A post-election analysis and thoughts on where we go from here.

The best thing about this week is that the political circus we know as election season is finally over! I’m not sure the election itself provides us with very much new information. There was plenty to be concerned about long before this election, and there is still plenty to be concerned about now.

Obama’s reelection is not the end of the world. I do not think Romney would have been the savior (or the end of the world either, depending on how you feel about Romney). The federal government went over the fiscal cliff a long time ago. The debates in Washington DC right now are political theater. The major parties will compromise at the last minute, and the American people will be all the worse off for it.

The economy will continue to stagnate because of the failed, bi-partisan supported, Keynesian economic policies of the federal government. There is no way that the US government can make good on all of its future promises. The current obligations of the US government exceed the amount of wealth in the entire world, and Washington DC will not cut spending until they are forced to do so.

The US government will continue to police the world. They will continue to bomb innocent civilians overseas. They will continue to impose sanctions. They will continue to start new wars.

Our domestic liberties (or at least what’s left of them) will continue to be trampled under the bi-partisan boots of the increasingly nationalized police-state.

We will survive four more years of Barack Obama. We would have survived four years of Romney. I think economic life will be more difficult now that Obamacare becomes permanently entrenched in the economy. The costs of these programs will soar just like the costs of Medicare and Medicaid have done over the years. Health care will become more expense and harder to access. Everyone’s taxes will be increased. Unemployment will remain high. I am worried about who Obama might appoint to the Supreme Court during his term. I'd also be worried about who Romney would have appointed. I am worried that Obama’s divisive class-warfare rhetoric will continue to distract from the real issues.

All that said, the American people have survived much worse in our brief history. We will survive this.

After really thinking about it, I’m not so much worried about the damage that these policies or these politicians will do. The politicians themselves are a symptom of a much greater problem. I am much more worried about the sustainability of a society of people that would elect these politicians and support these policies. We will have a difficult time surviving as even moderately free people if the prevailing ideological climate is one that is conducive to electing a Barack Obama and (maybe even worse) thinking that a Mitt Romney is actually an alternative to a Barack Obama.

As Monica Perez points out, “Regardless of the labels, from top to bottom, the right now merely offers a different flavor of statism from the left’s, not an alternative to statism itself. What’s worse is that while not providing an alternative to statism, the New Right purposely displaces those who would.”

The Republican establishment has been a failure because they try to secure the power of government to push their own agenda instead of offering a principled alternative to big-government. The Republican establishment today is essentially the right side of the left when it comes to economic policy. They support the same welfare-state policies of the left. They support the economic central planning of the left. This is a strategic mistake because they will never be able to sell socialism better than the socialists. Furthermore, the Republican establishment loses even more support with their constant desire to “morally legislate” people’s private behavior. Across the board the Republican establishment has failed to offer an alternative to the big-government statism of the Democrat establishment. They have actually been extremely hostile to anyone advocating a consistent message of liberty.

I do think this election cycle has helped to more clearly draw the line in the sand. On one side we have people who want individual liberty. On the other side, we have the big-government establishment of the Republican and Democrat parties. It is a battle between "the makers" and "the takers". This battle transcends party affiliation, it transcends income, it transcends race, and it transcends age.

The ideological battle is between the peaceful, productive members of society and those that want to live by looting the people who produce. It is a battle between people who believe in freedom of association when it comes to business dealings and romantic involvements against those big-government statists who want to control who we can interact with and how.

The battle is educational. Government reflects the will of the people. As long as people demand or even merely acquiesce to bigger government, they are going to get it. It is the tendency of the state to grow to the maximum size tolerated by the oppressed.

This battle is not won or lost in the voting booth. The leg work has to be done 365 days a year. We need to make sure people understand what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against. We need to educate people about the principles of liberty and sound economics. Our solutions will not come through politics. The solutions will come by helping people to wake up and realize that politics is the problem.

I share the sentiments of economist Robert Murphy when he says, “Whatever you think the best strategy is for gaining liberty, a necessary ingredient is an educated population. So that’s why I focus my efforts on writing articles, rather than pulling a lever in a symbolic ritual setup by the government to fool people into thinking they are free.”

If Romney and Obama were our only two options, we'd be toast.  However, those are not our only two options. My job is to help pull the curtain back so you can see that the wizard isn't really a wizard at all. We have the ability to choose freedom.

"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else."  - Frederic Bastiat

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle
                                                                                             

p.s.  If it makes you feel any better, your vote did not have any impact on determining the winner of the presidential election. See my article last week for more detail, but the crux of the argument is essentially the following:

• My vote will matter in determining the winner if, and only if, it is the tie-breaking vote.
• My vote will not be the tie-breaking vote.
• Therefore, my vote will not matter in determining the winner*.

*Unless you can show that it is reasonably possible that my vote will be the tie-breaker, the conclusion seems to hold that my vote did not matter in determining the winner.  

We have all heard the gospel from the preachers of civic religion: “It’s your duty to vote!” “People died for your right to vote!” “If you don’t vote you can’t complain!” From an early age we are taught that one of the fundamental responsibilities of a good citizen is to vote. Every vote counts. Your vote matters. According to TrueTheVote.org, “You could be the difference between a winner and a loser for your party, your ideology, even your pocketbook on tax levies. Go register and go vote. Don’t let this important duty escape your attention.”

Many have even gone so far as to say this is the most important election in our nation’s history. Well, since the predominant view in our society is that voting is a sacrosanct responsibility not to be taken lightly, I figured that the least we could all do is go into Election Day 2012 as informed voters.

A fair warning: The following ideas may be regarded by some as heresy. However, for the open minded, I expect this will serve well as an engaging exercise in critical thinking. My purpose here is not to tell you how to vote. I am merely explaining the facts of reality and letting you choose your own adventure from there.

Understand Your Reason for Voting

More often than not, the reasons people give for why they vote (and why everyone should vote) are based on factual errors and flawed logic. Perhaps there are good reasons for voting. We will get to those momentarily, but first I want to rip the proverbial “Band-Aid” right off and explain why one popular reason for voting is mistaken. If you think your vote has any influence on who will win the 2012 presidential election, you are wrong. Your vote will have absolutely, positively zero impact on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.

I do not mean that your vote counts only a very small amount, like a grain of sand on the beach. I do not mean that the election is rigged. I do not even mean that the voting machines will malfunction. I mean that your vote will be counted, and it will literally not have ANY impact in determining who wins the election. None.

Here’s why: For your vote to “make a difference” in the 2012 presidential election results, you would have to be voting in the one and only state that had enough electoral votes to swing the election to either Romney or Obama. Additionally, the popular vote in your state would have to be decided by a single vote. If, and only if, your state is decided by a single vote and your vote is the tie-breaker will your vote have any impact on the election outcome. We can safely say the odds of that happening are statistically close enough to zero to be called zero for all practical purposes. No presidential election has ever been decided by one vote, nor will it ever be.

Some might argue that the example of Florida in 2000 highlights the importance of your single vote. In fact, it shows the opposite. Not only are the odds infinitesimally small that there will ever be an exact tie, but even when elections get remotely close like they did in the 2000, the decision was quickly taken out of the hands of the voters and put into the government courts.

Again, there may be reasons for voting, but thinking that your vote will have any influence on the outcome of this presidential election should not be one of them. It doesn't. Zero. Zip. Your vote will not make a difference in determining the presidential election outcome. Not in this election, not ever.

“But I have to vote for Romney because we can’t survive another four years of Obama.” – Your vote will not matter in determining who will win.

“I have to vote for Obama because Romney is just terrible.” – Your vote will not matter in determining who will win.

“I can’t waste my vote on a third party.” – Guess what? Your vote will not matter in determining who will win.

Hopefully you are starting to get the idea.

Whether or not you vote for Romney or Obama or anyone else for that matter has absolutely zero impact on who will win the 2012 presidential election. Your thinking there is a chance you will have even the smallest fraction of an impact on the results is a mistake.

However, just because your vote will have zero impact on determining who will win the election, it does not follow that your vote is meaningless. It just means you need to have a better reason for voting than naively thinking your vote will make a difference as to who will win.

Take a moment to think of a few reasons why think you should or shouldn’t vote. Remember, don’t include anything like “because I want candidate X to win”. We just illustrated why that is not good reasoning.

Understand the Costs and Benefits of Voting

As Bryan Caplan notes, voting is a lot like watching your favorite sports team on the television from your basement. Your participation doesn’t have any influence on the winner of the game, but one of the main payoffs for voting, besides any entertainment value you derive from the process, is that you get to tell everybody that you did it. Voting is probably best understood as an expressive act. By selecting your candidate's name at the ballot box and then telling everyone about it, you get to communicate to others who you are and what you stand for. You get to feel like you are a part of the process, a part of something bigger than yourself.

Of course, since your vote will have zero impact on who wins the 2012 presidential election, you should not include any expected costs or benefits of the next administration's policies in your own personal cost/benefit analysis of deciding whether or not to vote.

For example, you would never watch the 49ers game expecting that your act of watching will have any impact on whether or not they win. However, you may watch because you are emotionally invested in the outcome, for whatever reason. Similarly, you might get real psychological benefits from voting. You might enjoy the entertainment value of educating yourself about the issues and candidates. Maybe voting provides you with an opportunity to express yourself emotionally.

You just have to decide for yourself if those benefits are worth the costs associated with voting. While you don’t have to pay money at the voting booth, the cost of voting includes the time and resources it takes to become informed, register to vote, travel to the polls, and stand in line, etc… as measured by the loss other productive activities you could have been doing with your time and energy.

For Whom Should I Vote?

Now that you’ve taken time to think about whether or not voting is worth your time and energy relative to the other productive activities you could be doing, let’s explore the four options available to you in the 2012 presidential election:

1)     Vote for Obama
2)     Vote for Romney
3)     Vote for Other
4)     Vote by Not Voting

It is already a foregone conclusion that either Obama or Romney will win. Regardless of who secures the crown on November 6th, it is certain that we will get four more years of wars, several trillion in additional debt, a continuously devalued currency, and more egregious violations of basic civil liberties. It will be this way whether you vote for Romney, Obama, Other, or None of the Above. Remember, your vote will have absolutely, positively no impact on determining the winner. Not even a little bit.

However, your vote on Election Day may be important as an expressive act. It communicates what you stand for. You should vote for your principles. It will be counted as part of the aggregate to communicate a message. A vote for either 1) Obama or 2) Romney says that you support the ever-expansive leviathan we call the federal government. It signals that you support the status quo that is this corrupt and illegitimate political system.

If you actually stand with Romney or Obama on principle, then by all means, express your values accordingly. We are going to get Romney or Obama either way, and your vote will not impact who wins. But you have to decide if you really want to say that you were one of the ones who voted for four more years of bad government? Is that what you want to celebrate?

For anyone who cares about individual liberty, and thinks they are supporting liberty by voting for the lesser of two evils, a vote for either Obama or Romney is worse than a wasted vote.  As I have shown in detail, your vote will only impact who wins in the case of a tie, and a tie will never occur. However, a vote for Obama or Romney, even if it is a vote for the lesser of two evils, is still a vote for evil in the aggregate. You won’t impact who will win, but you will send the signal that you support this broken, exploitative system as is. Your voting decision in the presidential election should not come down to voting for the lesser of two evils. You have the very real option not to support evil.

For anyone concerned about advancing liberty, we are left with only two options in the 2012 presidential election: 3) Vote for Other or 4) Vote by Not Voting.

Not voting in the presidential election is a perfectly reasonable position for most people to take. Perhaps you are concerned about the legitimacy of the political system and wish to withhold your consent. Maybe, you correctly understand that even when you vote for a particular candidate, there is no way to be sure that you get what you voted for, so why bother. It may be you find it strange that elections always come down to the “choice” between establishment candidates Big Government A or Big Government B. Perhaps, like many advocates for liberty who take seriously the idea that we should not initiate force against other people, you have a fundamental problem voting for someone to rule over others. There are plenty of strong practical and moral arguments that it is wrong to vote.

If you really want to go to the polls and vote, consider voting for a 3rd party or write-in. The game is different. These candidates have no chance of winning. You can go in knowing, correctly, that your vote will not matter in determining the outcome of the winner. But, in aggregate, if a 3rd party can get 5% of the popular vote, that does make a real difference for funding and ballot access. It can change the public discussion. Furthermore, if the winners of the presidential election start winning with less and less support, it may draw appropriate attention to the corrupt structure of our inherentlypolitical system.

In closing, although your individual vote is completely and totally meaningless in terms of having any impact on who will win the presidential election, it may very well count for other reasons. I do not write all of this to imply we should do nothing and give up. Quite the opposite! I suggest that potential voters merely understand their reasons for voting or not voting. We should better understand the costs and benefits of voting, and we should at least question how much we really think we are “participating” in this political system.

How should an informed voter vote? After reading this, you are now more informed than most. The decision is up to you.

Next week, I will talk about how we can use our resources to influence change in ways that are more productive than simply casting a ballot every couple of years.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

I was recently asked: “What are the foundations of a free society?”

Here is my brief answer:

The foundation of a free society is a reason-based philosophy of liberty. By applying the concepts of an objectively determined morality, using the individual’s life as the ultimate standard of value, we are able to understand the concept of individual rights. Every person has a right to his or her own life. A right is freedom to act, not freedom to have any object unearned. Moreover, a right is a freedom from coercion, not a positive obligation or a claim upon the life of another. The right to life is the fundamental right from which all other rights are derived.

Since individual effort is required to sustain life, a right to life necessitates individuals are free to voluntarily act based on their own judgment and choices and to keep and dispose of the products of their individual physical and mental labor. From this we are able to deduce the right to justly-acquired property and the right to engage in voluntary exchange.

The right to self-defense is a necessary corollary to the right to life and the right to property. Every person has the right to defend his or her life, liberty, and justly-earned property. Just as the individual has the right to defend his or her own life, people have the right to voluntarily organize in order to protect their rights. The protection of individuals against the initiation of force by aggressors is the only role of any ‘protective institution’ in a free society.

The rational means by which to determine if an action should or should not be deterred by lawful force is to assess the action in terms of whether or not the action violates the individual rights of another. A society must operate under the rule of law if it is to remain free. Objective laws compatible with human rights are the only just laws, and the defense of individual rights is the fundamental principle of a proper legal system.

Finally, it must be noted that the conditions necessary to create and maintain a free society do not come about automatically. If a reason-based philosophy of liberty is the foundation of a free society, the concepts of individual rights briefly discussed above may be thought of as the pillars. However, neither the foundation nor the pillars of a free society can be constructed without individual members taking the initiative to educate themselves about the requirements of liberty. The mortar that holds the structure of a free society together must necessarily include the virtues of individual responsibility, honesty, integrity, and self-esteem.

A society well-educated in these fundamental principles will not be easily shaken by the seductive temptation of using political, coercive means to obtain short-term gain at the expense of others. Ultimately, a free society rests on the shoulders of individuals of exceptional character who take on the responsibility to understand the philosophy of liberty, share this message with others, and lead by example.

And isn't freedom what makes life worth living?

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

The material luxuries and basic civil liberties we enjoy as Americans did not always exist in abundance (and still do not exist for most people in the world today). The freedoms we take for granted and the copious wealth to which many of us now feel a strong sense of entitlement are the direct results of a society that held great respect for property rights and the rule of law. The basic concept is the idea that men and women do not exist for the purpose of serving as tools for other people to use as they see fit. This seems to be a very simple concept, but I will repeat it again for emphasis. Men and women do not exist to serve as tools for other people.

Let's think about it another way. Is the purpose of any one person’s existence – their reason for having life on earth - is it to be a servant for another? Does he or she live only by the permission of others? I like to think most Americans would say, NO! 

Sometimes it is a useful exercise to step outside of yourself and imagine life in another country...or even a past century. Imagine how people in North Korea might answer. Imagine how someone living 250 years ago (anywhere in the world) might have answered that question. In those societies it was and is accepted as inevitable that the purpose of certain human life is to serve the will of the ruling class. Many of these people may not even be able to imagine what it is like to be free.

Today we all agree that slavery is evil. The thought of forcing someone to work under threat of physical harm is outrageous, but the concept of individual human rights is actually a very recent development in the span of human history. It is so new that it is still not widely understood.

What can we learn about the struggle to abolish slavery? We learn that it didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen until the ideological foundation was sufficient to support such a drastic societal change. For thousands of years, slavery was an accepted institution in most all cultures. It was only with the discovery of the concept of human rights that the ideological shift began to allow for the permanent abolishing of this gruesome practice from civil society.

In thinking about slavery, and why it is bad, people also start thinking about liberty, and why it is good. By working to end slavery, the classical liberal thinkers began to make the positive case for liberty.

Below is an excerpt from a recent article by Edward Stringham and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel titled First, Ideological Change; Second, Social Change

"Perhaps one of the most stunning historical changes to result from an underlying ideological change in people's preferences was the abolition of chattel slavery. Slavery had been a source of forced labor since the dawn of civilization. People had owned slaves on every continent and for every conceivable task. Slavery, along with such other forms of unfree or quasifree labor as serfdom, debt bondage, involuntary apprenticeship, and indentured servitude, was the unenviable status of most humans prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Although no one liked being a slave, the institution was universally accepted as inevitable if not desirable until the first stirrings of antislavery fervor emerged in the late 18th century. Today, in contrast, we live in a world where the freedom to quit a job at will has become the accepted standard. Slavery may still persist clandestinely, but no ruler, no matter how vile or ruthless, would dare get up and publicly endorse owning another human being.

The abolitionist movement, despite beginning as a minuscule minority in most countries, eliminated in a little over a century a labor system that had been ubiquitous for millennia....The abolition of chattel slavery thus stands as the most impressive and enduring of all of classical liberalism's triumphs."

Read more of from this article, First, Ideological Change; Second, Social Change at Mises.org

For centuries, chattel slavery was popularly accepted in most all societies as inevitable. Similarly, in our society today, we accept the violations of a coercive central government as inevitable. We accept income tax as inevitable. We accept a despotic Federal government that passes new legislation that diminishes individual liberty and encroaches on individual human rights on a daily basis as inevitable.

Rule by a coercive, despotic central government is not inevitable. For the same reason slavery is wrong, our current system of government is wrong. People do not live by permission of government or society. It is immoral to use the force of a central agency to make people work for the benefit of another group. Yet, this is the system most people in the US accept and promote today. We don't like to think of it that way, but that is exactly what it is.

All too often we repeat the slogans and catchphrases of the past without a second thought. It is sometimes helpful to step back and break the bonds of limited thinking. It is then that the real issues and the real solutions become much clearer. Just look at any of the legislation that has come out of Washington in the past 80 years. Most all of it is a strict violation of the principle of human rights.

In short, every man and woman has a right to live their life. When this concept is fully understood we can begin to move toward a free society. And it is then, when the ideological shift occurs, the necessary societal changes will become as obvious to future generations as the rejection of slavery is to us today.

I am optimistic liberty will prevail because liberty is right. It is moral. It is good.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle