Why Do We Vote? Reasons Good and Bad
When we go into the voting booth to pick the candidate of our choice, why do we do it, what are we choosing? In the mind of most, voters and politicians alike, we are choosing who should be in charge for the next term; two, four or six years depending on the office. In other words, we are picking our rulers. President Obama made that very clear in his first few months in office when he stated that the Republicans, the losers in this case, should just sit down and shut up while they did what they wanted because they, the Democrats, had won. As the winners, it was their "right" to do whatever they pleased. Not too far removed from the idea of the divine right of kings, a paradigm our current president embraces wholeheartedly.
The founders, notably George Washington, rejected this idea. However, at the turn of the twentieth century a new idea took hold among the majority of the more "advanced nations". The new political ideology stated that the future welfare of mankind would best be served by increasing the role of central planning and decision making across society, and eventually the world. This ideology took two different paths. The first, and most obvious, was the totalitarian road embraced by communism and fascism. In such regimes the plans are dictated from the top, irrespective of market forces, the desires of the people or even common sense, primarily for the benefit of those at the top. After all, in a communist system everyone is equal, its just that some are more equal than others.
In western style democracies, this central planning and decision making is supposed to be for the benefit of the citizenry. Their needs and happiness are ostensibly the aim of this scheme; "A chicken (tofurkey?) in every pot and a car (a volt?) in every garage!". You can hear the promises of all the politicians throughout the ages as they have pledged to meet every need and satisfy every want of every constituent. Free heath care, a secure retirement, a job, day care for children, high speed trains, condoms for all, business loans and bailouts, a house for everyone, the list goes on and on. In a democracy, however, there is a fundamental flaw in this design. The people are never unanimous. What about the minority, which may consist of forty-nine percent, who don’t agree with a particular choice? How does one really know the "will of the people" and how do the people as a whole choose from among various options? What happens if the "people" change their minds?
When decisions are made at the top, those decisions affect everyone whether they agree with them or not, even if they are destructive, immoral or simply stupid. We are expected to agree and follow all these decisions because of our fallacious belief we live in a representative democracy. We choose our representatives in a "winner take all" system in which the person with the most votes wins and the loser(s) go home, or become lobbyists. The winner has received a majority of the votes and therefore has a mandate to do what the majority wants. This is simply mob rule one degree removed from the Athenian model, a more civilized version sans torches and pitchforks. The government now has the power to pick the winners and the losers and the losers are at the mercy of the winners, they have no protection from the moochers and looters. When the government does the picking it will always end up stealing money and liberty from one to give it to another. This is fundamentally unjust. As this theft becomes pervasive and government expands in power and influence, it eventually ends up in the same place as the totalitarian regimes mentioned earlier, benefiting only those at the top and reducing the populace to serfdom.
Our system of government was not conceived of with such injustice in mind. The most just way of governing is that which is unjust to the fewest number of people. The only way to do that is to limit the scope of government to protecting the fundamental rights of the citizens and allowing them to make their life choices according to what they believe is moral, practical or desirous. This is the goal of a republic. The protection of rights, true rights, does not put a burden on another individual. As President Obama once lamented, the constitution is a charter of negative rights. In such a minimalist system the only losers are those who violate the rights of others. That is as it should be.
In such a system, the vast majority of decisions are made outside the political process by individuals and voluntary organizations of free people. In the dynamic societies we have been developing in the West since the Enlightenment, advancement is the result of free people solving problems and seeking better explanations in the world. In a rational, healthy society the political arena is just one institution among many that facilitate this process. In fact, it should have a minimal role because political institutions are the only ones with the ability to use force to implement their desires and the use of that power is always dangerous. Logic, rationality, common sense, and criticism, which should be the criteria used to evaluate solutions and explanations in a free society are too often absent in government. Citizens, voters, are not infallible fonts of wisdom who choose divine beings to rule. All of us are merely fallible individuals doing our best to improve our lives and just as we make mistakes and go down blind alleys as individuals, so we do as societies. However, if we are allowed to progress freely through the process of conjecture and criticism, our collective wisdom will eventually be revealed. That is why, for example, all free western societies eliminated slavery and expanded the voting franchise while others, Islamic countries are a glaring example, have not. Cementing bad solutions and explanations through the force of government inertia is normal. A society’s progress is inversely proportional to the power and influence of its government.
So what are we doing when we vote? Or what should we be doing when we vote? We should be choosing the individual we believe will best ensure society will progress with as little interference from government as possible. We are choosing a man or woman who will protect and defend our rights and liberty and leave us free to pursue our happiness. Every election is part of the problem solving process, an evaluation of which ideals and policies best accomplish the defense of freedom and even more importantly, an opportunity to abandon those that don’t. So you need to ask yourself as you stand in the voting booth whether you are going to cast a vote for the status quo, picking another Republican or Democrat ruler who will use the power of government to take your and your great grandchildren’s money to run your life and benefit themselves and their friends or if you will cast a vote to restore America’s original paradigm, choosing someone who will dismantle the beast on the Potomac and return decision making and planning to all of us where it belongs.
The founders, notably George Washington, rejected this idea. However, at the turn of the twentieth century a new idea took hold among the majority of the more "advanced nations". The new political ideology stated that the future welfare of mankind would best be served by increasing the role of central planning and decision making across society, and eventually the world. This ideology took two different paths. The first, and most obvious, was the totalitarian road embraced by communism and fascism. In such regimes the plans are dictated from the top, irrespective of market forces, the desires of the people or even common sense, primarily for the benefit of those at the top. After all, in a communist system everyone is equal, its just that some are more equal than others.
In western style democracies, this central planning and decision making is supposed to be for the benefit of the citizenry. Their needs and happiness are ostensibly the aim of this scheme; "A chicken (tofurkey?) in every pot and a car (a volt?) in every garage!". You can hear the promises of all the politicians throughout the ages as they have pledged to meet every need and satisfy every want of every constituent. Free heath care, a secure retirement, a job, day care for children, high speed trains, condoms for all, business loans and bailouts, a house for everyone, the list goes on and on. In a democracy, however, there is a fundamental flaw in this design. The people are never unanimous. What about the minority, which may consist of forty-nine percent, who don’t agree with a particular choice? How does one really know the "will of the people" and how do the people as a whole choose from among various options? What happens if the "people" change their minds?
When decisions are made at the top, those decisions affect everyone whether they agree with them or not, even if they are destructive, immoral or simply stupid. We are expected to agree and follow all these decisions because of our fallacious belief we live in a representative democracy. We choose our representatives in a "winner take all" system in which the person with the most votes wins and the loser(s) go home, or become lobbyists. The winner has received a majority of the votes and therefore has a mandate to do what the majority wants. This is simply mob rule one degree removed from the Athenian model, a more civilized version sans torches and pitchforks. The government now has the power to pick the winners and the losers and the losers are at the mercy of the winners, they have no protection from the moochers and looters. When the government does the picking it will always end up stealing money and liberty from one to give it to another. This is fundamentally unjust. As this theft becomes pervasive and government expands in power and influence, it eventually ends up in the same place as the totalitarian regimes mentioned earlier, benefiting only those at the top and reducing the populace to serfdom.
Our system of government was not conceived of with such injustice in mind. The most just way of governing is that which is unjust to the fewest number of people. The only way to do that is to limit the scope of government to protecting the fundamental rights of the citizens and allowing them to make their life choices according to what they believe is moral, practical or desirous. This is the goal of a republic. The protection of rights, true rights, does not put a burden on another individual. As President Obama once lamented, the constitution is a charter of negative rights. In such a minimalist system the only losers are those who violate the rights of others. That is as it should be.
In such a system, the vast majority of decisions are made outside the political process by individuals and voluntary organizations of free people. In the dynamic societies we have been developing in the West since the Enlightenment, advancement is the result of free people solving problems and seeking better explanations in the world. In a rational, healthy society the political arena is just one institution among many that facilitate this process. In fact, it should have a minimal role because political institutions are the only ones with the ability to use force to implement their desires and the use of that power is always dangerous. Logic, rationality, common sense, and criticism, which should be the criteria used to evaluate solutions and explanations in a free society are too often absent in government. Citizens, voters, are not infallible fonts of wisdom who choose divine beings to rule. All of us are merely fallible individuals doing our best to improve our lives and just as we make mistakes and go down blind alleys as individuals, so we do as societies. However, if we are allowed to progress freely through the process of conjecture and criticism, our collective wisdom will eventually be revealed. That is why, for example, all free western societies eliminated slavery and expanded the voting franchise while others, Islamic countries are a glaring example, have not. Cementing bad solutions and explanations through the force of government inertia is normal. A society’s progress is inversely proportional to the power and influence of its government.
So what are we doing when we vote? Or what should we be doing when we vote? We should be choosing the individual we believe will best ensure society will progress with as little interference from government as possible. We are choosing a man or woman who will protect and defend our rights and liberty and leave us free to pursue our happiness. Every election is part of the problem solving process, an evaluation of which ideals and policies best accomplish the defense of freedom and even more importantly, an opportunity to abandon those that don’t. So you need to ask yourself as you stand in the voting booth whether you are going to cast a vote for the status quo, picking another Republican or Democrat ruler who will use the power of government to take your and your great grandchildren’s money to run your life and benefit themselves and their friends or if you will cast a vote to restore America’s original paradigm, choosing someone who will dismantle the beast on the Potomac and return decision making and planning to all of us where it belongs.
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