Submitted by The Dissident Dad via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Note from Mike Krieger,

Before I get to the Dissident Dad’s latest post, I want to provide my own perspective with regard to this very important debate. While I agree that voting is generally meaningless in our current system, this is because the two choices we are given are 99% of the time captured cronies of the two corrupt political parties. So this begs the question, can we ever get real choices on the ballot? I believe we can, but we need a much larger percentage of the population aware and engaged. While I completely respect the decision to not vote for either false choice (for example, in Colorado both choices for Governor are horrific), I hope people who make this choice don’t altogether give up on grassroots activism and civil disobedience, but rather direct their energy elsewhere.

The Ritual of Voting

by the Dissident Dad

This year, my wife and I will – for the second time in our adult lives – not vote. Previously, I would have seen this stance as many people do: as an irresponsible act. The ritual of voting is very much like taking communion in church for half of this country.

As a father, I want to raise responsible adults, which is why my wife and I will not be heading to the polls this election.

I want to always help my children understand that they are sovereign men and women, and have no obligation to any government.

When it comes to voting, my wife and I are personally opting out of the system. There are a lot of reasons for us not to vote, but at the core it comes down to not wanting to enforce our will on others. I’m fine with making our voices heard, but when the vote has a direct impact on how much money is stolen from another family, I want nothing to do with it.

Both Democrats and Republicans support militarism, taxation, spying on us, inflation, redistribution of wealth, Keynesian economics and corporatism once they get in office.

My children need not to identify with this group of sociopaths, so to vote would be a bad example for them. Plus, as my friend Doug Casey has noted, voting just encourages them – the politicians, that is. Whether you’re voting for or against someone, winning an election gives the politician a sense of a mandate that they are obligated to create new rules, taxes and redistribution of wealth schemes to satisfy their voting bloc. That somehow they are in the right, because no matter how sick their political philosophy is, the majority has demanded they implement it into the minority’s lives.

The current options for voting within the system has conditioned Americans into becoming busybodies. We’re always given the choice of taking away the rights of others, stealing their property through taxation, and creating new laws for minority groups. Or worse, outright murdering people overseas because they consider our tens of thousands of troops, drones and ships off their coastlines a threat to their own national sovereignty.

I believe that intentionally not voting will serve as a positive reinforcement for my kids that you don’t have to comply with society’s expectations and you never have to take part in the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

The oligarchs laugh at all us plebs on Election Day because they know that no matter what we do, they’re going get what they want. If you voted for Bush, you got Ben Bernanke as the master of your dollar’s value and chief of banker bailouts. If you voted for Obama, who was supposed to be the anti-Bush, guess what; you still got Ben Bernanke as master of your dollar’s value and chief of banker bailouts.

Raising responsible adults in a world that is completely upside down continues to be my most difficult task as a father. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, your own personal choice between mainstream and independent thought is the easy part. What becomes far less manageable are your very own loved ones: family, friends, and neighbors who are fully part of the system and who blindly endorse its atrocities against mankind and defend the oligarchs every step of the way.

This is why not voting for my family has to be more than just a political protest, but something I will have to defend and take the time to explain at family gatherings.

For my children, I want them to know that the system is not their friend. It doesn’t mean that people who live within the system are our enemy; it just means that as sovereign people, we have no obligation to it, and it’s not us who should be embarrassed for not embracing it. Instead, it’s the thieves and busybodies who partake in the theft of someone else’s wealth — and even their lives — every time they prop up one these central planners.