THROW THE DOGGIE A BONE In case you haven't noticed it, voting is all the rage. I'm not impressed. In fact, I'm quite dismayed by it. I'm getting more and more primal in my advancing years. I keep wondering if paleolithic man voted. Somehow, I don't think so. Now that I think on it, it seems stupid to even wonder about such a thing. It is not characteristic of the primal urge to vote. Primal Man just took what he wanted, and lived with the understanding that the other primals were doing the same. The animals are still doing it. Nietzsche was right. All this social cooperation (of which voting is but one aspect) is born from fear. The real strong men are gone, or incarcerated. Show me someone who's cooperating, going along with all the social customs and conventions, and I'll show you a person who, deep down inside, is scared shitless (or doesn't have the brains to think otherwise). Those who walk the true Way have nothing to do with all the political crap that is being shoveled down our throats these days. But their non-participation is not so much prompted by primal forces as the ability to see through all the sham and pretense. I have fumed elsewhere about the voting deception. The following is from, Tao: An Enduring Ancient Wisdom:
If you are traveling the Way that cannot be told of, it seems unfortunate to see freedom soiled by such an association with government-of-the-wealthy. Unlike tangible commodities, whose value increases with scarcity, the worth of freedom (which may be considered as a very real intangible commodity) is sorely diminished when hoarded and enjoyed by only a few. Using freedom to justify the accumulation of excessive wealth actually constitutes an abuse of freedom. What Francis Bacon once said of money, also applies to freedom:
And money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
Freedom's tarnished image stands beneath a cloud of deceit and illusion, perpetrated and promoted by the wealthy, and it can never be wiped clean and restored to its rightful glory until certain perceived freedoms are abolished. One of the most notorious and deceitful of our so-called liberties consists in the freedom to vote. This highly-touted practice is presented to us as the embodiment of one the grandest privileges of freedom. But if we take a closer look at the elective process that it fuels, we see an activity that is little more than a popularity contest being staged by the wealthy. And we are expected to participate in this charade, and even made to feel guilty if we abstain from it. But the worst of it is that we are led to believe that, by devoting our time to it, we are somehow empowered by it. The fact of the matter is that the opposite is happening. We are not being empowered by voting. We're being restrained by it. We're being kept in our place. Voting is actually a contolling mechanism. It is being used by the wealthy (who, remember, have created a system that only they may use) to keep themselves wealthy and all the rest of us at their service. And yet they have the nerve to describe what they do as our (public) service! The freedom to choose between two wealthy candidates, who we know have little in common with us, who are totally out of touch with the mundane level of reality that we must live with, is not much different than the freedom to choose between two different methods of execution. Yes, I know, the comparison to execution may be a bit extreme, but the gist of it is still the same. We are basically being asked to choose between two candidates who will ultimately perform the same task, which essentially involves itself with maintaining the status quo, simply making sure that the wealthy remain wealthy, and in complete charge of the reins of government.
Where Have All The Leaders Gone?
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