Choices and Echoes by Gary North
Gary North answers the vote or die crowd and all the folks who like to get on me when I tell them that I won't waste my time voting.
They ask themselves: "Why bother to vote?"
The answer is not what we are told in high school, let alone college: voting is a religious act. This was understood by the ancient Greeks, who regarded political life as central to religious life. But in a society that promotes the separation of church and state in the name of the separation of religion and politics, it is not politically correct to admit the truth, namely, that exercising the franchise is an act of promoting one’s religion, i.e., one’s worldview. It means picking up a ballot instead of a gun, so that people you approve of will possess the lawful authority to pick up a gun in your name.
This is what politics is: the right to decide who picks up a government-provided gun and then tells other people what to do or not do. We can fool ourselves as voters by refusing to admit this, but when push comes to shove, and political issues seem to be life-and-death issues, we go out and use our ballots to make sure that "our guys" have control of the guns.
So, the name of the political game today is two-fold: (1) to distract voters’ attention from the hard reality of politics, namely, that it’s all about who controls the biggest guns; (2) to convince swing voters that the party’s program is best for them, which really means that the party’s appointees can be trusted with the guns. No candidate is willing to admit in public that he and his agents intend to stick guns in the bellies of the political losers, but this really is the plan. When a politician says "Trust me," he means, "Trust me to use the gun on that guy over there, not you." He’s lying, of course. He intends to stick the gun in your belly, too.
Voters are beginning to figure out that the guns will be used on them, no matter who is elected, and there’s not much they can do about this. How does a patriot act today? He takes off his shoes before boarding a plane. "Your photo ID, please."
The bureaucracy holds the guns, and no President can do much, one way or the other, to prevent the bureaucrats from using these guns in a way that is convenient to them. The system is too large to control. Bureaucrats respond to only one pressure: the threat of a budget cut. Because modern politics is all about increasing the budgets of bureaucracies, there is no believable threat facing the bureaucrats with the guns.
Gary North answers the vote or die crowd and all the folks who like to get on me when I tell them that I won't waste my time voting.
They ask themselves: "Why bother to vote?"
The answer is not what we are told in high school, let alone college: voting is a religious act. This was understood by the ancient Greeks, who regarded political life as central to religious life. But in a society that promotes the separation of church and state in the name of the separation of religion and politics, it is not politically correct to admit the truth, namely, that exercising the franchise is an act of promoting one’s religion, i.e., one’s worldview. It means picking up a ballot instead of a gun, so that people you approve of will possess the lawful authority to pick up a gun in your name.
This is what politics is: the right to decide who picks up a government-provided gun and then tells other people what to do or not do. We can fool ourselves as voters by refusing to admit this, but when push comes to shove, and political issues seem to be life-and-death issues, we go out and use our ballots to make sure that "our guys" have control of the guns.
So, the name of the political game today is two-fold: (1) to distract voters’ attention from the hard reality of politics, namely, that it’s all about who controls the biggest guns; (2) to convince swing voters that the party’s program is best for them, which really means that the party’s appointees can be trusted with the guns. No candidate is willing to admit in public that he and his agents intend to stick guns in the bellies of the political losers, but this really is the plan. When a politician says "Trust me," he means, "Trust me to use the gun on that guy over there, not you." He’s lying, of course. He intends to stick the gun in your belly, too.
Voters are beginning to figure out that the guns will be used on them, no matter who is elected, and there’s not much they can do about this. How does a patriot act today? He takes off his shoes before boarding a plane. "Your photo ID, please."
The bureaucracy holds the guns, and no President can do much, one way or the other, to prevent the bureaucrats from using these guns in a way that is convenient to them. The system is too large to control. Bureaucrats respond to only one pressure: the threat of a budget cut. Because modern politics is all about increasing the budgets of bureaucracies, there is no believable threat facing the bureaucrats with the guns.
posted by Champion at 11:42 PM
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