No Coercion Exploring the idea of a stateless society.

Should you even vote this year?

Our current economic crisis has highlighted the similarities between the two major presidential candidates. Both McCain and Obama are calling for expansion of government aggression in banking and finance, and each is claiming that his opponent's plan will usher in a recession. Both, of course, are somewhat correct--each one's economic policies are going to have negative affects on the economy, as government aggression always does.

We have two parties backed by the government (Democrats and Republicans) who, not surprisingly, both favor government control to a greater or lesser degree. Voting Republican may be the lesser of the two evils with regard to economic matters (though certainly the greater of the two evils in all other matters), but it's still an evil. Faced with these unpleasant choices, I have heard many people despair and resign themselves to not voting at all. I certainly don't blame them, and I find nothing of worth in the arguments that it's our "duty" to vote or that those who don't vote can't complain (those are arguments employed by the hacks of an oppressive regime desperate for an air of legitimacy).

While I don't condone voting (as it can be considered consenting to an unjust system), I also don't condemn it. After all, as Lysander Spooner pointed out over a century ago, we are coerced into voting in self defense, like a man forced to kill or be killed:

"In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self- defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man takes the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot — which is a mere substitute for a bullet — because, as his only chance of self- preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.

"Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby meliorating their condition. But it would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the government itself, that crushes them, was one which they had voluntarily set up, or even consented to."

So, voting for who you'd like to run the oppressive apparatus of the state is certainly justifiable on purely prudential grounds, and I will probably do so. But again, for someone who values human freedom, I can imagine no conceivable defense for voting for either one of the major parties who, not only in historical fact but also in their actual published principles, seek to perpetuate the state and a wide range of its aggressions against person and property.

The Libertarian Party, on the other hand, at least stands for the value of working always to reduce the size and scope of government in all areas of life.

Here is the preamble to the LP's official platform:

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.

These specific policies are not our goal, however. Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.

Yes, our Presidential candidate, Bob Barr, is far from the best representative of libertarianism, having been a staunch conservative Republican just a few short years ago. But I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that his conversion to liberty (still ongoing) is genuine, since I went through the same conversion over the course of perhaps 3-4 years during and immediately after college. Regardless, the party itself is the vehicle for freedom that I'll be voting for. I'll use my lonely vote to help send a message, not to the parasitic creatures currently in power, but to other people---a message that there is another way to live, a way that doesn't involve initiating force against each other, a way supported by a sizable number of their fellow men. There is strength in numbers, and my hope is that over time those who long for a free society (but consistently vote for the lesser of the two evils out of fear of what the greater evil could do in the near term) will take a longer term view and join the increasing numbers willing to "waste" their vote by choosing a third party that agitates for liberty.

If you're going to take part in the superficially civilized (but fundamentally barbaric) system known as democratic government, at least consider voting for a party whose ultimate goal is a peaceful, prosperous, voluntary society in which no group is given a legal monopoly on the use of force. The only wasted vote is one given to the lesser of the two evils.

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