A Voluntaryist on Voting

Voting: A Sacred Rite Of The State Religion

“Democracy too, is a religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.” -H.L. Mencken

I am often asked by laypersons and hyperactive activists why I do not vote. How dare I not particpate in this ritual? Do I not know that voting is my civic duty? That brave men fought and died that I might have the “privelige” to partake in this collectivist ceremony? Why, even the great saints of American history (Adams, Madison, and whoever elese my persecutor can think of) were all for voting!

To the contrary. I am well aware of the arguments forwarded by worshipers of the State Religion. I simply don't believe in such fairy tales.

Samuel Adams, for example, wrote: Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual--or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

Here, even in the earliest stages of American-style democratic republicanism, we see that the system itself and its participants therein are absurdly deified. The western democracies, as you see, have simply traded the monotheistic religion of monarchy for the polytheistic religion of democracy.

I know many Republicans have a fit when I refer to the American State as a “democracy”-their holy scriptures (the Federalist, etc) proclaim that the holy land is a Republic. This may be so in theory, but in practice (especially since the passage of the 17th ammendment) this distinction is practically irrelevant. Both systems are equally absurd, just in different ways.

In “Democracy: The God That Failed”, Hoppe correctly points out that democracy and related systems are very new in human history. They are also massive failures. If modern State-worshipers were interested in successful models, they would be wise to look to monarchy or Voluntaryism.