Get in the ring

13 rounds of argumentation with Billy Beck. The topic: voting.

Beck:
I don’t see how one can be a libertarian and vote for anybody at all, period. Look: I don’t have a right to get together with my friends and determine with them how to dispose of your rights. Any sensible person would call that a conspiracy. Nobody has that right

So I tell him what I think, and back and forth it goes. We end up just about where we started, in disagreement. Oh well. (Like I thought he would change me or vice-versa. You never know, though.)

A good argument. I feel a bit bad about hijacking the UO thread like that, but the argument was more or less on topic. It is reasonable to hash out whether or not voting is morally acceptable, and if so, what sort of voting strategy is moral, before proceeding with any sort of libertarian-democratic entente.

I'm quite certain that voting to prevent or mitigate an already-existing rights-violation is morally acceptable. What I'm still thinking about is whether there's any way to stretch the notion of defensive voting to a strategy of voting for gridlock.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am a big proponent of voting for gridlock. I voted for Kerry last time on the slim chance of stalling the State. Of course I disagree with our nascent socialist party but since the difference between the two has become negligible in terms of liberty, gridlock and obstruction is the only way to vote.*

*I had been voting Libertarian over the past few elections but 1) their dogmatic and alienating stance precludes their ever winning office so it really is a waste and 2) Badnarik was the worst possible choice of the three front-runners. The LP had to be punished