imagine if it were a voluntary election - say between a group of neighbors who have decided to vote on something. if they have all voluntarily agreed that the election is the process whereby they will decide how to take action then this seems to me to be like a contract. each marks a piece of paper with their choice, each is aware of the "rules of the contract" before entering it, etc. of course there is a vast difference between such an arrangement and that which the state imposes on its "citizens" - with democracy the vote may or may not be voluntary depending on your perspective. however, it seems to me that people who vote have some faith in the democratic process. they know from past experience that their preffered candidate may not get in, they know the types of things that any candidate is permitted to do (literally anything), and they know that this candidate will use the statistics of voter turnout and the election to "prove" his right to govern.
i was going to say that this is true, but on closer consideration, i'm not sure if it is. it is true that the democratic process was set up without the consent of the voters, but my point is that actually using this democratic process may be an indication of consent. actually casting a vote is not mandatory in any democracy that i know of. even here in australia you can cast a blank ballot, or write some words of protest on the ballot and not tick any boxes, if you want to. of course it doesn't exempt you from the state's clutches, but the actual aspect of voting itself is voluntary. i hear a lot of libertarians say, "social contract? i didn't sign shit!" but my response would be "if you voted then you did indeed sign the social contract". that's not to say that ANY contract has the right to impose terms on someone who did not sign it, but it seems to me that at least the signing part should be avoided by us voluntaryists, otherwise statists may call us hypocrites.
totally agree with you there. the only thing electoral candidates do with your vote is impose violence against peaceful people, so in that sense one would be committing an immoral act by voting to support them. i will come back to this below regarding defensive voting.
i don't quite agree here. this is because even though the mugger gives you two choices on how to be mugged there is also the third choice of falling dumb and refusing to make a choice. i know in a true mugging scenario this may not be advisable - for example the mugger may start beating you until you make a choice. but somehow physical pain seems different to me than emotional pain. nobody that i have ever heard of has been physically beaten until they correctly submitted a democratic ballot. in all democracies countries i know of, the details of the ballot are anonymous. so it seems to me that there is no immediate danger from botcotting the vote.
voting in self defensive. hmm....
i think your point may have some validity, but it depends on the circumstances of the particular election. in western countries there are no major differences between parties - at least not on the level that a voluntaryist would care about. any candidate who wins the election is going to continue taxing, starting wars with foriegn countries, and generally imposing literal violence, or the threat thereof, on peaceful people. i have never come accross a "disband the government" party, but maybe if one were to be founded then this would invalidate my point.
however, given the current choice of candidates that i am aware of, even if you think you are voting defensively, you are actually only prolonging the life of the democratic beast. politicians will take the voter turnout figures as an indication of a "stable" democracy and will publicise them until people think that everybody is largely happy with the current political system, except for a few "bad eggs".
in other countries where exteme violations of liberty (eg genocide) are common, maybe you have a point about defensive voting... then again, maybe not.... there is never any guarantee as to what a politician may do with their newfound power. politicians are notorious liars, so there should really be no expectation that anything they promise before the election will be implemented after they get into power. this is well known, and i think only the most naive of voters would be unaware of this fact. i think this is what you mean by "holding onto a small dellusion of less pain".
i think your analogy with a slave getting to chose their master is similar to aerocabin's analogy with the mugger giving you the option of how to be mugged. but i think both are slightly innacturate in that they imply physical pain, whereas the pain in democratic systems is largely emotional, or in the form of threats. true there may be some physical pain due to inferior medical reigimes or police forces, and if this is the case then i agree that the analogy fits, but generally the state governs with the threat of violence, rather than violence itself. it would be completely understandable for the slave, and the guy being mugged, to make a choice under duress. but it seems to me that it is not so understandable for voters in a democracy. for example, slavery would never have been ended by all slaves deciding to simply stop working. this is it would be certain death to do so, and most would prefer to live as slaves than to die. i don't think this would be the case for me, but i would guess that i am in the minority. but with the state, i get the impression that it could be ignored out of existence if enough people woke up. but maybe i'm naive.
yes! and since that is probably 80% of america, that would be some big utility!
yep - that is exacly what i meant. and my reasoning was that by getting the statist to agree that voting = signing the social contract, it might be possible to convince them that those who do not vote should be exempt. i know it would never fly with government's desires and laws, but for the average voter, this could be a very useful and productive philosophical discussion.
yeah, you are correct. statists will generally argue that the social contract is signed implicitly - if this were the case then voting would not be the signing of the social contract. however, very few statists like to think that they live in a tyrannical dictatorship, and that is definitely what they are saying if they say that you sign the social contract implicitly. hopefully this repulsion of tyranny would nudge a statist into conceding that the social contract really ought to be signed by the act of voting.
