Elections Are Coming

Election time is nearing, and anyone with a television knows it. 'Tis the season of commercials for this guy and against that guy.

They might as well be advertising self-castration kits because I don't vote.

O.K. I voted once (but I didn't inhale), against an amendment to the Michigan constitution (I voted to elect no one). Other than that, I doubt that I will ever vote again.

Many people (especially people who vote) say, "If you don't vote, then you can't complain." They say this, of course, with no real idea as to why I wouldn't vote.

I won't vote because I decline to play a part in the charade. I pretty much distrust and (ergo) dislike anyone who runs for office. Recall that South Park episode when Stan won't vote for the new school mascot because the only two choices are a douche and a turd sandwich. I realize, of course, that there are usually more than two choices in a candidate; however, all this does is make it a contest between a douche, a turd sandwich, a genital wart, etc. Please note that when voting for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil, and your vote says that you support that evil.

The problem isn't who is in the government. The problem is the government. You might say that I can't complain if I don't vote, but I say that you can't complain if you do vote because you are part of the problem. I'm not playing Pilate and merely washing my hands of this. I'm not even going to ask the crowd whom to free. I'm not going to cast a vote for someone or something that favors me and potentially binds my neighbors regardless of their wishes.

I am applying the Golden Rule. I want to be left alone, so I'm going to leave others alone.

"But you have to vote," some might say. "It's important that the people's--the whole people's--will be ratified." To which, I say, "Bah!" I don't care about the people's will. I care about my will, and as long as I do not harm anyone else, then I should be left free to do my will.

Then there's the people who say that I'll never see a better government if I don't vote.

Thoreau said this in "Civil Disobedience":

" All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote."

This Autumn in Michigan, either the Democratic incumbent, Jennifer Granholm, or the Republican challenger, Dick DeVos, will be elected governor. My Union says to support Granholm, which is an immediate check against her. However, my intellect says to reject both. As Thoreau wrote, "What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn," so I will not vote.

Of course others are running for office and for much better (relatively speaking) parties, but I will not vote for them either. I will save my vote for a time when it can be applied true to its merit.

"The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to--for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well--is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen" (HDT).