Seriously, though…

Ludwig Von Mises, the eternal optimist and brilliant economist and philosopher, once wrote in The Anti-Capitalist Mentality that “[a]n “anti-something” movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program that they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”  It was precisely this reason that I chose to announce a positive movement to advocate a day of love as a reasonable alternative to voting.  I want to scream out for people not to vote and to reject the violence inherent in the system, but being purely negative is never as effective as being positive.  I wonder, though, is advocating sex instead of voting achieving my goal beyond simple diversion?

The answer, like so many things, depends on perspective. I advocate a system of non-violence and 100% voluntary cooperation while letting every single individual organize the society around them, that they can alter directly without initiating force upon others.  As all these individuals interact, agreements will be made that are beneficial to both parties (regardless of what anybody outside of such a transaction deems “fair”).  Sex is also a transaction.  Mostly it is undertaken on 100% voluntary terms for the perceived benefit of all parties involved (optimists all).  Regulations and morals imposed by a disconnected state matter little – if at all – in such interactions.

So by advocating a 100% voluntary action for the benefit of all involved, I am attempting to illustrate the differences between the two choices of action.  I don’t mean to say there is a choice between voting and having sex because there isn’t; one could perceivable do both…at the same time (curtained booths anyone) or one could do neither.  The choice is really whether you participate (even under coercion, though without serious consequences for not) in a system that imposes a minority opinion upon all through violence (I’m not joking or using hyperbole, either, just ask Cory Maye) or you make those interactions with the approval of everyone involved as if you were going to have sex with them.

Voting is violence.  It doesn’t matter if one is voting to throw out the bum who currently holds that position on the school board only to replace him with someone else who will assume the authority to spend stolen money and decide what everyone’s child will be taught or if one attempts to shoot down the new tax to help better educate some people’s children because if it is ok for a tax to fail by popular vote, it is apparently ok for a tax to pass by popular vote.  The result is always, always imposing the will of one group onto the unwilling others who have no choice, whether they participated or not.  Attempting to withdraw from such a system is met with violence – sometimes brutal, physical violence.  Voting is simply an illustrative microcosm of the entire system.

Consensual sex is an illustrative microcosm of a voluntary system.  I was not only advocating a fun alternative in a bleak situation, I was advocating a system as different from voting as night and day.  And while the idea seems fun and amusing; damn it, I was serious!  Nobody has to have sex tomorrow for the idea to work.  All that has to be done is not going to vote.  Go to McDonalds for breakfast, merge onto the freeway, work for an agreed upon compensation (neglecting the forcefully removal of a portion of that), do what one would normally do in the course of a day and ask if you were imposing upon somebody against their will.  Those of the productive class won’t have a hard time looking themselves in the eye at the close of the day, and they will be able to keep a straight face when saying that everything that happened that day was 100% voluntary.

Voting on which path of violence and imposition to take doesn’t make the result any less violent or imposed, it just makes it more convenient with the strength of many.