I agree that "if voting really changed things, they would make it illegal." ~ Mark Twain. That is why I do not vote either.
That is why I am a political atheist today, because NO politician save a statesman like a Ron Paul or a Thomas Massie, will ever bring about good lasting change. There are NO POLITICAL SOLUTIONS to a country's SPRIRITUAL SINS PROBLEM.
Notice I did NOT say I am an ATHEIST - but a POLITICAL atheist.
Therefore let me requote the following in full agreement;
"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."
Godspede to that and to you sir, Mr. Jim Davidson of L5.
You’re not a jerk by any means. These are tough existential issues. If our educational system was worth a shit maybe more people would weigh in. Best to you and yours.
I shall do exactly as I please. You may believe that your right to speak comes from those in power, and that it derives somehow from voting. Those are foul, evil, vicious lies, and you are a liar for saying so. Your freedom to speak, and mine, comes from God and existed long before the government you worship. Your worship of the government is idolatry, is evil, and disgusting. You should stop. You should repent. You should turn away from sin. The choice is yours.
Long ago Samuel Adams said of people like you that they should go from us in peace. He said "may your chains set lightly upon you." But that was long ago, in another country, and besides Christopher Marlowe is dead.
You’re not part of the solution, so you’re part of the problem.
Jesus Christ said to hate the sin, not the sinner, and we’re all sinners. That doesn’t make you exempt from participating in society. It’s your right not to do so, but it’s not your right to bitch about how society governs itself if you don’t vote.
You are not solving anything by voting, nor by attacking me. You have taken station with evil because you want to do evil things. If you don't want to go away, then maybe you should spend more than a minute thinking about what you are reading. If you do want to go away, don't go away mad. But do go away. Go far away. Because you are a troll.
Jim, even though you make great sense, you are a bit harsh. Not everyone who may not wholly agree with you is your adversary. Of course the “world” is a “ship of fools.” All we can do is make the best of it. I vote but don’t expect much of anything. And I “tend to my own garden” as responsibly as I can. I loved your essay and its value.
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. I am not sure if I am sufficiently harsh or not harsh enough. Anyway, it isn't up to me to evaluate that aspect of things. The bluntness, frankness, and directness of my words are meant to provide clarity. People have told me that I'm a jerk using various terms from obscene to excruciatingly polite. It may be true. But everyone knows where I stand.
It is well to tend to the garden, as there you will reliably find food. May it grow many good fruits.
I wonder what happened to the 10 million votes that JB received in 2020 got ,vanished this election? Could those who didn't vote get the electronic manipulation in the 7 swing states?
I don't know. Certainly the Tyler Durden graphic in ZeroHedge showing the distorted results from 2020 is interesting. But what do we know about those votes? They were counted by the people who count votes in the midst of a series of gooferment mandated lockdowns. The counts went on behind closed doors, with pallets of ballots being brought in all night long, and the following day and ...? Were they really cast by voters? Were they really read by machine ballot reading systems?
Do you think 2020 is the first year there was an alarming amount of vote counting fraud? I myself do not.
I think our first exposure to voting was in school; homecoming queen, class president. People tend to forget that those were just popularity contests, and on the national stage, nothing has changed. Voters are single issue voters; abortion, healthcare, immigration. Speaking of healthcare I saw a news item the other day about at least one person who was upset because she didn’t know the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare were the same, which affected who she voted for. So, we end up with psychopaths elected by idiots.
Do we? I myself don't have any of these ends. Do they still vote for celebrity chefs? But I don't eat the sausage, having seen how it is prepared, and of what.
Long ago Etienne de la Boetie wrote an essay on Voluntary Servitude. After his death it was published. He said you don't have to put your hands on the tyrants and push them over. Just stop holding them up. They will fall. They aren't any better than you. Far worse in most cases.
All the people on these threads are really “on the same side.” But there are truly evil people (politicians) out there and they affect our world and pretending they don’t doesn’t do anything to lessen their power. If somehow one can live in a vacuum, have at it. There is more than one way to resist the insanity. Let us all share our thoughts and experiences and do what we can.
So, according to you, I can’t complain about things I don’t like because I don’t participate in the very process that produces the things I don’t like.
I don’t encourage the feeding of the troll. It only gets stronger.
That said, it is amusing, to me, that “mannequin” is about as hard core a non-player character screen name as one can imagine. It doesn’t want you to be free not to vote, it wants to have the system demand your input, pay you nothing for your time, and if the liberal hags (his terminology) in the county gooferment won’t put an adequate supply of voting booths in your conservative or libertarian precinct, then he insists that you are required by him and his stupidity to stand in line as long as it takes, because if you don’t vote, he doesn’t want to hear your views. He is hateful, ugly, and stupid. Too ugly to appear in his avatar.
George Carlin said “If you do vote, you don’t get to complain, because you agreed to accept the outcome of the election.” But Manny is evil and demands that you stop speaking because you didn’t go into his favourite confessional booth and tell a machine, or a punch card, all your views on the latest issues. Manny will never agree that you are allowed to speak because Manny doesn’t actually believe in the constitution’s first amendment forbidding any prohibition on freedom of speech or of the press. Manny wants to take away your God-given right to speech because Manny is a nasty little ugly stupid evil tyrant. And won’t ever stop being nasty, ugly, stupid, and evil.
The only thing more bitter and angry than a Democratic Socialist is a Libertarian. The only difference is that the Libertarian will expend all their energy doing nothing about it.
Samuel Edward Konkin III used to say that a libertarian party is a great idea, who is bringing the drinks? A libertarian political party is a sort of oxymoron.
It has for a number of decades been sort of amazing to me to see how much effort the deep state puts into manipulating the outcome of LP conventions. You'd think these people were important somehow. lol
I agree with you and stopped voting as well. I filed taxes but did it using the website, losthirizons.com
There’s a free book on the site and many other resources, to file legally and easily and keep all of your money. I just got back refunds for all taxes paid for the last three years. I mention this in case anyone would like to learn. I want as many people as possible to know that they actually have a choice and the IRS is toothless if you know the actual laws that they obscure to steal from you. It’s an amazing feeling to step outside of the whole racket without writing notices and jumping through hoops etc. Thank you for this article.
Thanks for sharing. Does the book say that it is a legal requirement to 'file taxes' (tell the government exactly how much money you made)? I think you meant to type losthorizons.com instead of losthirizons.com.
Thanks for the correction:) It’s not that it’s a legal requirement to file but that you have to dispute any claims made via 1099s or your employers statements to the IRS. That’s all a proper filing is. You’re correcting any claims made via a third party. Not filing is where many people get into problems. It’s very easy to file though once you’ve read the book and looked at examples of various scenarios.
I'm now on chapter 13 of Cracking the Code and have corresponded with the author, Peter Hendrickson. I want to learn more! I would like to direct message with you, Annie, if you are willing, but I am not able to create a direct message for you. I have "followed" you now, so you should be able to begin a direct message with me. I would love to hear from you.
Sounds great:) I tried to message you but Substack is malfunctioning. I went in and found the setting for messages so you should be able to message me. I’m so happy for you that you found the site and reached out to Pete. 😊
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. Thank you for being a good soul searching for freedom for himself and his neighbours. These are the things we should be doing. Peace, freedom, and understanding are out there, available to everyone.
Unfortunately, I think Ron Paul is just another gatekeeper- this from a former Libertarian party member. All the BS about auditing the feds was just a smokescreen when the real message was to get rid of the FED. As long as the bankers can create monry from nothing- and charge interest on it we are fooked.
“Don’t vote” is not the solution to the problem. But go ahead and convince tens of millions of people who don’t want the continued descent into tyranny to continue. Do you know what a mandate is?
Scenario: final outcome:
Trump-10 million votes because Jim Davidson fans stayed home.
Harris: 70 million votes.
You just gave them a huge mandate to confiscate your guns and to completely obliterate the First Amendment.
It’s cool when George Carlin says don’t vote and everyone admires his mind but knows that suicide disguised as seduction is still suicide. And Carlin knew that other people would still vote and save his butt from the stuff that kills, but he could still be the cool guy. You are doing the same thing.
First off, wow, thank you for thinking that tens of millions of people would pay attention to a word I ever write. I'm the author of five books nobody has read, including one (1) that was briefly, fifteen years ago, just inside the million best selling books on Amazon. So the notion that it is all my fault that over a hundred ten million Americans chose not to vote in 2024 is some kind of wild enthusiasm for my persuasive abilities. I'm sure my speech and debate coach from high school would be proud. Gosh!
Last off, voting doesn't change anything. You seem to believe that you are going into the trenches to fight off the commie hordes when you show up in the voting booth. But the truth is, you don't even know if your vote will be included in whatever tally is announced by the people in your county, let alone in your state. You have no control over the people who want to round up guns. The only way to avoid having the guns rounded up is to have lots of guns, so my friends who distribute software for 3D printers are actually helping and your vote is not helping. I know these facts won't ever set well with you, but you seem fun. And, anyway, the lefthanded compliment, "You're dooming us with your great writing" is an artful pose, and makes me smile. Enjoy your day, friend!
Mr. Davidson, you got me on one point where I wrote about you being the inspiration for tens of millions not to vote when the fact is that others like you are encouraging the same thing. I first noticed this when like minded proponents of not voting were posting hip George Carlin memes and videos. So to clarify, you are not alone in this fatal mistake. But you can be sure that the DNC is saying “Keep it up, boys and girls.”
As for the rest of your arguments against voting, they still don’t make any sense. It’s not an either/or situation but rather a both/and situation. We cannot afford to roll over and give them legitimacy.
In my opinion you would be more convincing if you would tackle the real problems that have caused this disconnect between our elected representatives and the people. Tackle the influence of foreign and corporate money that makes it easy for them to politely brush off any input from the actual citizens they represent. Not voting, particularly by the side that opposes the demolition of our constitutional republican form of government, pretty much dooms the possibility that the election fraud you mentioned can be stopped. You accept that because they are doing horrible things it must be the case that we can’t do anything about it short of an armed revolution. And if and when it gets to that point, are you assuming that the non voting side whose ox was gored is actually going to take violent action?
The radicals want us to believe that we don’t have any control. Trump won but he won’t be able to fix everything, so the battle will continue every four years. Don’t discount the fact that their detachment from reality in their policies usually backfires and often leads to people voting with us. Did someone’s house burn in Palisades and Maui? get washed away in NC? their rivers polluted in Ohio? their loved one killed by a gang banger or rapist from South America?
Don’t vote? Okay, arm up and shoot ‘em. But since you decided it was better not to vote, Wray and Garland have another four years to arrest you and make a very public example of you so that nobody else follows the example.
Tired of the mainstream media lying to us? Don’t vote, right?
While people like you are saying don’t vote, Marc Elias and the DNC are organizing grass roots campaigns to mobilize millions of voters and ballot harvesting. I’m glad we out voted them this time because maybe election integrity might gain some traction if some of the fraudsters get sent to prison.
We are not yet the Soviet Union or China. If we want to arrive there, then don’t vote.
Smart people like you should be able to think it through.
You are consenting to be governed by voting. I am not. Over a hundred ten million Americans are not. You are supporting the system by voting, by filing tax papers, and by writing to your congress critters, among your many other sins. You WANT a human being to rule over you, and you argue that because I won't consent to be governed by any king but Jesus Christ that I am helping your enemies. But I'm not helping your enemies. You are.
You are wrong, and sinful. You need to take a long cold look at yourself and ask yourself why you want to be governed.
You know that the District of Corruption (DC) is sinful and evil. You know it is not merely wasting money but actively seeking evil things on which to spend your money. DC is spending money on mutilating children, on homosexual propaganda, on coercive programmes to forcibly poison millions of people, and on many other brutal projects. By voting, you are saying that you want those things, but you want them administered in a "kinder and gentler" way, to quote one of the George Bushes. I do not.
You don't have to agree with my beliefs. My beliefs do not require that you do. You are free to choose to vote and to do everything in your power to keep the system you love running roughshod over the people you claim to care about. But there is no argument you can ever make that will do either of the things you say you want. Nothing you ever write will convince me to vote. Nothing you ever write will convince me to stop writing about the importance of not voting.
You go into a little voting booth on election day and you participate in a sacrament to defy God. I suggest you should choose another path.
I can BOTH vote AND worship Jesus Christ. Your accusations about how I, personally, by voting, not only legitimizes but also actualizes the sins in our nation, is amateurish.
Additionally, the old saying is true: you may not be interested in war and politics, but war and politics is interested in you. Let that sink in.
"You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." ~ 1st Corinthians 10: 21
God is the salvation for those who believe. You do not frighten me with war and politics. I've seen them. They have no power over me, friend.
Choose ye this day who ye will serve, says Joshua.
Interesting article and food for thought. Good comments all the way around.
As a man of God you know that we fall the way we lean. I’m not expecting too much of humanity let alone government. But I’m still involved and educating myself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident, famously said:
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
For my own part, I have not been silent. You can find a couple years of essays of mine here at L5 News and before that at L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise going back to 1995. Nor have I been inactive. I've travelled on four continents looking for a free country, looking for people talking about individual sovereignty, looking for believers.
You are free to choose. I've written a number of essays around that theme. You can choose to vote if you think you are going to change anything by working within the system. I don't believe you are. I don't believe the vote counts are reflective of the votes cast, nor do I believe that if voting were going to change anything the people who have power would allow the voting to take place. Voting gives the appearance of consent, but it is not a meaningful consent. Paying taxes gives them your money to hurt other people, and that's what the people in power want. So I suggest you might want to stop doing that.
Taxation is theft. Inflation is theft. Civil asset forfeiture is theft. Eminent domain is theft. Conscription is slavery. War is murder. The district of corruption (DC) is evil. You cannot partake from the table of God and from the table of demons.
The thing masquerading as government is an artefact of human hands. It is owned and operated by demon worshippers, by child torturers, by cannibals, it is foul, it is evil. Going into their little voting booth and partaking of their sacrament of voting is idolatry.
You don't have to believe as I believe. My beliefs do not require anything of you. But you do have to choose whether to serve God and goodness or the demon worshippers and evil. It is not my doing that you have this choice, nor am I the first to say so. Find it in the book of Joshua. Choose ye this day who ye will serve. As for me and my family, we serve the Lord our God. Amen.
You could say less than 1/2 of you voted OR, you could also say more than half of you voted to do NOTHING and let your country become a cog in the One World Order which is exactly what you did! Congratulations!
Majority rules, nothing was ever more true UNLESS you can convince the majority not to care, then the Minority calls the shots.
You could say that voting has produced worse and worse results in the 236 years since 1788. But you probably are still doing the same things over and over again expecting to get different results. Isn’t that crazy. (Not a question.)
Even though about 20-22% of the US population is under 18 and can’t vote, I agree that voter turnout is low. And frankly the census numbers are rough at best, considering they include anyone who lives here whether they are citizens or not, and probably miss most of the homeless and transient populations.
I always vote but to be honest I pay more attention and are more concerned about local elections, city, county, state, than I am about federal. Those candidates are so far removed I cannot imagine having the slightest influence on them. They will start wars, tax the hell out of me, and follow the dictates of their party and the cronies whose money lines their pockets.
Let me just say this: my sister’s in law salary was more than a US Senator. She got 3 weeks of vacation every year and had the usual federal holidays off. My brother owned his own successful business and worked 10 hour days. They had 1 child who chose not to attend college, and 1 car. They did not live an extravagant lifestyle. They had a financial advisor who invested their money wisely. Yet even in retirement they cannot afford a house on the Cape, a house in a warmer climate, a yacht, a sailboat, an apartment in NYC, etc.
How would we know if voter turnout is low? The people who count the votes are liars. The people who tabulate the vote counts from various precincts are liars. The people who report on the vote tabulations are liars. All you know is that you go vote and someone you barely know and cannot trust tells you how the vote turned out.
None of the candidates you do think are near enough to be influenced by your views have any contractual obligation to you. You cannot have a contract with an elected official to keep campaign promises or do any other thing. So you have no agency. It is a crazy system designed to create the pretence of consent.
He beat me to it but ditto on that being a Mark Twain quote.
I mostly agree with you on the political atheism but following the principle of Ballots (are to be preferred) over Bullets practicality I vote as a way of telling the other side how large an army my side might be able to field should we do this the old fashioned way. You know, blunt force trauma mostly accompanied by the various methods of fatally dropping blood pressure during which applications the side with the most votes/troops doesn’t always win…😈.
So, you're awake and I'm still asleep? Believe what you wish. You and Jim apparently believe there is no lesser of two evils. After four years of Biden if you are not convinced, I'll not convince you.
Government is a necessity, and the trick would be keeping it under control.
You make bold claims, but you lack any strong moral code by which to defend these claims. You falsely claim that what is in the District of Corruption is government, but it is not. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the unanimous consent of the governed..." but this thing doesn't have the consent of the governed. It doesn't even have majority consent. So, it isn't government, and therefore by your own strategising it isn't a necessity.
You have, by voting again and again, for evil, insisting that your choice is the lesser evil, failed, utterly, to keep tyranny under control. You vote for evil, and, much worse, you demand that I vote, too. I shall not vote. I do not consent. Your path is wrong and I won't accept it. I do not vote for evil, neither greater nor lesser.
I have a king, Jesus Christ, who is a man who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. So let it be known that you are not my judge, your judgemental comments about me not voting are not welcome here, and your unpleasant remarks are not courteous. But I am also not your judge, and you have your choices to take.
You have chosen to accept the outcome of the elections by voting in them. I have not. You have chosen to accept the counting of the votes by people who never accurately count, and I have not. You have accepted that there is corruption in the District of Corruption, but all you are willing to do is hope for the lesser evil, keep voting, and proclaim that it is wrong not to vote. Your courage seems very wanting.
I don't consent to be governed by the District of Corruption. I withdrew my consent. Choose ye this day who ye shall serve. As for me and my family, we serve the Lord our God.
Good for you. If you travel to DC you will find it well-stocked with the government you mindlessly do not consent to. I shall help put Trump into office over any Democrat, and will hope for a government that will at last be of, for and by the people. If there's one thing we can agree on, it is presently anything but that. Disengagement is equivalent to giving up all hope. As a human, I'm not ready for that.
I agree that "if voting really changed things, they would make it illegal." ~ Mark Twain. That is why I do not vote either.
That is why I am a political atheist today, because NO politician save a statesman like a Ron Paul or a Thomas Massie, will ever bring about good lasting change. There are NO POLITICAL SOLUTIONS to a country's SPRIRITUAL SINS PROBLEM.
Notice I did NOT say I am an ATHEIST - but a POLITICAL atheist.
Therefore let me requote the following in full agreement;
"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."
Godspede to that and to you sir, Mr. Jim Davidson of L5.
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff.
You’re not a jerk by any means. These are tough existential issues. If our educational system was worth a shit maybe more people would weigh in. Best to you and yours.
If you don’t vote don’t bitch. You didn’t earn the right.
I shall do exactly as I please. You may believe that your right to speak comes from those in power, and that it derives somehow from voting. Those are foul, evil, vicious lies, and you are a liar for saying so. Your freedom to speak, and mine, comes from God and existed long before the government you worship. Your worship of the government is idolatry, is evil, and disgusting. You should stop. You should repent. You should turn away from sin. The choice is yours.
Long ago Samuel Adams said of people like you that they should go from us in peace. He said "may your chains set lightly upon you." But that was long ago, in another country, and besides Christopher Marlowe is dead.
🙏🏻😌
You’re not part of the solution, so you’re part of the problem.
Jesus Christ said to hate the sin, not the sinner, and we’re all sinners. That doesn’t make you exempt from participating in society. It’s your right not to do so, but it’s not your right to bitch about how society governs itself if you don’t vote.
You are not solving anything by voting, nor by attacking me. You have taken station with evil because you want to do evil things. If you don't want to go away, then maybe you should spend more than a minute thinking about what you are reading. If you do want to go away, don't go away mad. But do go away. Go far away. Because you are a troll.
I helped keep that deranged ignorant liberal hag from getting into the White House, so yeah I did indeed help by VOTING.
Jim, even though you make great sense, you are a bit harsh. Not everyone who may not wholly agree with you is your adversary. Of course the “world” is a “ship of fools.” All we can do is make the best of it. I vote but don’t expect much of anything. And I “tend to my own garden” as responsibly as I can. I loved your essay and its value.
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. I am not sure if I am sufficiently harsh or not harsh enough. Anyway, it isn't up to me to evaluate that aspect of things. The bluntness, frankness, and directness of my words are meant to provide clarity. People have told me that I'm a jerk using various terms from obscene to excruciatingly polite. It may be true. But everyone knows where I stand.
It is well to tend to the garden, as there you will reliably find food. May it grow many good fruits.
I wonder what happened to the 10 million votes that JB received in 2020 got ,vanished this election? Could those who didn't vote get the electronic manipulation in the 7 swing states?
I don't know. Certainly the Tyler Durden graphic in ZeroHedge showing the distorted results from 2020 is interesting. But what do we know about those votes? They were counted by the people who count votes in the midst of a series of gooferment mandated lockdowns. The counts went on behind closed doors, with pallets of ballots being brought in all night long, and the following day and ...? Were they really cast by voters? Were they really read by machine ballot reading systems?
Do you think 2020 is the first year there was an alarming amount of vote counting fraud? I myself do not.
I think our first exposure to voting was in school; homecoming queen, class president. People tend to forget that those were just popularity contests, and on the national stage, nothing has changed. Voters are single issue voters; abortion, healthcare, immigration. Speaking of healthcare I saw a news item the other day about at least one person who was upset because she didn’t know the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare were the same, which affected who she voted for. So, we end up with psychopaths elected by idiots.
Do we? I myself don't have any of these ends. Do they still vote for celebrity chefs? But I don't eat the sausage, having seen how it is prepared, and of what.
Long ago Etienne de la Boetie wrote an essay on Voluntary Servitude. After his death it was published. He said you don't have to put your hands on the tyrants and push them over. Just stop holding them up. They will fall. They aren't any better than you. Far worse in most cases.
That’s when I stopped voting - when I realized they weren’t better or smarter than me, and voting only validates them.
All the people on these threads are really “on the same side.” But there are truly evil people (politicians) out there and they affect our world and pretending they don’t doesn’t do anything to lessen their power. If somehow one can live in a vacuum, have at it. There is more than one way to resist the insanity. Let us all share our thoughts and experiences and do what we can.
Then don’t bitch when things happen you don’t like.
So, according to you, I can’t complain about things I don’t like because I don’t participate in the very process that produces the things I don’t like.
I don’t encourage the feeding of the troll. It only gets stronger.
That said, it is amusing, to me, that “mannequin” is about as hard core a non-player character screen name as one can imagine. It doesn’t want you to be free not to vote, it wants to have the system demand your input, pay you nothing for your time, and if the liberal hags (his terminology) in the county gooferment won’t put an adequate supply of voting booths in your conservative or libertarian precinct, then he insists that you are required by him and his stupidity to stand in line as long as it takes, because if you don’t vote, he doesn’t want to hear your views. He is hateful, ugly, and stupid. Too ugly to appear in his avatar.
George Carlin said “If you do vote, you don’t get to complain, because you agreed to accept the outcome of the election.” But Manny is evil and demands that you stop speaking because you didn’t go into his favourite confessional booth and tell a machine, or a punch card, all your views on the latest issues. Manny will never agree that you are allowed to speak because Manny doesn’t actually believe in the constitution’s first amendment forbidding any prohibition on freedom of speech or of the press. Manny wants to take away your God-given right to speech because Manny is a nasty little ugly stupid evil tyrant. And won’t ever stop being nasty, ugly, stupid, and evil.
Now you’re getting it. If you don’t open your mouth, how can anyone know what you think? Voting is collaborative speech by the masses.
The only thing more bitter and angry than a Democratic Socialist is a Libertarian. The only difference is that the Libertarian will expend all their energy doing nothing about it.
Samuel Edward Konkin III used to say that a libertarian party is a great idea, who is bringing the drinks? A libertarian political party is a sort of oxymoron.
It has for a number of decades been sort of amazing to me to see how much effort the deep state puts into manipulating the outcome of LP conventions. You'd think these people were important somehow. lol
EXCELLENT, awesome, outstanding! Thank you!
I’m 61, and I didn’t vote, for very good reasons…a few which you mentioned.
I believe that there will be a spiritual awakening for Humanity. Many have already awakened. We’re the “outliers”.
I’m a new subscriber!😉👍
Everyone buy a gun. And a lot of bullets. Learn how to use it.
I got a Boston Tea Party reenactment ticket in my Happy Meal in Boston.
I agree with you and stopped voting as well. I filed taxes but did it using the website, losthirizons.com
There’s a free book on the site and many other resources, to file legally and easily and keep all of your money. I just got back refunds for all taxes paid for the last three years. I mention this in case anyone would like to learn. I want as many people as possible to know that they actually have a choice and the IRS is toothless if you know the actual laws that they obscure to steal from you. It’s an amazing feeling to step outside of the whole racket without writing notices and jumping through hoops etc. Thank you for this article.
Thanks for sharing. Does the book say that it is a legal requirement to 'file taxes' (tell the government exactly how much money you made)? I think you meant to type losthorizons.com instead of losthirizons.com.
Thanks for the correction:) It’s not that it’s a legal requirement to file but that you have to dispute any claims made via 1099s or your employers statements to the IRS. That’s all a proper filing is. You’re correcting any claims made via a third party. Not filing is where many people get into problems. It’s very easy to file though once you’ve read the book and looked at examples of various scenarios.
I'm now on chapter 13 of Cracking the Code and have corresponded with the author, Peter Hendrickson. I want to learn more! I would like to direct message with you, Annie, if you are willing, but I am not able to create a direct message for you. I have "followed" you now, so you should be able to begin a direct message with me. I would love to hear from you.
Sounds great:) I tried to message you but Substack is malfunctioning. I went in and found the setting for messages so you should be able to message me. I’m so happy for you that you found the site and reached out to Pete. 😊
Thank you very much for sharing ♥️☀️☮️
You’re welcome. Thank you for your kind words and emoticons and for reading my stuff.
Most welcome!!
Great essay. I last voted when you did (and for the same person). As you might expect, my thoughts are similar:
A Vote for Liberty
https://jdbreen.substack.com/p/a-vote-for-liberty?utm_source=publication-search
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. Thank you for being a good soul searching for freedom for himself and his neighbours. These are the things we should be doing. Peace, freedom, and understanding are out there, available to everyone.
Unfortunately, I think Ron Paul is just another gatekeeper- this from a former Libertarian party member. All the BS about auditing the feds was just a smokescreen when the real message was to get rid of the FED. As long as the bankers can create monry from nothing- and charge interest on it we are fooked.
No one is coming to save you.
“Don’t vote” is not the solution to the problem. But go ahead and convince tens of millions of people who don’t want the continued descent into tyranny to continue. Do you know what a mandate is?
Scenario: final outcome:
Trump-10 million votes because Jim Davidson fans stayed home.
Harris: 70 million votes.
You just gave them a huge mandate to confiscate your guns and to completely obliterate the First Amendment.
It’s cool when George Carlin says don’t vote and everyone admires his mind but knows that suicide disguised as seduction is still suicide. And Carlin knew that other people would still vote and save his butt from the stuff that kills, but he could still be the cool guy. You are doing the same thing.
First off, wow, thank you for thinking that tens of millions of people would pay attention to a word I ever write. I'm the author of five books nobody has read, including one (1) that was briefly, fifteen years ago, just inside the million best selling books on Amazon. So the notion that it is all my fault that over a hundred ten million Americans chose not to vote in 2024 is some kind of wild enthusiasm for my persuasive abilities. I'm sure my speech and debate coach from high school would be proud. Gosh!
Last off, voting doesn't change anything. You seem to believe that you are going into the trenches to fight off the commie hordes when you show up in the voting booth. But the truth is, you don't even know if your vote will be included in whatever tally is announced by the people in your county, let alone in your state. You have no control over the people who want to round up guns. The only way to avoid having the guns rounded up is to have lots of guns, so my friends who distribute software for 3D printers are actually helping and your vote is not helping. I know these facts won't ever set well with you, but you seem fun. And, anyway, the lefthanded compliment, "You're dooming us with your great writing" is an artful pose, and makes me smile. Enjoy your day, friend!
Mr. Davidson, you got me on one point where I wrote about you being the inspiration for tens of millions not to vote when the fact is that others like you are encouraging the same thing. I first noticed this when like minded proponents of not voting were posting hip George Carlin memes and videos. So to clarify, you are not alone in this fatal mistake. But you can be sure that the DNC is saying “Keep it up, boys and girls.”
As for the rest of your arguments against voting, they still don’t make any sense. It’s not an either/or situation but rather a both/and situation. We cannot afford to roll over and give them legitimacy.
In my opinion you would be more convincing if you would tackle the real problems that have caused this disconnect between our elected representatives and the people. Tackle the influence of foreign and corporate money that makes it easy for them to politely brush off any input from the actual citizens they represent. Not voting, particularly by the side that opposes the demolition of our constitutional republican form of government, pretty much dooms the possibility that the election fraud you mentioned can be stopped. You accept that because they are doing horrible things it must be the case that we can’t do anything about it short of an armed revolution. And if and when it gets to that point, are you assuming that the non voting side whose ox was gored is actually going to take violent action?
The radicals want us to believe that we don’t have any control. Trump won but he won’t be able to fix everything, so the battle will continue every four years. Don’t discount the fact that their detachment from reality in their policies usually backfires and often leads to people voting with us. Did someone’s house burn in Palisades and Maui? get washed away in NC? their rivers polluted in Ohio? their loved one killed by a gang banger or rapist from South America?
Don’t vote? Okay, arm up and shoot ‘em. But since you decided it was better not to vote, Wray and Garland have another four years to arrest you and make a very public example of you so that nobody else follows the example.
Tired of the mainstream media lying to us? Don’t vote, right?
While people like you are saying don’t vote, Marc Elias and the DNC are organizing grass roots campaigns to mobilize millions of voters and ballot harvesting. I’m glad we out voted them this time because maybe election integrity might gain some traction if some of the fraudsters get sent to prison.
We are not yet the Soviet Union or China. If we want to arrive there, then don’t vote.
Smart people like you should be able to think it through.
You are consenting to be governed by voting. I am not. Over a hundred ten million Americans are not. You are supporting the system by voting, by filing tax papers, and by writing to your congress critters, among your many other sins. You WANT a human being to rule over you, and you argue that because I won't consent to be governed by any king but Jesus Christ that I am helping your enemies. But I'm not helping your enemies. You are.
You are wrong, and sinful. You need to take a long cold look at yourself and ask yourself why you want to be governed.
You know that the District of Corruption (DC) is sinful and evil. You know it is not merely wasting money but actively seeking evil things on which to spend your money. DC is spending money on mutilating children, on homosexual propaganda, on coercive programmes to forcibly poison millions of people, and on many other brutal projects. By voting, you are saying that you want those things, but you want them administered in a "kinder and gentler" way, to quote one of the George Bushes. I do not.
You don't have to agree with my beliefs. My beliefs do not require that you do. You are free to choose to vote and to do everything in your power to keep the system you love running roughshod over the people you claim to care about. But there is no argument you can ever make that will do either of the things you say you want. Nothing you ever write will convince me to vote. Nothing you ever write will convince me to stop writing about the importance of not voting.
You go into a little voting booth on election day and you participate in a sacrament to defy God. I suggest you should choose another path.
I can BOTH vote AND worship Jesus Christ. Your accusations about how I, personally, by voting, not only legitimizes but also actualizes the sins in our nation, is amateurish.
Additionally, the old saying is true: you may not be interested in war and politics, but war and politics is interested in you. Let that sink in.
"You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." ~ 1st Corinthians 10: 21
God is the salvation for those who believe. You do not frighten me with war and politics. I've seen them. They have no power over me, friend.
Choose ye this day who ye will serve, says Joshua.
Interesting article and food for thought. Good comments all the way around.
As a man of God you know that we fall the way we lean. I’m not expecting too much of humanity let alone government. But I’m still involved and educating myself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident, famously said:
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Peace out.
For my own part, I have not been silent. You can find a couple years of essays of mine here at L5 News and before that at L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise going back to 1995. Nor have I been inactive. I've travelled on four continents looking for a free country, looking for people talking about individual sovereignty, looking for believers.
You are free to choose. I've written a number of essays around that theme. You can choose to vote if you think you are going to change anything by working within the system. I don't believe you are. I don't believe the vote counts are reflective of the votes cast, nor do I believe that if voting were going to change anything the people who have power would allow the voting to take place. Voting gives the appearance of consent, but it is not a meaningful consent. Paying taxes gives them your money to hurt other people, and that's what the people in power want. So I suggest you might want to stop doing that.
Taxation is theft. Inflation is theft. Civil asset forfeiture is theft. Eminent domain is theft. Conscription is slavery. War is murder. The district of corruption (DC) is evil. You cannot partake from the table of God and from the table of demons.
The thing masquerading as government is an artefact of human hands. It is owned and operated by demon worshippers, by child torturers, by cannibals, it is foul, it is evil. Going into their little voting booth and partaking of their sacrament of voting is idolatry.
You don't have to believe as I believe. My beliefs do not require anything of you. But you do have to choose whether to serve God and goodness or the demon worshippers and evil. It is not my doing that you have this choice, nor am I the first to say so. Find it in the book of Joshua. Choose ye this day who ye will serve. As for me and my family, we serve the Lord our God. Amen.
You could say less than 1/2 of you voted OR, you could also say more than half of you voted to do NOTHING and let your country become a cog in the One World Order which is exactly what you did! Congratulations!
Majority rules, nothing was ever more true UNLESS you can convince the majority not to care, then the Minority calls the shots.
Agenda 21: https://signal.group/#CjQKIDhBSAQQ_EXoHZUmReikOu9-WsXhu4ljw7txAcJDcOTfEhA-xHPmELGN-8j8GITJtNWl
Mama sez don’ click links from strangers.
You could say that voting has produced worse and worse results in the 236 years since 1788. But you probably are still doing the same things over and over again expecting to get different results. Isn’t that crazy. (Not a question.)
Even though about 20-22% of the US population is under 18 and can’t vote, I agree that voter turnout is low. And frankly the census numbers are rough at best, considering they include anyone who lives here whether they are citizens or not, and probably miss most of the homeless and transient populations.
I always vote but to be honest I pay more attention and are more concerned about local elections, city, county, state, than I am about federal. Those candidates are so far removed I cannot imagine having the slightest influence on them. They will start wars, tax the hell out of me, and follow the dictates of their party and the cronies whose money lines their pockets.
Let me just say this: my sister’s in law salary was more than a US Senator. She got 3 weeks of vacation every year and had the usual federal holidays off. My brother owned his own successful business and worked 10 hour days. They had 1 child who chose not to attend college, and 1 car. They did not live an extravagant lifestyle. They had a financial advisor who invested their money wisely. Yet even in retirement they cannot afford a house on the Cape, a house in a warmer climate, a yacht, a sailboat, an apartment in NYC, etc.
How would we know if voter turnout is low? The people who count the votes are liars. The people who tabulate the vote counts from various precincts are liars. The people who report on the vote tabulations are liars. All you know is that you go vote and someone you barely know and cannot trust tells you how the vote turned out.
None of the candidates you do think are near enough to be influenced by your views have any contractual obligation to you. You cannot have a contract with an elected official to keep campaign promises or do any other thing. So you have no agency. It is a crazy system designed to create the pretence of consent.
He beat me to it but ditto on that being a Mark Twain quote.
I mostly agree with you on the political atheism but following the principle of Ballots (are to be preferred) over Bullets practicality I vote as a way of telling the other side how large an army my side might be able to field should we do this the old fashioned way. You know, blunt force trauma mostly accompanied by the various methods of fatally dropping blood pressure during which applications the side with the most votes/troops doesn’t always win…😈.
Jim, I read everyone's stuff less than I used to. I can see the commitment in what you write.
But as imperfect as the system may be, a failure to vote is a vote for the person you would least like to see take office.
Put that in your smipe and poke it.
Ken, with due respect, you have been brainwashed.
We’re all brainwashed.
I finally woke up…mind blowing!
So, you're awake and I'm still asleep? Believe what you wish. You and Jim apparently believe there is no lesser of two evils. After four years of Biden if you are not convinced, I'll not convince you.
Government is a necessity, and the trick would be keeping it under control.
That's the battle.
You make bold claims, but you lack any strong moral code by which to defend these claims. You falsely claim that what is in the District of Corruption is government, but it is not. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the unanimous consent of the governed..." but this thing doesn't have the consent of the governed. It doesn't even have majority consent. So, it isn't government, and therefore by your own strategising it isn't a necessity.
You have, by voting again and again, for evil, insisting that your choice is the lesser evil, failed, utterly, to keep tyranny under control. You vote for evil, and, much worse, you demand that I vote, too. I shall not vote. I do not consent. Your path is wrong and I won't accept it. I do not vote for evil, neither greater nor lesser.
I have a king, Jesus Christ, who is a man who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. So let it be known that you are not my judge, your judgemental comments about me not voting are not welcome here, and your unpleasant remarks are not courteous. But I am also not your judge, and you have your choices to take.
You have chosen to accept the outcome of the elections by voting in them. I have not. You have chosen to accept the counting of the votes by people who never accurately count, and I have not. You have accepted that there is corruption in the District of Corruption, but all you are willing to do is hope for the lesser evil, keep voting, and proclaim that it is wrong not to vote. Your courage seems very wanting.
I don't consent to be governed by the District of Corruption. I withdrew my consent. Choose ye this day who ye shall serve. As for me and my family, we serve the Lord our God.
Good for you. If you travel to DC you will find it well-stocked with the government you mindlessly do not consent to. I shall help put Trump into office over any Democrat, and will hope for a government that will at last be of, for and by the people. If there's one thing we can agree on, it is presently anything but that. Disengagement is equivalent to giving up all hope. As a human, I'm not ready for that.