Anarcho-Lobbyist: You Have No Right To Vote
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 3 months ago to Government
So is voting a Right that every citizen should have. This comment has an interesting look at the question and offers some good reasons.
From the article:
"Voting is not a right. I understand the desire, and even the perceived necessity to treat it that way, since all of us are affected by government, but it’s still a not a “right”. I don’t much like the concept of rights to begin with, but that’s a story for another post. Whether or not rights exist, the idea that anyone is morally or even pragmatically correct in choosing those who will violently rule over others is insane. If you have no proper authority to violently rule over others, it is impossible for you to delegate that authority to someone else.
Government is an unjust imposition on all of our lives, and voting is a privilege granted by that institution. This is self evident, in that it requires registration to be invoked, and that it can be revoked at any time. Not only that, but it is perhaps the most abused privilege since taxation, and I don’t personally feel like making it more readily available to people is going to help improve the world any. There’s a reason liberals always accuse conservatives of voter suppression, and that’s because fewer voters is generally a good thing for keeping government small.
Most people are not exceedingly intelligent or well educated, particularly when it comes to history and economics. Thus, when politicians tell them to choose between a candidate who says “We’ll keep you safe and healthy and give you free stuff” vs. a candidate who says “You are responsible for your own life” most of them will unfortunately support the former. Free stuff and safety are universally appealing options, and so anyone who makes those promises, however false they may be, will be favored over someone who gives the hard truth of “life sucks, get a fuckin helmet”."
and
"It is exceedingly rare that I stand for the State to be more restrictive on anything, but voting and getting free stuff is where I draw the line. I support drug testing for welfare recipients, and I support restrictions on voting for the same reason.
Making voting more widely available is the same thing as making welfare more widely available. You give people better access to the machinery of the State, and we should not act surprised when it gets used more frequently. Voting is serious business, a person who deems themselves fit to choose who will violently rule over a society had better have some skin in the game, and know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, the people pushing hardest for freer elections are often those who have the least education, intelligence, and skin in the game."
Do any Gulchers think there's a chance in Hell that we can aver get back to a Republic after being democratized?
From the article:
"Voting is not a right. I understand the desire, and even the perceived necessity to treat it that way, since all of us are affected by government, but it’s still a not a “right”. I don’t much like the concept of rights to begin with, but that’s a story for another post. Whether or not rights exist, the idea that anyone is morally or even pragmatically correct in choosing those who will violently rule over others is insane. If you have no proper authority to violently rule over others, it is impossible for you to delegate that authority to someone else.
Government is an unjust imposition on all of our lives, and voting is a privilege granted by that institution. This is self evident, in that it requires registration to be invoked, and that it can be revoked at any time. Not only that, but it is perhaps the most abused privilege since taxation, and I don’t personally feel like making it more readily available to people is going to help improve the world any. There’s a reason liberals always accuse conservatives of voter suppression, and that’s because fewer voters is generally a good thing for keeping government small.
Most people are not exceedingly intelligent or well educated, particularly when it comes to history and economics. Thus, when politicians tell them to choose between a candidate who says “We’ll keep you safe and healthy and give you free stuff” vs. a candidate who says “You are responsible for your own life” most of them will unfortunately support the former. Free stuff and safety are universally appealing options, and so anyone who makes those promises, however false they may be, will be favored over someone who gives the hard truth of “life sucks, get a fuckin helmet”."
and
"It is exceedingly rare that I stand for the State to be more restrictive on anything, but voting and getting free stuff is where I draw the line. I support drug testing for welfare recipients, and I support restrictions on voting for the same reason.
Making voting more widely available is the same thing as making welfare more widely available. You give people better access to the machinery of the State, and we should not act surprised when it gets used more frequently. Voting is serious business, a person who deems themselves fit to choose who will violently rule over a society had better have some skin in the game, and know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, the people pushing hardest for freer elections are often those who have the least education, intelligence, and skin in the game."
Do any Gulchers think there's a chance in Hell that we can aver get back to a Republic after being democratized?
There is one chance to return to a republic and that is to return law to it's natural and only purpose -- to protect the property of individuals. As long as law is used to plunder from some to give to others then people will clamor for their "right" to vote so they can participate in the game.
1. Everyone gets a vote
2. Property owners a second.
3. Business owners employing a "minimum" number of emoloyees, a third.
4. Business ownership of it's "domicile", a fourth.
Once again, this is a simplicity beyond the complexity of the problem at hand, and the resistance to any such proposal. It is a path toward Representative Republic.
Personally, I think that only property owners should be allowed to vote and there should only be one vote per household.
But the root cause of the problem is the corruption of law and as long as that isn’t addressed it doesn’t matter what remedy we propose.
As I understand original voting privilege, it was only property owners.
I'm just offering up a starting point to leverage out the uninterested, under-informed and over-powered big businesses. The resistance to this?! Deep sigh....
Snoogoo and I are kicking around the idea of a new money system that may be enjoined with this. A novel, fact or fiction, is still to be determined.
I'm thinking of the book "Tribes: We Need [jbrenner] to Lead Us"
My gut feeling is something like it will happen. I'm not sure if it will even be geographic. One dream is that someone like you inherits a little bit of wealth and invests it into a high-tech incubator in an area near a private university that generates research that could be commercialized. If the founder actually understands some of the research, he could invest small seed capital into it, which might help them get attention of other angels or VCs. If that works, maybe he buys a hotel that's already operating in some Caribbean island that already has a favorable business environment, and try to make it a retreat for objectivist-minded people to vacation or to have workshops. If somehow this leads to the org buying commercial RE there, well, it's starting to look Gulch-like. Business never unfolds according to plan; it will all happen completely different. The general idea, though, doesn't feel like a stretch to me.
I love that story, but I think we are no where near that point now, and I don't think President Obama is the problem.
So true.
You would become a member of a 'huge mob' of around three...kind of like the Occupying Wall Street bozos.
Thomas Jefferson
Primarily economic, with the implication that if you aren't economically invested in the country you should not be voting on how to run it. I have no problem with tests or barriers of this type.
In retrospect, not a bad approach.
Which is completely and utterly insane. I don’t know where to begin. The whole idea of being charged to renounce your citizenship… They’re on crack, right? Please tell me they’re on crack. And the sad part is that you can’t just tell them to get stuffed. If the country you move to has an extradition treaty with the US then goons will show up to put you in a cage.