Just Silence

I've seen or heard about a number of fellow libertarian non-statists stating that they're going to vote in this election. Some of the reasons they've come up with are, admittedly, are at least understandable (if not outright interesting):

• This election has a much higher than average chance to give a voice to third parties, thereby encouraging discussion of other options besides Democrat and Republican.
• They're terrified of the possibility of a specific candidate winning (usually Clinton, but I suspect that a few might be voting against Trump for similar reasons).
• It's the only way for their voice to be heard.
• It buys time to encourage more people to consider the benefits of a stateless society.

At least one of them has encouraged me to go to the polls this year. In a sense, I can understand why - in voting, other people are more likely to listen to them ("vote or don't complain!"), thus allowing the idea of a stateless society to penetrate that much further; indeed, I do understand that you're unlikely to take someone who's a statist and get them to essentially do an about-face on that position overnight. (It might happen every now and then, but odds are it's going to take some time to convince a person that the state really is a bad idea.)

Try as I might, though...I can't bring myself to vote for anyone - certainly not this election. Before you cheer on another protestor, I'm not abstaining to protest a bad system; I'm abstaining because there's just no point in it. Here are some of my own reasons for sitting this one out:

1. My knowledge of, or interest in, any given candidate is zero.
Even assuming that all candidates have an equal chance to win the election, I'm stuck with the reality that I either know nothing about that candidate, or what I do know is easily enough to discourage me from supporting them. The candidates of the four largest parties break down like this:

• Trump is playing the role of salesman. As someone who supports free-market capitalism, I'm almost obliged to do research on the product he's selling - himself - and given my outright objection to some of the things he's trying to sell (border enforcement, "special treatement" of a religion, etc.), I can't understand why I'd support a candidate who endorses those things.
• Clinton, quite plainly, scares me even more than Bernie did (and that's saying something). Even if I were still a statist, we don't need to be involved in the private sector, let alone foreign wars. As it is, she's staring daggers at Putin - and I dare say that Russia is still easily powerful enough to take us out (even if only via MAD). I won't even go into how her idea of a higher minimum wage is a disaster waiting to happen (among other issues).
• Johnson is a LINO. You can't claim that it's ethical to force people to do things - be it getting vaccinated or making pastries - and still call yourself a libertarian.
• Stein is looking to increase taxes, and potentially swell the ranks of government via employer of last resort. I don't want a larger government; I want a smaller one (because zero is definitely smaller than what we have now). I'm not even going to touch climate change here.

2. The system minimizes your say.
The way presidential elections are set up, it's entirely possible for the electoral college winner (and thus the election winner) to lose the popular vote - something that was demonstrated in 2000 by Dubya. Further, if no candidate gets a majority in the electoral college, the final choice is made by the House of Representatives - and if that happens, the winner is going to be either an unknown or someone I don't want in that position.

3. There's no mechanism to choose differently if the winner is a flash in the pan.
If a popular recall of the president, members of Congress, and basically anyone in any government office were possible, I dare say elections wouldn't sit quite as badly with me (or at least they'd sit badly with me for somewhat different reasons). Four years with that much power is enough to do a lot of damage, and during that time, there's not really much that checks that power - so by the time the next election comes, "damage control" becomes essentially worthless.

If I'm going to vote for someone, I want it to mean something, I want it to be for someone I support, and I want a more realistic way to respond to any damage caused by my choice. This isn't a "have your cake and eat it" desire - that would be a utopia where no one could be aggressive - but something that just might be an improvement over what we have now. At this point, I have more motivation to watch the system collapse under its own weight than to expend effort on "the lesser evil", and the way things are going, that collapse will happen without my involvement...so why bother? I may as well get popcorn and watch; at least I'll have some level of satisfaction from the popcorn.