My reason why is fairly simple.
To succeed in politics, you must have a strong strategy laid out. Republicans have no such strategy. They are an outer party doomed to continually disappoint their most ardent supporters. This inevitable disappointment maintains a long-term cycle of failure. Still being relatively young, and hoping to maintain a very long-term outlook, merely scoring a temporary political victory that lasts for a few short years has no appeal to me whatsoever.
While it may be true that the Republican Party is capable of slowing the advance of the militant left by a few short years, that is all that it’s capable of before spending all of its capabilities.
The main reason not to vote, for any reason, is to preserve resources for a counter-attack.
To prepare for a counter-attack, you must bait your stupid enemy into sending all of his most valuable forces into an indefensible position, such as a valley or a plain. If the enemy is especially stupid and short-sighted, he will maneuver into such a trap in a predictable fashion.
Such a counter-attack would look something like a successful secession campaign in a major American region outside the core economic zone on the ‘Acela corridor’ between Washington D.C. and New York City.
The left was once managed by canny political operators. This is no longer the case. It is now primarily driven by idiots. Idiots are wonderful, at least when they’re on the opposing side, because they can be manipulated in a predictable fashion. Unfortunately, the same idiots that run the left also run the right.
Another reason not to vote is that it creates real despair among the small number of Democracy-shepherds. If you harm their ability to drive votes in a measurable way, you can blow up their careers. These types are numbered in the mere hundreds and thousands: they can be disabled much more simply than enormous populations can be.
So, don’t vote. Save your time. Save your money. Focus on preparing for the future, instead. Be willing to cede territory so that you can take it back later.
Tell me what you think of this: Front groups. Front groups. Front groups. They don’t even have to be actual groups with members, just webpages. NRx is already a hydra with no coherent ideology, as is the whole ENR, Alt-Right, etc. That’s good. Now make some moderately cerebral but not so blatantly Evola worshipping, Heil Odin on a unicorn webpages that we can cross link with sites like National Review, Breitbart, The Blaze, Reason, etc. I already see some of this happening but I won’t name names to protect their cover. Draw the libertardians and patriotic Americans (or whatever country) over to us, pull in the hedge fundies, think tanks, and defense hawks. If this plan is already in motion than just delete my comment and I’ll wink.
Take a page from Google, they’ve been in bed with the Koch Bros and it makes commies cry:
http://www.progressive.org/news/2013/12/185815/google-caught-funding-slew-right-wing-front-groups
“NRx is already a hydra with no coherent ideology”
Aww, after we’ve all taken so many pains to cohere it.
“My reason why is fairly simple.”
[352 words]
My wife and I are voting Republican tomorrow because we like Republicans better than Democrats.
“The main reason not to vote, for any reason, is to preserve resources for a counter-attack.”
Voting is free and takes no more than an hour or two at most.
“Another reason not to vote is that it creates real despair among the small number of Democracy-shepherds.”
My heart is free of hatred, so I have no interest in fostering despair.
I’m glad to hear that you’re an obedient, law-abiding person. I’m confident that you will be just as you are in any functioning political system.
But you and your wife will be gobbled up by cannibals in a political environment which is chaotic, dangerous, and dysfunctional, much like the one that the United States is headed towards.
One course of action may feel safe and correct, but it’s the more dangerous and less responsible selection.
With respect, you are writing like a hysterical woman. The act of two people voting is almost certain not to result in any discernibly different outcome than if we had instead refrained from doing so. To characterize either decision as safe, correct, dangerous, or (ir)responsible is entirely too melodramatic. What will be will be.
It is not at all unreasonable to abstain from voting on the grounds that elections are rarely decided by a small enough margin for your vote to matter. In the same vein, it is not at all unreasonable to defect in the prisoner’s dilemma. Indeed, if your sense of self is so small that you care nothing for family, friends, or the society you live in, defecting will always make sense. However, if you are instead willing to sacrifice for those around you, or render yourself vulnerable to exploitation, the potential for achieving superior group outcomes exists.
With that said, there are basically two possible outcomes in this election: the Republicans will win, or the Democrats will win. Either outcome may prove to be better, worse, or equivalent to the other. Because the odds of your vote deciding the election are small rather than non-existent, it makes sense to vote for the party/candidate(s) you would prefer to see in office. If you think that the Republicans winning would be better than the Democrats winning, then you should vote for the Republicans. If you think that the Democrats winning would be better than the Republicans winning, then you should vote for the Democrats. If you do not think things will be any different regardless of which party wins, then a) you should not vote, and b) you are mistaken.
I say sincerely that you should vote today, Henry, and you should vote straight-ticket Republican. Think of it as practice for the sort of thing that you would (will?) be expected to do in an actual organic community. Just as one need not accept every word of the Holy Bible as God’s word in order to benefit from attending church and forming connections with the people there, one need not support democracy with all its failings and foibles in order to benefit from engaging in the religious ceremony known as voting.
“With respect, you are writing like a hysterical woman.”
^– delete “with respect” to be more direct and less passive-aggressive.
“However, if you are instead willing to sacrifice for those around you, or render yourself vulnerable to exploitation, the potential for achieving superior group outcomes exists”
This is precisely what I’m suggesting. Voting is no such sacrifice.
“one need not support democracy with all its failings and foibles in order to benefit from engaging in the religious ceremony known as voting.”
The symbolism of not attending the ceremony is more important than that. This is not a government that’s going to be around in the same form as it is today for all that long. This is like haranguing me for not dipping my thumb in Iraqi voting-ink. You might have a point if this were 1961, and even then, not much of one.
I look at an insolvent set of institutions and say that it is insolvent and encourage others to treat it as insolvent. This is healthier than pretending as if it’s still alive.
“^– delete ‘with respect’ to be more direct and less passive-aggressive.”
With respect, you’re projecting. The prepositional phrase serves the intended function of demonstrating that I recognize my words to be disrespectful but mean no more than absolutely necessary.
“This is precisely what I’m suggesting. Voting is no such sacrifice.”
Well, you are of course welcome to make unsubstantiated and facially absurd assertions. But it is universally recognized in the political science literature that well-informed voting is a public good with positive externalities, which causes it to be systematically under-produced.
“The symbolism of not attending the ceremony is more important than that.”
So you say. But it seems to me that the symbolism’s importance is the same either way. However, importance is not synonymous with goodness. Thus, in making our decision we should discard the criterion of “importance” and seek instead only to determine whether the act is desirable.
“This is not a government that’s going to be around in the same form as it is today for all that long.”
That’s kind of the point. Democracy is a system of constant revolution. Every election creates the possibility of installing an entirely new government, for better or worse. See: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2010/03/true-election-practical-option-for-real.html
“This is like haranguing me for not dipping my thumb in Iraqi voting-ink.”
In what way?
“You might have a point if this were 1961, and even then, not much of one.”
Your error is assuming that the primary purpose of voting is to influence the election.
“I look at an insolvent set of institutions and say that it is insolvent and encourage others to treat it as insolvent. This is healthier than pretending as if it’s still alive.”
Nice metaphor. But what does it mean to say that a set of institutions is insolvent or dead? Sooner or later, everything will fall apart and fade away; it’s a question of when, not if. Nevertheless, we do not discard our elders when they fall ill. We care for them with tenderness and love.
So, too, are we called to nourish such institutions as democratic elections. Though the patient be beyond saving, still we offer palliative care.
Max… I let you come to my internet home, I indulge you when you insult me, and then you repay my indulgence with more insults.
Surely, if you know enough Moldbug to throw a link at me, you also know that this line of reasoning won’t budge my opinion by an iota, and is unlikely to move my readers either.
I do agree that my metaphors are nice, when I bother to make them.
Am I blocked? Just tried to post something and it appears not to have gone through.
Nope. The only person that I’ve blocked is peppermint for being both sassy and adding nothing.
It got caught by the spam detector. Now it’s approved.
http://therightstuff.biz/2014/11/03/being-trs-at-the-polling-place-a-voters-guide-to-2014-and-beyond/
I love TRS. Sometimes the edgisphere has the most common sense.
Anyway, I’m off to convince people that NRx is part of the Kochtopus / GOP Nazi Death Hydra.
My reasons for not voting are in line with what Zippy Catholic so ably elaborated. Basically, voting is a stamp of approval on the process and its results, I’m concurring in the legitimacy of it all.
For example, voting on morality like sodomite “marriage”. It’s presposterous, and it’s worse than degrading to participate.
And if you vote for Candidate X, and Congressman X then works to implement Odious Policy Z, you are a participant in that. You can’t say, “I didn’t vote for that.” You can say it, but you really did vote for that. People always vote with their own intent in mind, but that is a self-delusional projection, a “crossing of the fingers behind your back.” It’s false, and your just deceiving yourself.
I need a clear conscience to sleep at night, so I’m not voting.