Like so many people, I have thought over the coming election and studied the field of candidates. As a result of my analysis of the coming vote and especially of its historical significance, I have tentatively switched to the “None of the Above” camp.
I get the sense that most people like myself who believe in America’s founding principles, i.e. individual rights, will vote Republican despite the attempts of Ayn Rand’s intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, to convince them otherwise. The reasons are obvious: Obama is a Marxist. He’s so far left, it’s scary. And so, the reasoning goes, we must–however distasteful it may be–vote Republican. At least Republicans accept a mongrel form of Americanism, including the desire to defend America in an increasingly hostile world.
I disagree strongly that the Republican party has any essential scrap of Americanism left in it, or that it will properly defend America if its presidential tenure is extended. So, there is no way I could vote for McCain. But I am concerned that socialism is not really dead, that collectivism can indeed continue to expand with incredibly dire consequences for America, so I could never vote for Obama either. (Libertarians please–please–move on; I have no stomach for the ultimate perversion of liberty which you represent.) So there are no options. The only choice is to strongly denounce all the available choices, and not vote.
I know that Leonard Peikoff denounces this option just as vehemently as he does voting Republican, but I consider that I understand history, Objectivsm, and the role of philosophy in shaping civilizations quite well myself, and I believe that the most potent political option for promoting cultural change is principled, vocal abstention. So, once I’ve completed my final lecture in my current lecture series, The Islamist Entanglement, I’m going to switch my attention to this topic, and see if I can’t state in proper terms, why I think this is the only way to go.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping people out there who are tortured about the vote will make a survey of the “None of the Above” sites and see whether or not there are already any good ones. The image that I have above, which certainly states a valid sentiment, nonetheless links to a site that I definitely do not agree with–for the simple reason that the home page refers to “American democracy.” In my view, anyone that uses the term “democracy” to describe America is so ignorant as to be criminally negligent of history. In fact, as I’ll elaborate in upcoming posts, It’s precisely because America is not a democracy that Americans should stop voting. We must reject the use of force against our fellow citizens on principle, and not voting is the only way. But it can’t just be a private act. It has to be political–as a means of sparking a “discourse” in American society about the tragic decline of our political culture, and thus allow the advocates of reason and individualism to reach a wider audience and make more of a difference.
More soon.
I look forward to your insights on this topic. I too have come to the conclusion that this year, more than any other in which I have had the right to vote, is one that requires abstention. I have abstained from voting before for the “lesser of two evils” reason, but this is on a grander (or poorer!) scale.
Harry Binswanger has stated similar thoughts on his HBList.
If I get the gist of where you’re planning on going with this series of posts — showing that by voting for those who will violate our rights, we are sanctioning them and their ideas — I can’t wait to read your arguments. And your idea of using it as a wedge to spark public discourse is really interesting.
I also look forward to your comments.
I note that every four years the pres. election generates a great deal of discussion among Objectivists. I wonder whether or not the presidential election is a more important election to discuss than the election of the legislative representatives.
My thinking is that since both parties’ agendas are negative to us, we should vote negatively, i.e. vote for which party opposes the more (philosophically) dangerous party. That would be the Democrats.
Damage will be done, in either case.
Scott,
I, too, look forward to your insights about abstention from voting in the upcoming presidential election. Long ago, I made up my mind that I will not vote come November 2008.
Every four years, I hear Objectivists debate, including Dr. Peikoff, the various pros and cons of candidates, in relation to which candidate is most likely to slow the march toward dictatorship in America. While I recognize some validity in this argument, and adhered to it when deciding on whom to vote for in past elections, I’ve come to the conclusion it is futile to put much stock in voting—not in the increasingly statist climate of modern politics.
I used to say to myself before and after I entered the voting booth, that I’m not really voting *for* Candidate X, I’m voting *against* his opponent. But the reality is, unless a large number of Americans don’t know my reasons for casting my vote as I do (and, really, how many of them really could ever know), my vote will only be seen as support — whether full or half-hearted does not matter — for that candidate I chose. The message to the rest of the country is that I am among those who voted *for* this particular candidate—that, in some fundamental way, I support him. Yet, since I’ve become an Objectivist, I’ve never fundamentally supported any candidate I’ve voted *for.*
My focus now is to abstain from voting, as a form of protesting it as a fundamental answer to political problems. No politician, in any fundamental way, represents my values, and so I am no longer voting for any of them simply as a means of saying: Well, he’s a little better than the other guy, or I agree with him on more of the fundamental issues as opposed to his opponents. Today’s politicians are so pragmatic, that it does not matter where they stand today—in some way, shape or form, they are most likely to change that position somewhere down the road.
Until politics changes dramatically in favor of support for individual rights, I’m likely not going to take part in that charade called voting. Instead, I’ll continue to vote for the Ayn Rand Institute, with a part of my yearly income, and I’ll do all that I can to help change the culture through my own efforts to spread Objectivism. Part of my efforts will be to explain, vocally and through print, my reasons for not partaking in voting. I’m sure that will come across much more clearly, to many people, than the intellectual contortions I can get myself into trying to explain why I’m voting for the supposed lesser of two evils.
Again, Scott, I look forward to your thoughts on this issue.
Joseph Kellard
Only a large scale protest of this type can have any effect on the winning candidate by letting him know that he does not have a mandate. Ensuring you are not morally responsible for the damage to be done is one thing, but ensuring that there is no mandate can be hard to accomplish as most politicians take a victory of even 1% to be a mandate.
I’m wondering if the choice is not between which terrible candidate will at least leave something left to save after he’s done as opposed to the candidate that will engage in a fascist purge of the opposition and enslave us for the sake of another collectivist pie-in-the-sky. Please address these issues.
When Dr. Peikoff made his announcement during the Bush vs. Kerry 2004 election that anyone who votes Republican “Doesn’t really understand Objectivism”, I made a similar post on my blog. I too belong to the “none of the above” group. I think that voting is a poor form of political activism: the message you are trying to convey, if any, gets lost in the noise. Better to speak via other methods where the few can be heard and their reasons explained than to make a purely symbolic gesture that can so easily be misinterpreted.
I’m more interested in suggestions for how to make my rejection of voting more vocal. Also, although the presidential race is a wash, maybe it’s better to focus on other races like the Senate, the House, and your state/local representatives? Some of them are actually decent philosophically and may be worth voting for.
Peikoff and Binswanger disagreed about the 2004 election. Similarly, there was a split between Tracinski and ARI over this and related issues. So the problem of choosing a candidate (or deliberately not choosing) is obviously a difficult one.
I am curious how this presidential election is so different from any previous one. Going back through the choices I’ve faced: Bush Sr. vs. Clinton, Clinton vs. Dole, Bush vs. Gore, Bush vs. Kerry. Each one has been between two fairly-indistinguishable collectivists. Going back further, I’m not sure that there’s been a stark choice between freedom and slavery for decades.
If your fear is the religious right’s dominance of the Republican Party, McCain seems to be the ideal candidate. The religious right *hates* him: many have even threatened to vote Obama if it came down to it. But an Obama win would likely suggest to the GOP that its loss was due to movement away from Christianity.
In the end, voting seems like the weakest sanction issue possible. I’m voting McCain because Obama will socialize medicine given the current Congress. Wrecking America’s health care system is a matter of life and death for me: once enacted, it will be a very long time before it can be rolled back if it could even be done in my lifetime.
If you want to show your dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, agitate within it or register as an independent. Myself, I think the time is ripe for another Goldwater revolution within the party–a reorientation towards liberty–so I’d rather go that route. But either means will be more noticed than abstention.
Also, there are so many factors and so much uncertainty of future outcomes in present actions that I think voting is a very poor litmus test for Objectivism. In other words, honest disagreement about voting choices is reasonable among otherwise perfectly good Objectivists.
I encourage people to vote, in the sense of showing up at the polls and turning in a ballot. Many states have initiatives that need to be voted down, such as the “Personhood Amendment” in Colorado that Diana Hsieh has been publicizing. Those kinds of votes are very much in defense of individual rights. Simply staying home makes us vulnerable to the slur of apathy. I for one am not apathetic, I’m an intelligent and engaged citizen who has been presented with a slate of wholly unacceptable alternatives, and I do not want to get lumped in with people who just don’t care one way or the other.
My plan right now is to go to the polling place, vote the initiatives and turn in an “undervoted” ballot for the various elected offices. I think this is an idea that could spread if we push it. People I’ve talked to find the idea of voting, but not filling in the circle for any candidate, to be intriguing. I had a conversation with a co-worker who told me “but you have to vote for one of them” and was fascinated when I replied “No, I really don’t.”
[...] That’s where I’m headed this time around. And, evidently, I’m not alone. Maybe the only answer is not to vote. [...]
Who are the evangelicals supporting this election?