I have no ‘duty’ to vote, even if I agree with you about freedom

By David McElroy · June 3, 2011

As most Americans gear up to pay attention to another presidential campaign season, I’m once again hearing an argument that’s been around for a long time. Does every U.S. citizen have a duty to vote?

It’s long been a staple of “good government types” that everyone has a responsibility to be an informed citizen and then to vote on election day. Newspaper editorialists who’ve run out of actual things to editorialize about are fond of writing a piece (right before election day) about the duty to vote. I seem to recall that I’ve written such editorials a time or two in the distant past when I was an editor, although I did once write a controversial column asking ignorant people not to vote. But that’s another story entirely.

The argument I’m hearing right now, though, is from freedom-loving people who argue that libertarians and others who desire freedom have a duty to go to the polls and vote for the candidate who they think is most likely to bring about liberty. Well-meaning liberty-lovers frequently insist that the rest of us have such a duty.

The arguments break down into two types. First, there’s the argument that we have a moral duty to help elect candidates who also believe in freedom, but the kind of person who believes in freedom the way I do wouldn’t take the power if it were offered to him. You can’t throw fire at a fire in order to put it out — and that’s what it’s like to try to use political power to curb political power. Second, there’s the pragmatic argument that things are so bad in the country that we have to act collectively in any way possible to take some of the power and try to stop what’s being done. But isn’t that the sort of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place?

If you believe it’s immoral for the majority to rule a minority (or vice versa), I suggest that it’s more reasonable to decline to participate in attempting to become part of a majority enforcing its will. But even if you have no problem with doing that — as long as your majority is doing the “right things” — there’s the other issue. If you believe real change can come through elections, I challenge you to find evidence to support your belief.

I understand why so many people vote and participate in the system. They believe it’s their only choice, because they haven’t seen choices outside of that. They look at it as a choice between “doing something” and simply giving up. But some of us are seeking other solutions that might really work.

I see no evidence that elections will work for delivering individual freedom and I see no logical reason to see them as moral for those who believe in liberty. I don’t have a duty to vote for candidates that you favor, even if they’re people I generally like and agree with.

If you don’t yet believe that democracy and freedom have nothing to do with one another, you might listen to this ironic comment from Ron Paul, someone American freedom-lovers do generally like and agree with:

“The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this.”

I won’t lecture you that you’re doing something morally repugnant and useless by voting. Please don’t lecture me about some duty you think I have. Deal?

Note: The wonderful art with this article is by LibertyManiacs.com. It’s available as a nice wall print.

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Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

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