Tommy "The Purchase" on Nostr: Lately I've been thinking about the act of voting and its moral implications - both ...

Lately I've been thinking about the act of voting and its moral implications - both real and imagined.

There is the perspective that if the guards ask you and your fellow inmates how the labour camp should be run and hint that if enough of you answer in the same manner, things might actually change, it's a chance worth taking. In a very Realpolitik type of way I'd be inclined to agree but from a more principled and removed stance, I've come to think that, in every imaginable scenario, voting is either ill advised or morally wrong.

I'll start with the - speaking from personal experience - most realistic state of affairs surrounding an election: That which is known as a controlled democracy or competitive authoritarianism, where elections are held as a smoke screen to convey some form of made-up legitimacy and to avoid invasion by other governments in order to "spread democracy" but where there is ultimately consensus about the most central issues between all parties and no fundamental change could be enacted no matter how many people voted for it.

In such a system, voting for (one of) the status quo party (parties) signals that you agree with the perpetual suppression of the regime's political opponents (who in almost all countries are, of course, forbidden from seceeding under threat of being prosecuted as traitors).
Now, voting against the status quo is either brave or silly, as increased public support will likely lead to ever more deranged attempts by the current rulers to cling to power by means of hindering the party or parties trying to bring about meaningful change or by demoralizing or criminalizing the latter's voters - to which group most people would rather not belong since the fight for change is hard to fight when you're in prison.

But even disregarding the sorry state our world is in, I fail to find social or moral good in voting in a more ideal scenario in which the will of the people is enacted swiftly and precisely. Voting for change and losing the election still means you willingly partake in the system and play by its rules, giving up your freedom to be ruled by the whims of people you have likely never met while allowing other people to be treated in the same manner.

The "big one", of course, is voting for something and actually getting what you want - something I have naturally never experienced - and it creates perhaps the biggest problem of all: You have successfully forced your will and your agenda onto people who by not abiding by your rules most likely would not have made your life worse in any way. You accept a bureaucratic apparatus threatening or using violence to make strangers and friends alike change their habits and plans, perhaps lose their livelihoods, but in any case reduce their freedom.

I have, in the past, justified my participation in elections by telling myself that I am voting for someone who claims to want to bring about more freedom for everyone but even that, in a twisted way, appears to be a form of coercion since many people seem to enjoy being boxed in and held like cattle without any agency over their own lives.

In summary, at least for the moment, I think secession of ever smaller areas from what we currently know as countries, perhaps down to a stateless society of sovereign estates or families, is the only way to be able to fully live according to your own principles while respecting other people's desires for different lifestyles.