Tolstoy and Mencken on politics
Why people don’t vote? Leo Tolstoy wrote that politics is violence; it is the use of power to make rules that allow rulers to punish you for acts where you have done no harm to person or property, where there is no claim.
H.L. Mencken wrote, “The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
“Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of 10, that promise is worth nothing. The 10th time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
People know it is immoral to sanction crime and choose to forgo participation in such schemes. Voting is aggression; it is the use of power to force others to hew to one’s beliefs but without actually using one’s own power to force others to comply.
Jack Worthington, Reedley
This story was originally published July 6, 2016 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Tolstoy and Mencken on politics."