If elections could bring freedom, voting would have been outlawed

By David McElroy · November 4, 2014

Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the U.S. Senate in today’s elections across the United States. Conservatives are excited and progressives are trembling. There’s change in the air. It’s a revolution.

But haven’t we seen this movie before?

In 1994, Republicans gained a staggering 54 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to take control. They were running against President Bill Clinton and attacking Big Government in a mid-term election. It was the Newt Gingrich-led Republican Revolution. Remember the Contract with America? It was going to change everything and reduce the size of government. How did that work out in the long run?

In 2006, Democrats picked up 31 seats in U.S. House elections to give control back to Nancy Pelosi and Co. In these mid-term elections, Democrats ran against President George W. Bush and his alleged attempts to hurt poor people and wage perpetual war around the world. Progressives promised to use their power to stop Republicans from continuing various wars. What changed for us in the long run?

Time after time, one party or the other has held power and the other party has taken power by promising change. But the two parties simply swap the seats of power like some giant game of musical chairs. If you believe in individual freedom and have watched this long enough, you come to realize that their promises of big change don’t come true.

Republicans tell us that they’re going to reduce the size of government, but they never deliver. Democrats tell us they’re going to stop wars and create more social freedom, but they don’t deliver, either.

Government continues to get bigger under Republicans. The U.S. government keeps killing people around the world and creating new enemies under Democrats. The few signs of good news that appear every now and then mostly arise spontaneously out of changing public attitudes — and then politicians follow along and pretend it was their idea.

In other words, when each party tells you your vote is going to change everything, it’s a lie. All it means is that one group of politicians will win a great game against another set of politicians.

Hiding behind their rhetoric is the reality that very little is going to change. If you vote Tuesday, nothing of substance is going to change — and the odds of your individual vote changing anything is precisely zero. To claim that your vote will change things is a lie, especially if you desire individual freedom for all.

Republicans are now telling you that if you’ll vote for them Tuesday, everything will change. They’ll take control of the U.S. Senate and defeat the Obama administration in various ways. If you’re counting on that happening, you’re going to be disappointed.

I won’t be voting, as has been my practice for years now. More and more responsible and principled people are doing the same, for two reasons.

First, it won’t matter. Your vote isn’t going to achieve anything. And even if the party whose rhetoric you prefer wins, the politicians of that party won’t do what they promise to do.

Second, and even more important, the system is immoral. I don’t have the right to make rules and force you to follow them, even if the majority of people happen to agree with the rules I believe in. It’s immoral to participate in a system that uses force to impose the will of one group on another. That’s all the political system is — a contest to see who gets to control the monopoly of force to impose its will. That is evil.

Politicians aren’t going to save you. They’re not going to bring about the utopia you hope for. Even if they could, the use of coercive power to do it would be wrong.

Real change is going to come when we’re able to find ways to achieve an entirely different kind of system, one in which individuals control their own lives and property. One in which people and groups can set their own rules for their own property or cities or enclaves. A place where groups of people don’t impose their will on each other.

As long as you and your enemies keep trying to impose their will on each other, you’re going to be disappointed and you’ll both be locked into an immoral system.

It’s time to stop voting and start talking honestly about real change instead.

Note: If you’d like to hear more about my own experience in coming to this conclusion, here’s an interview Ben Stone of the Bad Quaker podcast conducted with me almost two years ago.

Share on Social Networks

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Related Posts