The Urge to ’Do Something’
Source: strike-the-root.com
It’s virtually the mantra of the statist government-believers – those of the Left, Right, and Center – whenever there’s a perceived “crisis.” A mass shooting. Unemployment. A display of racism or gender-bias. A tax-financed school system that fails to actually educate (though why such should baffle anyone is beyond me). At once come the hysterical cries that “we” need to “do something” – which usually means pass a new law, create more rules, raise taxes, and have just a little more inner contempt for that dangerous, dangerous concept called Freedom. The end result, of course, is always that very little of a positive nature changes – except that the tax burden gets heavier, police become more intrusive and abusive, the paranoia of society increases on all sides and levels, and the world becomes just a little worse of a place to live in. But those who feel they “took action” feel strangely relieved and vindicated, as if something noteworthy and of great import were accomplished.
Even among many of those who customarily decry the actions of bureaucrats, there is still insistence that “we” mustn’t allow “the other side to win.” It’s important to vote, they say, otherwise you’re just “doing nothing” to stop the ever-rising tide of government expansion, intrusion, and aggression. The socialist government-lovers will continue to vote, and so “we” must stop them.I don’t believe I really need to spell out the complete inconsistency in that kind of non-logic, so instead, I’ll just jump forward to say that not only is non-voting better than “doing something,” it’s also not “doing nothing” – especially not when combined with other actions aimed at delegitimizing, defunding, removing support for, and ultimately abolishing government.
No, as I’ve spelled out heretofore, non-voting alone will not eliminate government. It might be argued that voting, at least on occasion, can provide some short-term, temporary relief from certain actions of those in government. Even Lysander Spooner, in his infamous essay, “No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority,” had something to say about what we might call “defensive” voting: “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.”
But if we are to form any kind of a consistent, long-term vision of achieving true liberty, it is wildly inconsistent and counterproductive to include voting as part of that strategy. We must of necessity look elsewhere.
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Read the full article at: strike-the-root.com
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