With there being less than a hair’s difference between presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain, many Americans are going to wake up today still undecided on which to vote for, the giant douche or the turd sandwich.
With voting “irregularities” already cropping up in early voting states, and Florida and Ohio once again battling to see which will be the battleground state that decides the election and which will disenfranchise more voters, many Americans will vote today and be unsure that their votes are even counted.
But untrustworthy elections have become the new normal in these United States.
Today I want to share with you how I think you should approach the polls on this Election Day, 2008.
I do not plan to vote, and I don’t believe you should vote either. Quite simply, I think you shouldn’t approach the polls at all, except perhaps to encourage others not to vote.
Now this is obviously a dramatic step to take, and so it requires some explanation.
First, as many Americans have realized by now, there isn’t much difference between Obama and McCain. Both will continue leading the country to ruin, albeit by slightly different paths. Both will expand the present Middle East conflict into Iran. Both will continue the economic policies which led to the present economic crisis, thus worsening it. Now you may be forgiven for actually believing these candidates when they say things, but recall that politicians have this tendency to not fulfill their campaign promises, as illustrated in this brilliant comic from cartoonist Dale Everett. Unfortunately, people seem to forget this just before an election. Today I urge you to remember.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it can be argued that voting — regardless of for whom — implicitly grants moral sanction to the system. In other words, you agree to abide by the result even if the person you voted for doesn’t win, and even if the person who wins does something you wouldn’t approve of. It’s through this moral sanction granted by ordinary people to their rulers that the worst atrocities in human history have occurred.
Have you never noticed that right after an election, the winner will claim to have received a “mandate from the people” to do whatever it is he wants to do, regardless of what the voters actually wanted? Certainly the voters can complain, but such complaints are futile and pointless so long as the voters continue to grant their moral sanction by continuing to vote for giant douches and turd sandwiches. Or, as Everett explains more thoroughly, if you vote, you can’t complain.
This is why I urge you to vote for nobody today. Then complain, loudly, that the system is utterly broken. Use what’s left of your freedom of speech and of the press to let the world know that you no longer have faith in the political process, because it can do nothing but deliver giant douches and turd sandwiches who, once in office, continue to enrich the well-connected at the expense of you, Joe the Plumber. Because the process delivers us laws which make crimes of virtually everything ordinary people do, put us all under surveillance to catch those who disobey, even for a moment, and then pervert the judicial process to turn ordinary Americans who get caught in this net into ATM machines for failing government bureaucracies.
Vote for nobody, because nobody is worth voting for.
But I know some of you will be unmoved and will insist on “not wasting” your vote. You have to vote for the giant douche, or the turd sandwich will win. And he will do something bad that affects you personally. The giant douche, at least, won’t personally hurt you while he’s doing bad things to other people. Or so he says. But, really, can you believe him? And what does it say about you that you are willing to inflict such harm on other people by proxy? It’s best to not vote, and be able to look at yourself in the mirror on Wednesday morning.
Even if you can still somehow sleep with yourself after voting for your perception of the lesser of two evils, sooner or later you will reap what you sow. One way or another, if he wins, his policies will come back to bite you. Whether it’s losing a family member in the upcoming war in Iran, or losing your job or your home, you will be affected, and by touching that screen or filling in that bubble, you will have helped to bring it upon yourself. And if the other guy wins, you still have granted moral sanction to the system which will have visited these calamities upon you. Certainly you may not avoid disaster by not voting, but at least you will not have helped to cause it.
After all that, if you still are willing to risk your home, your livelihood, and your and your family members’ very lives by voting, you should at least vote for someone who will minimize the damage. That means neither the giant douche nor the turd sandwich. As best I can tell, that means writing in my name for president. If elected, I will swear the oath, shut down the federal government since virtually nothing it does is Constitutional, and go home. And that will be the first day. Many people plan to write in Ron Paul, and that seems acceptable.
Finally, I would like to invite those of you who truly believe in freedom and liberty to consider the futility of working within the existing political system to affect change. If you haven’t realized yet that it is futile, I encourage you to try it. Once you’re convinced, and I’m sure you will be eventually, then it’s time to look outside the system for solutions. Either way, if you’re truly committed to the ideal of liberty, that everyone should do as they wish so long as they harm no others, then I invite you to join the Free State Project, move here to New Hampshire, and help us make this ideal a reality.
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Dale Everett
Nov 04, 2008
Great article, Michael. And wow, thanx for the great plugs!
kid mercury
Nov 04, 2008
how about third party candidates, like the ron paul endorsed chuck baldwin? though your overall point is understood and i concur, a vote for obama or mccain is a vote for the status quo and implicit acceptance of the tyranny they will bring.
Mike
Nov 04, 2008
kid mercury, did you ignore the point that by voting you are sanctioning the violence inherent in the system? It doesn’t matter whom you vote for – if you vote, you are saying it is OK for *someone* (the person you voted for) to initiate aggression against others (e.g., taxation, at least!), even though *you* don’t have that right (or the guts) to do it yourself.
Decay
Nov 04, 2008
This has been my philosophy for some time, but you put it much better than I could have. Already a member of the FSP, too. Currently living in Houston, because the weather is nice, and the politics are moderately less horrible than Michigan, where I’m from.
and I complain often, much to the irritation of my friends.
Cheers.
GlenGary
Nov 07, 2008
The thing to remember now that the elections are over is that nothing has or will change for liberty and freedom until folks finally get it that the system is failing America and no figure head is going to change it. It needs to be destroyed and rebuilt to for the people and by the people.
These media creations are but figureheads for lobbies and corporations who serve one master and that master is not the people. I voted neither in 2004 and 2008 as they do not represent ME.
GlenGary
Bob
Nov 07, 2008
I read “figureheads for lobbies” and somehow my brain got “bobble head figures”. I don’t know where it came from but it struck me funny.
Just bobble heads on the dash of a car they aren’t driving.
GlenGary
Nov 08, 2008
It is aprox 10 weeks before the new Bobblehead is sworn into his Kingship. A lot will happen between now and then with the economy, the credit crisis and saber rattling worldwide and nothing is going to pause or wait for the King to take his new ceptor to his throne.
It is guaranteed that the America he sees today will not be the America he begins to govern in Jan 2009 as this America loses jobs at average 8,000 a day in October.
By January 20 2013 should this King survive his hair will be white, his shoulders slumped and he will look like Father Time still proud to be the first African American President, but humbled to the quick by what his country has endured in suffering that neither he nor any man could stop. The next four years will make strong men weary.
I didn’t dislike Obama or McCain but I distrusted both entirely as I distrust Congress and the marriage of all concerned not to the people who vote, but the purse strings that voice the only opinions that their selective hearing allows through. It is THAT marriage that has broken America and so it goes that it will not be that marriage that fixes America.
Their days must be numbered for if they are not then our days as a free people are through.
I defer to other opinions and wisdoms here for I have no real answers that do not sound insane to the average person.
Glen
GlenGary
Nov 08, 2008
Bob,
On the light side I have turned off the news. Unplugged from the markets and for now that does not exist since Sunday last. I’m a gold bug-a silver bug so I’m not worried so why look? I plotted the wife’s retirement for 2011 at age 52 and the numbers look spot on.
I had to re-evaluate things a bit. Since 1999 I had planned for the eventual mother of economic downturns and so far I’m not getting stung by this thing, but rather helped so it strikes me as time to breath easier for now. Gas going $1.99 is a gift and so is deflation on tools and things I use. Even paint gets rebates.
So…My all music radio plays 24-7 in my garage, office and workshop in the basement as I apply can by can 19 gallons of paint I bought plus various rolls of border…my winter projects have begun.
On nice days I’ll split wood-cut a few more trees, repair my equipment for next summer, wash windows, hunt a bit… Blow off the world I think. Make snow angels…did that last year!
Internalizing America’s problems won’t solve them since too few people believe as I do that the vote is meaningless to real change. Things won’t change so I will ignore them until something meaningful takes root.
Up here in the woods I can pull that off. Back to near hermit status. Made peace with a few neighbors in the last few weeks without anyone swallowing pride to sort of reaffirm that Yes I will still help you if you need help. Reworking understandings to circle wagons tighter.
Accept the things I cannot change.
Glen
Anonymous
Nov 09, 2008
my philosophy as well. another important point is to refuse to pay taxes, as taxes are what ultimately fund the system.. Hopefully all the like minded out there can contribute to a peaceful revolution by loudly and vocally refusing to vote or contribute to the system
Bob
Nov 09, 2008
I’m still watching the news, Glen. I guess I’m a rubbernecker. Gotta see the wreck. Can’t look away. It’s not doing me any good.
GlenGary
Nov 10, 2008
Bob,
I had to quit watching in order to get my head straight and take things to the next level. I know the train is coming to the station so I’ll just continue in peace to prepare the reception.
I figure my job is in 100% self-protection so I leave the hysterics and arguing to others.
I’m in an accomplishment mode.
Glen
GlenGary
Nov 10, 2008
Anonymous
A silent majority is what got us here and breaking tax laws begs prosecution and confiscation of property and is not an offensive move but a stupid move.
I have a feeling the jobless disenfranchised will light the fuse of change and in October their ranks grew by 8,000 a day. When we financially crumble the changes will be stark.
Glen
Off subject.
Nov 10, 2008
What about that poor child Caylee Anthony? They found parts of her decomposed body in her mother’s car. She was dating a cop. Could he have had something to do with it? A bunch of phsycics are claiming the child’s dead body is in Tampa Bay, Fl not Orlando, Fl. There is a $225,000 reward if you find her. They said she went on a job interview in Tampa. The body decomposed for awhile in the trunk. It could have done so when they went to Tampa Bay, Fl. The body could be located behind a nightclub. Rumor has it she was going to be a nude dancer or ect.. Maybe the ex-cop? told her how to get off by making it look like the body was in Orlando to throw off the public and get away with the crime. Maybe one of you good decent people can find the body of this girl and give her closure so, people will start to see they are not gonna get away with child abuse anymore or murdering babies. Homeland stupidity maybe searching the wrong area. Set them straight somebody. Many people who post were victims or child abuse. WE must stop it.
To Mike
Nov 13, 2008
What will your next story be on? We all miss you. Did you hear about the Cop in Shasta Lake,Ca whose child shot himself last week with his service pistol in his bedroom where it was left without a gun lock? Also this week some teenagers are sueing the Shasta County sherrif’s department for false arrest and abuse ect.. They pull this crap every day and teach thier children to be hostile. They are also allowed to be abusive to others. This crap has to stop. We hope your week is going well. Good luck. Hopefully you will never be falsely arrested,beaten and abused by some total jack asses!!
Anonymous
Nov 14, 2008
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
KennyCan'tDie
Feb 16, 2009
I vote for turd sandwich.
Seriously, though. I remember a time when I bought into the hype of voting G.W. into office. Of course, now that is clearly not such a great outcome as one would expect.
It’s easy to blame the rich and corporations for our problems, but who was stupid enough to give that Texan all the power? Yeah. It doesn’t sit well.