Freedom in One Lesson

84.

Do Not Vote in the Absence of Integrity

When elections near, campaigns to “get out the vote” move into high gear. Arguments about why you must vote for one of two major-party candidates begin appearing everywhere. But do those argument hold water?

This question of whether to vote is of particular importance to libertarians, given their commitment to freedom. They must ask, “Is voting or not voting more consistent with defending liberty?”

Leonard Read, in “Regardless of Choice, Vote,” from his 1964 book Anything That’s Peaceful (Read 1964a), offers some interesting and unique insights into this question. In particular, he goes beyond counterarguments against the invalid reasons for why one must vote for a major-party candidate, instead offering an affirmative argument for why abstention can be more principled than voting.

Read first responds to the following question: “You would vote for the candidate of one or the other party, regardless of positions, wouldn’t you?”

According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, “the existence of only two major parties . . . presupposes general public agreement on constitutional questions and on the aims of government.” . . . Under such agreeable circumstances, each party keeps a check on the other, thus giving assurance that neither party will step out of the bounds that have been agreed upon.

. . . The two-party system (1) presupposes a general agreement on constitutional questions and the aims of government and (2) aims at, if it does not presuppose, honest candidates contending for office within the framework of that constitution. In this kind of political order, each office seeker is supposed to present fairly his own capabilities as related to the agreed upon framework, voting being for the purpose of deciding which candidate is more competent for that limited role.

Clearly, the theory as originally conceived did not intend that the positions of candidates should be a response to voter opinion polls concerning the content or meaning of the constitution and the aims of government. . . .

If there were “a general public agreement on constitutional questions and on the aims of government,” and if candidates were vying with each other for office solely on their competency to perform within this framework, I would have no comment. But there is little contemporary agreement as to constitutional questions and the aims of government!

Here, he adds an important caveat to the analysis. If Americans agreed on the constitutional issues that determine which actions will advance the general welfare, political action would be so narrowly circumscribed that the vote of any given citizen would be virtually unable to harm others, even if it determined the outcome of the election. If we remained within those narrow confines today, whether to vote would not be a serious issue of disagreement. But since that is not the case, voting does cause problems.

Candidates . . . no longer contend with each other as to their competence to serve within a generally accepted framework but, instead:

(1) they compete to see which one can come up with the most popular alteration of the framework, and

(2) they compete to see which one can get himself in front of the most popular voter grab bag in order to stand foursquare for some people’s supposed right to other people’s income.

. . . Voters are seldom given the chance to decide on the basis of competency, but have only the choice of deciding between opportunists or, a better term, trimmers. . . .

. . . Today, trimming is so much in vogue that often a voter cannot cast a ballot except for one of two trimmers. Heard over and over again is the apology, “ Well, the only choice I had was to vote for the lesser of two evils. I had to vote for one of them, didn’t I?” A moral tragedy is implicit in this confession, as well as a political fallacy; in combination they must eventually lead to economic disaster.

This “lesser of two evils” view implies that voting for the candidate who is less bad than the others must be the most principled choice of the unappetizing options. This seems to be the dominant reasoning behind the “hold your nose and vote” camp. But Read’s focus on integrity leads him to a different conclusion.

It is morally tragic whenever a citizen’s only choice is between two wrongdoers—that is, between two trimmers.

A trimmer, according to the dictionary, is one who changes his opinions and policies to suit the occasion. In contemporary political life, he is any candidate whose position on issues depends solely on what he thinks will have most voter appeal. He ignores the dictates of his higher conscience, trims his personal idea of what is morally right, tailors his stand to the popular fancy. Integrity, the accurate reflection in word and deed of that which is thought to be morally right, is sacrificed to expediency. . . .

. . . Why, asks the responsible voter, should I endorse dishonesty by voting for such a candidate? He has . . . forsworn virtue by insisting on bearing false witness. . . . The role of the legislator is to secure our rights to life, liberty, and property—that is, to protect us against fraud, violence, predation, and misrepresentation (false witness). . . .

Such righteousness or virtue as exists in the mind of man does not and cannot manifest itself in the absence of integrity—the honest, accurate reflection in deeds of one’s beliefs. . . . It is doubtful if anything contributes more to the diseased condition of society than the diminishing practice of integrity.

Those of us who attach this much importance to integrity must perforce construe trimming as evil. Therefore, when both candidates for public office are judged to be trimmers, the one who trims less than the other is often regarded as “the lesser of two evils.” But, is he really?

Read then discusses principles, compromise, trimming, and their relationship to integrity.

It is murder whether one man is slain, or two. It is stealing whether the amount is ten cents or a thousand dollars. And, a lie is a lie whether told to one person or to a million. “Thou shalt not kill”; “Thou shalt not steal”; “Thou shalt not bear false witness” are derived from principles. Principles do not permit of compromise; they are either adhered to or surrendered.

. . . Does the quantity of trimming have anything whatsoever to do with the matter? Or, rather, is this not a question of quality or character? To trim is to ignore the dictates of higher conscience; it is to take flight from integrity. Is not the candidate who will trim once for one vote likely to trim twice for more votes? Does he not demonstrate by any single act of trimming, regardless of how minor, that he stands ready to abandon the dictates of conscience for the place he seeks in the political sun? Does not the extent or quantity of trimming merely reflect a judgment as to how much trimming is expedient?

If the only question at issue is whether a candidate will trim at all, then trimming is not comparative; thus, it would be incorrect to report, “I cast my ballot for the lesser of two evils.” Accuracy would require, “I felt there was no choice except to cast a ballot for one of two men, both of whom have sacrificed integrity for the hope of votes.” . . .

. . . When one must choose between men who forsake integrity . . . there is little relief at the polling level except as candidates of integrity may be encouraged by voters of integrity. Impractical idealism? . . . Read Edmund Burke, one of the great statesmen of all time, addressing his constituency:

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you. . . . Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Read concludes that integrity is the foundation of representative government that can advance the general welfare of its citizens. Without integrity, electors cannot rely on representatives to represent their interests or even to stop them from actively pursuing policies harmful to their interests. This brings him to the central question: How can candidates of integrity be encouraged by voters (and non-voters) of integrity?

Is it fallacious to believe that responsible citizenship requires casting a ballot for one or the other of two candidates, regardless of how far the candidates have departed from moral rectitude?

. . . The obligation to vote at any and all elections, whatever the issues or personalities, is equated with responsible citizenship. . . .

Yet any person who is conscious of our rapid drift toward the omnipotent state can hardly escape the suspicion that there may be a fault in our habitual way of looking at things. . . . So, let us bring the sanctity of voting into the open and take a hard look at it. . . .

Government in the U.S.A. has been pushed far beyond its proper sphere. The Marxian tenet, “from each according to ability, to each according to need,” backed by the armed force of the state, has become established policy. . . . Within this kind of political framework, it is to be expected that one candidate will stand for the coercive expropriation of the earned income of all citizens, giving the funds thus gathered to those in groups A, B, and C. Nor need we be surprised that his opponent differs from him only in advocating that the loot be given to those in groups X, Y, and Z. Does responsible citizenship require casting a ballot for either of these political plunderers? The citizen has no significant moral choice but only an immoral choice in the event he has joined the unholy alliance himself and thinks that one of the candidates will deliver some of the largess to him or to a group he favors. In the latter case, the problem is not one of responsible citizenship but of irresponsible looting.

Does responsible citizenship require voting for irresponsible candidates? To ballot in favor of irresponsible candidates as though it were one’s duty is to misconstrue the meaning of duty. To cast a ballot for a trimmer, because no man of integrity is offering himself, does as much as one can with a ballot to encourage other trimmers to run for office . . . to urge, as strongly as one can at the polls, that men of integrity not offer themselves as candidates.

Voting in an uninformed, irresponsible way repels those with integrity from politics. Read argues that never voting for a trimmer would not only be responsible but even have the potential to improve American society.

What would happen if we adopted as a criterion: Never vote for a trimmer! . . . Millions of us would not cast ballots. Would the end result of this substantial, nonviolent protest, this large-scale demonstration of “voting by turning our backs,” compound our problem? It is difficult to imagine how it could. For a while we would continue to get what we now have: a high percentage of trimmers and plunderers in public office, men who promise privileges in exchange for ballots—and freedom. In time, however, this silent but eloquent refusal to participate might conceivably improve the situation. Men of integrity and high moral quality—statesmen—might show forth. . . .

Would a return to integrity by itself solve our problem? No, for many men of integrity do not understand freedom; or, if they do, are not devoted to it. But it is only among men of integrity that any solution can begin to take shape. Such men, at least, will do the right as they see the right. . . . Trimmers and plunderers, on the other hand, are the enemies of morality and freedom by definition. . . .

. . . If respect for a candidate’s integrity were widely adopted as a criterion for casting a ballot, millions of us, as matters now stand, would not cast ballots. Yet, in a very practical sense, would not those of us who protest in this manner be voting . . . who, by our conscious and deliberate inaction, proclaim that we have no party. What other choice have we at the polling level? Would not this encourage men of statesmanlike qualities to offer themselves in candidacy?

He then asks why, if it is integrity that matters, the current emphasis is on voting, regardless of the integrity of the candidates, and why integrity is less important now than it was in America’s past.

Why is so much emphasis placed upon voting as a responsibility of citizenship? Why the sanctity attached to voting? Foremost, no doubt, is a carry-over from an all-but-lost ideal in which voting is associated with making choices between honest beliefs, between candidates of integrity. We tend to stick with the form regardless of what has happened to the substance. Further, this attitude toward voting may derive in part from the general tendency to play the role of Robin Hood, coupled with a reluctance to acknowledge this practice for what it is. Americans, at least, have some abhorrence of forcibly taking from the few and giving to the many without any sanction whatsoever. . . . But few people with this propensity feel any pangs of conscience if it can be demonstrated that “the people voted for it.” Thus, those who achieve political power are prone to seek popular sanction for their acts of legal plunder. And, as government increases its plundering activities, more and more citizens “want in” on the popular say-so. . . .

Frederic Bastiat [in The Law] gave us some good thoughts on this subject:

If law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual’s right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppressions and plunder—is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?

Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege?

If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone’s interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?

Read’s reasoning leads him to a conclusion that is very different from the drumbeat, heard by Americans during every election cycle, that one “must vote.”

There is no moral or political or social obligation to vote merely because we are confronted with ballots. . . . Is this so-called obligation of a citizen to vote, regardless of the ballot presentations, any more than a camouflage for political madness on the rampage? And, further, doesn’t this “obligation” deny to the citizen the only alternative left to him—not to endorse persons or measures he regards as repugnant? When presented with two trimmers, how else, at this level, is he to protest? Abstinence from ballot-casting would appear to be his only way to avoid being untrue to himself.

The question of whether to vote, along with a great deal of social pressure for an affirmative answer, comes up every election. Read articulates an alternative view based on the the need for integrity in those who represent citizens. He argues that not voting for a trimmer of moral principles does not worsen, and may improve, politics and Americans’ well-being.

Read rejects the tidal wave of electoral rhetoric that insists people vote regardless of their choice. Equating that rhetoric to a disregard for integrity, he asks what would happen if potential voters focused on integrity. In a political landscape where politics is largely divorced from integrity and voting rhetoric falls abysmally short on logical reasoning, his argument that we should not vote in the absence of integrity deserves serious thought.