Rodent Regatta

Is voting immoral?

By Craig J. Cantoni

Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT)

Imagine for a moment that two presidential candidates were on the campaign trail espousing state-sponsored murder, with the Democratic candidate advocating the murder of all heterosexual white males and the Republican candidate advocating the murder of all Hollywood atheists. There would be a moral outrage, and decent citizens would conclude that it would be immoral to vote for either candidate. They would not conclude that it would be moral to vote for the Republican candidate because his platform would result in fewer murders.

Now picture a scene from real life.

Picture presidential candidate Howard Dean and President Bush advocating state-sponsored theft, as both of them do and as virtually every Democratic and Republican politician does. Instead of moral outrage, the candidates receive cheers and are praised in the press as compassionate people. Even self-described conservatives turn out en masse to vote for Bush, justifying their vote on the belief that he advocates less theft than Dean.

Why the difference? Why would there be moral outrage over the advocacy of murder, but there isn’t moral outrage over the advocacy of taking money from some people and giving it to others?

Some might answer that there is not a moral equivalency between state-sponsored murder and state-sponsored theft—that there is not a social good in murder but there is a social good, let’s say, in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

There are two problems with that argument. The first is the fact that most of today’s state-sponsored theft is not limited to taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor—not that taking from the rich and giving to the poor is justifiable. Over half of government revenue is taken from some people and given to other people. It is utter nonsense to believe that all of that redistribution is only going to the poor.

The fact is, there are thousands of government programs that take money from some people and give it to other people, irrespective of whether they are rich or poor. One example is the recent expansion of Medicare, an entitlement that is funded through intergenerational theft. Whether rich or poor, retirees are sending the bill for their health care to future generations.

It is intellectually and morally inconsistent for voters to somehow believe that it is moral for seniors to use the state to steal money from their grandkids but immoral for seniors to sneak into their grandkids’ bedroom and steal their piggybank. Hiring an armed robber to steal on your behalf is just as immoral as doing the stealing yourself. Likewise, voting for a politician to steal on your behalf is just as immoral as hiring an armed robber.

Let’s turn now to the social good argument.

The problem with the argument is that it is a collectivist argument. It places the good of the collective, or society, above the good of the individual. It is not good, for example, for my 12-year-old son to face the prospect of spending much of his working life as an indentured servant of the state, or collective, because of the profligate spending of earlier generations. If you think that his indentured servitude is a social good, then I think that my fist in your face is also a social good.

Today’s convoluted thinking about the social good stems from a concept of society that is embraced by socialists and was foreign to this nation at its founding.

What exactly is this thing called ”society?” It is an abstraction. It is not something tangible like an individual who has certain inalienable rights. Putting the good of an abstraction above the good of real individuals invariably results in individuals losing all or some of their rights.

The dictionary defines society as a nation or a group of people with shared values. But what values? Is it a value in a democracy that the individual is less important than society and thus can have his rights and money taken by the majority? If so, that leaves the individual vulnerable to the whims, passions and self-interest of the majority. The U.S. Constitution was designed to stop the tyranny of the majority.

What about helping the poor? Moral people help those in need, but not by robbing other people. The same holds true for society as a whole. A moral society helps the poor because it consists of moral individuals who help the poor. A society cannot be moral if it consists of immoral individuals who take their neighbor’s money for themselves or for someone else.

Which brings me back to the initial question: Is voting immoral? The answer is yes, if voters vote for something immoral.

Is voting for Democrats and Republicans immoral? The answer is yes, because both parties advocate state-sponsored theft.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com