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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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October 30, 2006
The Ballot IS the Bullet
I want to offer a simple point for your consideration as a citizen as you prepare for the upcoming election. This is not particularly a partisan point nor a specific current issue, but a general principle about elections and representative government.
Political debate suffers from worship of the seemingly magical powers of the word "democracy." In one of the more popular cliches, it is said that we have to have "the ballot or the bullet." Fair enough, elections beat riots - though I still say there are way too many people voting.
However, do not misunderstand and think that ballots are the opposite of bullets. They are not. They are just a substitute for muting direct violence, not the elimination of violence. Reduced fat Oreos are perhaps less bad for you than the regular ones, but they're still not diet food or good nutrition. Likewise for the reduced violence of elective government.
"What is the ballot? It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the billy, and the bullet. It is a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. The voice of the majority saves bloodshed, but it is no less the arbitrament of force than is the decree of the most absolute of despots backed by the most powerful of armies." - Benjamin R. Tucker
Allow me to extrapolate just a bit. If you form a lynch mob to kill someone, then it's no less a murder if a majority joins in. If you extract protection money from people under threat of imprisonment, it's no less an act of violent intimidation because you had a vote. If I have no right to take someone's stuff, and you have no right to do so, how would the two of us together magically be right in doing it?
There's certainly a lot of legitimate debate about what exactly government is supposed to be expected to do, and what is the best way to go about doing it. Perhaps you in fact think it appropriate to take some people's money at gunpoint to give to poor folks (like YOU, no doubt). But recognize that this is what you are doing, and don't kid yourself that it's something truly different than if you just walked into the 7-11 with a gun- other than that you're getting someone else to do your dirty work. The stick-up artist is just cutting out the middleman. As HL Mencken memorably put it, "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
The absentee voting is already underway. Let the bidding begin.
posted by Al at 10/30/2006 12:27:00 AM
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