I think it is likely that voting - I mean, the participation in voting - has become (although it was not always thus) a Litmus Test of these times: evidence of de facto affiliation to the wrong side in the spiritual war.
If you don't already understand why voting is immoral hence an evil activity, then you may like to consider some of the reasons.
The fact that these evils are not instantly obvious, is evidence only of the degree of complicity in the corruption of our society - a society that has habituated us to all kinds of evil; including the idea that when we are not personally psychologically disturbed by some-thing, then that thing cannot be of significant importance.
We argue from the numbing of our own capacity for moral discernment, to conclude that there is nothing important to discern!
One clue to the evil of voting is that it is discussed (by all sides) purely in 'pragmatic' terms, as a means to an end. Among Christians and also conservatives, the discussion is how 'we' might vote in order to achieve Christian or conservative goals. The practice of voting is also defended using arguments of how much worse things would-be/ might-have-been had Christians/ conservatives Not voted.
No matter how bad have become (I mean the actual results of decades of voting), no matter how adverse the societal and political trends (especially since 2020); it is always argued that things would have been even worse without Christian/ conservative votes.
Voting is experience-proof.
Regardless of outcomes; the assertion is that not to participate personally and willingly in whatever farce of legitimation is set in front of us by the Evil Establishment, is evidence of some kind of existential despair and refusal of responsibility!
No matter how utterly corrupt are the actual processes of voting, and no matter how purposively-evil the persons and institutions that we are allowed to vote-for; the inference is always that we must just vote even harder - that voting will somehow, eventually, overcome all obstacles of systemic corruption - or at least will put-a-brake-on the rate of deterioration.
As if voting were the normal, responsible, and natural thing; and Not to vote was some kind of weirdly obtuse dereliction of duty!
But (almost-always) voting is not an isolated act - voting constitutes part of a pattern of harmful attitudes and behaviours; including attention to the mainstream official process of lies and manipulations... candidate profiles, opinion polls, manifestos and speeches, pseudo-discussions of fake implications, conversations and debates about voting etc.
In sum: participation in voting is the tip of an iceberg of increased immersion-in materialism, materialist explanations, and materialist hopes for betterment.
Of course, merely Not voting does nothing.
But if we refrain from voting for the right reasons, it will also be part of a pattern; Not-voting can be part of a recognition of the absolute requirement mentally to break-out-from the present System.
Not-voting ought to be act of faith in the primacy and power of the spiritual; rooted in a recognition that all forms of continued cooperation with the System, validate and operate to sustain the System.
Faith is needed because what will happen instead of voting will not be known until after voting has lost its legitimacy in our hearts.
Only after ceasing to vote, and repudiating the pattern of attitudes and behaviours that sustains voting; will we come to recognize what we ought to be doing instead.
17 comments:
Tough sell. Voting harder is the preferred strategy.
Bruce, this question is below your pay grade, and half in jest, but what should Australians do, who are compelled to vote, even in council elections, on pain of about a $100 fine? I suppose $100 is a small price to pay for a principle.
@N - I don't know how it works in Aus - presumably you can spoil your ballot paper without penalty?
But anyway, it is the inner spiritual motivation and intent that is crucial - after all, we aren't talking about the material 'benefits' of Not voting.
Dr. Charlton,
I do agree with you. The last time I voted was for that ridiculous Brexit referendum; with various actors informing me of what Not Voting may mean... always with the hysteria.
At this point in time, my Discernment tells me that no candidate nor party nor organization has the Faith (the best case) nor the Worldy Courage (the worst best case) to address the incredible spiritual decline of The Isles. Why ought I have to vote for Person X and to then defend my decision when I'm sure Person X is Godless and irreversibly fused to The System.
Since I've not been voting and not been paying attention, my mind has turned to my own reality. That is, what I can see and feel and love and reason about - and of course, God. The results seem to have been a calmer mind more focused on positive developments within that reality.
Indeed, the thought of voting now gives me that same feeling you blogged about a couple of days ago, namely, that when speaking to some other person, our basic assumptions are so different that we can never see eye-to-eye. We can never reason with them. We can, most likely, never convince them that the mass of The Leadership are dominated by demonic forces.
Thanks for your work. It really is one of the few corners of the Internet I frequent that gives me strength. God bless you.
“Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence”
Politics is a false idol and cannot save us from our sins. I did vote but I stopped following politics or putting resting my hopes there. But even that was too much because you’re right, democracy is evil.
Watching from the inside of the US elections, I was compelled today to find your page on Litmus test and suggest voting as another, when mirabile dictu, I see this post. I wholeheartedly agree, the illusion of free and fair voting is just that. I really noticed this when the surveillance video of the vote tabulation taken during the Scottish independence vote were revealed showing whole stacks of "yes" voted being placed into the "no" pile. The recent US election with vote tabulators going down spontaneously all across the nation is just another piece of evidence that we are in the midst of a global spiritual war against God.
So, yes, the litmus tests now include voting.
Dr. C agree. On a strictly practical level also agree with H.L. Mencken...There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
I never once voted until 2016, when I cast a single vote for Bad Orange Man. Purely ceremonial as my state at the time was deep blue. After that it became a strange compulsion to vote and vote for everything on the ballot...it always felt wrong. I stopped after 2020 and this time my husband stopped, too, and the spiritual change in him was immediate and remarkable. It's like it gave him the freedom to fully hate evil.
@JC - It was, of course, the spectacle of a voting-election frenzy (before, during and now after) among so many in this corner of the blogosphere - *despite* the conclusive events of the 2020 election corruption! - that triggered this post.
We are in this mortal life to learn from experience.
A vote, any vote, is a vote for the System and therefore supports the spiritual corruption.
I accept the argument that the voting process does not make the world any better. The belief also fits my temperament. But I still find it persuasive that voting should not be neglected because, after all, it is an action of civic duty and civic engagement. It is pious to vote. Voting "none of the above" on the write-in line, for example, might be a pious act. Not as an action to make the world any better through one's own effort, but in the hope that God will make use of the intention.
Complete withdrawal from civic life has its place for some Christians. A monastic should not vote, I suppose, though for any not-monks it might be dangerous and selfish to damn the world.
But maybe most people would not see the difference between a "none of the above" vote and not-voting, though it seems a different sort of act to me.
Joel
@Joel - "civic duty and civic engagement. It is pious to vote."
?!
Simply as a matter of engaging with the existing system, I have been persuaded by C. S. Lewis's Weight of Glory essay, "Why I am Not a Pacifist", where Lewis argues that we are under a "special human authority" through belonging to a society that has decided to do things this way. In this case, I believe that the special human authority tells me that I have a civic duty. And I consider doing my duty to my fellow man to be a pious act, like shoveling the snow off my sidewalk in the winter, or separating garbage into recycling and trash (because that's what we've decided as a community, even if it's clearly nonsense).
The other arguments that I have trouble putting out of my mind are Plato's in Crito, for obeying the laws of your city, and Socrates' defense that he was always present for all public sacrifices, always served in mandatory public offices, though he was not part of any faction and was non-conformist in the face of death when asked to act illegally.
Joel
@Joel - That was then, this is now. Your argument illustrates why it is so dangerously misleading Not to take into account the qualitative changes in Men - and society - through history) and in different places; because otherwise we may be drawing lessons from (i.e. equating) things that are in truth profoundly different.
The first and last time I voted was in 2000, when I chose the “lesser of two evils” only to have him turn out to be extremely, almost farcically, evil. I learned my lesson after that. As the demon I voted for himself once put it, “Fool me once, shame on, shame on you, fool me twice, uh, you can’t get fooled again.”
Thanks for this Dr. Charlton. As with so many of your posts, it provides illumination to me precisely when needed. I ascribe this to the fact that you are sincerely serving God, and are acting as one of his instruments.
That's funny cause I didn't have any problems not voting. Trump the chump was the last one I'll ever vote for. That goes for local too.
That was a good read Bruce. Ty.
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