[ExI] An old skeleton tumbles out of the list closet

[Dan]

On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 11:45 PM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> PS - Just to clear up any confusion, I did not vote. I am conscientious
>> objector, so don't nobody blame me for nothing, please.
>
> I blame you for not voting.  You only have the right to object if you
> voted.  Besides, a third party vote is far more effective as protest
> than a non-vote.

Some make a strong moral argument against sanctioning the state by voting. In which case, those who do vote are sanctioning both the state and the outcome and are to blame, to some degree, for both. This is the basic voluntaryist position as I understand it and outlined in "Neither Bullets Nor Ballots." See http://www.wendymcelroy.com/vlntryst/1nbnb.html

But setting that aside, since I'm gathering you would not accept and might even dismiss out of hand such an argument, the practical matter is that Rafal's vote, even his protest vote, doesn't count and has negligible impact. From my perspective, if he expends more efforts in other forms of activism, he's likely to have a far bigger impact. After all, it's not like voting is the one and only means of social change or the only way to register a protest against the regime. And there's also the psychologically negative impact of voting time and again as a protest where it has no impact. For some, that can wear them down to the point where they just give up entirely.

Regards,

Dan