Participating in Tyranny
I'm interested in exploring the concept of non participation in democracy/constitutional republic. What constitutes a responsible citizen? In my mind, you are free to participate/not participate, as long as taxes/other fees are paid, which is to say that no one will bother you if you do these things. (men with guns). If by choosing not to vote, you exercise your freedom to not particpate because you must think things are either A. Going well enough or B. Hopeless, how can you be faulted, given either situation. Taking the time out to vote while you could be earning money or inventing something seems like a non-maximization of utility. Given that most Americans don't vote, where do we believe they lay? Either in column A or B. I firmly believe that they probably reside in B. If most people therefore believe the situation to be hopeless, then why should we also believe that they would choose to participate in the way that they do (taxes), outside of the threat of violence. If violence is the only legitimacy of a regime, what have we come to?
Government IS Force
I think maybe if you rephrased from "violence" to "force" you will see that this is how government has ALWAYS operated.
It is impossible today to talk of people paying taxes for reasons other than fear of violence or force against them. That is the MAIN reason people pay them. (though millions do not) If there were absolutely no threat for not paying "income" taxes which most people do not owe, they would not pay them.
As for voting, I think you are chasing something that has a more fundamental factor to it. That of "stake."
Countries that have organized with a popular franchise always begin with that franchise very limited, usually only to property owners, or to soldiers. (if they are not one and the same)
Over time, more people are added to the franchise, and eventually, people who have no stake, who are either propertyless, or even have negative net worth, are given the right to vote and decide how government is run. In the US, you don't even have to owe or pay any single tax ever, and you are allowed to vote. Thus eventually those that don't have, which ALWAYS outnumber those that do, figure out how to vote themselves other people's money. Every country that has ever had the popular franchise in history has done this. And everyone collapsed over a loose fiscal policy.
Now, I agree with Thomas Jefferson, that if we think the people not enlightened enough to govern themselves, the answer is not to take away the franchise, but to educate them.
I think though the solution needs to be more robust than that. I don't think we need to start restricting the right to vote, but if we don't figure out in a hurry, how to prevent plunder by the masses (now on the masses) then we will go the way of Rome. And it will be ugly on the way. Very ugly.
I hope we have enough time left, and that it is possible at all.
In communism, do the people vote for the union leaders?
Anyway, I think all the different types of government vote in some ways at some level.
Humans are a very social species, so the urge to "vote" or gather a consences is something everyone thinks about, so in a way, they vote not to vote.
Oh, I fit you level B.
Oh, the future? I'm always positive about it.
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Me, you, and Julian Simon I
Me, you, and Julian Simon
I vote, my main point was that can we fault people for not voting, from an Austrian perspective?
No, I wouldn't fault people. It's just a learning process.
I vote too, and there have been lapses. Mostly, I like to explore community "consences" in person, and why I became a block captain for Ron Paul. That was fun.
As a Californian, I have been dissappointed from what I wanted, to what became of what I once wanted. They got it, and it's a mess. They should have listened to us back in 1970, we could see all this coming and as more and more households got television.
Such back room stuff all the time.
Where's the humanity!
But, I will vote again, it's quite a concept.
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”