The End of Government
The Era of Lawlessness
Fair Elections in Crisis
Conflict is unavoidable, but there are institutions that exist to mediate disputes, such as elections. When no agreement can be met, sometimes the best thing to do is simply count heads. The majority wins. It’s not perfect, but it’s almost always better than war. Unfortunately, the same people pushing for government to control ever more of our lives, thereby giving us more to fight about, also push to erode democracy.
The voting citizens of a country can easily be just as selfish, stupid, or misguided as a lone dictator. The difference is that at least voting citizens are incentivized to pursue policies that work for the voting citizens, while a lone dictator is likely to pursue policies that work only for the lone dictator. Following the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, democracy is a better system.
In the United States, we have a representative democracy. The citizenry does not vote directly, but elects representatives to deliberate and decide for them. In order to know who to elect, the voting records of the representatives must be public. Besides, if there is no record of the votes, how can we know whether the measure passed? How can we (and the enforcers) know what the current law is? This is fundamental to the whole concept.
In recent years it has come to my attention that some laws are deemed passed without a vote being taken. This happens at both the state and federal level. So long as nobody objects, there is no record made. This might not be so bad if the measure is considered to have been passed unanimously, but what has been happening is that it gives politicians plausible deniability. This is corruption of the highest order. Any representative not objecting to passage without counting the yeas and nays has in fact voted for the measure and cannot escape responsibility. It is that simple. The only other alternative is to consider it not passed, and not a law at all, making it illegal for the executive branch to enforce. Yet, I keep hearing that this happens anyway (24).
For the sake of peace, it is important that people believe their votes are counted. History has shown that voters are likely to concede defeat when fairly defeated by superior numbers, but likely to stir up trouble if they suspect election tampering. This almost happened in 2000 when Al Gore attempted to steal the presidential election with help from the Florida Supreme Court. Bush won the initial count, and Bush won the recount. According to Florida law, Bush won fair and square (25). Period. Gore demanded additional counts. It was a dangerous path. Worse, many in the media and in the Democratic Party legitimized the action and later spread the lie that it was Bush who had stolen the election. They still tell the lie to this day. I have yet to hear any Democratic candidate denounce Gore and distance themselves from the rest of the party, and this is one of many reasons why I will never vote for Democrats.
Later, in 2016, there was misinformation spread through social media that might have tipped the balance of the election. Even though every major country and NGO does this in every election, and Mrs. Clinton was every bit as much the beneficiary of misinformation as Mr. Trump was, the Democrats floated the ridiculous claim that Trump was illegitimately elected because some of the attacks on Clinton (rooted in truth) might have had a Russian origin. It was a reckless claim.
Then, in 2020, the Democrats tried to steal the election again, while simultaneously accusing Republicans of doing exactly what they were doing, but they got caught. The Democrats often frame the story as if the election was a done deal and then Trump tried to get it overturned by alleging fraud without evidence. This is not even close to the truth. Instead, the results themselves were disputed even before election day. Democrats in several states did not follow election law as enacted by the state legislatures, but ran illegal elections and collected illegal drop-off and mail-in ballots that could not be verified valid and made fraud much easier. In one state, a judge ruled the disputed ballots must be kept separate, pending a final decision after the election, and they were ultimately mixed in anyways (36). On election day, both Biden and Trump claimed victory before the results were in. At that moment, neither had proof of winning. It was not clear which ballots would ultimately be counted and who had the authority to assign electors. They were both right and both wrong, each trying to overturn the claims of the other.
Strangely, poll workers in six states at the same time stopped counting ballots and took a break. In one state, they blamed the pause on a water leak that was later proven a lie (37). From day one, there were claims that poll watchers had been illegally removed or prevented from observing the counting process. From day one, there were claims that vote tallies had flipped live on air (I saw the video myself). When the precincts were reopened, there were a huge number of votes added to the system all at once that could only have been counted when the precincts were closed and the watchers absent (38). These mystery votes tilted so heavily for Biden that it defies statistics. Then, when the legislature of Arizona subpoenaed the voting machines of Maricopa County, the county officials refused to honor the subpoena (39). Republicans gathered evidence and rushed to file suit in court, but in at least one state the secretary of state rushed to certify the election ahead of schedule and the court told the Republicans they had missed the deadline (40). Democrats ignore the law when it suits them, but then use the law to tie the hands of Republicans and the Republicans stupidly cooperate. What good are Republicans at all? Whether there was absolute proof of fraud or not isn’t even important at this point. The fact that Democrats refused to even cooperate with the investigation is troubling enough. Millions of people actually believe the election was stolen. Hiding evidence and mocking them is the opposite of helpful. It might provoke them into doing something crazy. If there is nothing to hide, why hide?
These are tricky examples to use to make my case, since so many people have already made up their minds about them, but they had to be included. They are the clearest attacks on Democracy I know of and they explain a large bit of my fear. That said, you are either with those that believe Gore almost got away with stealing the election, or you are with those that believe Bush actually did get away with stealing the election. You are either with those that believe Trump tried to steal the election, or that Biden’s supporters actually did steal the election. Either way, you believe democracy is in danger. On that, we can agree.
The Democrats are not very democratic. They have proven this again and again. When Republicans around the country began to propose requirements for voters to show identification, the Democrats fought against these measures tooth and nail. They claimed that the requirements were unduly burdensome in ways that suppressed the voice of poor voters, especially racial minorities, going on to claim that this was actually the intended outcome of the law and accusing the Republicans of being secret racists (26).
Do you know what really suppresses the voice of voters? Election fraud. We already know for a fact that some election fraud happens; we just don’t know how much. We know that dead people have “voted” in every election for decades (27). We know that states are often slow to purge the voter rolls of those who have either passed on or moved out of state (28). We know that Democrats have bussed in people from other states to vote in states with tight races (29). We know that the organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) registered a lot of people to vote in 2008 that didn’t exist or weren’t eligible (30). It was undercover journalists from Veritas that showed us just how easy it was to vote fraudulently when they obtained ballots by claiming to be other people (31). Voter ID laws won’t solve all our problems, but they will solve some of them. If the Democrats really cared about voter suppression, they would support these measures rather than opposing them.
There is also the practice of “ballot harvesting,” legal in many states, wherein partisan organizations are allowed to pick up ballots from the voters and deliver them to the polling station (32). How do we know the partisans didn’t fill them out themselves? How do we know that the ballots were all delivered? There is no verifiable chain of custody. If the Democrats really cared about democracy, they would end this. Requiring an ID for each ballot cast would do it. After all, keep in mind that the Republicans have harvesters too.
At the same time, while the Democrats push so hard to eliminate the electoral college in the name of truer democracy, they show no interest in eliminating the superdelegates that plague their internal democratic decision-making. These are not delegates proportionally chosen by the people below and pledged to support a particular candidate, but activists and politicians that can choose whomever they wish (33). They also show no interest in eliminating caucuses. Unlike primaries, caucuses are when a small number of voters gather for hours at a time to argue until they can agree on which candidate to support. The process is theoretically open to everyone, but in practice favors the rich and educated. Democrats are hypocrites.
While I believe in bringing as many people into the voting process as possible, I do understand that parties are private entities not controlled by the government and that they should be allowed to set their own internal rules. If the Democrats wish to continue using superdelegates, it is not the role of the state to stop them. By the same logic, if a party wishes to count only those ballots cast by long-time party members, rather than participating in an open primary wherein voters can switch sides to vote strategically, they should be allowed to opt-out. In many states, they cannot (34). In states with one party much greater in number of members than the other, this hurts the smaller party.
The will of the people is thwarted in other ways as well. Criticize Trump all you want (I have), but he was elected in 2016 fair and square. Removing him by impeachment would make those who voted for him angry and make even those who hate him worry that the same thing might happen to a future candidate that they like. It sets a precedent. Impeachment is a very serious and risky endeavor not to be taken lightly, but only when the republic itself is at stake. In the case of the first impeachment of Donald Trump, what he was accused of wasn’t even a crime and was no different than what previous presidents have done.
Then there are the legal forms of bribery that undermine democracy. I’m not talking about how special interests use campaign contributions to effectively buy influence – though this is also a problem – I’m talking about the party in power buying votes directly from the citizens. When one is depending on the government for one’s livelihood, the temptation is to vote for the candidate promising more handouts than the candidate promising less – no matter which candidate is better for the country as a whole. In this way, government programs ensure their continued existence. When millions of voters are on welfare, when companies receive big subsidies or bailouts, when companies depend on government contracts for survival, when scientists receive grant money from the government, when millions of people work directly for the government – depending on the government for their paychecks – and when the government begins to do things the private sector does, always giving itself the advantage and slowly putting private companies out of business, democracy is over.
“If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employes of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name.” – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
We’ve seen some of this play out as the “deep state” resisted the directives of President Trump and thereby thwarted the will of those who voted for him. Employees of the federal government never elected by the citizens they supposedly serve have taken it upon themselves to decide how to run the country. They drag their feet and delay action. They leak sensitive information to the press. They doctor reports to give flawed impressions to those that are supposed to make the decisions, even going so far to keep the real troop deployment numbers hidden from the commander-in-chief! (35) So long as they get away with it, democracy itself is in grave danger.
If politics were just a popularity contest, it would be no big deal, but government keeps inserting itself into every aspect of our lives. People have had their freedom taken and livelihoods destroyed. People have been killed. Everything is at stake. Who takes office matters. Our country began because the people believed that there should be no taxation without representation. We are now in the same situation again. We are taxed, but our votes aren’t counted. What if the people do again what they did in 1776, but with modern weapons? While democracy certainly won’t solve all our problems if we keep getting outvoted, it at least gives people hope in the possibility that their side could win in the future if only they could get the votes together. However, without democracy, there is no hope of this.
I recognize that people will have different opinions on who won an election when there have been irregularities. The problem is that elections are how we settle differences of opinion on other issues. Can we decide who won the 2020 presidential election by putting it to a vote? What if that election is challenged too? Where does it end? Until people start being honest about the basic facts, there is no dialogue possible. Without fair elections to settle our differences, people will resort to riots and war. Is that what Democrats want? I believe it is.
The voting citizens of a country can easily be just as selfish, stupid, or misguided as a lone dictator. The difference is that at least voting citizens are incentivized to pursue policies that work for the voting citizens, while a lone dictator is likely to pursue policies that work only for the lone dictator. Following the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, democracy is a better system.
In the United States, we have a representative democracy. The citizenry does not vote directly, but elects representatives to deliberate and decide for them. In order to know who to elect, the voting records of the representatives must be public. Besides, if there is no record of the votes, how can we know whether the measure passed? How can we (and the enforcers) know what the current law is? This is fundamental to the whole concept.
In recent years it has come to my attention that some laws are deemed passed without a vote being taken. This happens at both the state and federal level. So long as nobody objects, there is no record made. This might not be so bad if the measure is considered to have been passed unanimously, but what has been happening is that it gives politicians plausible deniability. This is corruption of the highest order. Any representative not objecting to passage without counting the yeas and nays has in fact voted for the measure and cannot escape responsibility. It is that simple. The only other alternative is to consider it not passed, and not a law at all, making it illegal for the executive branch to enforce. Yet, I keep hearing that this happens anyway (24).
For the sake of peace, it is important that people believe their votes are counted. History has shown that voters are likely to concede defeat when fairly defeated by superior numbers, but likely to stir up trouble if they suspect election tampering. This almost happened in 2000 when Al Gore attempted to steal the presidential election with help from the Florida Supreme Court. Bush won the initial count, and Bush won the recount. According to Florida law, Bush won fair and square (25). Period. Gore demanded additional counts. It was a dangerous path. Worse, many in the media and in the Democratic Party legitimized the action and later spread the lie that it was Bush who had stolen the election. They still tell the lie to this day. I have yet to hear any Democratic candidate denounce Gore and distance themselves from the rest of the party, and this is one of many reasons why I will never vote for Democrats.
Later, in 2016, there was misinformation spread through social media that might have tipped the balance of the election. Even though every major country and NGO does this in every election, and Mrs. Clinton was every bit as much the beneficiary of misinformation as Mr. Trump was, the Democrats floated the ridiculous claim that Trump was illegitimately elected because some of the attacks on Clinton (rooted in truth) might have had a Russian origin. It was a reckless claim.
Then, in 2020, the Democrats tried to steal the election again, while simultaneously accusing Republicans of doing exactly what they were doing, but they got caught. The Democrats often frame the story as if the election was a done deal and then Trump tried to get it overturned by alleging fraud without evidence. This is not even close to the truth. Instead, the results themselves were disputed even before election day. Democrats in several states did not follow election law as enacted by the state legislatures, but ran illegal elections and collected illegal drop-off and mail-in ballots that could not be verified valid and made fraud much easier. In one state, a judge ruled the disputed ballots must be kept separate, pending a final decision after the election, and they were ultimately mixed in anyways (36). On election day, both Biden and Trump claimed victory before the results were in. At that moment, neither had proof of winning. It was not clear which ballots would ultimately be counted and who had the authority to assign electors. They were both right and both wrong, each trying to overturn the claims of the other.
Strangely, poll workers in six states at the same time stopped counting ballots and took a break. In one state, they blamed the pause on a water leak that was later proven a lie (37). From day one, there were claims that poll watchers had been illegally removed or prevented from observing the counting process. From day one, there were claims that vote tallies had flipped live on air (I saw the video myself). When the precincts were reopened, there were a huge number of votes added to the system all at once that could only have been counted when the precincts were closed and the watchers absent (38). These mystery votes tilted so heavily for Biden that it defies statistics. Then, when the legislature of Arizona subpoenaed the voting machines of Maricopa County, the county officials refused to honor the subpoena (39). Republicans gathered evidence and rushed to file suit in court, but in at least one state the secretary of state rushed to certify the election ahead of schedule and the court told the Republicans they had missed the deadline (40). Democrats ignore the law when it suits them, but then use the law to tie the hands of Republicans and the Republicans stupidly cooperate. What good are Republicans at all? Whether there was absolute proof of fraud or not isn’t even important at this point. The fact that Democrats refused to even cooperate with the investigation is troubling enough. Millions of people actually believe the election was stolen. Hiding evidence and mocking them is the opposite of helpful. It might provoke them into doing something crazy. If there is nothing to hide, why hide?
These are tricky examples to use to make my case, since so many people have already made up their minds about them, but they had to be included. They are the clearest attacks on Democracy I know of and they explain a large bit of my fear. That said, you are either with those that believe Gore almost got away with stealing the election, or you are with those that believe Bush actually did get away with stealing the election. You are either with those that believe Trump tried to steal the election, or that Biden’s supporters actually did steal the election. Either way, you believe democracy is in danger. On that, we can agree.
The Democrats are not very democratic. They have proven this again and again. When Republicans around the country began to propose requirements for voters to show identification, the Democrats fought against these measures tooth and nail. They claimed that the requirements were unduly burdensome in ways that suppressed the voice of poor voters, especially racial minorities, going on to claim that this was actually the intended outcome of the law and accusing the Republicans of being secret racists (26).
Do you know what really suppresses the voice of voters? Election fraud. We already know for a fact that some election fraud happens; we just don’t know how much. We know that dead people have “voted” in every election for decades (27). We know that states are often slow to purge the voter rolls of those who have either passed on or moved out of state (28). We know that Democrats have bussed in people from other states to vote in states with tight races (29). We know that the organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) registered a lot of people to vote in 2008 that didn’t exist or weren’t eligible (30). It was undercover journalists from Veritas that showed us just how easy it was to vote fraudulently when they obtained ballots by claiming to be other people (31). Voter ID laws won’t solve all our problems, but they will solve some of them. If the Democrats really cared about voter suppression, they would support these measures rather than opposing them.
There is also the practice of “ballot harvesting,” legal in many states, wherein partisan organizations are allowed to pick up ballots from the voters and deliver them to the polling station (32). How do we know the partisans didn’t fill them out themselves? How do we know that the ballots were all delivered? There is no verifiable chain of custody. If the Democrats really cared about democracy, they would end this. Requiring an ID for each ballot cast would do it. After all, keep in mind that the Republicans have harvesters too.
At the same time, while the Democrats push so hard to eliminate the electoral college in the name of truer democracy, they show no interest in eliminating the superdelegates that plague their internal democratic decision-making. These are not delegates proportionally chosen by the people below and pledged to support a particular candidate, but activists and politicians that can choose whomever they wish (33). They also show no interest in eliminating caucuses. Unlike primaries, caucuses are when a small number of voters gather for hours at a time to argue until they can agree on which candidate to support. The process is theoretically open to everyone, but in practice favors the rich and educated. Democrats are hypocrites.
While I believe in bringing as many people into the voting process as possible, I do understand that parties are private entities not controlled by the government and that they should be allowed to set their own internal rules. If the Democrats wish to continue using superdelegates, it is not the role of the state to stop them. By the same logic, if a party wishes to count only those ballots cast by long-time party members, rather than participating in an open primary wherein voters can switch sides to vote strategically, they should be allowed to opt-out. In many states, they cannot (34). In states with one party much greater in number of members than the other, this hurts the smaller party.
The will of the people is thwarted in other ways as well. Criticize Trump all you want (I have), but he was elected in 2016 fair and square. Removing him by impeachment would make those who voted for him angry and make even those who hate him worry that the same thing might happen to a future candidate that they like. It sets a precedent. Impeachment is a very serious and risky endeavor not to be taken lightly, but only when the republic itself is at stake. In the case of the first impeachment of Donald Trump, what he was accused of wasn’t even a crime and was no different than what previous presidents have done.
Then there are the legal forms of bribery that undermine democracy. I’m not talking about how special interests use campaign contributions to effectively buy influence – though this is also a problem – I’m talking about the party in power buying votes directly from the citizens. When one is depending on the government for one’s livelihood, the temptation is to vote for the candidate promising more handouts than the candidate promising less – no matter which candidate is better for the country as a whole. In this way, government programs ensure their continued existence. When millions of voters are on welfare, when companies receive big subsidies or bailouts, when companies depend on government contracts for survival, when scientists receive grant money from the government, when millions of people work directly for the government – depending on the government for their paychecks – and when the government begins to do things the private sector does, always giving itself the advantage and slowly putting private companies out of business, democracy is over.
“If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employes of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name.” – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
We’ve seen some of this play out as the “deep state” resisted the directives of President Trump and thereby thwarted the will of those who voted for him. Employees of the federal government never elected by the citizens they supposedly serve have taken it upon themselves to decide how to run the country. They drag their feet and delay action. They leak sensitive information to the press. They doctor reports to give flawed impressions to those that are supposed to make the decisions, even going so far to keep the real troop deployment numbers hidden from the commander-in-chief! (35) So long as they get away with it, democracy itself is in grave danger.
If politics were just a popularity contest, it would be no big deal, but government keeps inserting itself into every aspect of our lives. People have had their freedom taken and livelihoods destroyed. People have been killed. Everything is at stake. Who takes office matters. Our country began because the people believed that there should be no taxation without representation. We are now in the same situation again. We are taxed, but our votes aren’t counted. What if the people do again what they did in 1776, but with modern weapons? While democracy certainly won’t solve all our problems if we keep getting outvoted, it at least gives people hope in the possibility that their side could win in the future if only they could get the votes together. However, without democracy, there is no hope of this.
I recognize that people will have different opinions on who won an election when there have been irregularities. The problem is that elections are how we settle differences of opinion on other issues. Can we decide who won the 2020 presidential election by putting it to a vote? What if that election is challenged too? Where does it end? Until people start being honest about the basic facts, there is no dialogue possible. Without fair elections to settle our differences, people will resort to riots and war. Is that what Democrats want? I believe it is.