[Note: This article was first published on September 15, 2022 at Poor Roger’s Almanac.]

The 2022 mid-term elections are rapidly approaching–Election Day, November 08, is only seven weeks away. Everything I see and hear tells me that the politicians who want to be elected (and those who want to see them elected) are doing everything possible to draw attention to themselves (or their favorite candidate). Where else would someone spend a gazillion bucks to land a position which pays a paltry few hundred thousand? If they were in business to make a profit, they would not, but hey, since the campaign is financed by donations and otherwise free money, what the heck? If I was not so committed toward improving my own flawed character, I might even give it a try. As it is, not likely to happen.

Nevertheless, the pressure is on to Get out the Vote so that “our” candidate can win. Of course, we all know that if “our” candidate wins, then all of our troubles will be over, or at least minimized and smoothed over. That is, until the next election when “their” candidate wins and reverses all the gains made. It is a constant, never-ending, see-saw battle between “us” and “them”. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but over the long run, it works out about even. Right?

Of course, right! If you can be convinced that is true, then I want you to call me. I have a bridge for sale at a rock-bottom price.

Fact is, over the last 241+ years since the end of the War of Independence, we have been electing men and women to political office and the growth of government has been on an ever-increasing upward trajectory–gradually at first, but explosive recently. This is like Hemingway’s description of going bankrupt. –“Gradually, then suddenly.” Funny thing, though, it has not made any difference whether one party or another, one ideology or its opposite, one viewpoint or a dissenting one has been in power, the growth of government has been relentless…and we have voted religiously in every election to make sure that it continued that way.

What is voting? Why is it seen as a cure-all panacea for whatever ails society? Most people would probably view it as a means to produce “leaders” who would do what is best for the society, the common good. They would probably insist that they are not thinking selfishly when they pull the handle in the voting booth, but are concerned only with the general health of the group. Yet, deep down, if you could back them into a corner and force them to be honest with themselves, they would probably admit that they voted for a certain candidate in order to make some people, other people, those people, live and act the way that they wanted. In other words, a power grab by proxy. “If I cannot make someone else live the way I want by myself, I will get someone else who is bigger and stronger than I am to enforce my will.”

Right? You have got to be kidding! Are you actually serious?? You must be mad!!!

Voting for a candidate is an endorsement of his/her positions. If a preferred candidate wins and begins to implement policy, then everyone who voted for (endorsed) that candidate holds a percentage of the responsibility for those policies implemented by said office-holder. It does not matter if you agree with the policies or not. If you voted and your candidate won, then you are at least partly responsible for whatever happens after the Oath of Office is taken.

We all know that circuses campaigns are a matter of public record to convince the audience electorate to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. In the case where more than two are competing, this would become the “least of all the evils”. Regardless as to who wins, voting for the least evil in a crowd of evil persons is guaranteeing that an evil person will wind up sitting in the Chair of Power, at whatever level from very local all the way to the White House. We all know this, yet somehow we cannot figure out that the only way to avoid electing an evil person to office is to refuse to vote.

The only way to win the game is to not play at all.

Considering that the government we chose for ourselves is now focused on completely destroying any vestige of individual liberty in the pursuit of total control and power, condemning us to a lifetime of servitude, one thing we can do in opposition is to refuse to lend our support to the system by endorsing it with a vote of confidence. Do not vote. It encourages them.

Voting is nothing more than choosing whose hand holds the club with which you are beaten.