HOW TO VOTE FOR LIBERTY
October 26, 2004 

by Joe Sobran

     It's going down to the wire, I'm trailing in the 
polls, and if you listen to conventional wisdom, it's 
time for me to go all-out to mobilize my base in my 
write-in campaign for the presidency of the United 
States. Instead, I'm adopting a new strategy that can't 
lose. 

     I am withdrawing from the race. 

     I thank my followers for their backing and 
encouragement, and I'm not going to try to throw their 
support to another candidate. I'm asking them not to vote 
at all. I want to immobilize my base. 

     I don't want to be the most powerful man on earth. 
There is no such thing as being "worthy" of the office, 
an office that now includes the power to murder countless 
people. The American political system is far beyond 
repair. 

     Abstaining from voting is an honorable way of 
refusing to participate in the organized coercion that is 
government. The 2004 election is said to be about 
"turnout." Exactly. In the few days that remain, I will 
try to depress turnout. 

     I will consider every vote that isn't cast as a vote 
of support for me -- or rather, for the liberty I want 
for all of us. Voting for the establishment candidates is 
notoriously a choice of evils. Refusing to vote is a 
positive statement that you choose not to endorse any 
evil. 

     Voting is worse than futile; it's immoral. A single 
vote can't make any difference, except, rarely, in a 
local election; it's like a grain of sand in the Sahara. 
But elections serve to strengthen, by seeming to 
legitimize, a bad system. They make people feel 
emotionally committed to that system, with all its 
aggression against justice and individual rights. 

     Winners of presidential elections like to claim a 
"mandate" when they defeat their opponents decisively -- 
that is, with 55 per cent or so of the votes cast. But 
when half the eligible voters abstain, it suggests a 
quiet but decisive mandate against the whole political 
system. Some may be contented, feeling that they can bear 
any outcome. But many are simply cynical about all 
politicians and government itself. They don't want any 
part of it. Seeing the people who rise to the top, they 
have no hope it can be reformed. 

     Nonvoters are often described as lazy, apathetic, 
lacking in civic spirit. Voting is touted among us as a 
moral imperative. If you don't vote, we are told, you 
have no right to complain. Voting, in fact, is the way we 
are =encouraged= to complain! 

     It's hard to know where to start refuting such 
imbecility. The act of making an "X" in a box, or its 
high-tech equivalent, is close to worthless as a means of 
either self-expression or imparting information. When 
masses of votes can be won by wearing silly hats and 
repeating silly slogans, it's pretty hard to maintain the 
belief that election results reflect an aggregate wisdom 
in the electorate. I marvel that faith in democracy has 
survived the advent of C-SPAN. 

     Just for example, if voters could be disqualified 
for not knowing the difference between Saddam Hussein and 
Osama bin Laden, John Kerry would defeat George W. Bush 
in a landslide. This doesn't prove that Kerry is the 
better candidate, but it does show that sheer ignorance 
can be a decisive factor in democracy. 

     A libertarian writer named Carl Watner offers six 
reasons why libertarians shouldn't vote. Five are 
pragmatic -- one vote doesn't matter, libertarians can't 
hope to win, there is no way elections can produce good 
results, et cetera -- but a chief one is moral: Voting 
means involving yourself in the system of coercion and 
aggression. When you vote, you give that system your 
blessing. History and reason alike seem to back Watner 
up. 

     So next week I'll feel I've achieved, or at least 
taken part in, a moral victory if my people, the 
nonvoters, outnumber the voters. But we can't leave it at 
that. We have to stop acting as if abstaining were a 
furtive dereliction of duty and start proclaiming it as a 
point of pride and honor -- a kind of boycott of the 
government's chief idolatrous ritual. 

     It can force us to pay taxes, to support its wars, 
to observe its myriad petty rules, but it can't (yet) 
force us to vote. We don't (yet) have to pretend that 
it's our benefactor or that our rulers are our servants. 
There are some truths we're still free to speak. We can 
speak one of them very clearly by refusing to vote in 
government elections. 

     Thank you for not voting. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2004/041026.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2004 by the Griffin Internet 
Syndicate, www.griffnews.com. This column may not 
be published in print or Internet publications 
without express permission of Griffin Internet 
Syndicate. You may forward it to interested 
individuals if you use this entire page, 
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available 
by subscription. For details and samples, see 
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write 
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."