To
Vote, Or Not To Vote
That Is The Question
by
Linda
Schrock Taylor
by Linda Schrock Taylor
My
apologies to Shakespeare, but the phrasing so clearly expresses
the dilemma that I have faced since the mid-sixties, when my friends
and I discussed our objections to boys too young to vote on matters
of war, being drafted and sent to Vietnam. By the time voting rights
for 18 year olds had been passed, I was so disillusioned with the
government that I, personally, took the stance of refusing to vote.
As
a young child, living just twelve miles from where I currently reside,
many of my earliest memories are of voting and party choices. A
favorite family story told of how my great-grandfather and his brother,
one a Democrat and one a Republican, would constantly argue about
politics, then ride together to the polls. Their commitment to voting,
even though they knew that one's vote would cancel that of the other,
never wavered. If it was time to vote, one was honor bound to do
it. In my home, the whole family rode to the township hall so that
my parents could vote. I am often reminded of those excursions,
for that township hall is where we have our family Christmas and
special occasion parties. The same voting booths are there, varnished
and gleaming.
For
many, many years I did not vote; my decision stemming from my gut
level distrust of the State. In silence I accepted the stern reprimands
from my father, as he attempted to drive home the point that I had
no right to criticize anything that the government did since I refused
to make my preferences known by voting. Since the schools had only
provided me with rewritten history, I lacked the facts and insights
with which I might have defended my decision and myself. Still I
refused to vote for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum.
Recently,
while reading Murray Rothbard's, The
Case Against the Fed, I was reminded of my father's
blind loyalty to his Party…
For
the "Third Party System," which had existed in America from 1856
to 1896, was comprised of political parties, each of which was
highly ideological and in intense conflict with the opposing party.
While each political party, in this case the Democratic, the Republican
and various minor parties, consisted of a coalition of interests
and forces, each was dominated by a firm ideology to which it
was strongly committed. As a result, citizens often felt lifelong
party loyalties, were socialized into a party when growing up,
were educated in party principles, and then rode herd on any party
candidates who waffled or betrayed the cause. (Pg. 90–91)
Rothbard
continues,
For
various reasons, the Democratic and Republican parties after 1900…were
largely non-ideological, differed very little from each other,
and as a result commanded little party loyalty. In particular,
the Democratic Party no longer existed, after the Bryan takeover
of 1896, as a committed laissez-faire, hard-money party. From
then on, both parties rapidly became Progressive and moderately
statist." (Pg. 91)
Even
had I been able to put evidence such as this before my father, it
would not have modified his thinking. It is almost as if such individuals
are caught in some kind of a time warp. They have been socialized
to party loyalty without being taught the facts and the intellectual
reasoning behind the original stances held prior to 1896. Any belief
that they should hold a party to a 'firm ideology' has been bred
out of them, or simply lost along the way.
I
did, finally, become a voter, although never for my father's party.
Still I never felt comfortable about voting, but neither did I feel
comfortable about not voting. Possibly I dreaded old messages from
childhood returning to haunt me. During the last election I did
go to the polls, but I cast only one (1) vote – against a
candidate I despised. I have continued to fret – to vote, or not
to vote.
Recently
I received a brochure from the "Sons Of Liberty" in Central Florida,
entitled, VOTING STRATEGY – 2004 – WHEN "THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS"
IS NO LONGER AN OPTION. The title caught my eye, and their rationale
for voting makes a great deal of sense. They begin
with this: The
most effective argument to convince patriotic Americans to support
the Republican Party has been that "The Republicans will do
less damage to the Constitution than the Democrats will – and
besides, what other choice is there?" The conservative vote
is taken for granted by the Republican leadership because they
believe that we have nowhere else to turn; from a purely pragmatic
short-range view, perhaps they are correct. The result has been
a Republican Party that ignores conservative values because
it has no incentive to do otherwise. The time has come to provide
that incentive. I
had to agree with this summation, and I continued reading, The
Republican Party is the dominant party today because it has
the conservative vote. Let's look at what Republicans have done
with the power that conservatives entrusted to them.
President
George W. Bush has presided over a dramatic increase in the
size, cost, scope, and power of the federal government that
would be the envy of even the most radical socialist. He has
stated his support of the clearly- unconstitutional Clinton
gun ban and has vowed to sign a replacement into law (the current
law has a sunset provision that expires in 2004) should it reach
his desk. His Attorney General has made it his personal crusade
to get ever-greater power for the government to snoop into the
private lives of citizens. Bush has used the military to invade
a sovereign nation that had no realistic chance of threatening
America, while at the same time encouraging a flood of illegal
third-world immigrants across our borders. Yet many conservatives
continue to support this administration. Why? Because they believe
they have no other choice – the alternatives are even worse.
Please
excuse me as I continue to quote from this pamphlet, for a summary
would not do it justice: Conservatives
have fallen into the trap of only looking at the short range.
It is probably (but no longer certainly) true that America would
be better off with a Republican administration than with a Democratic
administration – in any given year. However, that completely
misses the point. The direction that the country is headed in
must be looked at in terms of decades and generations – not
as a four-year presidential term. The
Sons of Liberty list four options:
1)
Continue to vote for the Republican Party candidates. Maybe we
won't end up with a Democrat – or maybe we will. Either way,
the Republican Party learns once again that they have the conservative
vote no matter what they do.
2)
Vote for the Democratic candidates. Some on the far edges of conservatism
have suggested this as a way to hurry along what they see as the
inevitable collapse of America, and see a rebuilding as freedom's
opportunity.
3)
Don't vote at all. This is a common strategy in other parts of
the world. The objective is to demonstrate that the elections
are not valid by boycotting the election. Another objective of
this strategy is to voice dissatisfaction with all the candidates
– effectively saying "None of the above."
4)
Vote for a third-party candidate.
The
pamphlet points out that Option 1 has already been discussed and
points out that a vote for the Republicans will assure a drive off
the same cliff, but at a speed within the posted limit. They believe
that Option 2 should be dismissed as not lending itself to rational
discussion. Regarding the last two options, they have this to say, Option
3 is based on the assumption that anyone would notice that people
were not voting. It is also based on the assumption that the
parties would know why people were not voting. Not voting
at all simply means that the political strategists ignore you.
Being ignored is not our intent.
Option
4 is what we believe to be the best choice at this point.
The objective is to show that there are votes available that
the Republican Party will not get until they change their ways.
The objective is not to find and support a third party candidate
who can win an election. For the foreseeable future, that just
is not going to happen. Instead, the objective is to demonstrate
to the Republican Party that voters will leave the party
if they are not represented by that party. The working assumption
by the Republican Party has always been that conservatives have
nowhere else to turn, and that they are pragmatic enough to
not "waste their vote" by voting for a third party. Our objective
is to show that assumption to be false. Again,
the point of this option is not to find a third party with
any chance of winning, but that the voters "take a long range view
and sacrifice in the short term if needed. We are working for future
generations, not for ourselves."
The
Sons of Liberty end with, "The only important point in making your
decision is that your vote must be clearly seen as one that the
Republicans should have gotten. Choose your party/candidate
wisely." They list conservative political parties: Libertarian Party;
Constitution Party; America First Party; and the Southern Party.
Hmmm…"your
vote must be clearly seen as one that the Republicans should
have gotten." Yes, I think that it is time that we, in the words
of Murray Rothbard, "ride herd" on any candidate, and the party
as a whole, for "waffling" and for betraying America. We voters
have been taken for granted – for far too long. We have gone with
our interests misrepresented or un-represented, since that long
ago era when the various political parties "were dominated by a
firm ideology to which it was strongly committed." When political
parties again truly and honorably represent the real wishes of the
people, then and only then, should we again loyally support one
particular party.
So,
I will vote in the next election, but the Republicans have
definitely lost my support. I will go to the polls and cast my votes
for candidates from one or more of the four conservative groups
listed. I will be sure to inform every Republican fundraiser of
my decision, asking that they convey my message accurately to their
supervisors. Why, I will even send each Republican caller a copy
of my Letter
to Ken Mehlman, should they profess an interest. Yes, I am relieved
to finally have a voting strategy!
 January
5, 2004
Linda Schrock Taylor [send
her mail] lives in Michigan.
She is a free-lance writer and the owner of "The Learning Clinic,"
where real reading, and real math, are taught effectively and efficiently.
Copyright
© 2004 LewRockwell.com
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