I don’t believe in the system. I don’t believe politicians are in any way concerned with the people. It’s all about pushing their own agenda, swaying the masses with words, sometimes soothing, sometimes inflammatory but always only laced with truth.

Every fiber of my being screams that they will do what they want, whenever they want regardless of the will of the people. They want us to be caught up in the frenzy, and the hazy comfort of “patriotism” and “civic pride”.

Do the best you can, treat others with respect, try to bless, not harm, and live your life right now. 1,000 presidents can not give that to you. A million politicians will never be organized or respectful enough to give that to you. You must create it yourself.

Prof. Boudreaux does not refuse to participate in politics; he refuses to vote. The two are far from the same thing.

In addition to all the excellent reasons Prof. Boudreaux doesn’t vote, I’ll add another. Voting adds one’s consent and affirmation to the practice of one set of people compelling another set of people.

Compelling another person, either by forced or deceit, is immoral. In fact, it’s the only thing that is immoral. An institution of voting that does not require unanimous consent to justify action is simply immoral.

To paraphrase the professor in Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” under what conditions do two people (or 20 million people) have warrant to do to another that which all agree one person has no right to do to another? Majority rule voting does not provide such warrant, to be sure.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” -Plato. Permissum is exsisto sic.

Your choice. Apathy is no substitute for industry. But, you have fun with it, anyway, Cupcake.

Logically, however, if everyone did not vote, no one would get elected, no propositions would receive a majority vote, and we’d have a series of lawsuits (wild, wild waves of them, enough to keep Wolf Blitzer busy for weeks) to try to settle election outcomes in courts. Challenger Smith could argue that incumbent Jones is not entitled to retain his elected position because nobody voted for him. Doesn’t matter that Smith can’t claim to have won anything, only that neither can Jones. Legislatures would have to write emergency laws or some collusion of legislature and court would require a special election — in which, according to your hypothetical, no one actually would vote.

I suspect that there would be a lot of screaming and fist-waving, but that when the dust settled, everything would continue as is, or — even better — everything would halt in an absurd gridlock where government gets nothing done. That sounds like a fantastic outcome, if you ask me. The government that does nothing is preferable to the government that chronically accrues and abuses power.