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I vote only as one peaceful way to say "No!" Since I won't vote for any candidate that I do not personally believe will also say "No!", my ballots tend to be mostly blank. In fact, only one person I've ever voted "for" has been elected, and I was pleased by how much her voting record pissed off the statists.

I will continue to vote as a peaceful way to say "No!" so long as there remain peaceful ways to say "No!"

I have taken to writing in my own name for any position I am willing to hold, and Cthulu for all others. Takes a while,but....

Exactly. I would love to see the day when candidate A gets 228 votes and B gets 313 out of 2000 voters voting on at least one thing in that precinct. Sure would make it hard to claim any "mandate" out of that. Even better if they went with a *binding* none of the above. Nevada tried, but so many offices were left unfilled that it only lasted an election or two. I think the still have a NOTA, but it's no longer binding. Better than nothing, but ...

As is said:

If voting mattered, it would be illegal.

Case in point:

We lived for a cple decades in the People's Republic of Illinois.

And then - We voted with our feet.

Several people in the Free State Project are from Illinois. They all tell a tale of overwheming bureaucratic corruption.

> "Several,"

Over three decades of state Democrat legislative control.

So yeah, voting didn't matter.

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The first any only really important thing any Representative of the People must bear is an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the US...which does indeed protect all people of every stripe and color. None were ever intended to play favorites or do favor for any group or persons who may or may not have contributed to their election, but to honor their oath and ensure for their constituents and their future progeny the liberty the constitution guarantees.

As ballot access laws in Georgia have raised the bar so high that NO Libertarian (or any other "3rd" party) has been able to quality for the ballot for US House, since 1935!!!!! In addition to everything else mentioned.

Citizens' voting amounts to being given the illusion of influence in exchange for appearing to endorse those who take your money and boss you around.

Beyond the difficulties of representation, what's the point of having the vote if you aren't allowed to vote for who or what you really want to vote for? The "vote" doesn't give people power; being able to control the ballot box does.

I believe more in the teeth fairy that brought me my Daxter game for PSP than the fact that individuals are somehow "represented" by government officials.

A libertarian utopia is as likely to exist as a socialist utopia, so I suggest you participate in the best system of government we have available before others take that option away from you.

This kind of whining is why libertarians are not taken seriously by most people and why libertarians are under represented. Most Americans believe they have to chose between R or D because L isn't a serious option.

If you think your representative isn't representing you, then step up to the plate and run for office. Time to put up or shut up. This kind of side line crying isn't helping anyone. We have real problems in this country and letting Rs and Ds decided what to do isn't going to fix anything. If the nearly half the voting age population that sits at home in November actually voted for someone third party we might see some changes happen for the good.

Not surprising.

Look at it another way: with so many people uprooted and atomized, what's there to represent? If society is not bound by a conscience held in common, even argumentation itself becomes near impossible in the end. What remains is power and manipulation.

Enter the libertopian:

"Listen y'all it's very simple, just adopt property rights and follow the NAP and everything will turn out great for liberty!"

No, I don't. Or rather, I can't. That's the point.

"If society is not bound by a conscience held in common"

This is meaningless word salad.

Or, you don't know what those concepts mean (ignorance) and/or you don't 'care'?

https://youtu.be/GDqsxEfnZUo

"Listen y'all it's very simple, just adopt property rights and follow the NAP and everything will turn out great for liberty!"

*I've never heard* anyone make that argument...except you.

It is the basic or general foundational argument of libertarianism -- from Adam Smith, David Ricardo (classical economics/laissez faire/free trade-globalism) to Friedman et al's Chicago School/Mises, et al's Austrian School/Randian Objectivism (neoclassical economics/neoliberalism/greed is good).

"I think he's talking about "common culture."

Yes, I guess I am.

I bring this up as constructive criticism when I read articles like the above (and the other one on representation by Casey). I get the sense that so much focus on the rotten "system," while fully justified, is also typical of the thinnist neglect for culture and tradition in Western society. My frame of reference here - and I can't emphasize this enough - is a small nation in Western Europe. Huge difference here with the US, which from where I stand as a Dutchie has always been more experiment than nation in the first place. In short: if I were American, I'd strife for the abolition of this "Union". As a Dutchie, my first responsibility is to save my culture (nation) from the globalist/multiculturalist onslaught going on right now. So a huge difference in perspective there, when we talk about a common culture.

Having said that, my general point would be that in spite of Rothbard (the elder/wiser), Hoppe, Rockwell and others, culture/tradition is still a relative blind spot within libertarian theory. More often than not, and even when it is deemed relevant as more than just a personal choice of "values" fitting in a voluntarist "community," it's presented as a wider "context" which is important insofar that it may support the NAP and property rights. My view is that it should be a starting point for any libertarian analysis of the crisis of the West (attack on liberty), since the political system follows from culture and (indeed) a conscience held more or less in common.

Libertarianism as it stands today is in no position to fix Western culture, it's what's left of it at the barest of minimums. My sneaking suspicion is that if somehow national cultures in Europe experience a renaissance, which can only happen if the Church of old (as a counterforce against political authority) experiences a "renaissance" as well (read Tom Woods' book on that one), that thin libertarianism becomes so infinitely slim that it would no longer matter.

So the road to liberty (presuming it is a libertarian path) leads through culture and tradition, which means that i.m.o. there's no shortcut to liberty by simply dissolving a small state like e.g. the Netherlands and then, in a severely undermined and uprooted nation, hope for the best with a trust to NAP and property.

I have no idea if this contributes anything of value to the discussion, but what the hay, said it anyway. Cheers from across the Atlantic divide.

Hi Phil,

The whole thin vs. thick discussion revolves around the argument, or rather, "thinnist" claim that I presented.

As to the "word salad". Too bad you see it that way. More of this salad but then with some proper meat to go with it:

Mises UK: the "reactionary" libertarianism of Frank van Dun:
https://misesuk.org/2017/08...

PFS lecture: What did the Reformation reform?
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

EDIT: P.s. @Phil, I also strongly recommend the Q&A session after this lecture (seperate vid on the PFS channel: Dürr, van Dun, Hoppe). Starts right away with a great question to which the answer by Frank van Dun is more or less the thing I'm trying to say here: without a common culture to receive/reincorporate it, the NAP message is all in vain.

"..to .put together a constituency of people with similar economic, cultural, and religious interests." This works with the States, but only if there are a majority of American citizens with similar cultures, and not states that are smothered with immigrants - legal and illegal. People like to live in neighborhoods where they have similar interests with others. Obama almost killed that.

The only constituency congress represents is Pisrael. They are all either blackmailed, bribed or threatened to do Pisrael's bidding or else. ZOG! The people you vote for, if they get elected, will turn around stab you in the back. They do it every time. Gutless, treasonous and corrupted to the core, the lot f them. Most of them hide behind religion, on their knees one moment and on a ten year old the next. They have betrayed the American people: the loyalty oath to Pisrael, passing and renewing the Patriot Act, spending the nation into massive debt with more wars, more wasteful military spending and welfare giveaways like the corn/ methanol subsidy.
The rats in Washington serve only one master:Pisrael.
So go ahead and vote for your favorite liar like the orange buffoon in the Whore House.

Isn't a big part of the problem as laid out in this article, the fact that the Founding Fathers set up a government wherein the influence and power of the federal government was very limited, and state and local governments had much more influence on the day to day lives of citizens exactly because they are much more able to be influenced by the residents of a given locale?

Another important point, I think, that reinforces the disconnect between voters and their elected "representative" is that whatever promises he/she made before the election have no contractual force on the day after the ballots are counted. How many campaign promises are actually given more than a half-hearted nod after the fact? It's got to be way less than 50%, doesn't it? And what can the voter do but fume and wait to elect some other schmuck who promises not to do the same thing, then does it anyway? The entire system is a sham.

The voters that side with congress and then constantly change their personal beliefs as to always be on the winning side, they make me chuckle. Go big guv, no matter where you go, I will follow. I just want to be a winner.

Typo's? Perhaps this was written in some haste? Or something to do with the whole US he/she/zhe/... thing?

"First of all, even if a politicians wanted to faithfully represent the people within his constituency, this would be impossible. It is impossible because the politicians can't know the views of the whole population of his constituency.

- a politicians...within his constituency.
- the politicians...of his constituency.

Not a native English speaker here, but you might want to revise this. Cheers from Woodenshoesland.

Good job on correcting the repetitive false attribution and mindless appeal to authority bullshit...the common sewer of internet propagandists and their dupes. All such quote corrections and research are yeoman service to 'the cause' of truth.

Although, I think the classic philosopher (Platonic) definition of ignorance (pattern of ignoring knowledge) is a better approach to that quote than the pseudo "mental health professionals" advertorial approach of psychology today. For example,

"Ignorance is not merely the lack of knowledge, but self-destructive turning away from truth in all areas of life. Persons develop a taste for ignorance [patterned behavior], the predisposition to embrace erroneous beliefs based on presumption or mere authority. The ignorant person believes he knows what he actually doesn't know; he becomes delusional. He is deranged."
web.archive.org/web/2017010...

Now, a sincere and decidedly not ad hominem question: While your assertion here is still in the realm of ordinary unsupported opinion...

"He [Einstein] wasn't that smart nor that witty."

...do you think that statement is markedly less ignorant (or less insane) than the person you are correcting? That's a pretty bold statement, don't you think?

Cheers.

Or anything this ruthless politician said.

Very prescient. :)

So don't vote and the scam (indeed!) is legitimized anyway.

Agreed. Which is why I could do without all of the usual delusional slogans about voting or not voting.

No, the best that mankind has figured out is you buy what you want and I buy what I want – with our own money.

I've never known a right winger claim to be anarchist or vice versa. Anarchists don't hold with *any* party or political position.

When did I say I didn't want civility, or rules?

You soiled a trash bin!

Once read -

Most students take psych in order to figure themselves out.

I told a psych major that and she agreed. :)

When I was in university (in the 1970s) business students had to take a few courses outside the faculty. I took an engineering course and discovered this on the side of a toilet stall: arrow pointing to the toilet paper; "Arts degrees. Take one."