Those who withdrew

from the system didn't vote

“If voting were going to change anything, they would make it illegal.” ~ Emma Goldman

I’ve mentioned it before quite a bit. I don’t vote. There are a great many reasons why not.

The last time I voted in a presidential election was 1988. I voted for the Libertarian party candidate because I could not bring myself to vote for the unspeakably evil George Herbert Walker Bush, who was in Dallas 61 years ago making sure of the murder of John F. Kennedy. The Libertarians nominated Ron Paul that year, and he is the last nominee of that party that seemed to represent my views on a number of topics.

A fellow named Marcus Aurelius once wrote that the opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the topic. You should probably think about that idea longer than you will.

Voting is an exceptionally foolish way of taking choices. If you don’t know what should be done, what makes you think that 50% plus one person of those who cast a vote are more likely to have keen insight into these matters? It’s not rational.

Most people can, in fact, be wrong. When Lilienthal began flying in Anno Domini 1891 it was regarded as impossible by “most people.” Or, anyway, by the people most likely to open their big fat mouths about the topic.

When Leif Erikson and his Viking friends sailed and rowed their boats to reach Vinland about AD 1000 it was widely regarded as certain that nothing of value was over in that direction, that the Earth was flat, that the sea tumbled off the edge, that it is “turtles, professor, turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down.”

Only 22.2% for Trump

Now, I don’t dispute the outcome of the election. Not because I believe the vote counting is performed properly but because the outcome has only a tentative relationship to the votes cast by voters. Votes are disqualified for various reasons. Ballots are lost. Ballots materialise out of thin air. Many shenanigans later, an outcome is announced. You think it matters whether the outcome announced is related to the votes cast, but you who think so perhaps are not entirely objective about these things. Anyway, the votes are not scrupulously counted. Rather, they are counted by persons who are interested in the outcomes.

The total numbers are, to me, somewhat interesting. I put together a little spreadsheet on the topic, for my own needs. Here’s what I was able to glean from various sources. In each case I’ve tried to use the largest value that I found to be as friendly to the pro-voting crowd as seems best.

Trump 76,901,177
Harris 74,394,444
Stein 775,173
RFK Jr 748,219
Oliver 639,244
Other 220,000
Total all votes counted: 153,678,257

You are welcome to add other values in the comments, question the sources, and supply your own numbers. In fact, you are welcome to supply an entire reality about the election that seems, to you, sensible and positive. I don’t mind. You see, I have “no dog in this race.” Dog racing is still a thing in some places, friends. You should go see.

But what about the rest of the country? There are, according to various sources, perhaps as many as 346,154,192 people in the United States today. Where does that figure come from? Well, it comes from people who are notorious for not counting things very well. The same county clerks and assessors and census bureau rats who purport to count the votes are also purporting to count the population.

In one of his many very interesting essays, Robert Heinlein once wrote about his wife Virginia and him visiting the Soviet Union. They wanted to see how the other side was living. Also, I suspect, they had friends in various agencies who wanted to see what they could make of things. Bob and Ginny looked at all the traffic flowing into Moscow. They counted trains. They looked at the barge traffic on the rivers. They spent quite a bit of time on the matter. They estimated that the official, published figures for Moscow were six or more times the actual population. So why did the USA encyclopedias have the wrong numbers, and why were official USA military and espionage agency estimates of the population (and therefore to some extent the military capability) of the USSR so grotesquely inflated? Well, if you were to ask me, I would say that freemasons love communism so much they paid Marx and Engels to invent it, but I don’t think Bob would have liked that answer, based on his writings in “If This Goes On…” and other stories.

Anyway, you can do the maths if you wish. Sure, Trump won the election, and for sure he won the electoral votes, though whether those electoral votes are going to be certified in the first week of next year is anyone’s guess. He won 59.5% of the popular vote, right?

But that same number is only 22.2% of the total population. Yes, I am counting persons who are not yet 18 years of age, of which there are some 76.1 million or more. No, it isn’t okay with me for you to say that the feral gooferment can tax the wages of 16- and 17-year-old workers who are in many states considered competent to contract to work and therefore have “income” theft and “feral insurance contributions act” theft withheld from their pay packets, but they don’t get any representation in the gooferment. Didn’t the American people fight a war over “no taxation without representation”? Or were you away when they taught the causes of the American revolutionary war, and of the global war of which it was a part?

None of these candidates

At the top of this essay I’ve included a map of what the electoral voting would look like if “none of these candidates” were able to win electors. Of course, very few states even acknowledge the possibility that none of the candidates are any good.

It is a part of the Libertarian party convention process that every round has to offer “none of these candidates” as a choice to the delegates. But, we can see, again and again, that the parliamentary tricks and the incessant lies that dominate LP politics give us really horrifyingly bad nominees. So I don’t suggest you put too much confidence in the political party libertarians to get you through the mess you’re in.

Do you see how it is, though? Your candidate, no matter how much you adore him or her, doesn’t represent a majority of the people of the country. They don’t even represent a majority of the voting age population (29.8% for Trump out of those old enough to vote jfyi).

Do I think there should not be a president? Yes. I think there should not be a president, nor a nationalist socialist government, nor any authority that purports to steal, lie, cheat, rape, and murder. These are not things that are okay with me. I don’t believe anyone has proper authority to do these things to their neighbours, and therefore you don’t have a proper authority to delegate the doing of these things to others. In fact, I am not confident that what presents itself as the authority chosen by the electorate - those who bother to vote - actually represents even that electorate.

This year, based on the total population figure of 346 million or so Americans, about 192 million did not vote. That would be more than those who did vote (see total above — 153.6 million and change). Right around 116 million who are old enough to vote chose not to do so.

Those who withdraw

Long ago a fellow we call Saint Paul wrote, in an epistle to the Christian believers in Corinth, that you should take yourselves apart and touch not the unclean thing. I encourage you to read what he wrote, if for no other reason than to understand the culture in which you live.

Most Americans did not vote in 2024. Roughly a third of the voting age population chose not to vote.

But it gets better, to my way of thinking.

The last time I looked, right around 163 million Americans filed individual income tax papers for the tax year 2023 (which were “due” in the fourth month and which extensions let you file as late as last month). That’s less than two-thirds of the adult population.

There are about 100 million Americans who are not in the work force. Of that number, only 42 million are receiving “SNAP” or food stamp benefits. That means that there are around 58 million who are able to make ends meet without food stamps but are not holding down “regular” jobs and therefore are not having funds withdrawn.

About a third of the country refuses to participate in the census. As you may recall from recent essays, I regard census takers as precursors to thieves (tax collectors) since the only reason to count the people is to steal from them. You will find that the enumeration of the people of Israel was such a terrible sin that God punished the people who let “king” David do this thing.

My point is that you think you are part of a society, that you have “leaders” who represent you, and that everyone cares which celebrity chef won the most votes. But I have seen the sausage being made, friends, and I don’t want any.

Nor do tens of millions of other Americans. More than 110 million of us did not vote in 2024. More than 95 million adults didn’t file tax papers for last year’s “income.” I regard these numbers as very promising.

Agency

There is a thing called an agency agreement. When the people in the county government, in the city commission, in the statehouse, in the District of Corruption, say that they represent you, they are lying. It is in fact a federal crime to have a contract with anyone in the government which requires that they fulfil even the most minor of campaign promises.

That “Contract with America” that Newt Gingrich touted? Yeah, not a contract. And not fulfilled, and nobody has any standing to sue him for damages, though much damage has been done. You could look into it if you wanted, but I am again not providing you with links you won’t visit to support contentions you find tedious and convince you about things you think don’t matter. I’m cool like that. lol

All politicians are always liars. They pretend to care about you. They pretend to represent you. They pretend that they can change anything. They are not on your side.

The sooner you stop expecting other people to work things out for you the sooner you can start preparing to run your own life. The sooner you turn to God and seek guidance, the better your life will become.

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That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.