Presto’s Ramblings

Sorry if this post is a little more Rambling than usual…I’m trying to work out these things in my head as I go.

Wally Conger, on his Out of Step blog, refers to the debate of left-libertarians regarding voting. His arguments are very compelling. Check them out.

I don’t know why I have continued to vote, as I no longer believe that the vote has the power to change the system in any substantial way. For several years I have given myself the excuse that Washington state still has the citizen initiative to hold back the worst of government’s excesses. The thing is, the government has over and over sued and managed to overturn several initatives that have passed, such as I-747. In addition, the problems with the voting system have made me unsure if we can ever know who actually won any particular election.

I have added another wrinkle to my own internal debate over the issue. I now believe that it wouldn’t matter who we elect, no matter how well-intentioned or ‘libertarian’ they may be, because any large hiearchical organization is unmanagable. No person, no matter how saintly they might be, is capable of tracking or truly changing the goings-on in any large organization.

Consider the Presidency. The President is completely dependent on his underlings to tell him what is going on in the Executive Branch. The Secretary of The Treasury, reports to the president what his underlings tell him. The people who report to the Secretary, report what their staff tells them, and so on. It’s like a giant game of telephone. By the time information gets to the top, if it gets there at all, it is so filtered, distorted, condensed, folded, spinned, and mutilated until it would be unrecognizable to the rank and file government worker.

Such a situation makes great opportunities for mischief and corruption. Mid-level managers in the corporate and government worlds make careers of lying to superiors about what is happening in the areas for which they are responsible. The senior manager has no way to truly check they truth of what their underlings tell them. They simply have to trust the people who report to them. Problem is, there is significant reward in covering up problems, and exaggerating successes in their area. It is also easy to hide out-and-out corruption from superiors.

Back to the President. His people cannot know what is going on, have significant incentive to lie, and corruption is easy. In addition, his schedule is so busy that any decision must take place in a matter of minutes or even seconds. He gets a short briefing, and makes a call based on what must be incomplete information.

The President supposedly works for the American people. He has the same incentives as the mid-level manager. He can’t stay in office if he gives bad news to us. He must convince us that all is well, the economy is growing, and they are keeping us safe from the bad guys. But he cannot possibly know that.

This doesn’t even begin to excuse the corruption and abuse of the current administration, but that’s beyond the scope of what I want to say. In addition, I won’t get into the obvious problems of our current campaign finance system.

So, government, especially at higher levels, is unmanagable. Add that to the excellent arguments from Wally Conger, Bob LeFevre, and George H. Smith that using government methods to effect change are immoral, you have a devastating one-two punch. The knockout punch is that the voting results are not accurate and even if they were, the government would sue or legislate to change them. So, I have concluded that the vote and any other conventional method (protests, etc.) is out as a tactic.

So, what are we to do if the conventional political tactics are out, what do we do instead? That is what I am dedicating this blog to finding out. I know that it must be by living out freedom ourselves, and encouraging others to do so. As I have written earlier, violence is neither a moral or practical solution to the problem. Demonstrating that it is possible to live free, without the need of paternal governments or other organizations to control us.

It’s time to stop being wishy-washy and get on with it.