Tag: Voting

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Does voting violate the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP)?

Short answer: No, if you are voting defensively rather than aggressively.

Longer answer: If the reason you are voting is to gain benefits at the expense of someone else, e.g., subsidies from the State, then it violates the NAP. However, if the reason you are voting is to try to defend yourself against aggression in the form of higher taxes, more regulations, or other State intrusions in your life, then it does not violate the NAP.

Furthermore, defensive voting not only does not violate the NAP, but it doesn’t violate the Golden Rule either, as everyone has (and should have) the right of self-defense.

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Does voting mean that you accept the legitimacy of the State?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: No, because choosing one master instead of another master does not mean that you want a master at all.

What it means is simply that you believe that the rule of one master would be less harsh than the rule of another, or in some other way would be preferable.

For example, if you were convinced that one candidate would be more likely than the other(s) to start WW III, it would be reasonable (and not a NAP violation) to vote for that candidate.

Of course, if I were given the choice of voting for having no President at all, and there were any possibility that such a choice would actually have an effect on the outcome, I would take it; otherwise I could hardly claim to be an anarchist. But such a choice was not available, so I picked the lesser of two evils.