Does Popeye know best? By George F. Smith

[I am curious… does anyone here at TBP think a well publicized “non-voter” boycott would have any effect at all or would such a movement be co-opted by either Dems or Repubs for their own benefit as the Tea Party ended up being used?  I think as long as someone showed up somewhere to cast a ballot, TPTB would call it a fair and honest election. But that is just MY opinion and I have some bunnies in the freezer that probably regret trusting me… Maggie]

You can’t beat something with nothing, Gary North has said repeatedly, and I think he’s right in the realm of ideas.Bad ideas, once entrenched, hang around until a crisis brings the roof down.Even then the guilty will be standing in the wreckage pointing fingers elsewhere, usually toward anything that hints at freedom.

Evil systems eventually break down [North writes]. We have seen this in our day: the three-day disintegration of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union itself: August 19-21, 1991. Impossible, we would have said in early 1991.

Our goal is to promote positive change at a local level while we wait for today’s evil systems to break down. This waiting goes on for years. Then, without warning, the transformation comes in short order.

It is our job to be ready to accept responsibility and then implement local changes in terms of the ideas we profess to be true.

We can’t beat something with nothing.

But when it comes to elections, “nothing” may be a very sane option to take — as in choose A, B, a minor party candidate, or none of the above.
As we know the last choice is not found on the ballot. Ever wonder why?
For every voter terrified that Hillary will win there’s at least one voter apoplectic over a possible Trump victory.
But voters aren’t the only ones suffering.If someone wants less government, there are no realistic choices.He stays home on Election Day.He figures the federal government will grow until it collapses, and his vote won’t stop that from happening.Worse: His vote will provide much-needed legitimacy to state expansion.There are those who take the Atlas Shrugged approach — voting for the candidate most likely to bring about the collapse first — but that’s a crap shoot.Voters have no way of knowing what the candidate will do after the election.People who refuse to vote know a more authoritarian government is on the way regardless of who wins.Their only hope is gridlock.
Whether you’re a voter or nonvoter, this is an exceedingly dangerous state of affairs.   It’s also embarrassing to educated adults with healthy IQs.  Especially in today’s world, what kind of thinking validates the existence of a monopoly that routinely lies, murders, and steals and calls itself civilized and the leader of the free world?
Is there nothing that can be done?
Boycott
I have never seen a movement consisting of nonvoters, meaning people who refuse to be complicit in government’s activities by not voting.  Nonvoters have always outnumbered voters but they’ve never been organized.  What if they decided to call a convention to bring the futility and danger of voting to a high pitch?  What if the attendees proudly wore T-shirts or other attire or jewelry advertising their position throughout the election season?
What if they’re tired of waiting for the eventual collapse?  What if they want to live free soon, not someday?   What if, as Popeye might say, they’ve had all they can stands?
What if instead of hammering one another over which of two statist candidates is the less evil, the people in this territory called the United States boycotted the election?  What if they decided two bad choices is no choice at all?  What if they decided they didn’t want to live under the opposition’s candidate?  Or their candidate, for that matter?  What if the boycott united them as much as political parties do now?
What if people didn’t want alphabet bureaucracies lording over their existence?  What if they want to be the decider of the money they wish to use, rather than be forced into an impoverishing scam where a monopoly cartel can counterfeit currency for its favored clients while the rest of us suffer the consequences?  What if they don’t want to be considered guilty by virtue of being a person who may sometimes do things a criminal or a terrorist might do, such as withdraw a large amount of cash from their bank account?  What if they want to live free, and at the very least demand that government back the hell off to pre-1913 status?  What if they eventually decide that the free market can provide all their legitimate needs, including the country’s defense?
Isn’t it about time people rejected the choices they’re given and stood up for themselves?
By the way, my fictional character, Loose Cannon, did.

 

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9 Comments
Kitten in a Blender
Kitten in a Blender
July 27, 2016 10:13 pm

If no one came to the election, the true nature of our system would be immediately exposed.

Overthecliff
Overthecliff
July 27, 2016 10:45 pm

Don’t matter. Just make a list and check it twice and remember who is naughty and nice.

Ed
Ed
July 27, 2016 11:58 pm

“Don’t vote. It just encourages the assholes.”

That’s approximately what a bumper sticker from the ’90s read.

jamesthewanderer
jamesthewanderer
July 28, 2016 2:23 am

Stalin said something like “I care not who wins the election, it matters only who counts the votes”. Is this what we’re headed towards?
I have no doubt at all that if Hillary & Co. could find a way to rig the election, they would. How many may already have been? Didn’t Kennedy’s father imply something like he had bought votes, and only wanted to buy enough votes to win, but he “wasn’t paying for a landslide”?
How can anyone trust anyone any more? FBI says Hillary broke the laws, but won’t recommend prosecution; DOJ sues folks for all kinds of retarded, social-engineering reasons; DNC gets caught cheating to favor one candidate, but the only one blamed is hired by the one she cheated for. Are there no honest Americans left? Or do they all just hate politics and politicians so much they won’t get near it?
What do you do when the whole government is corrupt?

IndenturedServant
IndenturedServant
July 28, 2016 2:35 am

Maggie said:
“I think as long as someone showed up somewhere to cast a ballot, TPTB would call it a fair and honest election.”

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Not voting (as I have chosen) has just as much effect as requiring everyone to vote in a rigged system. Cancelling my voter registration only has the effect of making me feel better about myself in that I’m no longer complicit in what they do. I am still affected by what they do but that would apply if I voted, regardless of the winner. Refusing to participate is a tiny but important victory for my three remaining brain cells.

IndenturedServant
IndenturedServant
July 28, 2016 2:45 am

jamesthewanderer said:
“Are there no honest Americans left? Or do they all just hate politics and politicians so much they won’t get near it?”

There are plenty of good Americans left. It’s just that good, freedom and liberty loving Americans have no desire to control other people.

“What do you do when the whole government is corrupt?”

As is our right, you begin to fertilize the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots after first seeking lawful redress to our grievances. As a whole, Americans still have it too easy to contemplate such things. The lights still come on when you flick a switch, the stores are still packed with food and *stuff* and the welfare bennies are still flowing like wine. When those things all stop we’ll either turn on each other or our oppressors. Which course it will be will largely be determined by the last things we read on what will forever be known as Al Gore’s innerwebz.

Southern Sage
Southern Sage
July 28, 2016 8:14 am

Maggie,
Sorry. The election of Hillary Clinton will not be a case of “HO-hum, they are both the same, what difference does it make?” Her election will end our country as we know it and permanently erase any chance of winning it back. I can fully understand people leery of Trump, but the “apoplectic” people who hate Trump are fools, scoundrels, traitors or all three. Trump may be rude, nasty and in your face but he knows the score. How can you not understand why all the powers that be hate him with such seething rage? They know he knows, he hates them too, and many will go to prison if he is elected, get it? Vote for Trump and then continue with your local solutions.