We’ve heard our whole lives that voting is one of our most precious privileges as citizens of the United States. It has taken thousands of years for something like a democratic republic to be formed with the intention of allowing the governed to have some say in the actions of the government. We’ve been told that if we don’t vote, we have no right to complain when the government treats us unfairly or even when some unregulated behaviors of other people upset us. This is the core of the issue.

If we think about what government is, we conclude that it is the de jure monopoly on the initiation of force. That is to say that only the government (police officers, politicians, individuals with permits, etc.) can threaten you with guns or imprisonment for not doing what they tell you to do. This means that the process of voting is the same as electing people to have control over this monopoly. These people all come with promises of how they will force someone somewhere to do something they don’t want to do even if what that person was already doing was peaceful and victimless.

For example, some politicians want to continue bans on nonviolent use of marijuana. Others want to continue killing people in other countries that pose no imminent threat to the U.S. Others want to force business owners to hire certain people based on qualities other than skill or personality or whatever other traits the owner should be at liberty to determine will lead to the success (or failure if they’re wrong) of their business. 

This leads me to the conclusion that voting a politician into power — any politician — is the exact same as asking someone who is legally allowed to intimidate people (with the threat of police violence and/or imprisonment) to force your fellow Americans to behave in ways that you have deemed preferable. This is called coercion. The saddest part is that most of us think that by asking politicians to do it for us, we are somehow excused from their actions. 

Eric Garner, to bring up an example that is still fresh in everyone’s memory, died as a result of police enforcing a law that banned the selling of untaxed cigarettes. You may blame the man for breaking the law, but he wasn’t hurting anyone, so the police should not have had the right to initiate force in the first place. You may blame the police, or the governor of New York or even the state legislature. But some blame must go toward the people who voted the politicians into power — politicians who passed an unjust law that prompted obligatory, violent enforcement of said law that resulted in the death of a peacefully acting man.

This is only one example of how compliance with the legislative process and law enforcement places the blame on you, the governed. Personally, I will abstain from voting unless I’m given the opportunity to vote for repealing some existing, unjust law. As far as voting for the next person to come to power in the government, I will no longer take part in that system.

You may say that I forfeit my right to complain about the government if I don’t voice my opinion with a vote. This is ludicrous. If I choose to say, “I don’t approve of how that person behaves, but since he isn’t hurting anyone, I’m not going to threaten him in order to change his behavior, because that would be wrong,” do I forfeit my “privilege” to point out injustice by responsibly and morally choosing not to vote? Should I be forced to flee my country as a refugee to some God-forsaken island because my government is a whimsical, authoritarian regime regardless of who is in power? Of course I shouldn’t. 

I will stay here and continue to speak out against the institutions and processes by which we continue to sell off our own liberties and those of future generations. I know feeling like you have some say in the government may be important to you, so please take the time to consider the arguments presented here. I hope you all can find it within yourselves to stop using the force of government to mold society in the ways you prefer. If you want change, put your arguments on the free market of ideas and see what happens. Good ideas can go a long way.