|
|
Freedom Book of the Month for July, 2001:
Dissenting Electorate: Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of Their Opposition
edited by Carl Watner and Wendy McElroy, McFarland 2001, paperback, 135 pp.
I vote. Sometimes I do so gladly, believing that I will make a difference; and sometimes I do so with a sense of resignation, believing only that I have a responsibility to stay in the game and fight to the bitter end for what I believe. "Dissenting Electorate" is an enlightening collection of material defending an alternate course, that of refusing to participate in a process which legitimizes that which we oppose.
The issue is not new, of course. Since the franchise was created, debate has raged about the obligations voting imposes. Is the losing side bound to abide by the outcome? Are the non-voters bound by the will of the voters? Who came up with this nose-counting scenario anyway?
Carl Watner and Wendy McElroy are voluntaryists: they reject electoral politics as incompatible with libertarian principle. Voting, according to the voluntaryist idea, gives government an undeserved mantle of legitimacy, and the proper approach is to forego even the tacit cooperation with, or approval of, the state implied by participating in its elections.
In "Dissenting Electorate," Watner and McElroy distill 150 years of thought on the subject, from the 19th century writings of Lysander Spooner, Herbert Spencer and Adin Ballou down to the latest libertarian debates.
The argument is compelling: "In all conscience, is it not better for us even to bear the nearly unbearable ills afflicted upon us by the laws already made ... than suffer ourselves to be made over into such grotesque and horrible shapes as a new set of lawmakers would make us into, if we suffer them to try their powers upon us?" asks Lysander Spooner in "Against Woman Suffrage."
Or, as Ed Crane said in his response to last November's survey of how prominent libertarians voted, "It only encourages them."
Among the most interesting and revealing items in the book is a table analyzing the U.S. presidential vote from 1920 to 1996. During that time, no elected American president entered office with as many votes as were cast, so to speak, for "None of the Above" -- by registered voters who simply did not go to the polls.
"Dissenting Electorate" is sure to raise questions that are not easily answered, and to provoke new thoughts as to how freedom might be secured -- and how it will not be.
Click here to order "Dissenting Electorate" from Laissez Faire Books for $24.95.
Visit the Voluntaryist Site.
edited by Thomas L. Knapp
May 2001: Lever Action by L. Neil Smith
April 2001: The Cato Handbook for Congressfrom the Cato Institute
March 2001: The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley
February 2001: Crypto by Steven Levy
January 2001: Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Freedom Book of the Year 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
December 2000: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
November 2000: Escape from Leviathan by J.C. Lester
October 2000: The Art of Political War by David Horowitz
September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justin Raimondo
August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell
July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
|
|