Comments Elsewhere

Jeremy,

Furthermore, I know that my participation is interpreted as support for the institution, regardless of my electoral choice or my intent in voting.

Well, sure, but won’t your refusal to vote be interpreted—by exactly the same people—as acquiescing to the political status quo?

You could say that it’s not just a matter of refusing to vote, it’s a matter of refusing to vote plus explaining to people why you’re refusing to participate in the election. But then couldn’t you just as easily choose to vote plus explain to people why you are choosing to participate in the political process?

That said, there are circumstances under which I would vote. I would vote if I were willing to back up my electoral choice with violent action. In such a case my vote is a proxy for my own willingness to compel others to accept a just outcome. However, I see no scenario where that kind of circumstance is likely to occur.

If I lived in South Dakota, I’d vote to repeal the state abortion ban in the upcoming referendum on precisely these grounds. If Michigan ever ends up with a referendum to restore the death penalty — which is not at all out of the realm of possibility — I think that voting against that would be another clear-cut instance.

I can’t see any reason to vote that doesn’t imply that I view the state as legitimate, and therefore no way to act that doesn’t view its actions as originating in real authority, whether or not I agree with the actions.

Well, I think the problem here is that you’re giving too much credit to the State’s own legitimating myths. There are cases in which participating in a process means tacitly accepting the legitimacy of the proceeding, and tacitly consenting to the outcome. But voting, at least, is not among them. For participation to count as consent, even tacit consent, it must be the case that refusing to participate would have exempted you from the outcome. Otherwise, I can’t see how the “permission” you give to the government by voting is any different from the “permission” you give a mugger to take your money instead of your life when you hand over your wallet. Here’s how Lysander Spooner put much the same point in No Treason:

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.

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.

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.

I’d be happy to take an anti-electoral line if it were true that everyone who refused to vote didn’t have to deal with tax-men, law-men, hangmen, or Congressmen anymore. But it isn’t, so I don’t see how the decision to vote or not to vote, just by itself, says anything about your moral relationship to the State. (Of course, whom you vote for, and why you vote for them, might.)

I should say that I hardly think that voting is the only or the best or even a particularly effective form of self-defense against the State — I think that voting on single-issue referenda is better than voting for so-called representatives, and that education, symbolic civil disobedience, direct action, etc. are all far better than voting of any kind. So there’s not a particularly pressing reason to get out there and do it. But the opportunity cost for voting in either kind of election is fairly low, so I don’t see a pressing reason not to do it, either, and if the stakes are high it may be worth your time.

I care passionately about what happens to this country, but I will not take part in its subjugation by granting the state my tacit permission to do so. … Remember that when you vote, you’re not just agreeing to your own oppression – you’re sanctioning your neighbor’s.

Are you claiming that voting in a government election constitutes consent (permission, agreement) to the actions that the victors take?

Shelley,

There are at least two, and I believe more, webloggers who have been expertly trained by so-called ‘conservative’ think tanks in how to direct and misdirect communication in weblogging so that the focus is on immigration or the Muslim threat because if we ever stopped to look around ourselves, we’d realize how many of our basic protections and rights have been eroded.

Well, there’s a lot that’s wrong with right-wing think tanks, but I’m not sure what’s wrong with focusing discussion on (say) immigration restrictions. How is that “misdirecting” anything? Aren’t immigration restrictions an important issue?

Holmes:

I think that your central argument — that consent to sex entails accepting responsibility for bearing any child that results — is dead wrong, but I’d rather give my explanation why a post to itself. For now, a couple questions about the view expressed later in your post:

1. If you believe this, then why did you bother to argue in the first place that consenting to sex entails accepting responsibility for bearing any children that result? Since you go on to argue that abortion is still illegitimate even for pregnancies that resulted from rape, you apparently think that consent is irrelevant, and that women bear responsibility for bearing children whether they accepted that responsibility or not. If the lack of consent to sex is irrelevant to a woman’s duties toward a fetus resulting from rape, then I don’t see how the presence of consent to sex becomes relevant to a woman’s duties towards a fetus resulting from consensual sex.

2. Since you apparently do think that consent to sex is irrelevant, and that the needs for a fetus’s life outweigh the unwilling mother’s claims to her own bodily organs, in what sense is Thomson’s Famous Violist case a bad analogy for you? Doesn’t the position you defend in the second part of your post commit you to saying that the cases are analogous, and simply drawing the opposite conclusion from Thomson?

After all, you can’t point to the fact that you didn’t volunteer your bodily organs for the use of the Famous Violinist as a point of disanalogy. You’ve explicitly denied that a fetus’s claim on its mother’s internal organs depends on her having consented. So it looks like the conclusion you ought to draw is that the cases are analogous in all the morally relevant respects, the Famous Violinist has a right to keep on using your body against your will, and if you disconnect her, that’s a form of criminal homicide.

If you’re willing to draw that conclusion, then your position is at least internally consistent. God only knows how you intend to reconcile it with anything recognizable as a libertarian theory of rights to person and property, though.

Stuart,

This story is actually about a year old. For reasons that I’m not clear on, editorandpublisher.com reprinted a verbatim copy of the story on Judge Hellerstein’s ruling back on September 29, 2005. The government’s appeal stalled the eventual release of the new material but some of the newly released photos and videos were included in this Australian news report from February 2006.

The Libertarian Guy,

Why do you think it is important for people talking about this man-eating monstrosity to do so calmly? The circumstances do not call for calmness. Activists are “unhinged” about it because it’s really fucking awful, and it’s getting worse every day.

(Before you waste your time repeating it, yeah, I know that all wars everywhere are like this, or worse. That’s an argument for being stridently opposed to all wars, not an argument for moderating your tone about this one.)

Me: “So in the meantime, you suggest dissembling my views in the name of political expediency?”

Nick: “No, I’m suggesting that you realize turning roads into toll roads and legalizing heroin are not accomplishable political goals at this moment in time. I support some pretty radical ideas too, including one of the two you mentioned, but you won’t hear me start to talk about them until we actually have the average voter’s attention and trust. Let’s first show them that legalizing marijuana won’t cause the social structure of America to collapse.”

But Nick, how is what you’re suggesting here different from the way I characterized it? You’re recommending that libertarian candidates conceal their real views from voters in order to curry political favor. Isn’t that dissembling?

Nick,

Here’s a hypothetical. Suppose I believe that all drug laws should be completely repealed (so I believe in legalizing heroin), but I want to run a Sensible Moderate campaign so I’ve focused on legalizing marijuana and I haven’t said one mumbling word about repealing all drug laws or legalizing “hard drugs” in particular.

It’s not crazy to think that my opponent, or perhaps some other concerned citizen, won’t be too dense to put two and two together. One thing that often happens in controversial campaigns is that the advocate gets asked to clarify just how far she’d go. So suppose that at the debate my opponent asks me point-blank whether I’m for legalize heroin, too.

Now I see only three options for my answer. I could:

1. Admit that I do support legalizing heroin, thus committing “political suicide” and abandoning my Sensible Moderate approach;
2. Lie about my views to avoid 1; or
3. Evade the question or obfuscate the issue to avoid both 1 and 2.

What do you suggest I do?

Nick Wilson: Good for you, but it’s impossible to ignore that advocating it as official party policy in the realities of the current environment is political suicide. When you can get a plurality of people to at least consider the idea, then go for it.

So in the meantime, you suggest dissembling my views in the name of political expediency?

Right now, lets focus on the fights we even have a somewhat remote chance of winning on: ….

I don’t think that single-minded focus on “winnable” goals is always the wisest strategy for social change, but anyway you’re changing the subject here. It may be perfectly sensible to pick carefully the battles that I invest time and resources in. But I object to concealing or misrepresenting my views on the “unwinnable” issues I’m not pushing on right now, to pander to the majority’s prejudices. That’s different, and dishonest.

“I think Nick is saying that media and opponents can no longer play the “libertarians want to legalize heroin and turn all roads into toll roads” card, ’cause a lot of that stuff has been removed from the national platform.”

But I DO want to legalize heroin and turn all roads into toll roads….

http://dulceetdecorumest.org/

“The purpose of this weblog is to abolish war, immediately, completely, and forever.

“That’s a tall order for a website, particularly a small website run by somebody with little money and no influence in the halls of government. But my aim is not to make a change in the halls of government by exercising political influence or force; it is to make a change in the culture by undermining the moral legitimacy that the self-appointed heroes of the War Party claim for themselves. My aims are not constructive, but rather destructive: I hope to do my part towards knocking out the cultural supports that prop up the War Party with the whole force and ideological backing of the State. My end is schism and discord: that is, to agitate against, and encourage people to turn against, any civil, religious, or political institution that tolerate, sustain, or practice wholesale slaughter. The War Party is sustained largely because of a vast array of parades, pageants, celebrations, memorials, re-enactments, pop histories, and holidays, all devoted to inculcating the myth that warfare is something glorious, that the warlords are great leaders of heroic efforts, and that the engines of war are worth exulting over and regarding with awe, rather than horror. Many people accept that myth, and many more are bullied into playing along with it, because they are insulated from the reality of war, and because serious and thoroughgoing anti-war sentiment doesn’t have enough of a cultural presence to overcome the official ideology of the Warfare State. I hope to undermine that; I want people to look on the carrion fields with loathing, and to turn that loathing against everything that produced them. …

“… The means my ends will be anti-war cultural artefacts, both historical and contemporary. I don’t just mean agitprop by anti-war activists; I also mean artefacts that record the experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians in times of war. This is not the place to go for commentary, analysis, or debate on current events; more or less none of the content will even be original to this website. It will be a place for facts, and for things, and for people. My intent is simply to remember our history (including the history we are making right now), and in so doing to strip the mask from off the War Party, revealing not glory, not honor, not heroism, but rather a grinning Death’s Head underneath.”