This thread is for discussion or debate about the ethics of the political process. What is the ethical nature of being a politician or bureaucrat? What precisely is the ethical status of either membership of or patronage with the state apparatus? Is voting unethical? Or is it a positive obligation, a legitimate as a form of self-defense, or ethically neutral?
You're also welcome to vote in the poll about the ethics of voting:
For the poll question, I'm kind of stuck between voting as lack of virtue and voting as being unethical due to its effects on innocent bystanders. I voted voting as a lack of virtue, which is different from strictly being unethical in nature. But I also find Wendy McElroy's arguments about the 3rd party effects of voting fairly compelling. Nonetheless I view voting more as asquiesance than consent, so it would seem to demonstrate a high time preferance, a lack of patience, a lack of resolve, a lack of determination. I usually concentrate more on argueing that voting is impractical and counterproductive than getting into the ethical debate over it.
Here's my $0.02:
I have no ethical problem with voting itself: all the moral arguments against it that I have seen degenerate into collectivist fallacies in the end. I am more skeptical about electoral campaigns, though. A successful and consistent libertarian campaign would only be likely (or even possible) after education, agorism, and other projects have made a large fraction of the population receptive to libertarianism, and may thus be unnessecary. Before that, I think that the campaign would be mostly ignored (ie; the Ron Paul Revolution) or too easily corrupted by unlibertarian influences (ie; many LP campaigns). Electoral campaigns may be useful, as a secondary means, to ease the transition from statism to anarchism. I think the best article on the whole subject is Roderick Long's Dismantling Leviathan.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
wombatron:all the moral arguments against it that I have seen degenerate into collectivist fallacies in the end.
Maybe you'll like this one then: voting is immoral because of the damage it does to you, damage that has nothing to do with the effect of your vote on the world, and would occur even if the machine quietly broke and your vote never got counted.
Trying to integrate the contradictory concepts required to decide on a vote necessitates evasion of some fact, or else you couldn't even attempt it. To complete that integration fully enough to come to a decision, you have to have knowingly incorporated one or more contradictions.
Might as well give yourself brain cancer.
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
wombatron: Here's my $0.02: I have no ethical problem with voting itself: all the moral arguments against it that I have seen degenerate into collectivist fallacies in the end. I am more skeptical about electoral campaigns, though. A successful and consistent libertarian campaign would only be likely (or even possible) after education, agorism, and other projects have made a large fraction of the population receptive to libertarianism, and may thus be unnessecary. Before that, I think that the campaign would be mostly ignored (ie; the Ron Paul Revolution) or too easily corrupted by unlibertarian influences (ie; many LP campaigns). Electoral campaigns may be useful, as a secondary means, to ease the transition from statism to anarchism. I think the best article on the whole subject is Roderick Long's Dismantling Leviathan.
I ocassionally drift from being sympathetic to this argument (for the purposes of education & exposure) to being absolutley oppossed to minarchists attempting political means (which would increase confusion, word-soup, more conversions of libertarians to statist sympathizers via either becoming more utilitarian or converting to the Republican Party as a "new hip RP conservative/republican"). I'm still somewhat indifferent at the moment. I will definitly give Dismantling Leviathan a read though, as it's shorter compared to other reads I need to brush up on so I don't make a slight a$$ of myself whenever I fumble an argument.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
I think voting becomes completely unethical the moment governments force you to vote. In Belgium, we are forced to vote, and failure to turn up will entail a large fine. That's when it definitely becomes unethical. It's like you have to buy off the government so they leave you alone, which is what most of us pay taxes for anyway.
But even when it is voluntary, I still sway towards the extended liability argument and affecting third parties. I always remember the quote "No snowflake ever feels guilty in an avalanche"...
Nitroadict:I ocassionally drift from being sympathetic to this argument (for the purposes of education & exposure) to being absolutley oppossed to minarchists attempting political means (which would increase confusion, word-soup, more conversions of libertarians to statist sympathizers via either becoming more utilitarian or converting to the Republican Party as a "new hip RP conservative/republican"). I'm still somewhat indifferent at the moment. I will definitly give Dismantling Leviathan a read though, as it's shorter compared to other reads I need to brush up on so I don't make a slight a$ of myself whenever I fumble an argument.
I probably overstated my argument. Right now, I don't think that a political campaign will advance the cause significantly. I will vote, but I won't support a campaign with resources that could better be used advancing liberty in other ways. I see electoral campaigns as being a late-stage strategy, mostly as a way of keeping the state off of everyone's back while alternative institutions are perfected, and as a way of dismantling the state without the use of excessive violence. Political campaigns do help educate people, but unless the candidate is a market anarchist or a radical minarchist, people begin to associate libertarianism with the "efficient statism" of the Catoites or with paleoconservatives like Barr.
And I do recommend Dismantling Leviathan (and anything by Long, actually).