Election Day

The midterm elections are here, and the MSM is wetting their collective skirts at the thought that the Republicans may retake the Senate, a probability rated at 97% by they smarties at the Washington Post, and a mere 70% by the few remaining staff at the Gray Lady. Get ready for the usual weeping and wailing about the stupidity of voters, and about how their tantrums are harming the country. And a few more editorials calling for the elimination of the mid-terms, as well as renewed preemptive calls for the abolition of the electoral college. A few quotes on voting and democracy to entertain you as you prepare to vote.

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires ― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

 I have no lack of well-meaning fools to ask.

. . . A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.” ― Robert A. Heinlein,

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides? ― Robert A. Heinlein

Political tags--such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth--are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.  ― Robert A. Heinlein

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness. ― Penn Jillette

The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat. ― Ben Shapiro

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. ― James Bovard

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom. ― Friedrich August von Hayek

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport. ― Dick Gregory

In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in twelve years, we'll be voting for plants. ― Lewis Black

Every vote should carry a serial number, so that responsibility for harmful or careless use of the vote can be traced. Concealed voting should be outlawed. ― P. J. O'Rourke

And last, but most important, perhaps.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything. ― Joseph Stalin