It is Voter Registration Day as I type this, and some of my favorite bands, family members, and friends are feverishly posting about our duty to get registered and participate in this “democracy.” Never mind that this is a republic, and that the founders themselves were some of the biggest advocates of withdrawing your consent from a government that fails to protect its people and actually uses its power against them in many ways. This topic has weighed heavily on my mind, and I must address it to come to terms with what people are actually advocating. I hope this will not be seen as an attack, but rather a wake-up call to a reality that has been turned on its head. I understand that election year is the most polarizing time for this country, but realize that I must expose the fallacy of voting for what it really has become.

Voting is a topic that is very emotional for most people, and over the past few weeks I have had varied discussions on the matter and been told in several ways what I deserve for not voting. Election years have always been a specimen that I am fascinated by as logic seems to diminish and emotions replace it completely. I get it, and I want to believe that voting can change a system that is rife with corruption and voter fraud. I want to believe that there is at least one candidate out there who has the best interests of the people in mind. I want to believe I live in the greatest country in the world, and that these politicians genuinely want to help us by helping other nations. My heart used to believe in a world made better by our country’s foreign policy and numerous interventions and that consequences of these things are just an ungrateful response by a sheltered populace. Well, the heart is deceitful above all things.

Conversely, the reality of our situation is obscured by catch phrases and rhetoric designed to appeal to your emotions. We must face the truth of how our actions affect the well-being of not only people overseas, but our fellow people. There is no savior coming in the form of a politician to save us, the wars will not end they will only grow, the Fed will only keep printing money, the surveillance state will expand, and all these truths will happen no matter who gets elected. These are the facts based on history, economics, and the government’s own documents and press releases. Call me a heretic, but I cannot sacrifice my principles for the lesser of two evils.

As a former Ron Paul supporter, Romney fans have urged me to vote for their candidate because a vote for a third party candidate or for nobody is a vote for Obama. The absurdity of this statement would be funny if it weren’t so logically unsound and factually incorrect. It makes so little sense that to give credibility to the thought is silly and immature. You see, the psychology of election year is interesting as the worst of both parties come out in full gear. I have been told by republicans (the supposedly more morally upright of the two) that I must vote for Romney or basically I will be responsible for the end of America as we know it, and that voting is the reason our troops are dying overseas---it’s all for our freedom and if I don’t vote I don’t have the RIGHT to complain. Romney, a man who personally profited off of the disposal of aborted children and who has a suspicious tax history, is somehow less evil than the president. Okay. So, if we can’t trust what politicians tell us, what makes us think that they will keep their promises? It appears history has more than a few examples validating the accuracy of that statement.

I get vilified equally by the democrats, and if possible they are the ones using ad hominem attacks even more so than their republican counterparts. In the past month and a half I have been called by Obama supporters racist, sexist, a hippie, and---my personal favorite---an advocate for child labor. All of these attacks because I refuse to be collectivized into the popular “woman voter demographic.” Yes, everyone, I hate women because I want to see them live in countries that are in the unfortunate location of being on top of our oil or perhaps in countries that want to God forbid use a currency other than our fiat paper junk they call the petrodollar.

Over and over again, every discussion I have with an Obama or Romney supporter ends with, “Well, I don’t agree with him on everything, but he is the lesser of two evils.” I have watched as my poor friends who support Gary Johnson get attacked because they have the audacity to vote their conscience in a symbolic stance against the flawed two party system. Yes, voting for someone who appears to lack traits of a sociopath is somehow heinous and un-American. Well if that’s the understanding of the majority of people voting, I am happy to declare myself a traveler on this land and not one of its own.

Is it not logical to conclude that if the current system fails to remedy the many injustices brought upon its people and the thousands of others overseas that maybe, just maybe, it might be beneficial to try something new? Many people have qualms about the hypocrisy of our founding fathers, me included, but one point that resonates with me is their determination to be free even if it means the attainment of that freedom is inconvenient. We have the right to withdraw our consent from the war machine, and two hundred years ago this was seem as admirable and legitimate. Now, I am demonized for quoting the very document that is referenced as proof of America’s “exceptionalism.”

 

Do you ever stop to think that the reason we are in a state of disrepair is because we keep voting for liars, hypocrites, adulterers, and thieves? That advocating violence against others in the form of legislation or wars is detrimental to not only the victims, but the souls of the perpetrators? That you, as a person who participates by voting, gives credence to the very system designed to oppress others, even those who would work together with you for the common good? Is it right to support a candidate whose solution to our problems include more wars that kill innocent women and children and destroy the economies and infrastructure for decades to come? Why am I the one who is a “hippie with no solutions only problems” when I point out the inconsistencies in logic to Obama (funny thing is I hear that from the lefties more than the Romneyites) or Romney supporters and provide alternative solutions?

Yes, I have a problem with the mass murder and plundering of innocent people near and far for dubious reasons. And you should too. It speaks volumes of the moral decay of the people in this country when murder is justified with the same reasoning by the very people using the same arguments against the last president. Have our hearts been so hardened and our brains so numbed to reason that participating in this now so obviously rigged system is seen as admirable while opposing evil is seen as the embodiment of it? Voting for the lesser of two evils is how we wind up with an evil government. It really is as plain as day, and the more we vote for evil the more evil we will get, the more evil candidates will rise up and be placed in positions of power, the more voter fraud will ruin any chance of any legitimate candidate making it through the primaries. The leaders we get are a reflection of our own internal inconsistencies, and that’s not to say I am not without flaw, but they do reflect the mindset of the active electorate that plays the voting game.

If your political ideology is worth more to you than your conscience and morals, then you are the problem. You are what is wrong with this country, and you are responsible for the outcome of the actions of whoever gets elected because you have given credence to a system designed to fail you and your fellow man. You participated in allowing evil to continue its reign as you tried to justify your behavior, but you know deep down that there’s only one thing voting for evil will get you. So go ahead keep ignoring that cognitive dissonance, keep believing blindly in what you are told by your candidate and your mainstream media, keep thinking it is your duty to use your vote to suppress the rights of others, keep closing your ears to the truth, but know that there are not enough earmuffs in the world to quell the howls of a mother whose child has been killed for “humanitarian” reasons because you refused to stand up for what is right. When others suffer immeasurably from this country’s policies, we view it as foreign and far away; something that will never happen here. We don’t think that it will happen to us, and that the reasons for war are so complicated that it is beyond our understanding, so our leaders must be in the know and working off of their superior knowledge. Those people in the Middle East and Africa are our fellow humans trying to live their lives in peace and safety, and your vote legitimizes the very system that is trying to kill them and take their resources. I have heard every argument for voting as it has been repeated ad nauseum to me my entire life especially around this time of year, and nothing has convinced me that sacrificing my morality for patriotism, nationalism, “women’s rights,” or any other contrived reason is worth it. I know where I stand, and it is on the side of truth, reason, and history.

It’s not an issue of who will do less damage to us; the real issue is why we keep supporting the same crooks and policies that got us into these situations in the first place. So, call me a racist or an anarchist or whatever makes you feel better about supporting evil. I will sleep with a sound conscience, though, and know that my non-action has more moral fiber than all the justifications in the world for voting. When voting leads to immoral outcomes, we must reject it as a way of solving our problems lest we find ourselves in the dustbin of history.