The libertarian vote is a fail in both idea and in practice...

I think my political ideologies spanned from confused liberalism to anarchism all in the span between the election years of 2008 and 2012.  Although I voted for Obama because he did a great job making McCain look like Bush, I've always been skeptical and distrustful of government.  I just couldn't put my finger quite on it.

My first major dive into libertarianism started with trying to understand the financial crisis of 2008 and I remember that year coming home everyday to watch the news to get the latest goings on about the economy.  Then a viral video hit me titled "Peter Schiff was right."  And suddenly here's this guy who was warning about the shit hitting the fan and I immediately bought every book he had written on Amazon.  I finished both books in one week and it all made sense.  Who knew economics could be explained in plain English?!!??  I read every word.

I then learned about Ron Paul and the Mises Institute and learned that Austrian economics was just a branch of a political philosophy called Libertarianism.  As I learned more and swam deeper into that pool, I realized that the most consistent view were labeled as 'anarcho-capitalism.'

I suppose I could have stopped at understanding Ron Paul's message and the whole 'End the Fed' campaign and this whole idea of Ayn Rand's limited government (minarchism) and the Constitution and that it should be defended.  I suppose if I did that, I would have been on facebook during campaign season posting things about Ron Paul and been a big Paul supporter.  But I couldn't.

Being the way I am, I need to know as much as possible and love uncovering root causes and what it is about us as humans that drive us to do certain things.  I guess in the Misesian world, I'd consider myself the ultimate praxeologist.

The typical libertarian is the minarchist.  They believe in limited government and in the Constitution.  I'd agree that if government remained forever bound by strict adherence to the Constitution, then I doubt I'd be an anarchist today.  Fortunately, the minarchist ideas are flawed and government, as bound as it was, has grown and any limits are really illusory since any liberties and individuals can be sacrificed for the sake of 'national security.'

The core flaw in libertarian minarchist is the belief that voting can reverse the natural growth of government.  In fact, voting, in concept, goes completely against the ideas and ideals of libertarianism.  One core tenet of libertarianism is voluntary relationships as another one is individualism.  I will examine the voting process and expose the contradiction in its usage to preserve individual rights.

What is a vote and why vote?  So let me clearly define voting and its purposes.  But let me first start this off with a scenario.  Five friends are out and about and want to go eat dinner somewhere.  Each person makes a suggestion and invariably, do not come to a consensus insofar as where they really want to eat.  So what do they do?  They vote.  Five votes and the candidate that receives the most vote will be where the group eats.

So let me define the word vote: Vote - the act of individually choosing a course of action over another option with the intention to affect a group choice.

The act of voting isn't to decide where YOU want to eat.  It's to decide where the GROUP eats.  You vote because you accept that you are part of the group.  Therefore, if the group of friends decide to eat Indian, then you eat Indian and Indian food is in your stomach.  However, if not part of a group, the only way Indian food would end up in your stomach would have been an individual choice on your part to eat Indian food.

As part of the group, the effects of the group's actions, through the voting process, are experienced by each member of the group.  So in the Indian food example, the group's actions is the group going to eat Indian food, which was decided by voting.  The effects of the group is every single member in the group has Indian food in their stomachs.

What voting does is it relinquishes individuals' preferences in favor of the group's with the acceptance of owning the effects of the group's action.  So if a person in that group of five really wanted Chinese food and voted for Chinese food and lost, by accepting the voting process and then voting, he must accept the reality that there is Indian food in his stomach and not Chinese.

People who vote seem to not understand this and yet have a sense of nationalism.  What I mean is the average voter always seems to say, "Don't blame me...I didn't vote for that!"  Uh...yes you did!  Libertarians are no different in this way over Democrats or Republicans.  They vote and when things don't go their way they want to deny the effects of the voting population.  The very act of voting removes any personal preferences in the hopes of changing the group's preferences.  The attempt is really to affect the group's preferences to match your own so you can benefit from the effects of the group's actions because you are part of that group.

The paradox of nationalism is everywhere as well.  Palestinians hate Americans.  Why?  Because American troops are in their backyards and with good reason.  Americans voted for a president and that president put troops there.  It's not just the Americans that wanted troops there, but all Americans because that's how the vote works.  You sacrifice your preferences and accept the consequences of the group's actions.

So on one hand, each individual voter doesn't want to accept the consequences of the group's actions but with the other hand, express general prejudice towards an entire country for their government's actions.  You can't have it both ways.  But people, in general, are like that...private profiting but socialized losses.

This is why any libertarian who votes is really a hypocrite.  Voting is socialism in practice.  But they want to use it for their purposes to end socialism.  That's a fail.

The only real choice is to either vote or not vote.   The only consistent libertarian position is to not vote.