I am going to say something which will strike the average American silly, I will not be voting in the next presidential election.

No doubt to say this to the average person will elicit responses such as “well, if you don’t vote you can’t complain”, or, “your vote matters”, or “voting is the sign of a free democracy” and other tired clichés crying to heaven for vengeance. Yet at the end of the day, with the feeling that I am an unenlightened moron, our average American will give up and go to bed saying “oh well, his loss.”

Yet, I have one more thing to say, which will cause my opponents not merely a loss of sleep, but an irresistible urge to get online and blog about my ineptitude and lack of reasoning. I am suggesting, not only that I will not vote, but that you should not either.

Tom Hanks perhaps best expresses the attitude of the average American when he said “I wish the election were tomorrow, this is boring.” For all we will hear from the media about independent voters the majority of people who will vote, a tiny percentage of those registered and not as apathetic as I, already have their minds made up. They already know who they will vote for, and are tired for more opportunities for the candidates to lie, distort, and cheat their way in office only to do the same things as their predecessor. It almost resembles a spectator sport, one side cheering for their team while the other side tries to out do the former in all manner of noise, excitement and of course, dirty tricks. Millions of Americans will be glued to their television set waiting to see what their chosen hero will do or say next. Yet they are not waiting to hear it so they can think about it, sift it, and annunciate reasons why they agree or disagree. Rather, they want to see the party their parents voted for win.

Of course there are the committed devotees, exceptions to the rule. The rest is just the mob. In general, election politics and news coverage of politics has little to do with facts, with real interests of the nation or with truth. They are interested primarily in repackaging events so that they can be sold as entertainment, which is how the events are received from a public less able to comprehend ideas, because there is no room to fit them in between American Idol and the latest “reality” show.

This is shown in general with confusion of terms. Most people, when attempting to describe our government, will call it a democracy. Yet, that is a misnomer altogether. America is not a democracy, it is a republic. The difference is important, because in a democracy people directly rule the government by voting on every measure which is to be law, every tax, and every military leader. We see this form of government operative in small communities where local people are the most involved. Such was the government of Athens, but it failed because such rule almost always descends into a plutocracy, where a few wealthy men, groups or interests have control of the government. The founding fathers of the United States by contrast, set up a republic. The distinction is found in this, that instead of directly governing, the people choose representatives to govern for them. This system was set up in order to avoid the mistakes of Athens. In reality however, they repeated all the same mistakes. This is because direct rule, or indirect rule, maintains the same flaw, in that someone or some group will always command the power found in the military and/or utilize the framing and executing of laws. In the United States, this has been true for some time, perhaps even before the 20th century. What was once a republic is now in fact a plutocracy. Don’t believe it? Lobby your congressman on any issue. Go on a letter writing campaign. Take your valuable time with your family and spend it on political action. Now watch a wealthy lobbying group do the same thing, only they don’t spend a tenth of the man hours yet they achieve 10 times your result. The very man the Republican Party is about to nominate for President co-authored a law we now know nefariously as “McCain-Feingold”, which says that I as a private citizen can not receive more than $2,000 from another American to run for office. How in the world could I ever run? If I was a millionaire, of course! Silly me. Yet what if I am not a millionaire? Then anyone who has run for an office higher than the school board chairman can tell you it costs a bundle of money just in fees alone let alone the cost in ads. Who, especially if he has a family, can afford to run for any major office on the meager salary scraped together by real Americans?

I am not here making an argument that we cannot be Catholic and support a republican system of government. Although the Church has traditionally thrown its weight behind limited monarchy, Pope Leo XIII declared in Immortale Dei:

“But in matters merely political, as, for instance, the best form of government, and this or that system of administration, a difference of opinion is lawful. Those, therefore, whose piety is in other respects known, and whose minds are ready to accept in all obedience the decrees of the apostolic see, cannot in justice be accounted as bad men because they disagree as to subjects We have mentioned; and still graver wrong will be done them, if -- as We have more than once perceived with regret -- they are accused of violating, or of wavering in, the Catholic faith.” ¹

I would however suggest that a serious consideration of the state of things would reveal that even some of the most absolutist kings could never dream of having the authority over us that today the IRS has, let alone “democratically elected” government. In considering the state of things, and the ineffectiveness of the current system, regardless of the utility of democracy (or lack there of as the case may be), we should examine whether or not participation in the system is productive or counter-productive.

Thus we return back to the initial point. Not merely that I refuse to vote in “important” elections, but I think you should abstain as well. It is fine and good for me to be a crank, by all means let me take my private stand on the issues. Yet why should anyone else imitate me? The answer I would give is that it is not worth your time, or your dignity and principles to be apart of the great Washington puppet show. All of the presidents we have had have been substantially the same, and the progress on issues we claim to vote for has been nil. We need only look to abortion to see this. How much time has been spent by sincere Catholics and Protestants to bring an end to abortion? How much money has been invested, and how much political activism has rallied behind the Republican party for 35 years to bring the end of abortion? Instead what we have had is time and time again, Republican Supreme Court nominees have affirmed and re-affirmed the reasoning of Roe vs. Wade, creating an impenetrable bulwark of precedent that human life is not important until birth. Even the partial birth abortion “ban”, in its language provides an exception for the life and health of the mother, and in the decision upholding it the practice of abortion is defended as eminently constitutional and in accord with law.²  This is progress? Democracy is not capable of solving the moral crisis afflicting our nation. Only a return to public morality through conversion is capable of bringing us back from that abyss. The system is corrupt and we are being asked to choose to continue the status quo, or do so under a different form, or else, vote for “a” and get “b”, vote for “b” and get “a”. It turns out in fact that they are the same.

This is why I don’t vote in national elections, it is a waste of time and accomplishes nothing. It is just a big media spectacle. However, one might object, isn’t it our civic duty to participate in the political process? Not necessarily through voting. One will remember in my remarks on the Dr. Rowan Williams’ speech on Sharia law in Britain, the extension of rights by secular society does not require participation therein. The truth is there are many ways of participating in society, and often those making this objection can not name one person on their town council, their PTO board, even their mayor! However it is the local election which can be influenced by your vote. When the Kelo vs. New London, CT decision came down from the Supreme Court in 2005, people were rightly outraged by the idea that the government can take our homes to increase tax revenue. Yet, what they failed to perceive was that if they brought 10,000 people outside of the mayor’s office to picket and protest, eminent domain would never be used. A local civil servant would look out on such a crowd and see the end of his career. Yet the circus of national elections fixates our attention on the theatrical games of Washington D.C., something which we can not control no matter how much we content ourselves about our vote and our participation of the civic process. The sad truth is in our modern plutocracy our vote compares little with the wallets of the powers that be. However if there is anywhere democracy can work, it is in local government, and that is where we ought to focus our particular attention.
 
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Notes:

1  Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, no. 48, 1 November 1885
 
2  For more information on this, one can see my posting on this subject on my blog