Too bad the people who really need to hear this message stopped reading this article when they realized it wasn't really about the Iowa caucuses.
In case you missed this week's insanity in Iowa (and if you did, good for you!), here is the entire debacle in one ridiculously long run-on sentence:
The Iowa Democratic Party thought it would be a really swell idea to set the tone of the Democratic primary season by using their first-in-the-nation, widely touted, closely watched caucuses as a testing ground for a new election result reporting app called Shadow created by a shadowy organization called Acronym funded by a Silicon Valley billionaire known for online false flag operations in American elections and staffed by old hands of the Obama and Clinton campaigns, and which "glitched" (because of course) leading to "irregularities" in reporting and an overnight delay as the results were manually re-tabulated (giving the internet peanut gallery a chance to marvel at the Iowa Democrats' version of a coin toss) and, eventually, to the declaration (in spite of massive lingering inconsistencies in the data) that, in complete opposition to all polling so far, Pete "#MayorCheat" Buttigieg was in fact the Iowan people's choice for the Democratic presidential nominee . . . at least until they learned basic biographical details about him.
Or, more simply: the Iowa Democratic caucuses was a sh*tshow this year. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for all those credulous souls who still believe in the holy sacrament of voting.
. . . Almost.
Although no one—not even the most fluoride-addled, election-participating statist—can deny that this past week has been a debacle of epic proportions, we should not lose sight of the fact that this fiasco can also be instructive. After all, it teaches us something about the system that purports to rule over the 300 million+ American citizens. And, more importantly, it teaches us something about the political process itself that, one way or another, defines the world that we all live in.
So, allow me to present five important lessons from the Iowa caucuses that (*SIGH*) absolutely no one will learn.
1. Your Vote Isn't Worth the Paper it Isn't Written On
To the Bernie Bros who have somehow gotten lost on the internet and ended up here: I feel your pain. Really, I do.
But believe it or not, this is not the first time "faulty" reporting systems have been deployed to produce "surprise" results.
Even if we were to confine ourselves to the modern era of paperless voting, we could note:
1. Clint Curtis' dramatic courtroom testimony that he had been asked in 2000 to write computer code that could be inserted into a touchscreen voting machine that would undetectably alter election results;
2. The fact that every single election without fail a batch of stories pop up proving that anyone (even 11-year-old kids) can hack voting machines with relative ease (and yes, every single word in that sentence is a link to a relevant article or video on the subject!);
3. The rigging of the 2016 Democratic primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders, like the scene from the Iowa Caucuses where precisely one person (a Bernie supporter) showed up to vote in the Woodbury County No. 43 caucus and the delegate went to . . . Hillary. (Yes, really.)
Or, heck, if you want a case study in how your vote doesn't matter, just look at the scandal that unfolded during the Republican primaries in 2012 as the party tried to keep Ron Paul from becoming the official Republican presidential nominee. The tricks employed to keep Paul out of the way look remarkably similar to what we've seen in recent years from the DNC, including "irregularities" in state primaries' reporting data and last-minute rule changes at the party convention.
So get this through your head: The power establishment will only ever allow you to vote for the candidates they want you to vote for. If you try to color outside the lines your vote will not count.
But here's the funny part about this scam:
2. Everyone Knows The Elections Are Rigged. Absolutely Nothing Will Change.
Do you think the politicians who are involved in this bit of political theater known as "the election"—and which I insist on calling the (s)election—are unaware of the fact that it's all a sham?
Do you really think Sanders saw what happened in 2016, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped out on stage to endorse Hillary as the "people's choice" because he was unaware that the system was rigged?
Well then, I bet he had egg on his face when Seth Rich leaked the emails proving that the DNC had actively colluded with Hillary to keep Bernie from winning the Democratic primaries, didn't he? (Slow zoom in on Sanders as the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme begins to play.)
And I suppose Skull & Bones Kerry, too, merely nodded solemnly and acknowledged "the will of the people" when the election machines declared Skull & Bones Bush the victor in Ohio in 2004?
Ditto Gore in the 2000 Florida contest.
We could throw in a million other examples from American political history alone (JFK in 1960 with a little help from the mob, anyone?).
And let's not even get started on examples from around the globe. Like the European Union, where they were absolutely forced to give the people of Ireland a vote on the Lisbon Treaty, so they made them vote until they got it "right." And even then, illegal campaigning, ballot stuffing, and other irregularities were needed to produce the "correct" vote.
Newsflash: The system is rigged. And although politicians are definitely at the low end of the IQ scale, they aren't that stupid.
You see, this isn't a new phenomenon. It's not a conspiracy theory only to be spoken of in hushed tones. This isn't about a single state's primaries or touch screen voting machines or Iowans inability to toss a coin.
No, what the Iowa caucuses debacle points to is something more profound than a trite (and easily fixed) problem with voting machines. It shows us that . . .
3. The Political Parties Are Big Clubs (and You Ain't in 'Em)
Politics is a rigged game staged by the banksters, corporations and their cronies to distract the public from the forces that are really running the world.
When fully grown adults believe in the political puppet show (and even invest their identities in it to the point where they're cheering the heroes and booing the villains), it is every bit as pathetic as fully grown adults believing in professional wrestling. If you view it (either politics or wrestling, that is) as cheesy soap opera-like entertainment, fair enough. But if you genuinely believe that the staged conflicts and phony dramas are real and truly reflect the governing process of the country (let alone the world) then I don't know what to say to you. You are so far detached from reality that you are probably beyond all hope.
I hate to break it to you, but your favorite political figures are marionettes. The only reason they exist on the political stage is because the political puppet-masters have decided that they are effective spokespeople for this or that agenda, or that they are good at distracting the public from this or that agenda.
Newsflash: Trump runs nothing. Hillary wouldn't have a career if she didn't literally follow the lead of Soros or go to the CFR "mothership" for her foreign policy marching orders. If Sanders became president, it would be exactly the same. Ditto for whoever is your personal choice for dream president. (Tulsi supporters, I'm looking at you.)
Yes, people who believe in the political puppet show are like the prisoners in Plato's cave, watching the shadows on the wall before them and mistaking those shadows for reality.
But it's even worse than that! If only this was a corrupt, rigged system, then the answer would be straightforward (if not easy to implement): Simply clean up politics. Once we have a fair election that really represented the will of the people (i.e., 50%+1 of the population) then everything would be peachy keen, right?
Wrong, because . . .
4. Government Itself is Immoral
No, I do not want better elections. I do not want to "clean up the system." I do not want to "get the money out of politics" and "make sure every vote is counted" and "drain the swamp" so we can "Make America [or any other geographical area] Great Again."
The state is not a benevolent force, as the most brainwashed of statists believe. It is not even a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill, as those who consider themselves pragmatists believe. It is violence. It is force. It is aggression. It is people believing that what is wrong for any individual to do is perfectly OK if an agent of the state does it.
If I steal, it is theft. If the state steals, it is taxation. If I kill, it is murder. If the state kills, it is warfare. If I force someone to work for me involuntarily, it is slavery. If the state does it, it is conscription. If I confine someone against their will, it is kidnapping. If the state does it, it is incarceration. Nothing has changed but the label.
What binds us to the state is the belief that there is a different morality for anything that has been sanctified through the political process. "Oh, 50%+1 of the population voted for forced vaccinations? Then I guess we have to comply." If you scoff at that sentence, how about if the vote was 100%-1? Would that change the morality of resistance? How about if forced vaccinations were mandated by the constitution? Then would you be compelled to submit?
Does the ballot box transform the unethical into the ethical? Of course not. But I'll tell you what it does do: It makes everyone who casts their ballot a part of the process that legitimizes the murder and violence committed by agents of the state.
No, I am not an efficiency manager for the state. I do not want to help it do its job of inflicting aggression and violence on peaceful people. I want the state to perish, not through violence or bloodshed, but by removing the mystical superstition from the minds of the general public that makes them believe that "government" is anything other than a gang of thugs with a fancy title.
This is the point that—in my experience as a communicator of voluntaryist ideas—I start butting up a brick wall of incomprehension when talking to the normies in the crowd. They start having mental breakdowns, frothing at the mouth that "votes need to happen."
As if voting, elections, positions of responsibility and other things that exist under statism could not exist under voluntary associations. As if voluntary association itself was such an arcane and bewildering concept that no one could possibly wrap their head around it (or, heaven forfend, read a book to see if some of their questions have been answered.)
No, much easier to go back to the comforting political wrestling match. "Red vs. Blue? Now that I can get behind!"
That's a travesty, really. Because the truth is that this is not a complicated message. It's actually remarkably simple, and remarkably hopeful. The truth is that . .
5. There is Only One Vote That Matters
You'd think that a column like this is all doom and gloom. "Oh sure, James," say the statists in the crowd, twirling their handlebar moustaches and fingering the "I Voted" sticker proudly displayed on their chest, "but what's your solution? Sitting around and not voting is not going to change anything!"
Now I'm tempted to say "Why ask for one solution when I've provided dozens?"
But, more seriously, I would say: You're right.
No, really. You're right. Sitting around and not voting is not going to change anything.
. . .But (and you knew there was a "but" coming) I'm not talking about voting in some phony baloney (s)election to anoint some political puppet as President of this geographical location. I'm talking about the only vote that matters.
Hmmm...if only I had a way to explain this to the normies.
Oh, wait! I do.
[. . .]For the rest of us, there is the realization that the political system itself is just another form of enslavement. An enslavement that is all the more insidious, because it asks us to buy into it. All we have to do is push a button or pull a lever or touch a screen once every four years and we are now absolved of our moral responsibility.
Ironically, this realization is in itself liberating and puts the world into focus with crystal clarity. We are not cogs in some machine called “society” to be dictated to by some nebulous entity we have been taught to call “the government” or “the authorities.” We are free individuals freely interacting with those around us, bound by the moral injunction not to initiate force against others or take things from others against their will. We are responsible for our actions and their consequences, both positive and negative. We are responsible for what we do or don’t do to help those in our community, and to make this world better or leave it to rot. There is no political messiah that will descend from the heavens to tell us what to do or to protect us from the bad men. All we have is our self and our choices.
We vote every day, not in some meaningless election, but in who we choose to associate with, what we choose to spend our money on, what we choose to invest our time and energy doing. This is the essence of freedom.
For us, it is painful to watch our brothers and sisters getting swept up in the election cycle hype. We watch the sad spectacle not with a sense of scorn or derision, but with sadness for those who have not yet woken up to the reality of their mental enslavement. That sadness, however, is tempered by hope: hope that one day, those poor voters who are trudging off to that booth to pull that lever will realize that all they are really doing is voting for which slavemaster they will allow to put the chains around their neck.
Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Too bad the people who really need to hear this message stopped reading this article when they realized it wasn't really about the Iowa caucuses.