Reddit Libertarians struggle with understanding non-voting (and anarchism)

[Lingum]

Reddit - Having trouble finding a Libertarian candidate? I'll post some glorious quotes: 

An educated non-vote is still a vote.

  

Quite frankly, I will always vote third party. While the majority of people who are fed up with the system won't vote at all, if all of those people did vote their consciences, then we may actually be able to see a change. If they don't vote, than those happy with the system, who vote for the system, will continue to win.

All I heard was; "Quite frankly, I will always vote", which I believe to be true.  

Voting for nobody is the same thing as throwing away your vote. At least vote 3rd party or something so they can see a percentage of people who made a protest vote...

Apparently, a lot of Libertarians are under the impression that change will happen when people are seen in public wanting change. 

Small percentages for a third party are HUGE! When the Republicans or the Democrats win/lose by a small margin, which often happens, they both look at the 1-5% that voted 3rd party and say "that could have changed the election".

Xatana really wants to be that guy, the guy the Democrats and Republicans look at, wondering what could have been... So romantic... Such beauty. 

Anyone who votes is an idiot or really enjoys participating in meaningless gestures.

 

OP is a statist and is playing the "government is bad, so don't vote" card. They are just trying to convince others that "it's not worth it".

 "Hey, everybody! Don't listen to the guy that tells you not to vote! That's how they get ya. Those awful statists." At least he follows this up with some insight into his... I wanna call it logic... or bratwurst... oh, it's in the name; fart box: 

Obviously there's not a lot of positives about the Dem party right now, so the tactic is "they're all bad, don't vote at all" and it makes sense b/c what else are these Statists going to say? That we are better now? That things have gone well? As this is obviously not true it's just gotta be "the whole thing is messed up" when their side shows little redeeming quality.

[Josh F]

I just watched a documentary on Egypt.  Protestors fighting for democracy... they end a 30 year dictatorship.  

 

With 51% of the votes, they get their first leader, a Muslim radical who begins rewriting laws to give himself even more power than Mumbarek named Morsi.  The protestors fight on, for 2 more years.  They're attacked, tortured, and murdered.  

 

Finally, Morsi steps down.  The new leader, with an alleged 97% of the vote, is a man named Sisi.  Sisi was former head of the secret police under Mumbarek, and a General under Morsi.  He was quite literally responsible for carrying out the violence of his predecessors.  

 

Egypt has a violent dictatorship once again.  

 

This is the essence of democracy, rotating dictatorships.  

[Lingum]

That's really interesting. I haven't read much about it.

 

I often find it bizarre, that in the West we see all the dysfunction of democracy and everybody complains. Yet, when there's protests in a country under dictatorship, those same people do complete turnarounds, talking of democracy as sacred. It seems like democracy is only a container of all the empty sentiments and phrases people have heard, but never experienced.

[Josh F]

Yeah certainly.  And to expand on that point, whats the most fascinating is that after each iteration of a new Dictator in Egypt, the population is divided further.  When Mumbarak was in charge, the Muslims, Christians, and Students teamed up with the Muslim Brotherhood.  When Morsi took power, those two groups began fighting one another in the streets.  The United States is exceptionally divided, everyone neatly packing into some meaningless ism ready to attack "the others" at a moments notice.  The Government didn't have to attack Occupy (though they did), because Fox News and others were already well on their way to attacking it.  Obama didnt have to use the IRS to attack the Tea Party (though he did) because the Mainstream Media was already calling them Tea Baggers.

 

I'll give it up for our overlords, they've got a very well oiled system of horizontal power that makes the idea of Divide and Conquer look easy.  

[Lingum]

So true. Great post Josh.