What If Voting Is Fruitless?

Now that the U.S. presidential campaign is over, Andrew P. Napolitano has questions.

By Andrew P. Napolitano

What if you were allowed to vote only because it didn’t make a difference? What if no matter how you voted, the elites always got their way? What if the concept of one person/one vote was just a fiction created by the government to induce your compliance?

What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people’s understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests?

What if American democracy allows the government to do anything it wants, as long as more people vote for government than vote to reject it? What if there is no effective moral way to reject it?

What if the purpose of contemporary democracy has been to convince people that they can prosper not through the voluntary creation of wealth but through theft from others? What if the only moral way to acquire wealth is through voluntary economic activity? What if the government persuaded the people that they could acquire wealth through political activity?

What if voluntary economic activity includes all the productive and peaceful things we choose to do? What if political activity includes all the parasitical and destructive things the government does? What if the government has never created wealth? What if everything the government owns it has taken by threats of force?

What if governments were originally established to protect people’s freedoms but always turn into political and imperialist enterprises that seek to expand their power, increase their territory and heighten their control of the population?

What if the idea that we need a government to take care of us is a fiction perpetrated to increase the size of government? What if our strength as individuals and durability as a culture are contingent not on the strength of the government but on the amount of freedom we have from the government?

What if the fatal cocktail of big government and democracy ultimately produces dependency? What if so-called democratic government, once it grows to a certain size, begins to soften and weaken the people? What if big government destroys people’s motivations and democracy convinces them that the only motivation they need is to vote and go along with the results?

What if Congress always votes to expand the size of government, increase the government’s debt, keep the government’s secrets and dispatch the military to kill innocents abroad, no matter which party controls it?

What if Congress keeps secrets from the people who elected it? What if congressional elections don’t square with congressional legislation because what counts are the secret government meetings that come after the elections? What if the deep state — the law enforcement/surveillance/military/arms and drug manufacturers/banking and regulatory structures — remains in place no matter who is in the White House or which political party controls Congress?

What if the problem with democracy is that the majority thinks it can right any wrong, write any law, tax any event, regulate any behavior, intrude upon any process and acquire any asset it wants?

What if the greatest tyrant in history lives among us? What if that tyrant always gets its way, no matter what the laws are or what the Constitution says? What if that tyrant is the majority of voters? What if the majority in a democracy recognizes no limits on its power?

What if the government misinforms voters so they will justify anything the government wants to do? What if the government bribes people with the money it prints? What if it gives entitlements to the poor and tax breaks to the middle class and bailouts to the rich and bribes to the states just to keep everyone dependent on it?

What if the government doesn’t work for us? What if we work for the government?

What if a vibrant republic requires not just the democratic process of voting, but also informed and engaged voters who understand first principles of human existence, including the divine origin and inalienable individual possession of natural rights?

What if we could free ourselves from the yoke of big government through a return to first principles? What if establishment elites don’t want this? What if the elites who control government recognize no restraints on their powers? What if the system is crafted so government power can only grow — and never shrink?

What if Congress remains the same no matter who wins elections? What if we have only one political party — the Big Government Party — and it has a Democratic wing and a Republican wing? What if both wings want war and taxes and welfare and debt and perpetual government growth, but offer only slightly different menus on how to achieve them? What if the Big Government Party enacted laws to make it impossible for meaningful political competition to thrive?

What if the late Yale history professor Edmund S. Morgan was right when he said that government depends on make-believe? What if our ancestors made believe that the king was divine? What if they made believe that he could do no wrong? What if they made believe that the voice of the king was the voice of God?

What if the government believes in make-believe? What if it makes believe that the people have a voice? What if it makes believe that the representatives of the people are the people? What if it makes believe that the governors are the servants of the people? What if it makes believe that all persons are created equal, or that they are not?

What if the government makes believe that it is always right? What if it makes believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, was the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel and hosts the podcast Judging Freedom. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, go here.

Published by permission of the author.

COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO 

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.