Election day vote

While the candidates talk about themselves as if they can play referee, as if they can heal the nation’s wounds and stop Americans from being at one another’s throats, the very opposite is true: So much of the division in our society is caused by the government itself, and especially the presidency that is celebrated and heralded constantly but especially every four years at election time.
It is society that brings out the best of everyone’s differences and harmonizes them toward mutually beneficial aims. The market, community, civic and religious organizations, non-profits, businesses, and individuals working for their own dreams create social peace. There is no reason why businessmen, workers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, athletes, plumbers, community organizers, and people of all walks of life, all religions and ethnic backgrounds, cannot coexist in peace and social consonance. The market economy in particular fosters a tolerance and harmony that allow hundreds of millions, actually billions, of people, each with very different interests and hopes, to live together in a world of honest competition and cooperation. The very fact that we are all different brings us together in peace, and society needs no presidents, no rulers of any kind, to experience the wonders of true diversity in an atmosphere of commerce, cultural exchange and liberty.

Consider the hysteria we have witnessed over the last couple weeks. Despite the nearly identical programs of both Obama and McCain – the continuation of the empire, the police state, the corporatist regulatory machine and entitlements, with some superficial differences here and there – millions of Americans are convinced this is "the most important election" in decades, if not since the birth of the American republic.
Because their two agendas are so similar, every minor difference becomes amplified into a question of immense international importance. Obama prefers a slightly higher tax rate on the highest tax bracket – thus he is a "socialist" whereas McCain is "laissez-faire." Obama wants to be more conventionally diplomatic while still beefing up the military and sending more troops to Afghanistan and maybe Pakistan and elsewhere, and so he is the "peace candidate."
Those of us who have paid close attention to American politics for years, and not just around election time but every day, can only be amused by the hysteria gripping the nation. Tens of millions of Americans wait in line to vote, and for what? Even the genuine major differences between the two – for example, who will actually kill more people abroad – is a matter of conjecture.

The two choices presented, unlike the zillions of choices available in the marketplace, were picked by establishment handlers and have been vetted to ensure they will continue business as usual. Meanwhile, the illusion of democracy tricks the populace into thinking the state is an extension of themselves, only bolstering the state’s capacity to commit oppression. Far from being a check on despotism, elections provide democratic states the social legitimacy to conduct all manners of mayhem.

If you have fundamental disagreements with American politics, reject the whole system. So long as most Americans are swindled by the promises of mass democracy and distracted by its insanities, we cannot be free. So long as national unity is seen as a goal to be pursued through nationalism and the coercive central state, we will be needlessly divided.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory170.html