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Guest Post: Why I Don't Vote
Submitted by The Needle Blog
Why I Don't Vote
Democracy has become a religion and anyone who criticises it is labelled a heretic.
How many times have you heard the mantra that ‘if you don’t vote, you can’t complain’? Whereas, actually, the opposite is true, ‘if you do vote, you can’t complain.’ It is no coincidence that the emergence of the philosophical concept of the ‘Social Contract’ runs parallel to democratic development in the modern era.
In political philosophy the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory.
Democracy legitimises authority.
Every time you vote you sign the Social Contract.
If you vote and your ‘favoured’ candidate does not win, you have absolutely no right to complain because by voting you have accepted the process and are bound by it’s result. It is not a coincidence either that you are asked to put a cross, also used as a replacement for a signature for a person who is illiterate and thus cannot write their name, next to your choice on the ballot.
The policy differences between different candidates are exagerated. This encourages you to sign the Social Contract by making you believe that you have a real choice. But the choice is an illusion because the true policy differences are slight and 99% of leadership is management, keeping the bureaucratic apparatus of state moving and reacting to events.
For the overwhelming majority it makes little difference which candidate wins any election. Only the wealthy and powerful who can expect some kind of reward, in the form of patronage or largesse, Government contracts etc, for their financial, political, and media support have a dog in the fight.
Your role, by voting, is to legitimise this corruption.
Democracy encourages short-termism. Instead of our leaders planning for a sustainable future they pander to a selfish and fickle electorate who only want jam today and who will punish any politician at the polls who does not give it to them. As a consequence the farsighted, fairminded and responsible leadership that the world needs in the 21st century, is completely absent, made obselete by an evolutionary process which rewards the shortsighted, corrupt, ambitious, greedy, and vain.
This is a genuine story, In 1974 in the UK there were two general election. The first in February was inconclusive and it led to another in October. In the run up to this second election the leaders of all the main political parties made the most extraordinary undeliverable promises to buy the votes of the British electorate.
I was six years old, and attending my local infants school, when the teaching staff there taught me one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned. They decided to hold their own school election at a special assembly at which all the parents were invited to attend, though only the children would vote. Before the assembly they took myself and a young girl into separate classrooms, to the young girl they explained the needs of the school and what changes would be beneficial to the pupils education,. To me they just gave one simple instruction “Just get elected.”
The young girl addressed the children, parents, and teachers and made a very sensible address, “more books, longer school hours, and a healthy diet”.
I, on the otherhand, decided to stand on a very simple platform of “Chips (fries) everyday, and longer breaktimes.”
The result will come as no surprise, I won by a landslide. As I grew older and began to reflect more on this the lesson became clearer. The electorate will always vote for what they want, rather than what they need. The electorate are no better than a cohort of infant school children.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947
Aristotle would have disagreed with Winston Churchill. Aristotle thought that democracy was a perverted form of Government which served the indignant (or capricious) mob at the expense of the broader interests of the state and it’s citizens.
Voting for Libertarianism is oxymoronic. You can not vote for your freedom because the ballot is a signed contract which binds you to a democratic system specifically designed to defraud you of any choice. Only by not voting can you opt out. This does not mean that you will not be subject to the tyranny of the majority but you will be free.
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I like to keep the peace in my family, so I am voting for my wife as a write-in canditate.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/TACDemocracy.shtml
Plumbing the Depths - How the Gears TurnMarch 9, 2008
Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this.
First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes. The Democrats will never seriously reduce military spending, nor the Republicans, entitlements.
Second, the two parties determine on which questions we are allowed to vote. They simply refuse to engage the questions that matter most to many people. If you are against affirmative action, for whom do you vote? If you regard the schools as abominations? If you want to end the president’s hobbyist wars?
Third, there is the effect of large jurisdictions. Suppose that you lived in a very small (and independent) school district and didn’t like the curriculum. You could buttonhole the head of the school board, whom you would probably know, and say, “Look, Jack, I really think….” He would listen.
But suppose that you live in a suburban jurisdiction of 300,000. You as an individual mean nothing. To affect policy, you would have to form an organization, canvass for votes, solicit contributions, and place ads in newspapers. This is a fulltime job, prohibitively burdensome.
The larger the jurisdiction, the harder it is to exert influence. Much policy today is set at the state level. Now you need a statewide campaign to change the curriculum. Practically speaking, it isn’t practical.
Fourth are impenetrable bureaucracies. A lot of policy is set by making regulations at some department or other, often federal. How do you call the Department of Education to protest a rule which is in fact a policy? The Department has thousands of telephones, few of them listed, all of which will brush you off. There is nothing the public can do to influence these goiterous, armored, unaccountable centers of power.
Yes, you can write your senator, and get a letter written by computer, “I thank you for your valuable insights, and assure you that I am doing all….”
Fifth is the invisible bureaucracy (which is also impenetrable). A few federal departments get at least a bit of attention from the press, chiefly State and Defense (sic). Most of the government gets no attention at all—HUD, for example. Nobody knows who the Secretary of HUD is, or what the department is doing. Similarly, the textbook publishers have some committee whose name I don’t remember (See? It works) that decides what words can be used in texts, how women and Indians must be portrayed, what can be said about them, and so on. Such a group amounts to an unelected ministry of propaganda and, almost certainly, you have never heard of it.
Sixth, there is the illusion of journalism. The newspapers and networks encourage us to think of them as a vast web of hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, chips-where-they-may inquisitors of government: You can run, but you can’t hide. In fact federal malefactors don’t have to run or hide. The press isn’t really looking.
Most of press coverage is only apparent. Television isn’t journalism, but a service that translates into video stories found in the Washington Post and New York Times (really). Few newspapers have bureaus in Washington; the rest follow the lead of a small number of major outlets. These don’t really cover things either.
When I was reporting on the military, there were (if memory serves) many hundreds of reporters accredited to the Pentagon, or at least writing about the armed services. It sounds impressive: All those gimlet eyes.
What invariably happened though was that some story would break—a toilet seat alleged to cost too much, or the failure of this or that. All the reporters would chase the toilet seat, fearful that their competitors might get some detail they didn’t. Thus you had one story covered six hundred times. In any event the stories were often dishonest and almost always ignorant because reporters, apparently bound by some natural law, are obligate technical illiterates. This includes the reporters for the Post and the Times.
Seventh, and a bit more subtle, is the lack of centers of demographic power in competition with the official government. The Catholic Church, for example, once influentially represented a large part of the population. It has been brought to heel. We are left with government by lobby—the weapons industry, big pharma, AIPAC, the teachers unions—whose representatives pay Congress to do things against the public interest.
Eighth, we are ruled not by a government but by a class. Here the media are crucial. Unless you spend time outside of America, you may not realize to what extent the press is controlled. The press is largely free, yes, but it is also largely owned by a small number of corporations which, in turn, are run by people from the same pool from which are drawn high-level pols and their advisers. They are rich people who know each other and have the same interests. It is very nearly correct to say that these people are the government of the United States, and that the federal apparatus merely a useful theatrical manifestation.
Finally, though it may not be deliberate, the schools produce a pitiably ignorant population that can’t vote wisely. Just as trial lawyers don’t want intelligent jurors, as they are harder to manipulate, so political parties don’t want educated voters. The existence of a puzzled mass gawping at Oprah reduces elections to popularity contests modulated by the state of the economy. One party may win, yes, or the other. But a TV-besotted electorate doesn’t meddle in matters important to its rulers. It has never heard of them.
To disguise all of this, elections provide the excitement and intellectual content of a football game, without the importance. They allow a sense of Participation. In bars across the land, in high-school gyms which become forums, people become heated about what they imagine to be decisions of great import: This candidate or that? It keeps them from feeling left out while denying them power.
It is fraud. In a sense, the candidates do not even exist. A presidential candidate consists of two speech writers, a makeup man, a gestures coach, ad agency, two pollsters and an interpreter of focus groups. Depending on his numbers, the handlers may suggest a more fixed stare to crank up his decisiveness quotient for male or Republican voters, or dial in a bit of compassion for a Democratic or female audience. The newspapers will report this calculated transformation. Yet it works. You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.
When people sense this and decline to vote, we cluck like disturbed hens and speak of apathy. Nope. Just common sense.
More great stuff for realists (i.e., cynics) from Fred Reed:
Fred Throws Sombrero in Ring - The Only Thing We Have to be A-Fred of is Fred HisselfOctober 25, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/President_Fred.shtml
Understanding Economics - A Perfect Grasp, and for FreeJuly 4, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/UnderstandingEconomics.shtml
The Eye of Sauron - Something New Under the SunAugust 18, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Saurons_Eye.shtml
On Patriotism - Examining the Firmware of WarMay 13, 2011
http://fredoneverything.net/Patriotism.shtml
No Hope - Military Reflections of a Fellow AutomatonSeptember 16, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/No_Hope.shtml
Love of Country - Seldom RequitedJuly 23, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Love_of_Country.shtml
"If you don't vote, you can't complain"
I hate that line for many reasons.
First off, I pay a truckload of taxes and have been paying them for many, many years.
Therefore, whether I vote or not I CAN COMPLAIN.
I am the client and I'm not getting value for my dollar.
Also, when things crash and debts are assigned, I'm pretty sure they will be looking at my wallet to fix things. I will be paying for that too unless we go all French revolutionary.
Therefore, whether I vote or not I CAN COMPLAIN.
Thirdly, the last time I checked it is not just people like Larry Flynt that have the right to free speech. We do have rights and freedoms. People fought, shed blood and died for those freedoms One of them is the right to express myself. Freedom of expression (something I would seriously consider restricting for many out there) is still the law of the land in most cases
Therefore, whether I vote or not I CAN COMPLAIN.
That said, if you can find an honest person running, be sure and vote
"Therefore, whether I vote or not I CAN COMPLAIN."
Of course! But when you vote for one of the two major party candidates, you are symbolically legitimizing their power. When you vote for any third party candidate in our totally rigged system (rigged via huge sums of money from the real owners spent on campaigns combined with ignorant, propagandized voters those ads target), you are symbolically legitimizing the system itself.
So, the point is, stop playing the game like it isn't rigged. Stop legitimizing the system. The only winning move is not to play.
In a few days I will write the following on the voting ballot:
I do not agree to be governed by anyone without my explicit contractually arranged consent.
This might not matter to anyone else, but it matters to me and I'll be free in my mind.
BUT! It's time and energy wasted, something that should be anathema to anyone. Better would be to spend that time and energy making the world as you'd like (assuming you aren't violating someone else's space).
It's not that I don't agree with you but then again an argument could also be made I'm wasting my time on anything else that I do purely because it makes me feel good. Yes it's wasting time but it's wasting time doing something that means something to me and makes me feel a certain way which is why I don't mind wasting my time doing it.
It also gives me an opportunity to make a screenshot of the ballot, post it online and spread the ideas of freedom and self-governance.
How after the last four years can people say there isn't a lick of difference between the parties?
While both parties are dysfunctional...
One has given us:
1) Flouted bankruptcy laws to save Union money and the company has temporarily been saved
2) NDAA
3) 4th amendment violations in airport scanners
4) further socialized banking
5) Further socialized medicine
6) No Congressionally approved military action
7) Openly supports QE and devaluation of the dollar
8) No control over the HFT monster and the death of the stock market
While republicans suck too, they are the party of ron paul and the fiscal side of the tea party. These elements have seen tremendous growth as republican people got real religion on Libertarian issues. Romney is not perfect and his base knows it, but at least he has to respond to this constituency as opposed to the otherside whose ranks have supported all of the above. Democracy is killing the status quo and hoping the other guy is marginally better. In this case, Romney is better. Hell an inanimate carbon rod is better than Obama.
This makes the assumption that under McCain things would have been different. McCain supported NDAA. Only the label changes...
http://lobby.la.psu.edu/_107th/092_C_130_Procurement/Congressional_State...
McCain was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree ! He might have been our version of Jimmy Carter .... well, no one could be that bad .... well, maybe Obama was a game changer .... you're off the hook .... little Jimmy Carter .... so you can stop running around trying to make up for your failure .... you are still the second worst President in US history !
1) Flouted bankruptcy laws to save Union money and the company has temporarily been saved
Dems. Small (tiny) potatoes.
2) NDAA
Bipartisan.
3) 4th amendment violations in airport scanners
Bipartisan.
4) further socialized banking
Bipartisan.
5) Further socialized medicine
Like Bush's Medicare Part D whose projected net expenditures from 2009 through 2018 are estimated to be $727.3 billion? Bipartisan.
6) No Congressionally approved military action
Bipartisan.
7) Openly supports QE and devaluation of the dollar
Bipartisan.
8) No control over the HFT monster and the death of the stock market
Bipartisan.
The economic and police state actions are BY FAR the most threatening to the nation as a whole and ALL of those are perpetually bipartisan.
Wake up and stop playing the "microscopically lesser of two evils" game! You are screwed either way.
Did the buck suddenly stop elsewhere? Man in charge is the topic here. Congress critters are and always have been part of the problem. The two parties in congress are only accountable to their constituents and there are plenty of shitty districts out there. The presidency is where fundamental fiscal conservatism and constitutional protections matters. It is the last line of defense and ideaology is very important.
Excellent post, SS. And while I was for Ron Paul the responses here concerning the differences between Obama and Romney are proof that Zero Hedge, by bringing in a British viewpoint on American voting, has actually promoted support for an Obama reelection and opened a forum for Obama voters.
The Obama campaign is so desperate that a cooperative media is going all out to tamp down potential Romney votes, including an appeal to libertarians to sit out election day voting.
The campaign has a record one billion dollars to spend; it’s not conspiracy thinking to believe some of that money is now being spent on Zero Hedge comment sections.
"including an appeal to libertarians to sit out election day voting."
If they are truly LP and vote the LP ticket, why would that affect Mittens? Voting the idiotic, long term counterproductive "lesser of two evils" is exactly against LP philosophy which is if there are no LP candidates on the ballot, vote for NOTA (None Of The Above). If NOTA isn't on the ballot as it isn't in the vast majority of places, don't vote.
Stop pretending this "contest" has any legitimacy whatsoever and do what the late George Carlin said he did on election days - stay home and masturbate. It's more productive and, like Carlin said, after you're done, at least you'd have something to show for it.
Yes, Carlin does have a lot to show for it. This!
Some day, you'll grow up.
Like you? And write my Carlin slogans on the bathroom walls?
Yes, like me, child. And I don't write anything on bathroom walls.
You could've fooled me.
I found this to be a good article and really presented some salient points, Now I don't claim to be an expert on voting by any means but I see the individual vote to be almost an exercise in futility. One can win the popular vote by a large margin, but due to redistricting, electorates, and super electorates, still loose the election. I see it all as thinly veiled Kabuki theatre to placate an electorate that is unwilling or unable to think beyond the MSM hype and BS.
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/115-circus-clowns-and-sideshow-freaks
@ sircornflakes ...
If you don't vote for a bunch of lying, criminal, sociopath, pederast, freak, cock sucking, charlatan, finks and compromised fuck head arse holes, politicians, then you have every right to moan and bitch about their failings.
However, if on the other hand, one does vote and endorse to be governed by said unsavory characters, then you deserve all your gonna get. Which will be fucked.
So, the people that are knowledgeable enough to see the fraudulent criminal cartel that is masquerading as a Government, and refuses to endorse them by abstaining to vote, they are then exempted from all statute legal land fiction (you would describe said as law).
By not voting, one effectively resigns from being a 'voting citizen' (slave) in what you imagine as a society, becomes a 'member of the public' instead, and as such, becomes the employer (administrator/beneficiary) of the Government & not the employee (trustee).
Effectively reclaiming ones sovereignty ~ which means that as long as you don't deliberately kill, steal, damage anything that ain't yours, and do not engage in fraud, you can do whatever the fuck you want, without any license (driving, gun etc.). You don't need to pay income tax either.
Only Government employees are subject to the acts (laws) of parliament ... members of that society have to observe the rules of that society or club. If you ain't in it, you don't heed their rules (statute laws).
If you were not a member of the local golf society/club, would you be obligated to pay the green fees and abide by any of their 'laws' regarding dress code etc?
No.
Is there any difference between my analogy viz Government & golf club? Fundamentally, no.
My logic flows thus:
This is how the power structure really does go down: God created Man (in his image), Man created Government, Government created the voting citizen ...
Therefore God > Man, Man (public) > Government & Government > voting citizen.
If you are unfamiliar with this basic conceptual equation, it is because you are the product of the brainwashing that you eagerly received in the .Gov indoctrination centers, usually rather euphemistically referred to as an education, and are therefore by extension, operating on bent information and are therefore unable to form a true picture of reality and consequently can never claim that voting for anyone is a noble endeavor.
Steam engines need governing.
Real men don't.
If you seek the overwhelming desire to be governed then vote & pay for it.
Don't denigrate the people who are smart enough to see the wood for the trees, only the weak minded idiots of this world yearn to be controlled, and they yearn it because of their own insecurity.
We are prepared to let you exercise your inalienable rights to life liberty and freedom to choose & we don't bitch about the fools that do. The very least people like you could do would be to extend us the very said same courtesy.
"One can win the popular vote by a large margin, but due to redistricting, electorates, and super electorates, still loose the election."
The electoral college system is the LEAST of the problem. The main problems are unlimited amounts of money in politics which allow more money to buy more votes from an ignorant, propagandized voting public and a two party duopoly that does everything it can to keep things that way.
I am going to save this thread and see how many posters are still here in a week, month, year.
The master planners that build the voting machines and have access to the working software will (again) decide the winner of the key contests.
They stole 2 already and if (sad for workers, good for the elite job outsourcers) Romney wins, that will make 3 out of 4.
Not to mention the Republican voter supression efforts well underway and ramped up on non-election day.
Mr. Goldwater is surely rolling over in his grave when he sees what happened to the once grand old party.
I love it!
Complete and utter bullshit dressed up in just the right amount of existentialist prose. You get an “A” in writing, but an “F” in citizenship.
Whoever told you that citizenship didn’t require work and self-sacrifice was mistaken.
I understand there are planes that leave America everyday. The world has been waiting for a "man" like you.
Orly, if you are really a woman post a copy of a pap smear or something ! It's not fair to keep those who care out of your hair !
The real way to not vote:
STOP PAYING TAXES
It is more sacrilegious to discuss 'americanism' than democracy.
'Americans' do hate democracy. They largely favour their form of governance.
Ah, by the way, this 'american' author did not wrote about democracy but 'americanism'
Quite obvious that discussing or pointing fingers at 'americanism' is the thing to avoid.
In Chinese Citizenism societies, it is more sacrilegious to discuss flush toiletry than to refuse to eat the dog.
Chinese Citizenism citizens do hate hygiene. They largely favour their form of crapping, which is to say the roadside variety.
Ah, by the way, this Chinese Citizenism poster did not wrote about anything logical but his usual bigoted anti-americanism.
Quite obvious that discussing or pointing fingers at 'americanism' is the only thing he knows how to do.
There's lots of "Americans," you need to be sure to count those both north and south of the US borders...
You can no more paint ALL US citizens as believing a given way, of hating democracy, than anyone else could accuse ALL Chinese citizens as being stupid commies*...
* However, just as the bulk of US citizens have become programmed with stupidity (read "bowing down to 'authority'"), so too have the Chinese citizens, who have latched on to the bait hook-line-and-sinker and adopted the road to hell- dependence upon the automobile, dependence upon fossil fuel consumption and perpetual growth. Yeah, great job... thinking that ANY power holds real truth is for those who are tragically ignorant.
Seer said:
"Well they're blobbin' on up..."
An assortment of election day graphics for everyone to print out and display on farce day:
http://s142.beta.photobucket.com/user/EGoldstein1984/library/
One of the best ZH articles I've read in a long time - thanks and totally agree. I was most upset that they forced me to fill in the consensus, since then I seem to be automatically enrolled on their voting card system - fuck that I've never done it before because no one has anything useful that helps the common good and I ain't about to start now. I find it interesting their voting forms never have a null vote or none box which confirms everything you've said.
Vote, and you encourage the bastards. They'll trip over themselves eventually. Play a banjo in the meantime.
Don't vote, and your asshole neighbour and his opinion will win the day. The party with the most asshole voters wins.
Vote for a third party, and you might get a democracy, or you might get a police state. It's got to be better than what
exists right now.
Third parties are not like a third testicle. By voting left or right, you're asking for a kick in the nut, left or right.
rest easy. I've discovered the reason why none of you Lefties or Righties are ever gonna
vote for a third party. Somewhere deep in your brain you think that you want a president
who will go around the world f^&^*king brown people up the ass, if they "mess with America".
I mean, Congress is useless. They couldn't even stand in the way of a Green President
who wanted to build windfarms. What will happen to America, I ask.
Some think that not voting will show them f^&**kers who's boss. As if the Democrats
and Republicans will simply pick up their toys and go home. "Those smart voters don't
want to play with us" @whine.
Before I drone on, thanks to NDAA and stuff, the President will be f^^&(king ever more
Americans up the ass.
On Nov 6, may the baddest butt-f%^&ker win.
Privatized faith-based fiat money-as-debt became the primary STATE RELIGION, that then reduced fake democracy to become a religion. It was the history of the funding of the political processes that drove through the establishment of the fascist plutocracy as the real system that was controlling our civilization. AFTER that, "democracy" became more and more meaningless. Fake democracy depended upon fake education, including that the mass media became the overwhelming source of information that most people received. The school system and mass media perfected the technique of lying by omission. Therefore, the vast majority of Americans no longer know that the primary events in their own history were the struggles between the people and the banks. That the people won for while was the reason why America was once a relatively better country, before it was systematically destroyed by the international banksters taking back control.
Therefore, I agree with this article, although I hate its conclusion! Our fake democracy has become nothing more than a cruel joke. The only candidates that have a reasonable chance of winning elections are the puppets promoted by the mass media. In America, a trillion dollar mass media puts on a puppet show starring candidates that spend billions of dollars. Nobody else has a hope in hell of effectively participating. There is never anybody worth voting for! Therefore, democracy is already dead, because the most important powers of We the People have already been given away to the banks, or rather, those powers have been captured by the prolonged triumph of the banksters covertly applying the methods of organized crime to take control of the public government.
I will repeat two classic quotes from American history to illustrate what I am talking about:
President Abraham Lincoln stated:
"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of the government but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. By adoption of the these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."
HOWEVER, as President James Madison stated:
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."
THAT is why democracy is dead, and voting a waste of time! We the People should control the government's greatest creative opportunity! HOWEVER, instead, the international bankers' cartel has taken control of the government of the USA, and almost every other country in the world, so that almost everywhere there is PLUTOCRACY, based on fraud, backed by force, or legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, and almost everywhere there are fake democracies, which conceal that PLUTOCRACY.
It does not matter if you vote or not! The established systems only have to fool enough of the people enough of the time. That is far too easy for them to continue to do, since they already control the money supply, and can use their power to make money out of nothing to fund anything and everything, far more than others can! The banksters are the biggest gangsters. They can easily pay to bribe, intimidate, or assassinate any politicians that do not agree to be their puppets. The ONLY candidates that one could vote for, in any effective and meaningful ways, are always just different puppets controlled by the same puppet masters. The entire fake democracy is delibately set up so that the dominant minority can continue to control the majority. There is nothing remotely like the theory of democracy that exists in the real world! There is only a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, that is gearing up to turn most of the "voters" into road kill!
Best comment I have read this evening. I have said this before, but I wish you would do a guest post.
"President Abraham Lincoln stated:"
No, he did not. It was Gerry McGeer.
Regardless, Lincoln's favored monetary policies (realized in the National Bank Act) were certainly no panacea. It provided the basic framework for the current system.
System is corrupt beyond remdemption.
Constitutional Convention 2.0....please.
If all you do is vote, then its not even a religion, its a gameshow. You have to participate. Try the clam chowder.