David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

voting

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

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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.

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Why keep playing a game that’s impossible for you to win?

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As I watch angry people scream about the political change they want, I’m frustrated that they can’t see they’re playing a game they can’t win. If you’re playing a game where the rules make it impossible for people with minority views to win, why keep playing the game?

You probably know who the Harlem Globetrotters are, but do you know who the Washington Generals are? The Generals are the patsy team that the Globetrotters typically play in their entertaining exhibition games. The players are paid simply to provide inept opposition. They’re not supposed to have a chance of winning a game.

In exhibition comedy basketball, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you hold a minority view about the world, you’re the one playing the patsy when you play majoritarian political games — regardless of which minority political position you hold.

If you’re being paid as a basketball player to be intentionally beaten and humiliated, that’s fine. It’s a job. But if you’re playing the same role in the political game, you’re getting nothing out of it. You’re the patsy. It’s time to quit playing a game that can’t be won.

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Laughing at the ‘rapture cult’? Those who believe in the state are no different

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Everybody from atheists to fellow Christians has had a good time laughing at the deluded group who follow Harold Camping‘s predictions about the end of the world. For those who believe in the power of the coercive state, though, it should be an opportunity to pause and realize that they’re not much different from those who follow Camping.

You would think that people who find their leaders’ predictions to be false would lose their belief in the leaders and the doctrines they preach. We certainly think that when we look at Camping’s group. But how is it any different when those who vote for political leaders to rule them through a coercive state keep believing that the politicians’ predictions and promises are going to come true this time?

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