 Welcome back to the agorac cafe for more coffee, not my agorac cafe murder today my Aristotle mug more coffee and philosophy. So I gather there's some kind of election going on and are coming up and so I want to say a little bit about how and more importantly why I plan to vote or not vote. I'll get to the spoiler right away I'm not going to vote in the coming election. I want to see a little bit about why. And because there are some standard libertarian arguments for not voting that I don't think are that good. And those are not my reasons. As I'm not against voting in principle. I, I could in principle be lured back into voting by a sufficiently good candidate. But So first of all, there's, there's one argument against voting that says that by voting you are and this is a couple of arguments that's sort of common with with the so-called volunteerist movement, people like George Hates Smith and Carl Wattner and Wendy McElroy have given you I believe that they're all the same page of this argument that by voting you are there by endorsing what the winner does. And therefore voting is is immoral. I don't think that's right. If, you know, if you're a prisoner in a prison, but for some reason they let you vote between as to which guards you're going to get. And there's one guard who promises and you have some reason to believe that these promises are roughly probable to be fulfilled. One guard promises to beat you 50 times a day and the other one promises to beat you 30 times a day. I think it's perfectly reasonable to vote for the one who promises to beat you 30 times a day. Doesn't mean you are authorizing the beatings. It's just mean it's just a form of self-defense. It's like Senator Spooner said back in his work, the Constitution of No Authority, which volunteers are a big fan of, but it seems to me that I'm missing that important part of it, which is voting as a form of self-defense. It's not, it's not endorsement. Now, of course, it's true that given the complications of politics, it's likely that anyone you vote for will engage in some rights violations that the other candidate wouldn't have. It's not as though, you know, it's not as though it's just a choice between larger and small amounts of rights violations as a different distribution. But still, I think it makes sense to, you know, if there are two freight trains headed toward you, toward your community, it makes sense to try and block the one that will do more damage. It doesn't mean you're responsible for the damage the other one would do. Another argument that's often given is that voting is pragmatically pointless because your vote doesn't make a difference. And so the argument is that if you, but since the likelihood that an election will be decided by a single vote is vanishing is small, you can infer that the way things will turn out will be the same, whether you vote or not. So it's pointless to do something where the outcome will be the same whether you do it or not, unless it's intrinsically fun to do it but you know is it intrinsically fun to vote to go and stand in line and then that's your idea of entertainment. Otherwise not. I think that argument works. And one reason I don't think it works is, you know, the people who make this argument are also doing the very thing they criticize by, you know, every time someone who accepts that argument gets voting every time one of them you know some kind of blog post promoting libertarianism or promoting non voting perhaps. They're doing something where the very individual blog post is unlikely to make a crucial difference between society going libertarian or not. You know they don't seem to think that that's irrational so I think it's rational to make contributions to public good so I think the triumph of libertarianism properly understood the right kind of libertarianism that is the left kind. The triumph of libertarianism is a public good it's something that everyone benefits from. And the people who people will benefit from it whether they contribute to it or not. And I think it's rational to contribute to public goods and I don't think we have a duty to contribute to every public good because you couldn't. It's what Kant calls an imperfect duty, you get to pick and choose which ones you, you want to contribute to pick and choose which ones and when and how much. But I think that's a contributing to the you know to the rise of a of a freer society is good worth contributing to. And and also I think that there isn't just a value in the result but also value in thinking that you were part of of what helped bring about the result and being part of what will help bring about the result and being part of what will help bring about the result doesn't mean that your, your contribution would make the crucial difference. Maybe the result will be the same whether whether you contributed or not but that might be true if like most of the other people who are contributing to but nevertheless all of them together are needed. Now, nevertheless of course it's true that, you know, even if there's a lot of this logic applies as much to writing a blog post in favor of libertarianism as it does to voting for some supposedly libertarian outcome. It doesn't mean I think that those are equally strong contributions I think that you probably do more for a political cause by writing one blog post in favor of it and by casting one vote for it. Because one blog post might be made by more than one person. And so people's minds might be slightly influenced by it and they could go on influence over here so you're probably going to have more impact, writing just one blog post, then by casting a single vote. Which is why I think it's so offensive when you see these ads as I'm constantly being inundated with these ads that say voting is the most important thing you can do good God know it's not. However, even though, you know, writing one blog post has more of an impact than casting one vote. Nevertheless, the logic by libertarians is say the casting of one voters pointless, it would also apply to writing one blog post because you know, unless they have a very inflated sense of of their of their own blog post, let's put it that way. The odds that that blog post will make the crucial difference between the libertarian society being achieved some point on this very low. And yet they find it is worth making that contribution. So if they don't accept the logic as a reason not to not turn the blog post that's not a reason not to vote. However, the point I just made that you actually are likely to have more impact with the blog post and voters reason to give you have to choose between doing the blog post and doing the vote. Why not choose the blog post because you might think, of course, you don't have to choose you could do both. So why not vote. Especially if you think, you know, of course, another reason you might not want to vote is you might think living aside third parties for a moment and I'll get to them. But if you're just talking about like the the two major monstrosities, you might not want to vote because you might think that they are equally bad or close enough to be equally bad. That's not worth your time to vote for them. That's sometimes true. And this election actually don't think it's true. I think that Trump is seriously worse than Biden. Well, the Biden is pretty bad. Bad in many of the same ways that Trump is actually. But Trump has has empowered and given legitimacy to basically fascism, a fascist fascist movement in the US and also an overreaching of of power even beyond what is the norm in politics. But I'm just so sick of seeing his face and that is I think a perfectly legitimate reason to vote against somebody. So if I were going to vote for one of the two monstrosities, I would vote for Biden against Trump though with no great enthusiasm. In fact, if there were a if there were a button by pushing the button, I would cause Trump would cause Biden to be elected. And by not pushing the button, I would guarantee that Trump would be elected. I think I probably would push the button to get Biden elected. Though very unhappy. But I think I would because I think that Trump is more dangerous to, you know, not to the national culture than Biden is. But But in fact, there is no such button. You know, if if Trump wins by a single Alabama vote, then you can blame me for not for not voting. But I think I do not think that that he will if Trump loses it will not be by one vote if it is by one vote and won't be by an Alabama vote. So, I think that I'm safe on that score. What about voting third party. What about going along with, for example, the Libertarian Party candidate. Well, you know, I have been mixed views about Joe Jorgensen, I think she's got some merits and some demerits. She's I like the fact that she's actually try to drag the right libertarians kicking and screaming toward the idea that maybe black lives matter and kind of radical view. I think that her position on pandemic stuff is insufficiently nuanced. I think those who those who see the restrictions on the pandemic as completely and purely unjustified and those who see them put the impurely unjustified are missing the complicated, you know, right situation involved, but I'm I think it's a much more complicated mix, which I'm not going to get into. Anyway, so I don't think her rhetoric on that is completely helpful. She's much more of a capitalist libertarian and I am against abortion, although she said that she would support the platform, even though she's against abortion she would support the platform being being a favor of the right to abortion. But again is odd if I were a candidate, if I were against abortion. I would not support the platform in favor of it I would say look if you're going to nominate me, you have to please the fact that I'm not going to support everything on the platform. I would, I wouldn't. I would be arguing against I would be arguing against abortion, if I was libertarian candidate and I were. And I were anti abortion. Neither, which two things is likely to happen. Likewise that the libertarian party got taken over by, by conservatives and anti abortion became the libertarian party platform and I were running with my actual views. I, I would not support the platform. Human rights are more important than party platforms. Come on. I prefer, you know, I prefer the, obviously I prefer Jorgensen to either Trump or Biden and third again if they're buttons. And, you know, pushing button a would get me Jorgensen pushing button be we get me Biden, not pushing any button. We get me Trump, of course I pushed Jorgensen. Heck, you know, I would, you know, just the number of people I would pick over either Biden or Trump is enormous but I used to, you know, for a long time I used to vote for for the libertarian candidate. Now my first presidential vote ever cast was in 1984 for Ronald Reagan that's my, my great shame. It was a Reaganite back then it was never a pure Reaganite I'm happy to say. I never went in for the, you know, the more majority stuff but I was, you know, I was more of a you know right wing capitalist and also I was very hawkish and foreign policy. I got better. As the guy says in the Holy Grail. He learned something about history and foreign policy one thing. But, you know, after that for a long time I always voted for the libertarian party candidate I became a libertarian party you remember in 1987 after watching the Republican Party debates which was. It was. I think it was a George Bush. It was a camp. Alexander Hague maybe. Pete DuPont, Pat Robertson. I forget who else there's someone else of more, more name recognition than some of those. Anyway. So, since I was Republican I was watching this debate to see which one, which one I was going to support. And the, and of course they were all terrible. And I had heard among sort of Republican supporting libertarians. I heard that the, the two candidates with the most libertarian sounding. Most libertarian potential were camp and DuPont. And I just went on this rant about all this stuff you want to do in the drug war and, and just search everyone in high schools and stuff. And then when we went to pot made some mild libertarian suggestion economics I think it was. Was it camp who said, Hey Pete we never know a crazy libertarian idea you're going to come up with next. So I didn't really see any libertarianism from the two libertarian candidates. Supposedly supposedly so described. And then one of them said, Well, I think we could all agree that any of us here we better than Democrats. There's Pat Robertson saying there. The Pat Robertson, we better than any of the Democrats. Jesus Christ no. So anyway, that was when I lost my interest in the Republicans. And so I joined the libertarian party I was very excited to join libertarian parties practical break with. I think I passed and I, you know, until, until I think it was was a 2008 I think was Bob Barr became the nominee for the LP. And I could not support Bob Barr and so I think I didn't vote then and since then they've had people who are better than Bob Barr, but never enough to lure me back. There's some really consistent articulate left libertarian. I would vote, I would come back and vote for them. Because I think there is value and contributing not just because you're not just the goal would not be just to contribute to get them elected because that's very unlikely but contributing to get me getting a bigger. So I think there's a fair of the of the vote gets them various kinds of benefits. It gets the more exposure, it makes ballot access easier. Next time that's one of the best reasons to vote third party is just to get them. And for them to get ballot access because the, the laws of the laws making it harder for third parties to get on the ballot than, than from major parties to get on our, are really outrageous and should be struck down by the Supreme Court if you're really paying attention to the 40th Amendment equal protection of the laws. I just mean that you shouldn't have burdens placed on third parties that you don't place in the ruling parties that just straightforward application of the 14th Amendment. Come on guys. But for some reason the Supreme Court doesn't always do what I want I've noticed this is a kind of pattern. I'll have to talk to him about that. So, you know, I could be lured back to the libertarian party. Although, you know, given that I've gotten more lefty over the years and they haven't really, you know, don't feel as as much as I may still be a member I can't remember. My membership is probably lapsed, but I may still be a member I don't know. It doesn't. It's not as important to me as to because one thing is that I think that there are other forms of activism that are more important and that although there are certain benefits for voting for third party. And not necessarily a doesn't have to be libertarian candidate I mean my ideal candidate we kind of was kind of a libertarian green fusion. I could certainly be open to voting for a green candidate although I never have, and doesn't seem terribly likely that I ever will but I will be open to it. If the, if the green candidate had like a better candidate than usual the LP had a worse candidate than usual. But the, you know, the benefit of voting for a third party as a kind of protest against the establishment I think has its value, but it but it also sort of the disvalue of it is it contributes to this idea of the of Electro politics being the main venue for social change and I don't think it is our political change. And I think that the traditional anarchist and agorist view that you change society by building alternative institutions, and by winning people's affiliation away from the state toward these alternative institutions is a more effective form of social for one thing as Charles Johnson has pointed out. The problem with with voting is that you have to win 50% plus one of the vote to have an effect now actually strictly speaking you get some effect just by getting a substantial percentage even if you don't win because you have some kind of promotional value to that but still, you know, mainly it's a, you know, it's a absolute win or lose thing, whereas other forms of activism, whether it's, you know, the kind of grassroots organizing that sort of left wing anarchists have just a favorite or whether it's sort of the black market activity that Sam conkin favored or even it was just publishing books and blog posts and videos, educational stuff. I think all of that is is more effective and voting because it has impacted the margin. You, you can, you can actually have a local effect of influencing, you know, you can free up some areas, you can, if you're doing things like the example that Charles gives is, if you're actually helping immigrants avoid the immigration authorities. That's actually more effective than voting for freer immigration laws, because you vote for free immigrant freer immigration laws, and you get 49% of the vote, you get nothing. Whereas, if you are helping people avoid immigration laws, you've actually helped some specific number of people you haven't helped everyone, but there are specific people you've helped who would not have been helped. If you hadn't done it. So, you actually have a really get more bang for your buck by by sort of direct forms of activism as opposed to voting. In other words, you have more information, you, you have more influence. Whether you're, you know, whether you're I ran or no Chomsky, you know, the main influence that I ran and no Chomsky have had is not whatever they did when they went into a voting booth and, you know, and pulled a lever or filled in a box or whoever they were voting for. And although not all of us it can be as influential as, as I ran or no Chomsky. If there were a fusion of I ran and no Chomsky would have voted for them know they'd be, they'd be too statist, a fusion of I ran and no Chomsky would be too statist for me. But still, they'd be, you know, they'd be better than, better than anyone else in the ballot. But maybe a fusion of Murray Rothbard and David Graber might be. I don't know. But anyway, even, you know, minor efforts of of education or direct action or people will get interested in enough we anarchism through participating something like food in food not bombs, which is a service that that provides free food to people with people who get involved in it. It's a heavily anarchist oriented organization. People involved in it often sort of get their consciousness raised and type learning stuff and reading stuff and so forth. I think that food not bombs has done more to build. The anarchist movement than voting for an anarchist. I would be like me to do. So I think that the process of building alternative institutions because remember, anarchism is the, the only political system that doesn't require taking over the government in order to get what it wants most political systems. They have to take over the government whether they do it through, you know, parliamentary so called means that is by voting, or whether they do it through extra parliamentary means, like seizing power in the revolution. In both cases they have to control the power structure to vote, you know, to make it their impact. So anarchism, you know, the whole point is take the power structure go away and the power structure. Its existence depends on the acquiescence and support of the people so you can get people to transfer their affiliation from the, it was good stuff Landau says the state is a, you know, is a form of interaction among people if you get them to interact differently the state goes away. That doesn't mean that there might not be any violent conflict in the process. But, because the state probably doesn't want to go away. But it does mean that it's fighting a thing like the Death Star that you want to blow up some particular point on it and the whole thing blows up it's not a this the state or more broadly, you know, oppression of any kind in society is not a thing it's a mobile pattern of interaction. And the way you, you know, you can't abolish a pattern of interaction by decreeing something. And but it's not going to be productive for anarchist. You abolish a pattern of interaction by luring people into everyone's, you know, everyone's doing the, you know, the, the hokey pokey and you want them to do some other kind of dance, you know, you start doing your other kind of dance over here and you gradually lure people over. It's a piece where the anarchist means that the anarchist and in a way. Now, of course, there's one kind of voting I haven't mentioned, which is not voting for people, but voting on referenda, I think going from referenda often makes more sense, although I don't generally do it. You might have to be referring to more important enough. Most of the referenda issues that, you know, that come up in local elections here are things like, you know, law 3679 E five is hereby amended from bridges and roads to bridges or roads, that kind of thing. But even you figure out what it's about, it's not with your time to cross the street to do anything with it, but with it. But sometimes referenda more serious. If they're a referendum of whether to turn Auburn into a sanctuary city for immigrants, I would probably go vote for that. Referenda is actually safer than voting for a person because voting for a person you're just getting their promises, which they're not necessarily going to do, whereas for referendums, it's not that the government's not going to apply the laws, as it said, but you know, it's a little bit safer. Another point, I mentioned that I think we have an imperfect duty to contribute to public goods and that can be a reason for voting. But that can also be a reason not for voting. Because redirecting people's attention away from electoral politics as the venue for social change is a public good. And so, you know, if you could say, well, you should do we should vote for candidate X because everyone voted for candidate X. There'd be a good result. And so we could contribute to that. But it's also true that if everyone withdrew from electoral politics and break out of the whole thing, it'd be a good result and result much closer to what we want. So, given that I think that abolishing the, the whole political governmental way of doing things and abolishing the legitimacy of that and and abolishing the idea that that is the most important the central way that you make a difference in society, like, as I mentioned that God awful add this is voting is the most important thing you do, or most important thing you can do, which is just incredibly offensive and obnoxious, terrifying claim. And that's one of the ways in which we contribute to social goods. The other ways and this idea that by walking into a booth and pulling a lever for doofus A over doofus B that's the most important thing you can do that's a shameful thought. No one should take that seriously. So, I think that that helping to undermine that is a public good. And so there is a imperfect duty that one way of satisfying our imperfect duty is to refrain from voting. Now since it's imperfect, you don't have to refrain from voting. This is a case where different imperfect duties are competing. I can understand people think, you know, if someone is, if one candidate these is seriously worse than another one that can understand, they might think it's reasonable for them to decide to take their public duty ticket and apply it to that is getting the worst candidate defeated is also public good. You know, I do think that there is an opportunity to to see. Electro is to see the boycotting of electoral politics, the avoidance of it, the opposition to it. Public good has, you know, come out from the unclean thing that that is a more powerful message in the long run, then, oh, let's get our, our person elected and shows more radically the possibility of alternative vision. Now, because you have to could join that with an alternative vision, if you just say why don't vote. That's it. Then it seems like you're, you're apathetic or lazy or selfish or something like that. You have to join that with the explanation that you are offering or working toward a different kind of a form of social and political interaction. You're not, you know, you're not just as you know, people who boycott something are not against, you know, people who boycott factory farming are not against food. And people who, you know, who boycott something doesn't mean you don't want to replace that with something else that is better. But anyway, so yeah, I think that there is, is the way I see it. Boycotting the election is a contribution to public good now participating in one can also be a contribution to public good because life is complicated and these are both, they're both in perfect duties so they don't clash. You know, I'm doing them both clashes but as duties they don't clash because they're both optional. So, giving your spare money to charity a and share and giving it to charity be clash as actions if you can't afford to do both but they don't clash as duties because they're both in perfect duties. But I, I do see. I do see boycotting elections as a way of satisfying the imperfect duty to contribute to public goods and I do think that we have in a very good public goods meaning it's I don't think it is it's not an optional. I think we have it's a duty we have to contribute to public good so it makes it imperfect is that we get to pick which ones where. What we do is part of our, you know, part of our duty as social cooperative beings is that we that we can that we make these kinds of contributions and to those that think it's irrational to make a contribution that isn't going to make a difference. You couldn't walk across the room without making a contribution to your own actions that isn't going to make a difference you didn't take that step right now you could take it a second from now. So all all action presupposes that it's worthwhile doing, you know, particular things that aren't going to make sense unless they're enjoying with proper cooperation. So, that's what I have to say about that. Anyway, so those are some of the reasons that I am not voting and some and some of the reasons that are not the reasons. I'm not voting in the selection. I am you know, in a sense, it's really rooting for Biden in the sense I hope Biden wins over Trump, but not enough that, you know, I want to, you know, dip my hands into the muck by voting for him. Although I don't think that this voting is immoral I've gotten so this. It was like, I see the election booth and I feel like, oh, come out come out from the unclean thing, which used not to be my view, but I've gotten sort of radicalized. I'll also be sort of tepidly rooting for Jorgensen. She's not my ideal candidate, but, but I would be pleased to see her get higher vote totals rather than lower. Apparently, and so I hear after the idiotic debate between Trump and Biden apparently a lot of interest in the libertarian party. And I went up, although I really wish that there were a, you know, a libertarian standard bearer that represented my food, because my food would return wouldn't probably wouldn't be running. Anyway, but if they were running they wouldn't get the nomination. You know, so I mean, I'm always worried about the way an imperfect libertarian candidate runs even if they're not as radically imperfect as bar was because they become a kind of spokesperson for libertarianism and they sort of shape the image of libertarianism in people's minds. So Ron Paul, for example, there's one I'll give Ron Paul credit for one thing I know that before Ron Paul's campaign, a lot of people I knew were under the impression that libertarians generally were hawkish and foreign policy that they were sort of there's a Reaganites who wanted to smoke weed and the and Ron Paul's campaign changed the public perception of libertarianism in that respect that people recognize that the standard default normal, not the universal but normal position among self-described libertarians is to be anti-interventionist. So that's a good thing that Ron Paul did. But I think that Ron Paul's campaign both is both his libertarian campaign and more recently his much splash year, we hope the campaign contributed to a view of libertarianism as associated with the cultural right and in fact, not only contributed to it, but helped make it so and sort of empowered the cultural right side of libertarian movement in a way that I think is very damaging to libertarianism so I think that it's hard to say whether Ron Paul did more good or more harm. Certainly, Ron Paul brought lots of people into the movement who then went on to become either much creepier right wingers or much people who are much more libertarian than he was brought in both kinds of people. So I think it wasn't some famous historian, I think it wasn't maybe Arnold Toynbee or someone who said, see who those asked, do you think the impact of Christianity in history has been primarily positive or negative? And he answered, it's too soon to say, which I always thought was a charming response. So I think it may be too soon to say whether Ron Paul's overall impact is positive or negative, but still it's negative enough that, you know, even though I say that I want, that I like seeing libertarian candidates get larger share of the vote even if they're not going to win, part of me sort of cringes when they do because I don't want a bad version of libertarianism to be the one that gets public attention. Although I fear Georgia is probably not going to get that much attention, even though a lot of people are sort of turned off by both Biden or Trump, a lot of people feel strongly enough that one of them or the other of them is seriously the greater evil. That I think a lot of people are going to vote for Trump who can't stand in just because they think Biden is much worse. A lot of people are going to vote for Biden who can't stand in because they think Trump is much worse. So I don't think that I don't think a third party candidate is going to have that much impact in this election. But anyway, I've almost happened to see any, any third party doing well just because I like anything that moves us in the direction of the less monopolistic system. In fact, if there was something like instant runoff voting, or something like that, which would get rid of this throw away your vote argument, which is a bad argument anyway. But anyway, people will be less tempted by it. If people could rank order their choices. And so if your first choice doesn't win, then your vote goes to the second choice, and so forth. There are different, there are different systems of voting, but they're not all, you know, the sort of first past the post kind of. I think that would be an improvement. If I were the dictator, I would impose that although any timeline which I was the dictator would probably be a timeline in which I would be very different from myself and so I don't know what I would be in the world will be very different from itself and so I don't know. I can't really say with confidence what would happen in that case. Anyway, so I'm not voting my choice for vote is none of the above I wish none of the above well. None of the above is my favorite candidate. The other candidates that, you know, I prefer some to others. I prefer Biden to Trump, I prefer Jorgensen to Biden. I prefer, you know, pretty much any of the major third party candidates to Biden and not, I don't know. I don't know all the third party candidates I'm sure there's some like creepy Nazi ones I would not prefer but you know my, you know, my allegiances was first and foremost to none of the above. Why not, why not support the one you like most and that's the one I like most. Anyway, so that's the, we'll say the short but not been quite as short as I intended. Short answer is to who I'm voting for and or not, and why. See you on the other side of the selection.