Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

I don‘t go around trying to depress people, but get ready to be depressed. At least, get ready to be depressed if you‘re a libertarian or voluntaryist of whatever stripe, and you‘ve been expending anything other than a trifling amount of energy cheering on the latest u.S. elections fiasco.

In this article I aim to prove to you that none of us should get any hopes up about this election, and I‘m probably preaching to the choir to a great extent, but I want to catch every single Big-L Libertarian voter and contributor out there, and if some mainstream voters happen to see this article I also love turning any Trump or Hitlery voters whenever possible.

In a word, the 2016 version of the u.S. elections scam is yet another sham. Whenever you start thinking about the election or approach the subject in any way at all, all of us have to keep in mind that virtually the entire thing is, again, an utter, complete sham.

Firstly, all of us see most of this and all elections through filters. Most of it is the filters of the Mainstream Media (MSM), who are egging on the Trump and Hillary camps with equal enthusiasm and violent glee. Even if you‘re a libertarian, voluntaryist, Free Market Anarchist or some variety of all three plus a member of The Sexual Freedom League (Ha, ha, a little levity), you are still at least 50% of the time seeing the election through the overly optimistic filter of the at least-significantly deluded viewfinders of a libertarian election participant-writer or podcaster, probably supporting Gary Johnson in all good faith, but still likely dragging in too much smoke on his early-adapter electronic cigarette with the associated toxic by-products and boosts to his giggly optimistic enthusiasm. So however you‘re watching the election, it‘s usually through a confused biased filter, and in terms of most TV coverage (except for the underrated and highly valuable Public Access cable TV channel regimes) and the MSM, it‘s always almost completely a distortion.

Yes, the MSM is controlled by the ruling elites and the establishment, and they desperately are opposed to anything resembling Gary Johnson, much less Jill Stein -- or, check that, maybe Gary Johnson more than Jill Stein, on second thought. Contrary to the narrative espoused on MSM networks, I don‘t think the establishment is too worried about Donald Trump. After all, Donald Trump loves police officers, he loves talking about “restoring our great military” (I don‘t know how we could “restore” the u.S. military any further when the u.S. military budget already exceeds by several multiples the entire budgets of all other nations‘ militaries combined, but whatever), he loves boasting how he wants to start a major war against ISIS and all affiliated and unaffiliated terrorist groups, plus a war on Muslims in general (what, that‘s half the Earth‘s population, no?), and Donald Trump is fine with schmoozing with rich people and promoting tax breaks for people in his tax bracket, so how bad could he be? (Hillary-Killary attempted to scare America during her Convention acceptance speech by claiming “we can‘t let a man like Trump, ’who can be baited by a tweet,‘ get his finger on the Nuclear Launch Button,” but she conveniently didn‘t mention a fact she knows very well: The u.S. nuclear arsenal is not controlled by the president alone, it‘s controlled and operated by four separate branches of the military and administered by the National Security Council, who are all supposed to approve and check a nuclear strike before a president can launch one, but who are authorized to launch a nuclear strike even without the president, or in the event he is incapacitated or incommunicado. Thus, the Donald Trump “Loose Cannon” Theory is not even a theory, it‘s just a kids‘ scary monster tale).

It seems clear that the main function of the establishment railing and screeching about Donald Trump‘s “insurgency” and GOP “takeover” so loudly and vociferously is to draw an imaginary glaring distinction or contrast to Hillary Clinton, the other statist du jour, simply in order to get the American populace and world all riled up over, again, essentially nothing. Getting the world riled up over the not-so- substantial-at-all non-differences between Hillary and Trump distracts everyone from the viable alternatives staring them right in the face, namely, Gary Johnson, who, for all his Libertarian-lite moderation, is literally a trillion times better than war monger authoritarians Clinton and Trump, or Jill Stein who for all her faults and delusional socialism is still a respectable alternative choice for young inexperienced Socialist millennials who haven‘t grown up yet or looked twice at all the deductions in their new paychecks or haven‘t yet gotten the inevitable gut-check about Human Nature or The Facts of Life, but who are still mature enough to know they don‘t want any more wasteful wars, nanny-statism or any more crony crapitalism.

All the hoopla and drama and “danger” of the “Trump vs Clinton” “America‘s Choice” also distracts people from the other ultra- respectable and ultra-admirable options of the No-Vote, Don‘t Vote camp who are likely the sanest and smartest of all the election factions, as well as the same people who wisely and calmly tell their friends not to waste energy on this pathetic fiasco. Because, the other thing the establishment loves seeing is millions of Americans wasting their time, energy and money on the election sham while the true real stories of this election year go almost unreported, and the real issues facing Americans and the world are so simple but so often ignored by everyone, even libertarians, that the truth of the wise sages is true yet again; Most people trip and slam their face against the Truth, but just as quickly jump up and keep running away from it and their true Selves. “Know Thyself.” It‘s what the elites and the establishment don‘t want us to do.

It‘s like most people are looking in a mirror into a rolling sea behind them which is reflecting refracted light from all directions. People can choose to look at themselves in the mirror, but somehow the rolling sea is always successfully distracting them from seeing themselves, from their true Selves and the true Empowered Individuals they could be. The establishment is more than happy to see libertarians flocking to the LP Conventions, Freedom Fest, and similar boob-fests. When libertarians are all crowded in to a small area, it makes them easier to study and easier to broadcast for entertainment purposes. Meanwhile, the giant RNC and DNC machines just keep right on rolling outside and leave the Freedom Fest‘s and Libertarians in the dust. The Real Stories of 2016 and every other year in America and around the world continue to be the millions of lives extinguished, and billions of lives diminished, by the steady and stealthy hand of statism and socialism, which hour after hour, day after day, and month after month, for entire lifetimes, drains away our wealth, security and literally years of our life, and the lives of our children, sales tax after sales tax, expensive subsidy after expensive subsidy, regulation after regulation, and prohibition after prohibition. The Real Untold Story of every day is how statism is robbing, killing and raping us every single day. But I digress.

If anyone thinks the establishment is going to tolerate Gary Johnson even approaching winning the presidency, you‘re smoking too much ****. Of course, the ruling junta already has all their bases covered anyway. While Johnson is polling at 13% in some of the more favorable national polls, within striking distance of getting automatic entry into the national debates at 15% (15% of the average of 3-5 national polls), this election is already in the bag for the junta. Here‘s why:

Let‘s say Johnson gets a boost from libertarians and disaffected voters and gets the 15% polling to qualify for the debates. Yeah, Johnson is going to make Hillary and Trump look really bad (assuming of course that Johnson does not fuck up in the debates, which is certainly not unheard of for Libertarian candidates when they sometimes do make it into prime time debates, because at least 40-50% of the time the Libertarian screws up and throws Libertarian principle out the window in the heat of the moment. And Johnson-Weld can hardly be described as a pair of exemplaries of Libertarian Purity), in fact the debates could be an utter embarrassment to Trump and Hillary and throw the election up in the air. Well, not really.

That‘s where the devious genius of the two party duopoly is so monstrously clever. Let‘s say Johnson does so magnificently awesomely (unlikely, but possible) that he takes over the Number 2 spot in the polls, behind Trump or Killary. It‘s more likely that Johnson would take votes away from Trump, so Hillary would take over the Number 1 spot. But in this case, Hillary would almost definitely still win the election, and the rulers get what they want, for the following reasons:

The establishment already has most voters sewn up for either Hillary or Trump. It‘s almost like the election is just a show to entertain people. No, it IS a show to entertain people. Because Hillary and Trump, through the Democratic Party and GOP, already dominate almost all voters. Most of the people who already vote are loyal subjects, or involuntary servants in chains, of the DP and GOP. Think of all the millions of union voters, teachers, “civil servants” (sic), defense contractors and their affiliated workers and brass, at least half of the military (the others are voting Johnson like true patriots), all the businesses and workers who rely on government tax breaks and protection and subsidies for their businesses, not to mention more than half the American population who are on government welfare and food stamps. The genius of the two party duopoly is that it negates any challengers, because the alternative major party wins with a plurality, or the biggest minority vote share, while the government “corporatocratic” system of distributed benefits and favoritisms for beneficiaries locks in usually a majority but at least always a guaranteed in-the-bag plurality of the voting population.

That‘s another catch. “The voting population”. Most people already don‘t vote. It‘s another genius distinction of the two party duopoly‘s Master Plan. The system is so adequately corrupt, and the elections are corrupt. Most people correctly conclude that voting is more than useless, it‘s an actual waste of time, so most of the votes are cast by the people I identified above who are already in the pocket of the two major parties. So the majority of the people who already know how corrupt the two major candidates are don‘t even vote at all, and a candidate like Gary Johnson never even has the chance to get all those disaffected natural libertarian votes.

Of course, I don‘t want to imply that Not Voting is bad, or that the u.S. should make voting compulsory as in a country like Australia. No, personally, I am against voting, more for practical than philosophical reasons, which I‘ll get to in a moment, but a No-Vote, Don‘t Vote position is absolutely the Right of every man and woman, in fact, the right to abstain from voting in my view is quite possibly a much more important Right than the supposed “right” to actually “vote” in these imaginary fairy tale/Santa Claus elections in the first place.

My whole point in reviewing these facts is just to show that no matter what happens in the debates or their aftermath, the ruling junta has this election all sewn up. In fact, it‘s also important to show why a Gary Johnson or Jill Stein victory in the general election would not even be a total disaster for the ruling class. Far from it. Yes, if Johnson or Stein won, it would be an utter embarrassment for them. But again, they have that all figured out already also: Let‘s say Johnson or Stein win, they still can pass nothing without getting Congress, and the Supreme Court, to agree.

The Supreme Court, at least 50-60% of the justices, will probably survive for at least another 10 years. Any new justices have to be confirmed by the Senate, which will still be controlled by the DP and GOP, because state politics is even more tightly and corruptly in the grasp of the establishment than the federal elections. And as I just pointed out, Johnson or Stein would have to pass any new law with a Congress dominated by the DP and GOP. (And it‘s not as if the rulers would hate everything a Gary Johnson Libertarian would do as president. Taking for granted that the ruling establishment is reserving a national debt default as a viable option to preserve the united States as the one and only “Exceptional Nation” and superpower, our rulers would not necessarily be so opposed to a National Flat Tax or National Sales Tax-type reform, considering the national debt would have been wiped out via a Fall-of-the-Soviet-Union-Folds-Into-A-New- Oligarchic-Russia scenario for the united States. In fact, numerous specific libertarian political reforms are probably part of the ruling elites‘ eventual Master Plan, and if the ultra-rich get to keep even more of their money under a National Sales Tax regime under the new oligarchy, so much the better!)

Not only that, but if Johnson or Stein simply insisted on vetoing every single Congressional bill that arrived on their desk, it would probably do little good, because Congress can override any vetoes with, I forget, either a 3/5‘ths or 2/3‘rds supermajority. And if anyone doubts that Congress would be able to easily override the president to pass all their welfare handouts, corporate subsidies and tax breaks, and all the other sweetheart deals that all Congressmen love so fondly, I have a bridge in the Atlantic Ocean I‘d like to sell you.

Of course, excepting the reality that a Gary Johnson or Stein win is almost impossible owing to the two party system lockdown I described above, I don‘t want to claim that a Johnson or Stein presidency would be a complete failure. There are some things that they could accomplish, like ending overseas wars and bombings, at least for the short time they remained in office if they refused to go to war. Because, the minute we have a serious terrorist bombing in the united States, most of Congress not to mention the unwashed masses will be clamoring for another war to “protect America,” and if Johnson or Stein refused to “protect America” by declaring a renewed “War on Terrorism”, well, the Congress would be Duty-Bound to impeach them and replace them with a “Patriot” who will “do his Duty.” Warren Beatty memorably commented in his film masterpiece, “Reds” (1980), that most Americans were clamoring for World War I under President Woodrow Wilson and far from being unhappy, totally loved the prospect of war, even though it was absolutely contrary to all their interests.

Considering the probable and undeniably sobering fact that 9/11 was an inside job just like the Spanish American War, Vietnam, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Ukraine, even to a large extent WWII with our embargo on Japan and Asia were inside jobs, just like virtually all wars are inside jobs, the ruling establishment only has to commission a new Project for a New American Century and identify a suitable target for a new major terrorist attack to “bring the country together” and justify a whole new chapter in the ongoing, endless, infinite “War on Terror”. That would justify anything, impeaching Johnson or Stein, putting in a new puppet leader, hey, even declaring Martial Law, which, truth be told, would probably even be preferable to most libertarians than having clowns like Hillary or Trump running things, because at least it would be a more practical, expedient and realistic administration than wasting energy on the proven-dubious American “democratic process”.

So the ruling junta has this show all sewn up.

Lest I forget, I also don‘t want to neglect to remind all L/libertarians what happened to Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. Basically, he was virtually ignored and blackballed by the MSM, and in addition, the GOP did a “Democratic Party” on him and used the usual bag of dirty tricks to deny him a lot of delegates and numerous primary wins. Yeah, the establishment controls almost everything, including all the major media and all the election boards and practically all of the political party apparatus, and they‘re not above getting ugly, so I hope we all learned our lesson with Ron Paul.

So what can and should libertarians and conscientious mainstream voters do?

I mentioned earlier that I don‘t believe in voting. If you want to make a small contribution to Gary Johnson 2016 to try and get him in the debates and poke a stick in the eyes of the establishment, I don‘t think a small contribution would impoverish anyone to any significant degree. But keep your donations small, and don‘t be foolish enough to get any hopes up about this election changing Anything.

I don‘t believe voting is advisable for practical, legal reasons. I don‘t think it‘s advisable for people to indicate in any way a legally-binding agreement with any aspect of the state if it‘s at all avoidable. Yes, Lysander Spooner proved in The Constitution of No Authority that the act of voting does not necessarily mean anything or mean any allegiance or responsibility to the state or the Constitution on the part of the voter, nor can or should voting prove anything punitive. But when you‘re dealing with government bureaucrats, and royalty on the par of government judges, I‘d prefer to err on the safe side. If you vote, then judges and bureaucrats and their ilk have at least a compelling argument that you have agreed to the voting system, the election system, the government system, the judicial system, and agreed in advance to the results of all of the above, and agreed to abide by them and their “rulings” and “results”. True, Spooner proved that all of that is false, but try arguing that in a statist court of law or in front of a commission full of statist bureaucrats, or in front of a counter-revolutionary food council or to police officers, or people who admire people like police officers.

The simple fact is, this election is as meaningless and farcical as almost every other election in American history has been, and participating in it, voting in it, and wasting time and energy over it is not only foolish and imprudent, but looked at from a paranoid perspective, which is actually often a prudent attitude to consider, participating and voting is legally perilous to your well-being and personal security.

No one can fault you or complain if you want to contribute $15.00 to Gary Johnson for President (unless martial law IS declared, and people start getting thrown out of helicopters or tortured). Here‘s hoping that Johnson gets into the debates, which is the only way I would ever waste time watching them, and only purely for the entertainment value.

What‘s the practical answer to the sham of the 2016 elections? Well, there isn‘t a direct answer to the u.S. election process, the rulers have the system all sewn up and locked down. No matter what happens, they control the entire social apparatus, media, public schools, sports leagues, supermarkets and shopping centers, gas stations, agricultural depots, transportation systems, legal system, police forces, military, etc., so we can‘t directly stop the election nor would we want to try.

I go back to the same message I always repeat when I write these days. We have to undermine the ruling system in clever, subtle ways. By subtly, not overtly, educating our neighbors, colleagues, family, opponents, community, international contacts, street beggars, cab drivers, people we come in contact with or do commerce with. We also need to stand up to injustice in clever, safe ways, and undermine and discredit injustice whenever and however we get a safe way to do so.

In my case, I was being defrauded and harassed continuously by a large number of my banks, credit card companies, student loan servicers and other financial companies. After expending an enormous amount of time and energy fighting these behemoths with their armies of robotic “Customer Service Representatives” and uncaring irresponsible managers, I concluded after extensive criminal conduct by these firms that the only thing that made sense, the only coherent and rational response to these crooksters was to stick it to them in the most direct, brutal and painful way for them: I walked away from about $90,000 in various balances and loans and just stepped back and allowed all of the loans and balances to “default” (in actuality, with their criminal conduct and betrayals of our contracts and their Terms of Service and marketing promises, they defaulted against me).

Of course, my credit ratings took somewhat of a hit, but not really. In the same way that banksters always go back begging hat-in-hand after a few years to governments that have committed national defaults on their bonds (as the u.S. is most likely to eventually do with its ever-expanding gargantuan debt load) because they always want their business and their interest payments again, I find that I‘m still able to get credit cards, bank accounts, and participate in the financial system, such as it is.

I also defaulted because when I tried to seek help from the credit reporting agencies and rating agencies to correct the lies of my former financial companies, I discovered to my dismay and shock how unbelievably corrupt and duplicitous the credit reporting industry is as well, completely in the pocket of the banks and credit card companies, court systems and big corporations and big business and willing to literally suppress or destroy evidence and engage in other criminal conduct in order to silence financial dissenters.

But there‘s no getting around being stiffed cold, hard cash, and when I walked away from the ~$90k in balances I KNOW that in an existential, real sense, my protest, fight, and blowback has been felt right in the stomach of the financial establishment. Sure, they just wrote off my balances and took tax write-offs on all of it and it‘s just part of doing business for those guys. But they still lost a lot of cold hard cash money on me and got some significant stuffing kicked out of them. I get an enormous amount of personal satisfaction from that.

Why do I tell you all this? Simply to show you how powerful you are, how powerful we all are, and how little the ruling elites can do to stop us. As individuals, and as an amalgamation of individuals, with voices, dollars, spending power, debts, as car owners, business owners, community leaders, community examples, family men, mothers, housewives, relatives, vacationers, travelers, writers, musicians, athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, teachers, wise men, church members, I want all of us to know how much power we each have to change things, how powerful each of us is, how powerful our actions can be in changing minds and attitudes and mindsets and behavior and the false paradigms of the ruling establishment and “Matrix” system.

You see, this is how we can each win the 2016 election. It‘s not by voting, or by contributing money or spending energy on the election itself, because the election and the state system is a done deal, as I hope I showed you.

No, the way we win the 2016 elections, and all other national contests, and how we win the world itself, is by “projecting” our personal power in every arena of Life possible.

You‘ve got enormous power. You‘re the ruler of your world. You‘re the ruler of your dollars, and your gold. You‘re the ruler of your body, your mind, your property, and your Choices. Use your power. Use it wisely. But be sure to use it when it benefits you and the ones you love.

We‘re going to win.

Good luck and Godspeed,

And, All the Best.