The Daily Owl, Ep. 10: No, Voting Is Not "Violence," But It Is Usually Pretty Damn Despicable
Yo! Back again! Episode 10!
Voting is not violence. It is however, a practice that can never bring about lasting liberty, and which is used to "legitimize" and promote immoral actions and violence.
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~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DLive and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
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Voting is also a ritual wherein you give your energy and power to someone else, to charge them with your power at a pole to give your volt.
I will disagree. I think that the perpetrator of violence as well as the people giving the orders are both involved in violence. For example if there is a war, all the violence is committed by the soldiers. But the planners have as much of an impact.
Let me give another example. In a company all the physical work is done by the workers. While the boss does not commit direct work to the product, the planning is essential to the operation and there is a an adequate free market pay for the boss. In fact, the revenue structure of the company reveals how important every role was to creating the final product and the boss usually takes a solid chunk of the profit and therefore also contributes a significant part to the final product.
For soldiers and generals, we dont have free markets to determine who is responsible to what degree, but I think that a similar guideline may be applied. The planning of the generals adds an important part to the committed violence and thus generals are to be held responsible even if the commit no direct physical violence.
The same principle I would uphold in general. The voters are in fact
"shareholders" of the state and are to some degree responsible for state violence. So I will conclude that voting=violence.
Then how to deal with violence is another question. A defensive reaction has to be proportional and suitable to stop the violence. Killing a voter is neither proportional nor suitable as a method of self-defence. Blockading voting stands should there be enough people willing to do that might be proportional and efficient.
I won't vote, for I believe that it would be a violent act for me to do so. So I agree with the voting is violence. But ONLY for myself. I try to get more people to see it this way for themselves but they can only voluntarily choose to do so......I think.
I'd like to add that I believe it's a philosophical war (imHo) that questioning the voters or go into conversation with them ( in the Kal Molinet/ candles in the dark and other ways)might have better results than just blocking them.
To say it in another way. I believe with standing for the cults building and blocking their way,( without further conversation) the cult members won't give up their faith they might even become more fundamentalist, since most cult's warn their members for that their surroundings (family friends and others) may protest and that that is a sign that the cult, or the cult member is right, or on the right path.
I realize this is only about the "how to do it" and in no way I want to stop you from potentially blocking voters. For it might work just fine for getting people out of that hideous cult.
Peace :)
I actually do not intend to block any voters, I was only searching for a type of violence that might be justified to protect against voters in self-defence.
I completely agree with you that the better solution would be a shift in culture by helping people question the nature of governance. This is also a completely non-violent approach and therefore does not require any justification.
Yeah I got that out of your reply..I used your reply a bit to elaborate on methods, I knew I drifted a bit off ;)
I addressed in the video that sometimes this is the case. You should watch it.
That said, if someone tells you to kill someone, and you do it, it is ultimately your responsibility for committing the action. If we accept individual self-ownership, we cannot blame others for our choices. If violence is employed by the commander to coerce the order follower into the murderous action, then both parties become guilty.
In order for something to be “violent” an actual violation is required. This is clear. In order then for a violation to have occurred, property or body must be violated. This does not occur simply by virtue of the act of casting a ballot.
Definitions must remain clear. Each individual is solely responsible for his or her own voluntary actions when it comes to legal and reality-based culpability.
I did watch the video. I think your example is not covering what I am saying.
We need to define what is aggression. You use a definition where only the actual (final) violation of rights is seen as aggression. This definition is very clear, but has the big flaw that it gives zero responsibility to the masterminds of the operation, for example a mafiaboss.
Instead I use a causal definition, where actions are judged by their outcomes, following the chain of events that finally lead to a violation of rights. In that definition, the mafiaboss is responsible for all the violence that is committed in his name, even when he does not use violence himself to keep his mob under control.
Or consider someone hiring an assassin with money. Both definitions agree that the assassin is committing violence. But I would state that the person hiring the assassin is also committing a violent action because paying the assassin directly (and causally) leads to violence.
The big problem of my definition is that it is not easy to measure and not always clear.
This I would argue does not depend on the definition of violence. In both cases this statement remains true.
“Casual definitions” potentiate violent conflict when it comes to property, in many cases. Norms are important, irrespective of biased and personal “casual definitions.”
The person hiring an assassin to kill an innocent individual is certainly an unsavory and evil character. However, it is still the assassin’s choice.
If someone tells you to kill someone, and you listen, and do it, it is your fault, and your crime, regardless of the horrible advice or request. This is the crux of individual self-ownership, the foundation of voluntaryism. Do you disagree?
I agree that you are completely responsible for your actions.
That means that the assassin is responsible for killing the victim and the client is responsible for hiring the assassin.
The question is what gets labeled as violence, crime or immoral. And that depends on the definitions. I can see the point for your definition.
In the end it is just about the words, but when we say that violence justices a violent response in self-defence, then definitions become important.
I would argue that I have a right to defend against people paying others to kill me, even if that involves violence given that it is suitable to protect me and proportional. If I can save myself buy killing the person paying the assassin before the assassin gets me, then I have a right to do that.
Or consider a much more extreme case. Do I have a right to assassinate Hitler to protect myself from the continued violence of the nazi state? Hitler himself did not physically violate many other people, but he was responsible for a huge amount of violence. I would argue that you may act in self-defence in this case.
In the case of violence, for voluntaryists, it’s easy. Violence is a violation of property.
Interesting example regarding Hitler. If he presented an imminent threat to your body and property, then yes. I’d say it would be acting in self-defense to kill him. Again, though, I’ve already been over this. Voting is not the same as said imminent threat. If voting is violence, is could be considered “self-defense” for you to shoot up the entire polling center. Would that massacre be “self-defense”?
Of course not. Because you and I both know the action of voting in and of itself is not intrinsically violent. Hitler, if you were an enemy of the state, would present and direct and imminent threat to your life. The average voter would not.
Of course not because that response would be completely out of proportion. An individual voter is only responsible for a tiny assault on my freedom. Only the sum of all voters is adding up to something concrete.
I will try one last example. If I pull the trigger of a gun, that is in itself not a violent action. But I know that a complex set of chemical and physical processes will lead to the planned damage.
Paying an assassin in itself is not violent, but I know that it will have the same outcome through a set of complex interactions. My intentions are the same, I only try to keep my hands clean.
I dont think that there is a fundamental difference if i use a gun, a killing robot or an assassin. I wanted a violation of someone else's rights and I have acted in a way to make that happen.
I understand that causal definitions are a lot more messy and may lead to conflicts in their interpretation, but I think that the world is complex and ignoring causality oversimplifies it. In wars, we know the real criminals are not the soldiers. They are just victims of their ignorance. Many of them are likely good people that would have been alright in other circumstances. The true evil are the people that plan wars for their own profit and lust for power. A causal analysis will reveal them as the true criminals.
But in the end I think we are really just fighting over words. I think that in most real world situations we would conclude more or less the same actions as moral/immoral.
Okay, then what would be the appropriate self-defense from a voter?
I agree, for the most part I think.
In your opinion, what would be the appropriate self-defense from a voter, if you were inside the polling center?
I really want to hear an answer to this.
What's up with the new music? The old-timey stuff was, well, old-timey, but it had a bit more personality, I think.
I agree with you on the "voting is violence" thing. It's framing it well to point out the ridiculousness of the idea that pushing a button in a voting booth is a violation that could be met with a justifiable violent response.
Trying something out. Needed a change, for audience-perceived better or worse.