Neal's Workshop

Every couple years I am subjected to a number of reasons why I should vote. The imperatives scornfully scream from the TV, the internet, my mailbox, corporate emails, and varying acquaintances. I'm sure you've heard all of them, too: it's your duty to vote; it's American to vote; it's patriotic to vote; soldiers died to protect your right to vote [so don't trample on their grave by not voting]; if no one voted, democracy would fail; if you don't vote, you can't complain. Voting is essential to democracy. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

These reasons to vote are all similar in that they are all ridiculous.

Follow up:

If you think voting is important, I'd like you to ponder the following illustration.

Imagine that ten people live on an island. The rule of law is determined by majority vote and the ten islanders work as necessary to enforce said law. Laws are passed by majority vote.

One day, Benny, the head island construction worker, determines that the island needs a new public recreational facility. Benny writes a bill to reappropriate a portion of every islanders assets to pay Benny and his crew (Consisting of two other islanders named Kenny and Jenny) for the labor and materials needed to build the facility. Three other islanders would expect to use the facility and would like to see it built. Having six beneficiaries accounted for, the bill is put to a voted on and passed 6 to 4.

Similar situations crop up from time to time on the island and before long, approximately one-third of every islander's production is redistributed to every other islander in the form of varying benefits. No islander seems to question this system. Every islander continues voting: as long as the taxation / subsidization scheme is made official through the system of voting, the islanders see it as just. Since negative externalities go hand in hand with new laws whereas making old laws null and void result in positive externalities, the democratic system builds - it is a positive feedback loop.

The island illustration above is democracy in action. Imagine if Benny, Kenny and Jenny, and the four other islanders who wanted a recreation facility had, instead of putting the issue to a vote, simply taken the property they needed by force from the four other islanders? Would such coercion be acceptable or just? Is the act of acheiving a majority vote enough to make coercive acts justifiable? Why? Isn't the result the same?

If voting is nothing more than bureaucratization of theft as illustrated in the above example or by extension to any example involving representatives who act as agents, how can anyone vote without implicitly accepting coercion as morally acceptable behavior?

They can't. So don't vote and be satisfied that you aren't lending any credence to an inherently busted system.

And if you need any more reasons not to vote, there are plenty out there.