{"id":40213,"date":"2018-11-07T08:03:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T13:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40213"},"modified":"2018-11-07T08:03:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T13:03:36","slug":"no-voting-doesnt-mean-you-support-the-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40213","title":{"rendered":"No, Voting Doesn&#8217;t Mean You &#8220;Support the System&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/wire\/no-voting-doesnt-mean-you-support-system\">No, Voting Doesn&#8217;t Mean You &#8220;Support the System&#8221;<\/a><\/h3>\n<h2 class=\"page-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 16px;\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/slideshow\/public\/static-page\/img\/down.PNG?itok=JhPNVj6T\" alt=\"down.PNG\" \/><\/h2>\n<div class=\"body-content clearfix\">\n<p><strong>Listen to Ryan McMaken&#8217;s commentary <a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/no-voting-doesnt-mean-you-support-system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on the Radio Rothbard podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I admit it. I voted<\/p>\n<p>In my home state of Colorado, all voting is by mailed paper ballots. That means, if you&#8217;re a registered voter, the county clerk sends you a ballot every election.<\/p>\n<p>And then \u2014 at least in my case \u2014 it sits there on a table near my desk.<\/p>\n<p>One is supposed to fill it out and then mail it back. Or drop it off in one of the mailbox-like boxes scattered around the city.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I do it.<\/p>\n<p>This time around, as the ballot sat there on the table, I kept thinking about the proposed tax increases I could vote &#8220;yes&#8221; or &#8220;no&#8221; on.<\/p>\n<p>Like many states in the Western half of the United States, this state makes frequent use of ballot initiatives and referenda in elections. Voters are asked to vote up or down any number of regulations and taxes which the policymakers will be more than happy to implement if they can muster a &#8220;yes&#8221; from the majority of voters.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m certainly not willing to stand in line at a polling place, and I don&#8217;t care about getting an &#8220;I Voted!&#8221; sticker. But I had to admit the opportunity cost of sending in the ballot was really quite low. So, as I am not a big fan of new taxes, I filled out the ballot according to my whims, and sent it in.<\/p>\n<h4>Does Voting Mean You Support the Regime?<\/h4>\n<p>Nothing about this little anecdote would strike most people as remarkable in any way.<\/p>\n<p>Since at least the nineteenth century, though, there has been a debate over whether or not voting somehow means the voter has agreed to submit to \u2014 or even support \u2014 whatever the state does.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, Voting Doesn&#8217;t Mean You &#8220;Support the System&#8221; Listen to Ryan McMaken&#8217;s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast. I admit it. I voted In my home state of Colorado, all voting is by mailed paper ballots. That means, if you&#8217;re a registered voter, the county clerk sends you a ballot every election. And then \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7617,4345,14776,858],"class_list":["post-40213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-mises-institute","tag-political-system","tag-ryan-mcmaken","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40214,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40213\/revisions\/40214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}