Ghost of a flea: Non-Voting

August 07, 2004

Non-Voting

Agoraphilia makes a libertarian case against non-voting and suggests shaming as a route to encouraging more libertarian voters.

What if libertarians stopped applauding non-voting, and instead began prodding each other to go out and vote? What if we had �voting parties,� consisting of groups of people who vote together and go out for dinner afterward (at a location disclosed only to those who joined in voting)? What if every libertarian called two or three libertarian friends on election day to make sure they did their duty? Yeah, duty. You got a problem with that?

I see two difficulties with the tactic. First, collective participation by libertarians has a negligible effect if no party represents libertarian views. I take a least worst approach to voting but in so doing endorse and perpetuate a system that produces those bad choices. It seems to me the argument for non-voting remains strong in this light.

Second, cojolling collective libertarian participation in anything, let alone the electoral process, would have the same effect as cat herding. Forget it. Fun to watch but frustrating to manage. And try "shaming" me, or most libertarians, into anything and you are just as likely to evoke a knee-jerk contratrian response. I am sympathetic to some arguments about the health effects of smoking, for example, but when some santimonious anti-smoker lectures me on the subject it only makes me wish to take up the habit.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 7, 2004 11:03 AM

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