Casting a vote waters the roots of evil
IT doesn't require great intellect or virtue to complain about the current political monstrosity imposing its will on the people.
But many who imagine themselves to be pro-freedom and anti-tyranny are focused only on the many varied symptoms of the problem, and are still oblivious to the common source of all of them.
As philosopher Henry David Thoreau said: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." But the reality is worse than that, because most of those zealously and righteously condemning various 'branches of authoritarian evil are, themselves, continuing to water and fertilise the root of that evil, without even realising it.
All of the warmongering, the Ponzi schemes, the wealth redistribution, the police state thuggery, and so on; all deserve to be exposed and criticised.
The problem is, most of the people loudly lamenting the existence of such things continue to advocate the underlying problem that makes all of those symptoms exist - namely, the notion of
'government' and political 'authority'.
So many vocal critics of the abuses of the state continue to hope, and push for, an impossibility: a legitimate and moral government. They keep pushing the idea that elections, and constitutions, and petitions and campaigns, might some day result in government being a force for good. But it won't. And it can't. Ever.
Playing the game of politics necessarily means legitimising and empowering a system of immoral aggression and violent domination. In fact, the term 'political corruption' is redundant. Politics is nothing but corruption, and cannot be anything else.
The problem is not just that political power can corrupt people. The problem is that the exercise of political power, by its very nature, constitutes violent immoral aggression against innocents, and is therefore inherently illegitimate and immoral. There is no such thing, and can be no such thing, as non-corrupt politics.
No doubt some people will object to this claim, saying something like: "What about when it taxes people fairly (especially the rich), and provides things for the common good, like roads, libraries, helping the poor, and so on?" No. Still 100 per cent immoral and 100 per cent corrupt. Government force being used to benefit you - or your neighbours, your family, or even the majority - doesn't make it righteous and fair. It just means that you happen to be the beneficiary of the corruption at someone else's expense.
Some supposed 'freedom advocates' will insist that they only want their fellow man forcibly robbed (taxed) a little bit, just to fund a few things they think are important and necessary.
But a purse-snatcher is no less a thief than a car-jacker, just because he steals less value. And someone who advocates minimal forced extortion, and minimal violent domination of his fellow man, is still advocating theft and thuggery.
The ones who win the bogus game of 'democracy' call the outcome 'legitimate representative government'. The ones who lose call it 'corrupt'.
But it's the same damn thing, and it's never legitimate or righteous.
And when people complain that politicians or police are abusing their power, what they mean is 'they're not using violent aggression in the way that I want them to!'
Every law that government passes is a command or demand, backed by a threat of violence.
As George Washington put it: 'Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force!'
So if you're one of those who cheers for the existence of government - of any kind, in any form - and now complains about the inevitable results of having a ruling class, then you are one of those hacking at the branches of evil while watering the root.
If vou want vour fellow man forced (via taxation) to fund whatever vou think is important or necessary, how can you be so arrogant and hypocritical as to complain when other people vote to have you forced to fund whatever they think is important?
How do you have any grounds to complain when other people beg for laws that forcibly control your behaviours and choices?
Once you've accepted the insane premise that government authority is real, and that legalised thuggery is acceptable, you've given up any right to complain when that same game is used against you.
Whether explicitly or implicitly, by playing politics and voting for rulers, you have already agreed that there should be a master above yourself.
To give people permission to rule you (and everyone else), and to then imagine that you are going to tell the rulers how they should rule, is absurd. But that lunacy is what the entire notion of representative government boils down to.
As long as you condone political authority and government power, you are advocating the very problem from which all of those symptoms inevitably spring.
That is why one of the most ironic arguments is: 'If you don't vote, you can't complain.' This is the exact and precise opposite of the truth. If you voted, or petitioned, or cheered for this or that political candidate, party or agenda, then you cannot, in principle, object to the atrocities committed by the monster that you helped to create.
I know that have no right to appoint a master over you, and I'm not stupid enough to appoint a master over myself. That's why I don't vote. I oppose all robbery, even the robbery called taxation.
I oppose all violent aggression, even when it is legalised. I condone the use of force only to defend against aggressors, which necessarily means that I am 100 per cent anti-government, since government - in any form, of any size and any flavour - is always an aggressor, and so is always inherently immoral and illegitimate.
And if that makes me an extremist because I want vou to have more freedom than you want for yourself (or that you want for anyone else, including me), then so be it.
Larken Rose is the author of The Most Dangerous Superstition