Election day, 2008:

I don’t think I’ve ever voted Democrat or Republican in a general election – maybe sometime in the past, I’m not sure, but for the most part I’ve always voted third party.

This time around, I made a different choice: I chose not to vote.

I chose not to vote for the lesser of two evils, because I would still be voting for evil.  I chose not to vote third party, because I do not believe this government can be “reformed” if we can just get the “right people” in office.  I chose not to vote to express something much more profound: I have withdrawn support for this government, and I will not legitimize it by participating in its grand show of validation.

History has shown that while government has had minor setbacks in its growth from time to time, the long term trend is that it will continue to grow.  Growth of government and individual Liberty are inversely proportional.  Each administration has left us less free than we were upon its taking of office.

The constitution has failed in Thomas Jefferson’s vision that it would bind the government down with chains.  This government resembles the constitution only in form, in that it has three branches and holds elections every few years.  The constitution is, at best, nothing more than a speed bump to be occasionally overcome by an ambitious ruling class.  When the constitution was the supreme law of the land, it could be said that we lived under Rule of Law.  Due to its failure, we live under rule of men.

This government has ruled the world money supply for decades with its worthless fiat money, and – as is always the case with the unlimited power to create money out of thin air – it has destroyed the value thereof, devastating the productive base of the nation and the middle class that it built.  The future value of all fiat monies, at some point in time, is zero.  The three decades since the final breakdown of the Bretton Woods arrangement have brought about deterioration at an exponential rate, manifest in the recent trillion dollar bailout and the multi-trillions yet to come.

This government cannot be reformed.  It draws evil to its ranks, and quickly converts the well-intentioned into evil with its black hole-like power center.  It is, after all, the most powerful government in the history of the world, running the most expansive empire in the history of the world.  As children, we were taught two things about empires:  They’re evil, and they are always doomed to failure.  This empire’s day is coming, whether it be five years or fifty years from now, I do not know.  But it will fail.  The only question is whether it will go out with a bang or with a poof.  I do not claim to know the outcome.

I do know that I have taken the first and most important step that all of us must take if this government is going to go out with a poof. We must reject its claim to rule over us.  We must declare our individual sovereignty.  We must strip it of its legitimacy, and then dismantle it – lest we (or succeeding generations) will be forced to shed blood in order to reclaim our natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

I, for one, do not wish to pass that burden to future generations.