that the husband either cease his abuse if his victims consent to forgive him or leave his victims in peace.  Would a rational/ethical person suggest to a homeowner, that if they don't like the burglar in their house, they could always move to a better neighborhood? Do rational/ethical persons, commonly in other cases like this, blame the victim and tell the victim to leave the area where they are victimized or do we say that the aggressor should cease his or her aggression? Clearly, it is they who initiate the aggression on otherwise peaceful persons, who should either cease their aggressing or be compelled to cease by the force of self-defense.

     So the problem with the political process of voting, is not the vote-casting itself, for if individual consent was required, this would affect no one else but the participants; if individuals could opt out of the system in a meaningful and legitimate way, then only the parties that continue to consent to the agreement would be bound by the outcome of the process. The problem with the process is not the symbolism of the voting process itself, it is instead the notion of collectivism that forces all persons into a collective-situation that some of those persons, do not consent to and would rather not be in.

    Imagine a bad Monty Python film: two colorfully dressed merchants walk along a lonely forest road making pleasant conversation, when three bandit-pirates appear upon the path; one bandit-pirate says, “Arg! Give me yer money or I'll take yer lives!”, the two merchants quickly fling their money purses onto the ground and put their hands into the air, and then a second pirate says, “Wait me maties! This here is an unfair proposition! We can'ts just take their moneies, we needs a legitimate process of social-justice, therefore lets take a vote! Gar!” The third pirate says, “Ok, fair enough me matey, lets takes a vote on it!  Whosoever votes that these two fellows here, keeps their money and goes about on their way in peace, raise their right arm in the air!” And of course, the two merchants look at each other in disbelief, they shrug their shoulders and both put their right arms into the air to vote that they should keep their money and leave in peace. “Ok, whosoever now votes that des two fellers gives up their purses and thenfore runs-away, raise der right arm and say, ARR!” and this of course being a monty python film, two pirates raise their right arms and say 'ARR!', while the third one has to think hard about it for a few seconds, until the other two pirates poke him and then he says 'ARRR!'” and then the second pirate-bandit says, “ARR! It is settled then, the ARR's have it. You two gentleman can run along now, we'll be taking yer purses!”

    Did the merchants in this example legitimate the voting system?  Did they consent to this process of "social justice"?  I contend that they did not. The entire scenario was under a condition of duress to begin with, because their participation in the system was compelled or forced with the threat of violence in the first place. While they would be perfectly within their rights to have abstained from voting and this would be have been a more principled stand, I do not myself attribute blame-worthiness to the victims of force or coercion for the actions taken under duress.  Either response, voting or not voting, is a legitimate response under the circumstances of duress or threat of force/violence and only the individual merchants' estimation, of how to best limit or mitigate his damages in the scenario, should be the determining factor in the individual's choice.

     Personally, I'm not very inclined to buy lottery tickets.  I'm not the kind of person who hopes to get lucky and have the expense of the ticket, be paid back by the possibility of the win; the more likely result, being loss, gives me no particular entertainment-value and therefore, I'm not inclined to do such things as vote. The chance that my single vote deciding the outcome of a forced condition of duress being so slight, it seems in nearly every case, to be not worth the time and effort to participate in the ridiculous farce. But let us say that Billy-bob does buy lotto tickets, and let us say that Billy-bob, really thinks Ron Paul is the Shiznits or the bees-knees and if not a perfect candidate for head-pirate-mob-boss, nearly as good as one he is likely to see.  Billy-bob thinks, that maybe his vote will be the vote that will make the difference, based on his experience with the lotto (hey, you never know right?) and Billy-bob says, "I don't agree with the whole system that presumes my consent, and denies to me the ability to extricate myself from the contract, but the aggression already has been committed and (in all probability) will continue to be committed, and therefore under conditions of duress, I will vote for Ron Paul!"

     Now, I'm not going to say that Billy-bob has legitimated the system, I recognize that Billy-bob is under conditions of duress in which he is trying to mitigate his damages, and he sees an outcome of Ron Paul as head-pirate-mob-boss as unsatisfactory but preferable to the alternative. I might not follow Bob's chosen behavior, yet I don't play lotto; I'm told by lotto players, that there is entertainment value in the process... maybe voting is similar... and of course that's probably part of the psychological motivation to statism, as it gives all persons the chance to pretend like they are trying to affect positive change, while denying any real consent and voluntary interaction to everyone, much like a man who keeps putting quarters in an obviously broken vending machine, as if the problem is not that the machine is broken, but that he just needs to put in a few more quarters…. Or as I had one experienced, a man who's truck stalled on a hill, so he got out, kicked the wheel twice and the driver side door three times, all the while cursing obscenities, and then got back in and started it up.... sometimes shouting obscenities makes us feel better, even if we know this isn't a particularly effective problem solving technique (or getting our needs met). But I can't decide for another what is best for them.  I don't want to be in the place of telling someone how they should life their lives, that's what liberty is all about.

      I can understand how some might come from a perspective of, "Well, if we all took the principled stand, then the system might be brought down by non-compliance" and there is truth to this argument but I don't know if I can advocate that everyone always should take a principled stance, though I am certainly willing to approve and applaud anyone who might choose to take the principled stance; telling a person, who is under conditions of duress, that they should always take the principled stand, would seem to me to deny them the ability to choose from all of their legitimate choices.  A resolute person of principle, may indeed say, “Though they may take my property, I shall never give the brigands the satisfaction of my seeming to 'voluntarily' give them their extorted tribute (taxation); I shall never use their fiat-currency; I shall never use facilities that are funded through extortion (unless I intend to homestead them); I shall never willfully acknowledge any of their rules and laws; I shall not say a word to their judges, other than that I am man who has been kidnapped against my will and am under conditions of duress. I will take a stand on integrity and principle.” This would be a truly principled stand, yet I don't think I can argue it would be the only possible or ethical stance one could take. I can understand if someone were to say that voting is one condition under which there is no compulsion to participate this is one very easy civilly-disobedient action one could take; as there are very few apparent damages that need mitigating under this scenario, and yet the fact that the outcome will be enforced with your falsely presumed consent and the inability to meaningfully extricate yourself from the arrangement, like the merchants on the forest road, raising your hand is nothing more than the vain gamble, that maybe, just maybe, it won't be so bad....

    If you decide to vote, for what its worth, I don't think you have aggressed against me or anyone else, I assess that you have, by your act of voting, legitimated the system, even if you were the only one to show up at the polling place, or the only person to vote in the entire geographic confine; those that control those systems and institutions of domination, would still presume/suppose the system to be legitimate, and the extrication of the system was never on the ballot anyway and since they don't care about whether you consent or not, they are not approaching you as a rational person, you are being treated as enlightened livestock, valuable commodities that must be treated with a certain amount of respect and care in order to reap maximum profits. You are not in the eyes of the rulers, an end unto yourself, a rational-being worthy of the respect and dignity of a rational-being, but in the eyes of those who are immersed in the meme of the State; you are a means only, for THEIR ends.

    Vote or not vote, we are all just merchants on the road, and the option we are ultimately given is,“Your money or your life!”


















“In truth, in the case of individuals their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent…. 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 renders service, and foregoes 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 uses 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. In self-defense, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot – which is a mere substitute for a bullet – because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers…. Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot would use it, if they could see any chance of meliorating their condition. But it would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the government itself, that crushes them, was one which they had voluntarily set up, or even consented to.” ~Lysander Spooner

“And yet, all this pales before the most important problem: Is a Libertarian Party evil per se? Is voting evil per se? My answer is no. The State is a Moloch that surrounds us, and it would be grotesque and literally impossible to function if we refused it our ‘sanction’ across the board. I don’t think I am committing aggression when I walk on a government-owned and government-subsidized street, drive on a government-owned and subsidized highway, or fly on a government regulated airline. It would be participating in aggression if I lobbied for these institutions to continue. I didn’t ask for these institutions, dammit, and so don’t consider myself responsible if I am forced to use them. In the same way, if the State, for reasons of its own, allows us a periodic choice between two or more masters, I don’t believe we are aggressors if we participate in order to vote ourselves more kindly masters, or to vote in people who will abolish or repeal the oppression. In fact, I think that we owe it to our own liberty to use such opportunities to advance the cause. Let’s put it this way: Suppose we were slaves in the Old South, and that for some reason, each plantation had a system where the slaves were allowed to choose every four years between two alternative masters. Would it be evil, and sanctioning slavery, to participate in such a choice? Suppose one master was a monster who systematically tortured all the slaves, while the other one was kindly, enforced almost no work rules, freed one slave a year, or whatever. It would seem to me not only not aggression to vote for the kinder master, but idiotic if we failed to do so. Of course, there might well be circumstances—say when both masters are similar—where the slaves would be better off not voting in order to make a visible protest—but this is a tactical not a moral consideration. Voting would not be evil, but in such a case less effective than the protest. But if it is morally licit and non-aggressive for slaves to vote for a choice of masters, in the same way it is licit for us to vote for what we believe the lesser of two or more evils, and still more beneficial to vote for an avowedly libertarian candidates.”
-Rothbard