Posted on 10/23/2004 10:07:23 AM PDT by J. Neil Schulman
"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 attempts to take 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." -- Lysander Spoooner, No Treason, 1870
Spooner was not perfect, for instance he embraced The Labor Theory of Value as well as well as voting. Well, here's a quote from the voluntaryist camp:
"To your plea of self-defense, I reply: Fine, defend yourself, but leave me alone. But voting is wrong precisely because it does not leave me alone. If you elect your candidate to office in the name of self-defense, his power will not be restricted to you and to those who voted for him. He will have power over me and others like me as well. ... You presume that you have the right to appoint a political guardian over me — a benevolent one, you claim, but a guardian nonetheless. Now as one libertarian to another, I must repeat my question: Where did you get such a right?"
(George H. Smith "Party Dialogue," p. 23.)
It is encouraging to see that you and some other members of the LP actually do understand the process of electing a President. Just when I'm ready to dismiss all Libertarians as blind rhetoric loonies, people like you step forward and demonstrate that there really are some sane and rationale people in your ranks.
ouch
You havent been taking notice I see. There are TWO bills that will be placed on the floor of the senate to scrap the present tax system and replace it with a NRST. Without a Bush administration you will NEVER EVER get the chance to see this system replaced by a constitutional tax system.
excellent endorsement.
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society-by-contract quoted George H. Smith:
"To your plea of self-defense, I reply: Fine, defend yourself, but leave me alone. But voting is wrong precisely because it does not leave me alone. If you elect your candidate to office in the name of self-defense, his power will not be restricted to you and to those who voted for him."
Which will be equally true if the candidate I vote against wins.
Your question does not connect to any real world problem.
Who is the man who wrote the "principles" for the Libertarian Party? Today Neal boortz said that that guy is voting for Bush this year!
I happen to be a Republican-Libertarian also. I almost voted for the Libertarian Party this year, however the war on terror issue stopped me for voting for them. Basically sticking head in sand and pretend the problem does not exist is not the solution. I like Bush, however, there are few issues that I disagree with him.
This is the guy!! WooHoo!!
Cool!
I've been a libertarian since the 1980s but I don't view the Republican party as the enemy, as do many libertarians. The R's and the L's have a common enemy...the LEFT. It is far more important to defeat the left and the only way to do it is by working together.
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