Voting for Aggression

The mayoral election is just around the corner, and on that day, people will take time out of their productive activities to research and vote for someone to take over the office that Thomas Menino held for the past 20 years.

Before you make your choice, however, I’d ask for a moment to reflect on the system that voting condones:

• The Mayor enacts taxes on your labor (that are enforced by men with badges and guns) to provide funding for their office, administration, and selected friends.  This taxation is compulsory - you have no choice in the matter, and any attempt to rescind payment will be met with swift resistance.  Under any other pretense, this is theft.
• The Mayor enacts arbitrary regulations over peaceful aspects of your life (that are also enforced by men with badges and guns) as they deem appropriate.  Once again, you have no choice in the matter.  Under any other pretense, this is coercion.

So, with such power over our lives, why do we continue to condone their privileged system?  Why do we surrender the reins of our lives to those that wish to hold a monopoly of force over us?

The answer I hear most is that without the State, there would be “chaos”.  Yet, to truly believe that is to believe that in a world of two people, one must rule the other by force.

Why do people hold this belief?  In our normal interactions, do the majority of us exert force over the peaceful actions of others?

If you decide where to go to dinner, or who pays your portion of the check, by showing a costume badge and threatening your friends with a weapon, you would immediately lose your friends.

However, you would be acting in the same manner as the State - by using force to enact your will over others.  So, why do we actively endorse this behavior by some, while we would most emphatically reject it from others?  Why is it wrong to tell our friends and neighbors what to do and to steal from them, yet, it is "OK" when the same is done through the force of government?

If you are interested in how this all came to be, a good place to start is “The Anatomy of the State” by Murray Rothbard and “The Politics of Obedience” by Étienne de La Boétie.

Mayoral candidates will try to win you over on election day with political promises of “Moving Forward” or “Fighting for All of Us” - but these promises ring false because they truly are.  In their world, the only way to “move” is through force, and the “us” really means “them” and “their” friends.

This election day, stay home - and vote for yourself.