You get a sticker. “Praise me! I voted.”
There is only one thing you get to vote for– the Status Quo. Read yesterday’s blog entry if you haven’t already. Today’s comic is related.
October 15th, 2008
You get a sticker. “Praise me! I voted.”
There is only one thing you get to vote for– the Status Quo. Read yesterday’s blog entry if you haven’t already. Today’s comic is related.
Bad Behavior has blocked 3195 access attempts in the last 7 days.
So voting third party is voting status quo? FAIL.
Casting a ballot in favor of the election of Charles Jay is not supporting the status quo.
Voting for some parties other than the 2 oldest is voting for the status quo. However there is a party that is not. That party is the Boston Tea Party. In fact if the BTP did not have a candidate on the ballot in my state I would not cast a ballot for POTUS in this election but since they I do I will cast a ballot for Charles Jay.
Yes, voting for *any* party is voting for the status quo. Take a step back and you’ll see it: the status quo is *voting*! What will absolutely not change if you vote for a ruler, no matter who that ruler is, is that you’re voting for a *ruler*!
Another good one, Dale. The only change I would have liked to see is that the ballot have a few options,all meaning Status Quo, like “More of the Same” and “Left-Socialism” and “Right-Socialism” and maybe even “Wolf” and “Sheep.”
Non-votingVoting definitely needs to be shown the sham that it is more often!I particularly like the argument Wendy makes & like to use it when people are skeptical of non-voters.
“…power of the state does not rest on its size — eg. the number of laws on the books or the extent of the territory it claims. Rather, the power of a state rests on social conditions such as whether people will obey its laws and how many resources it can command to enforce obedience.”
“…In other words, freedom does not depend so much on repealing laws as on weakening the authority of the state. It does not depend — as political strategists expediently claim — on persuading enough people to vote ‘properly’ so that libertarians can occupy seats of political power and roll back legislation. Unfortunately, this process strengthens the institutional framework that produced unjust laws in the first place: it strengths the structure of state power by accepting its authority as a tool of change.”
-Wendy McElroy, “Why I Would Not Vote…Even Against Hitler”
Did I say “non-voting”? That’s a horrendous typo. Of course I meant to say “Voting.”
I fixed it for you.
Well put!
Excellent edition once again Dale. It’s time that people really start to challenge their assumptions here.
Who the hell is Charles Jay?
Politicians suck no matter what team they are on.
This isn’t always the case — there a lots of Free-Staters, libertarians, and Libertarians running for NH State Rep.
Granted, voting in a Free-Stater doesn’t remove the office entirely, but Free-Staters in office is hardly “the status quo”
Are you willing to vote for, and perhaps even stand and hold a sign for, the proprietor of Murphy’s taproom on election day? He’s a pretty libertarian dude…
I’m not willing. I don’t think you’ll be able to get enough free staters in there to change the status quo. Even if you did, I think the moment you started making real waves (if ever), you’ll rouse the beast and it will fight back. The nature of government is to grow. The nature of politics is to control violence; not shrink it. Candidates always have to make compromises and avoid upsetting things to keep winning the politics game, which means they won’t change anything substantially. Most people elect politicians to get things they want; not to be passive. Meanwhile, you’ll have played along and fueled the legitimacy of this violent game, so cries of injustice from any of the “players” against the system of mobocracy will seem rather disingenuous.
Frankly, any time I hear political activists complaining about politics, it sounds insincere to me. It just doesn’t have the ring of truth, sincerity that comes from the heart, that I feel is necessary to truly change hearts and minds. This is what I describe at the start of this post. If I’m lying and I know I’m lying, people sense that on some level.
I ask of politicians, is the system ok or isn’t it? If you believe in it, then you believe everything that’s happening to us now is just and valid. If you don’t believe in it, if you’re running for office to dismantle government and minimize what you believe is a truly harmful process, then say that in the pamphlets that you mail or hand out going door-to-door. If you’re not saying what you really believe, then you’re already making the compromises that I spoke of, becoming the iron fist that voters want so you can win instead of following principles that would shrink government, and you maintain the status quo.
I’m with you on this, Dale. Or at least I’m with what I think you’re saying.
The whole election thing has me on the verge of both physical and mental illness.
Hey, just pick which gun you’d like to be held captive with already!
It’s a privilege!