It might be true that one of the “gangs” might not have a certain program and that the voters thus don’t know what they are voting for (assuming politicians’ promises are trustworthy). Let’s say this is the case. Wouldn’t the vote placed on one gang, an “expression of preference” in your words, mean they are not only expressing a preference for “a gang” – but rather for WHICH GANG SHOULD RULE. Elections such as the ones for the presidency, for Congress, or for a “preferred gang” in the Rothbardian example, are, if I am not mistaken, for who should rule. If this were not the case there would be no reason for elections at all – and there would be no [theory of] democracy.

The conclusion is thus that the “preference” they are expressing is for who should rule them. Such a system generally doesn’t allow votes for “none of the above” and thus the system does not allow votes AGAINST something (or everything): a vote is FOR something. Would you then not consider it counter-productive to vote for the “lesser” of two evils if your vote is necessarily for that group rather than against the other group?

As I wrote in a previous comment, I do recognize the argument (not necessarily the conclusion, though) for voting as a [very inefficient] way to gain short-term relief. But what we have to realize is that there is a fundamental difference between e.g. referendums and elections. The former generally asks questions such as whether “the people” wants solution A, solution B, or neither. If this is the case, then it is possible to vote negatively: to vote AGAINST. (Politicians usually seem to try to avoid making such votes possible, however.)

An election is fundamentally different, it offers no negative alternatives – all votes are necessarily for someone or something: for a person, a party, a program, etc. Would you say such a vote, which in its very nature cannot be negative, does not mean legitimizing the system?

I know many disqualify the “legitimacy” argument, but I think their conclusion is based mostly on their inability to see the system for what it is. Any system that allows its subjects/parts to express preference in WHO SHOULD DECIDE but not IF anyone should decide, and that allows its subjects/parts to NOT vote, is asking for its subjects to legitimize the system. If you play the game you must have accepted the rules, so to say (or, in this case, the rulers).

Such a system cannot be divided into democracy and legitimization; they are two sides of a coin. Rothbard obviously failed to realize this (if you have explained his example correctly). Democracy, if separated from the rest of the system, is simply the process of voting (which is not the case in any democracy theory I am aware of). Voting might not be a bad idea as a means to make decisions, but voting in a context where 1) votes can only be FOR something, and 2) everybody, voting or not, is always subjected to the outcome, necessarily is a very bad idea.

Legitimizing or not, such a system does not allow for anti-system votes and it does not allow for exclusion – that is clearly immoral.

As for the morality in taking part in such a system, you write:

“If a condemned man is offered the choice of execution by hanging or firing squad, and selects the firing squad — rather than refusing to answer — does this mean he sanctions his execution?”

This example is simple but I find it totally out of context. Elections don’t offer a clear choice of alternatives where the outcome is known and the same in each case. Quite the opposite, elections at best offer you the “chance” to influence (I’m being generous – the influence is in reality almost zero) WHO SHOULD DECIDE what will be done to you as well as how and if you should be executed. The moral implications of picking a decider in this case are very different from the “condemned man” example.

Also, your example includes only one subject: you. This is not the case in elections, where your vote compete with the votes of others for being “majority” and thereby your voting means partaking in a game where some get to choose leaders for everybody. Who gave you the right to make such a choice for others? Would you say partaking in such a system is a MORAL act? As libertarian it should, from a principle point of view, be literally impossible to make such claims without compromising the non-aggression principle. (But I do know many libertarians refuse to think that way in order to be “practical.”)

If I were sentenced to death I would probably choose execution by firing squad – without any problems of morality. The outcome is known, and it is simply a matter of how they will kill me, not whether they will or whether I recognize their right to do it.

If I were, on the other hand, offered to take part in a lottery of who gets the illusion of “right” to be my master (and the “right” to force me to comply with whatever this “master” wants) I would refuse: I will not sanction such a system even though I will probably be forced to comply with the outcome. At least I will still have my pride from not having made any claims on how other people should lead their lives and I have offered the system no legitimacy.

If someone asked me to chose between a firing squad and hanging or whatever, I would spit in their face and struggle to my last breath to be free.

Consider if a Paul-like candidate ran against Hitler in Nazi Party elections in the late 1930s and was able to win; and also was successful in scaling back the worst programs of the Nazi Party. This “moving towards greater freedom” with Furher Paul and saving Nazi Party rule thus strengthening its power over the German state for another 50 or 100 years. Would that really have been such a good thing? What if Gorbechev had been successful in reforming the USSR enough to “save” the Soviet state collapse to rule for another 50 years? Is saving any state from collapsing under its own weight furthering the cause of liberty?

Also, for those who missed it, the US Constitution has resulted in the largest most powerful state in the history of the world with military bases and troops in more places than any state in history along with a banking cartel to match. So a white knight riding in the prolong the final throes of bankruptcy for the US mega-state may not be in our best interests over the long run even if we get some short term relief. I say good riddance and lets move on to self-government. Preparing for the next step would be a better use of time and resources than saving an obsolete, failed corporate-state.

There is no way that you can work within a system without becoming a part of that system and ending up supporting that system.

It always seems academic to those who have not sat in a jail cell for three days, as I have done on occasion, to talk about how people in power always have power, and the rest of us have to avoid supporting them in any way. But, sometimes people in power can be the source of freedom for people who are in prison. And, I really have a lot of reasons to sympathize with that goal.

I look forward to the next fatuous comment about how I should get a commando together and go break people out of prison.

Usually, some individuals fail to express their thoughts deftly in writing. The term “doing nothing” does not mean that you are not working the cause of liberty, but that you have or are failing to further advance liberty by a specific inaction. I agree that one could work towards liberty outside the statist political system. Now I need to know how this could be done? Tell me how libertarians could destroy the corporatist and police state?

———————————————————————————————–
As I have reasoned before, both in this blog post and in my first comment on it, working for liberty is most efficient when taking action outside of the system. The system is extremely biased and works fundamentally as a tool to seize, strengthen, and elevate power in society. If non-power is the end which one wishes to achieve, then “using” the system is a waste of time.
———————————————————————————————–

No anarchist believes that using the system could achieve full liberty. In fact, the aim of some of the supporters of Paul is to end U.S. imperialism and the police state. I believe that Paul could do both things to great effect.

———————————————————————————————–
Change for the better (i.e., liberty) has throughout history happened in leaps forward where the state is challenged and ultimately overthrown. All such changes have happened not through people seeking and gaining public office, but through common people and intellectuals taking a stand when the time is right – and demanding radical change. I am no proponent of violent revolution, but find disobedience one of the greatest tools for “force” changes to a corrupt and oppressive system.
———————————————————————————————–

Are the common people now demanding radical change? No. The common people want a president who would not engage in preemptive wars or spy on Americans without having the requisite legal evidence. The idea of the common people advocating the abolishment of the state is unrealistic in this context. The common belief by some libertarians is that once people hear the libertarian gospel they would be sold. Such a belief is naive. Most people believe the government and taxation to be perfectly legitimate. Indeed, the policy of the IMF and other institutions is to compel through contracts libertarian prescriptions for countries, prescriptions which the respective citizens of said countries have rejected. Then, there is the matter of religion. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all support the belief in statism. The gospel of libertarianism stands no chance against the gospel of the ‘prophets’.

Besides, your history lessen is ahistorical. Most revolutions that have occurred involved the demolition of one form of the state that was to be replaced by another kind of state. Examples, include the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution and the American Revolution. All revolutions that explicitly attempted a nonstatist society were crushed shortly after they succeeded in toppling the former regime.

———————————————————————————————–
Is disobedience “doing nothing”? It cannot be, not even from a political point of view, since it implies action and such an action that necessarily has consequences. Did Gandhi “do nothing” to change the state of things in India? What would have been the result if he instead had become part of the political system and launched a campaign to get elected for office? Which strategy do you think is most efficient and most likely to succeed in bringing about real change?
———————————————————————————————–

Gandhi did get elected to office. His nonviolent protests occurred in conspicuous places in the British rule India. True enough, Gandhi did not seek to be a functionary of the British Empire, but he did seek political independence for India. An independence that would be actuated by universal suffrage to choose which political party would form the new government.

Is it immoral to pay taxes? Is it immoral to use government created roads and facilities? To me paying taxes helps the state perform its evils. If you pay taxes you are just as guilty as the voter.

———————————————————————————————–
For me, voting could be interpreted as many things. But it essentially means one thing: your vote is a positive action to get the state to act in the way you prescribe through the vote (the candidate, party program, etc.). You want the state to use its powers in a certain way, and you enter the Big Game to make it do just that through voting. Others will vote too, and the group able to get most votes (more support) gets to decide how the state’s powers are to be used.
———————————————————————————————–

The state has no power without the purse. By paying taxes you animate the state in its evil practices. You could say that you are forced to pay taxes. In other words the result of not paying taxes would be detrimental to you. To some the result of allowing certain politicians to have power is a increased detriment to them. No one could choose not to pay taxes, and no one could choose not to have politicians. The act of helping to circulate federal reserve notes contributes to what Ron Paul and other call the hidden tax of inflation. I assume that you use notes sanctioned by the state.

You said elsewhere: “Many of them don’t even pay the taxes that finances the war. (I do pay such taxes, I’m afraid)”

Not paying taxes is also hurtful to your neighbors. After all, you would techically be a free rider. You would be using services funded by taxes while others pay for it. Not paying taxes means that you are FOR being a leech and a free rider.

———————————————————————————————–
This is not a matter of semantics. I have encountered a lot of people trying to convince themselves that voting for someone who wants to “do less” means defending yourself from that “less” part of the state. But you do not and cannot vote against, you always vote FOR. So you vote FOR a program that may contain less policies, but that still implies you wish the state to act according to that program (rather than some other program).
———————————————————————————————–

If I vote for someone that does not mean that I endorse their whole plan. Again, I cannot vote to abolished the state and when I do vote for only measures meant to weaken the state. The result of my voting may technically see the whole plan implemented though.

In sum, your poisition is exemplary of the lifestyle anarchism that Murray Bookchin warned against. Indeed, you take personal militancy to more important that organized movements. I know that you said that people should use their collective energies for the abolition of the state instead of supporting Ron Paul. However, that sentiment is useless since the very people you cite are not anarchists. I could hold the sentiment that if everyone refrains from voting the state would be demoralized. But, that is not going to happen at present. It follows that suggesting the improbable as an alternative to the possible -electing Ron Paul – is self-gratisfying nonsense.

An an anarchist I believe that people come first. I want the state abolished, but I realize that most people do not. Instead, of claiming and acting like I am morally superior to them, I prefer to work with them insofar as they want to ease the tyranny of the state. Doing all that won’t stop me from advocating anarchism though. In short, if I could help elect a politician who could bring relief to people, then I will.

One Love!

I, and probably you, greatly dislike arguing with “imagine” scenarios because the imagined scenario is usually unlikely or impossible or not a good analogy. Socialists might use one like this: “What if ONE man had all the resorces of the world? Would that be ok?” Or some garbage proposition like that.

So it is with a feeling of self-loathing and hyprocracy that I present an imagined scenario for a case of voting. Suppose one candidate is in favor of “letting” some anarchists buy land to start a free-market society. Unlikely, yes. A dream perhaps. But it would start an anarchistic and non-coercive society. Would’t this be worth it? I think yes.

My point is, in my mind there MAY be some place along the utility curve that would warrant me playing their little game. Though, it’s the exception to the rule. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

Again, I think “imaginary unlikely scenario” arguments are a terrible way to develop a principal or a philosophy…and I’m still against voting, but I enjoy confusing myself.

I think the rule still stands…don’t support government, don’t give them legitimacy, don’t vote…UNLESS it’s going to be a clear-cut case of helping state destruction. Don’t you think that’s reasonable? Again, I’m open to ctiticism of this idea. I’m not married to it, but that’s where I stand now.

I don’t think you’ve established this. In my example the people who vote for the less oppressive gang are not, in any way, making a positive claim on what the gang should do. They are simply expressing a preference for one gang over another, given the options (they perceive to be) available to them. They may be wrong, of course, from a tactical perspective, but I don’t see how their act sanctions the process. If a condemned man is offered the choice of execution by hanging or firing squad, and selects the firing squad — rather than refusing to answer — does this mean he sanctions his execution?

Remember that the point of Rothbard’s analogy was to separate “democracy” — the means by which particular leaders are chosen — from legitimacy, the justification of the system itself and the acts committed by those leaders. The fact that a government has been duly elected does not in any way legitimize its behavior. It is still, in Rothbard’s language, a criminal gang. It just happens to be the criminal gang that a majority or plurality of the voters despise less than a rival gang.

“Imagine if everybody in the Ron Paul “revolution” would instead do something themselves rather than spend hundreds of hours and dollars to support a representative for ideas “almost” their own. What would it mean if these thousands of people would stop supporting the state; what if they would spend their time and money establishing competing institutions? THAT would be a Revolution.”

Perhaps, but this is an empirical question, not a moral one. The marginal return on an hour of one’s time could be higher in the former activity, rather than the latter. It depends on the situation. And we don’t know the elasticity of substitution between the two sets of activities. It could be the case that people investing time and energy for Paul would be unwilling to boycott the state instead, so there is no opportunity cost to their pro-Paul activities.