Voting is an evil and voting is a drug.
Those who recognise this fact are always being manipulated by some version of Just One More Vote.
Yes, thinking people may recognise that voting (as such) is intrinsically an evil nonsense, being a method of denying responsibility and prone to decisions that no single person would endorse.
On top of this, all actual election votes are nowadays rigged, and many are corrupt (false voters, counts), nowadays all electable candidates are evil and/or stupid in motivation and nature; and even if a good result gets through all this, all results that go against the Establishment are ignored or undone.
Despite all this; whatever is the current election, for instance, is always the most important ever. We are told to stifle our objections to the system, hold our noses, and just vote this one last time - or else disaster will ensue.
Yet disaster ensues anyway. Each election the possibilities are more dire; the bad side is worse than ever (and the less-bad side not much better).
Experience suggests that so long as the current system of 'democracy' prevails, then we are in an inexorable down-slide which voting cannot arrest, but on the contrary exacerbates.
If we stop taking the voting drug we will feel a lot worse over the short term - but abstention is the only route to anything better.
But ultimately and eventually it is minds that matter, not votes.
I would most like to see the lowest percentage voter turnout ever.
That might be a sign of hope.
It might signal a total loss of belief in The System. It might indicate that people have ceased to look to politicians and parties and voting in order to change things for the better.
What would then need to happen is not a demoralisation but a a switch mass direct personal action by tens of millions.
Anything less is not worth having.
But that would not be worth having (and will not happen) without a Christian awakening coming first. If it happened, a low voter turnout could be one sign - along with a collapse in consumerism, a decline in everything to do with fashion - and other signs of reduced materialism.
10 comments:
whatever is the current election, for instance, is always the most important ever.
In some sense, that is accurate. The last election is now in the past, and only the current election can cause anything (however remote that possibility).
@ Bruce - how do you reconcile yourself with Romans Verse 13? Clearly, the current establishment do not fit the description of a God ordained authority to be followed? But yet, that is the view I have heard recently from a local Christian church. As always, discernment is key. However, the opposing view, which seems immutable, is that of biblical innerency and that God's word on this matter was as true in biblical times as it is today. I can't see how that view is credible from the perspective of simply looking around at the modern world, picking up a newspaper or turning on the TV!
@David - "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."
Why should I 'reconcile myself' with a particular Bible verse? Especially one that is incoherent nonsense and simply cannot be true, if taken in isolation.
No Christian has ever followed it literally, and nobody could be a Christian if they did; indeed no person ever submits to authority full stop - because authority is always internally conflicted (Even in the Army orders conflict and there is ambiguity of what obedience means - then whatever you do, it is wrong!)
Certainly Jesus (in the Fourth Gospel) shows no sign of living by this verse - if it means that all actual power is Good and therefore should be obeyed.
BTW - Why didn't you quote the verse you referenced? Why make me and others look it up?
David,
Romans 13:1-8 comes right after Romans 12:17-21, and right before Romans 13:8. Of course it doesn't make sense, if you pluck it from the surrounding verses and try using it as a tool to justify the state.
One could also, I suppose, ask whether or not the governing authorities mentioned by Paul actually *are* the state, or something else...
There's nothing to reconcile. Chapter 13 - I assume David means the chapter - of Romans doesn't address voluntary participation in corrupt elections. It addresses survival in the era of Roman Imperial rule, where Christians were persecuted and had to survive.
Romans 13:1 says 'to be in subjection to the superior authorities' and that the 'rulers are an object of fear' (13:3).
'Do you want to be free of fear of the authority? Keep doing good and you will have praise for it' (13:3)
In verse 5 he says there is good reason to be in subjection because of the wrath of the authorities.
One is to pay tax and tribute and fear and honor to those who call for it (13:7).
The solution is in 13:8 - 'Do not owe anything to anyone except to love one another; for whoever loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law'.
He is counselling subjection to the authorities of the day, the Roman Empire, and advising to do good, pay taxes to avoid punishment, and loving one another is the only true law.
I've always found Chapter 13 of Romans interesting because it is counseling giving in to the demands of the system on the surface and practicing a spiritual strategy within the system.
The main major religion that advises this approach based on Romans 13 is the Jehovah's Witnesses, who avoid politics explicitly as one of their core tenets.
@David - there is no contradiction in not voting yet obeying authority. Earthly authority is necessary. Hobbes show us the necessity of obeying the powers that be. The powers that be in the West make a show of being a democracy. I do not believe that is true, but nonetheless, they remain the powers that be and I will obey them so far as practical. The idea that I can influence the powers that be by my vote is a delusion and possibly a dangerous delusion insofar as it distracts me from important things in life.
Thanks for the comments. Perhaps some context for my original comment would help, but I have been too busy to post until now. I wanted to hear other perspectives about Romans 13 because, without going into specifics, I had been surprised at a recent Christian gathering that several sincere folk within the group seemed to hold the entirely opposite view to both Bruce and the comments here i.e one should vote and engage with politics and the government that is or will be is in some respects supported or at least allowed to prevail by God, who is of course omnipotent according to traditional reasoning and the Bible innerant. So there it is. Not my perspective and indeed nor was the original comment, except an invitation to see how others view Romans 13. Clearly two Christians can read it and you can have a dozen possible interpretations of what any Verse of the Bible happens to say. My usual stance is to ask what does my intuition tell me is the right way to respond to this. Still others will say, almost passive aggressively so, that intuition MUST be subordinated to a strict interpretation of biblical scripture! And so, I am finding I mostly have to go it alone and rely on individual prayer, reflection, repentance and enduringly... intuition! I trust that, it feels right and I cannot bring myself to subordinate to other peoples ideas if they do not eventually harmonise with that. When it does, a peaceful joy usually follows.
@David - As I have often said, there is a question (or rather, severeal layers of questions) to be asked about how scripture ought to be read.
The idea that it should be read as if the unit of meaning and truth is the verse is an assumption. There are many others - the realtive importance of Old and New Testaments, or of the Gospels, or Gospels compared with Epistles etc.
And if we say every verse is equally literally true, that is an assumptions also - because it is more obvious that some Books are poetic, some are songs - thers are like myths, others like histories etc. We need to make an assumption whether to treat these the same or differently.
Then there is the assumption about what kind of book the Bible is meant to be - is it an instruction manual, or for inspiration, or for deep knwledge? And before even this, there is the assumption that Jesus wanted us to live By The Book - and what part of the Bible that comes from, and what authority it is accorded.
The fact that most Christians don't notice all the assumptions they are making shows that in reality the interpretative scheme comes mainly from the traditions of 'the church' and the denomination within which is is located. They don't notice their adherence to tradition to the extent that they deny it, and claim that everything comes from The Bible, including the instruction in how to read and interpret it.
So, it isn't a question of strictness - and indeed strictness has been thoroughly subverted by Biblical scholarship since the early 19th century, such that new translations and works of interpretation are mostly derived from secualr methods applied to scipture as if it were Not scripture.
If, on the other hand, we regard the Bible (presumably in an authoritative, divinely inspired translation/ version) as able to indluce the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, to be met with our own divinely inspired response from within - then there is no particular reason for stating that this can only come from a book called The Bible (which mayt be in many translations, and whose text was tampered with as recently as 1826 when the Apocrypha were removed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha#Modern_editions
These decisions were justified by 'scholarship', and 'scholarship' has justified almost every other of the many changes in wording and interpretation (still ongoing).
All this is herding us toward a situation in which we are forced to confront the bottom line importance of intuition. We have to intuit the validity of several (or many) aspects of Christianity - or else intuti the overall truth of a particular authority (denomination, chuch, person), and then believe what they tell us is true - or some combination.
But to deny this foundational role of intuition (as so many Chrstians do) is becoming - in modern conditions - pretty close to dishonest; and it is patently failing to 'hold the line' against secularisation, apostasy, leftist-takeover - so it does not seem worth trying to defend. The modern condition is stripping away to reveal such dishonesties, and is probing at them for weaknesses. I think this is what is meant by End Times.
Thanks for the extended comments Bruce. What you say is exactly right and my intention was to use this blog as. 'Sounding board'to hear other perspectives.
B"- Why didn't you quote the verse you referenced? Why make me and others look it up?"
Apologies, the reason is two-fold: getting time to comment, when constantly busy at work and young children at home, does not allow for expansive well thought out comments most of time, and, 2) I find it difficult to type on mobile phone with predictive text, prone to error and often accidentally delete whole comments by pressing wrong damn keystroke accidentally. Why people are so kean to text all the time I have no idea, it's highly irritating on a small screen. I tried typing Roman 13, or copying/pasting on phone screen, but gave up...I much prefer face to face discussion about this sort of thing but this is the medium available. Thanks for posting.
@David - Accepted...!
It was interesting to hear how that particular church was interpreting that particular passage. Further evidence of the endemic corruption of institutions, and how we must evaluate churches; accepting and helping-with what they do that is valuable - but not allowing churches to dictate Christianity to us.
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