Friday and early AM Saturday ...

I was distracted by a long-running exchange of emails with some new libertarian web acquaintances. You know how that works you send something to someone you know, he sends it to someone he knows who puts you on their list of 30 people to tell the first friend what a fool you are. The next think you know your in-box is bulging with mail from folks you never heard of, mostly nice and/or reasonable, a few who are neither.

Here's an example of my contribution to this little storm, the part about whether libertarians should bother with voting:

"___,

"I don't really see ___'s point about giving up on voting even to the extent of the non-candidate questions. The courts do frequently overstep their authority to overturn popular referenda, although there have been occasions where popular enthusiasms have overstepped the bounds of federal or state constitutions and were rightly struck down. Yet, given a chance to vote against, for example, a bond issue for the schools that would raise your real property tax bill, not voting is just plain perverse.

"Voting for good ideas and against bad ones in referenda (whether advisory, statutory, or ratifying state constitutional amendments or local government charters) can serve a useful function, even if the courts later step in to frustrate the popular will. Dropping out of the process does little to encourage others to become non-cooperators in the political system, but it does tend to discourage those who might agree with us on at least some limited government issues from continuing in the struggle.

"You have probably heard the joke about the little old lady who was heard complaining about her congressman and the things the government was doing. She was asked if she would be voting for his opponent and replied, "Goodness, no. I never vote, it only encourages them." Well, I think she was wrong. Even if there are only two candidates for one office, if one is even slightly better, vote for him. And, if they are equally awful and one is an incumbent, vote for the new one - turnover gets the attention of the professionals (I used to be one.). If there is no incumbent and the ones who are on the ballot are equally unacceptable, write in someone you'd like better, maybe even yourself. Even if this strategy seldom produces victories for objectively good candidates, in some districts and for some offices, we can drive down the winner's vote percentage, maybe even below 50%. "That'll put the fear of God and the Kaiser into 'em."

"If those who know what is right absent themselves from the system, if they are not "in play," the playing field tilts toward all those clamoring for bad ideas to be made policy. You might as well vote for the worst candidate to sharpen the contradictions of the system, as the revolutionaries would say.

"I can understand those who want to withdraw to their montaintop and let the world go to hell without them, but "no man is an island, unto himself entire." Society is part of what makes us human. God did not stop with Adam, He also created Eve, and He gave them the ability to procreate and the injunction to multiply and thus human society came into being. (Feel free to take this allegorically, this is not an essay on theology or evolution, but I'm trying to make an emotional point which is best done poetically).

"If you prefer a materialistic argument, consider the division of labor that makes material progress possible ( Click here: Amazon.com: Books: The Economy of Cities ). Whether for love or money, we need each other, this requires finding ways to live side-by-side with a minimum of friction. At the present time, at least, we do not make those decisions by means of airy intellectual debates and the record of societies which resorted to such methods is not particularly encouraging - they seem to degenerate into getting the ear of the tyrant. So long as we have a system that relies in significant degree on voting, let's vote and influence the votes of others by public and private debates. Libertarians have a lot of good ideas (and a few looney ones) to bring to this discussion; they make us all poorer if they don't hold up their end of the conversation."