On Playing Your Role in a Dying Society

"If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let you do it." No one knows who said it first. It's been incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, who, though no doubt a cynic, never gave any indication that he was opposed to the electoral process. It's also been attributed to Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist and someone whose principles I've long admired. She may never have said it, either, but it at least squares with her political philosophy.

Voting gives you the illusion that you have a choice in selecting your masters. You're always told that you're a good little citizen if you dutifully pay your taxes, serve on a jury, and vote, because it's necessary for the system to function that you play the role prescribed to you. The ruling class tells you that voting is a cherished expression of "democracy" -- that favored buzzword that's essentially code these days for Western economic and military hegemony, often imposed on other nations through the barrel of a gun, and an enthusiastic embrace of authoritarian woke supremacy. Disagree and you'll be "fact-checked," accused of spreading "misinformation," or outright canceled. 

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of "democracy" in the first place, because I think it just drags us down to the lowest common denominator. Ignorant people who don't do their research vote for whoever their TV or their tribe tell them to, which generally means we end up with the worst rulers imaginable -- we get the people who want the money and power that come with the position, rather than actual public servants. No one wants to say it, but the truth is that most people just aren't cut out for self-rule. Jefferson understood that people couldn't be both ignorant and free, but the Founding Fathers were seemingly naive enough to think that their grand experiment in self-governance could work. People complain that communism is a great idea in principle that fails because it misreads human motivations, but I honestly think that so-called democracy suffers from the same kind of flaws. Ultimately, I think a constitutional monarchy would suit us better, or a world run by Plato's philosopher-kings. The problem, of course, is finding people benevolent enough to not abuse their power over the people. Either you end up with tyranny from above or rule by idiocracy from below. You can't really win. 

Either way, it amuses me that, after the 2020 debacle, anyone would honestly think that elections are not engineered to produce the outcomes the ruling elite desire. Of course, that election was so fair and perfect that you weren't allowed to even question it. Never mind the ballot mules, the mysterious vans showing up in the dead of night at polling places to deliver boxes of ballots, or the election workers blocking out their windows to conceal their work inside from public view. Nope, nothing to see here. Just "democracy" in action.

Sure, the Republicans might take back both houses of Congress -- but if they do, that's undoubtedly part of the plan, too. The corporate-media-government complex can spend two years demonizing the Republicans so much that the public will be brainwashed into never voting for them again. And if you think that can't happen, may I direct your attention to both the nearly universal compliance with the COVID lockdowns and the mindless embrace of the Ukraine narrative. Most people are, sadly, very easily propagandized. 

Just remember the kind of people we're dealing with here. These are people who will silence and threaten you if you point out the simple fact that men can't become women. These are people who are trying to smear the richest man in the world because he had the audacity to buy Twitter and promised to make it an outlet for free expression. These are the people who demand you accept the Ukraine narrative and never question the tens of billions of dollars being shoveled into the West's proxy war with Russia -- just ask the spineless members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who were obviously pressured behind the scenes to retract a letter urging the Biden administration to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. These are the people who will go so far as to freeze your bank assets, confiscate your property, and characterize you as a terrorist for engaging in peaceful acts of civil disobedience. These are the people who, in the governmental and corporate worlds in tandem, canceled an entire country for doing the same thing the United States has done over and over to smaller nations. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds, and they will stop at nothing to prevent you from opposing their narrative. If they can wage economic terrorism on protestors and nations that won't bend the knee, they can do it do you, too.

And while this bunch is obsessed with topics like abortion, transgender activism, reverse discrimination, and policing speech, Americans are concerned about their wallets. Ordinary Americans with the slightest shred of common sense know there's already a recession under way, but leftists won't admit it until after the midterms. They know that the economy will work against them at the polls. 

But I'm afraid it's too little, too late at this point. Western civilization is rapidly unraveling, as our self-loathing culture, led by its cabal of leftist white saviors dragging us into a morass of reverse racism and moral depravity, sacrifices all that's good and decent on the altar of woke supremacy. They've quite literally created a system of ideological apartheid, a tyranny of the minority, in which the vast majority must bow to any number of "identity" groups, in many cases vanishingly small ones.

Here in Idaho, I went out and cast my vote for Ammon Bundy for governor -- not because I think he's the perfect person who can fix our problems, but because I know he would try to create the kind of Idaho I'd like to see -- one that pushed back against our cultural decline, slimmed down government, supported families, promoted colorblind equality of opportunity, and upheld the constitutional liberties that made America the greatest social experiment in human history. The American ideal has been squandered, and I'm under no illusions that we can get it back. Even in the remote chance that Bundy would win, he would be under such constant brutal attacks from the media and woke corporate monopolies that he could probably never get anything done. But I figure it's still worth voicing my opinion, even if my vote ultimately means nothing. 

When I do vote, I don't throw it away on a lesser evil that I happen to hate slightly less than the other candidate. I vote my conscience. As John Quincy Adams once said, "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Even if the system wasn't rigged, as an anarchist in principle, I would still find the idea of voting for my oppressors to be a ridiculously self-defeating exercise in futility. I threw away the little virtue-signaling "I Voted" sticker that was given to me as soon as it was in my hands, because I have no interest in broadcasting to anyone else that I obediently "did my civic duty." At best, by going to the polling center with my wife, I acknowledged that we'll always have somebody lording their power over us and registered my opinion about the people who I believe would oppress us the least. 

My vote will change nothing, but at least I can say that I wasn't part of the problem when people inevitably start grumbling about the predictable idiots they helped put into office.