L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE

Number 18, November 15, 1996.

The No Vote

By Victor Milan
[email protected]

Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise

         Ladies and gentlemen, we have a mandate.
         Over fifty percent of eligible Americans voted for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom. More than seventy-five percent voted against the as-yet unindicted William Ceausescu Clinton.
         They did so in the only way available to us in the carefully-choreographed scam we're taught to call "democracy": they stayed home.
         The Committee for Study of the American Electorate says only 48.8 percent of voters turned out -- the lowest total, according to CNN Interactive, in 172 years.
         Take a bow, America. You acted in the true spirit of libertarianism. You saw that a choice between big-government worshippers -- liars, tax raisers and gun-grabbers -- like Clinton and Dole is really no choice. The real vote for change, for freedom, was no vote at all.
         As maverick Internet columnist Joe Zychik says, the lady with the torch won.
         While there's still no evidence that they're objectively libertarian, the American people proved they're not as dumb as everybody thought. First, as stated, most voted against the whole feculent fraud whereby our masters graciously allow us to choose between what Neil Smith trenchantly terms Socialist Party A and Socialist Party B. But they also voted the way I advised freedom-lovers, gun owners in particular, to do some months ago in TLE: for Clinton and a Republican Congress, in hopes they'd cancel each other and contain the erosion of our liberties. At least that's what they told any pollster who'd listen during the last few weeks before the election they intended to do.
         Media slugs unctuously assure us that this wasn't a vote for "gridlock," but cooperation. They're full of shit. They have hypnotized themselves with the disinformation they've spewed to negate the real revolution of 1994, such as the outrageously bogus poll which claimed that a majority of those who voted Republican in '94 believed the Republicans had "gone too far" in cutting government - remarkable, inasmuch as those accidental beneficiaries of popular rebellion haven't cut government. If the American people wanted "cooperation," they had only to vote Democratic majorities back into both houses of Congress. They did no such thing.
         But there's just one problem: what Americans voted for, and what they're going to get, are two radically, indeed radially different things. The Lady with the Torch is in for an epic hosing.
         Because as it happens I was wrong. The Republican majority in House and Senate wins us nothing. In case you haven't noticed, the Republican Party has collapsed. In the final weeks before the election it proved that it cannot serve as even a pro forma, purely political opposition. Bill Clinton looked mean at Republicans, and they cravenly surrendered on increasing the socialization of health insurance, screwing the marginally employable with a higher minimum wage, and passing two outrageous gun control laws, one of which -- HR3610, the so-called "school gun ban" -- could well be the most far-reaching anti-gun legislation ever passed. And I don't mean since 1968, or even 1934. Ever.
         Newt Gingrich, he of much show and little go -- the Minister of Fun for the Welfare State -- shows us the future with his promise to "cooperate" with the President: i.e., surrender to Clinton's true agenda of expanding the powers of government beyond anything we've seen in this country. In the end, Slick and the Republicans will give us precisely what we would have had we elected Bob Dole: higher taxes, gun control, strangulation of the Internet, and censorship of anything which tends to discredit or stir up resentment against the government as "hate speech."
         Or they'll try. Slick may yet find he has business more pressing than making his mark on History by disarming all America but the ruling class' enforcers. The criminal conspiracy to squelch Kenneth Starr is gathering momentum, while many Americans have noticed Republican "inertia" in sticking the Clinton clan with its manifold crimes. But Clinton's entire cabinet is hurling itself over the gunwales as if to escape the imminent indictment tsunami -- if not the fate of Ron Brown -- and Ross Perot has stated his determination to see Slick behind bars. And unlike Clinton and the Republicans, he might not have any bodies buried in the vicinity of Mena airport.
         With Ross or without him, change is coming, and it will not happen at the election booths. Americans are falling wise to the lies, beginning to realize that, just because you have a vote, doesn't mean you have a choice. Americans are grasping that they'll never better their lot by participating in a quadrennial dumbshow meant solely to vindicate the awful majesty of the State. They will vote best by acting, by the simple, nonviolent, and profoundly subversive act of getting on with their lives, without asking permission of the government, and without giving anything to it, even the pulling of a lever in a curtained booth. Americans are at the cusp of learning, in the words of the wife of the nation's erstwhile Drug Runner in Chief, to "Just Say No" to government.
         "America always wins," says Bill Clinton, who possesses a magical gift of being right in spite of himself, for reasons he has no prayer of comprehending. He's right this time, too: we will win over the forces of evil. Dole of the Dead has already been cast into zombie purgatory. You're next, Mr. President. And after you and your money-laundering wife are esconced in some Federal penitentiary, we'll trounce that Nazi Gore and his Significant Censor, too.
         Freedom can win the war for America.


Prometheus Award-winner Victor Milan is the author of over 70 novels, including the just-released CLD from AvoNova and War In Tethyr from TSR.


If you need a manager/analyst with more than 25 years of varied experience, and an extensive background in developing systems approaches to information technology, training, and engineering projects for military, commercial, and laboratory-based clients, then perhaps I am your man. Ideally, I'd like to work in a libertarian, gun-friendly state (perhaps in the Southwest or South) for someone who appreciates integrity, loyalty, and innovative thinking. Contact John Taylor, 10554 Jason Lane, Columbia, MD, 21044-2213; (410) 730-1265; [email protected] for further information.



Next to advance to the next article, or Previous to return to the previous article, or Index to return to The Libertarian Enterprise, Number 18, November 15, 1996.