Trump – and many of Trump’s supporters – have made a big whoop about what they style election integrity ever since the obviously sketchy election of 2020. The proposition is that sketchy elections are a problem.

In fact, the problem is that elections are sketchy. It being sketchy to put to a vote whether to take other people’s money, to force them to pay for things the people who vote for that want money spent on. It’s sketchy to transform what were once understood to be inalienable rights into conditional privileges, in the sense that all it needs is one election to vote away people’s rights – thus rendering them implicitly conditional privileges subject to modification or revocation whenever the voters so decide. How secure would you feel in your home if you knew your wife and kids could, come November, vote to eminent domain you curbside? That’s what the ballot box is, just writ large.

Does it matter to the victim of a mafiosi whether, prior to being shaken down, the members of the “family” took a vote about whether to shake hime down and how much?

It is telling that there is never a none of the above option in any major (or even minor) election in the American electoral scheme. The choice is always A or B (occasionally, there is also C) which means that every election is fixed in that it is certain the outcome will affirm the power of the state to plunder and control people who would rather not be plundered or controlled.

And worse.

Consider the most recent (2024) election. The voters were led to believe there was a meaningful choice on offer; that A was not the same as B. That B would be better than A. It turned to be worse than just the same, didn’t it? Instead of no more wars of choice we got the most consequentially catastrophic war of choice in decades. Instead of accountability for Epstein (and Fauci and the rest of that lot) we got Tech Bros and body bags (more to come, probably).

The late election highlights incandescently the lie children are taught in school about representative democracy. This fatuous idea that the people elected to office represent the people who vote for them. It is something of a piece with the tale about the 600 year old man who built an ark that housed a breeding pair of every animal and insect extant, plus the plants; i.e., it is fairy tale. Something only children or people with the minds of children can take seriously. In fact, the people are deluded into believing they are represented; this is necessary so as to avoid the people noticing they are ruled. This is the genius of the peddlers of democracy. It obscures the true relationship between the “represented” and the rulers. It keeps the people enthralled by the silly idea that by Voting Harder next time, they will surely set the ship back on an even keel.

A true representative – such as an attorney you hire, for instance – can only act in accordance with your specific, agreed-upon instructions and only you hire him. No one else can hire him for you. If he acts on his own – contrary to your instructions – you are freed from any obligation to transact future business with him. You can fire him on the spot; no show of hands is necessary. Even better, a wayward attorney can be disbarred for such misconduct.

The president can be impeached, of course. Meaning, he can be scolded for his actions. He may even be forced to resign, as Nixon was forced to resign. It is a trivial – almost irrelevant thing – because the impeached/resigned president is replaced by another, just as voting to replace A with B does not mean anything will really change. It only means a kind of changing of the guard.

“Election integrity” is thus a a distraction; a false cause that is used to make sure people do not catch on to the real cause of their woes. It is an issue to keep them busy, which can be seen as way to keep the rulers safe.

The big whoop made by Trump and his greek chorus about election integrity channels the energy of people who think elections matter into harmless (to the rulers) conduits. Like sportsball rallies.

Putting other people’s money and liberties to a vote that is the problem – because it is morally sketchy to put such things to a vote. It is nothing less than legalized plunder, as Bastiat correctly styled it. He picked those words purposefully. To plunder is to take what is not rightfully one’s own, usually by force. When this action is performed by an individual or several individuals, it is almost universally agreed that it is a morally wrong thing and ought to be punished. Also that the victim is within his rights to resist being plundered; that if, in the process of defending himself, he injures or even kills his would-be plunderer, then that is the plunderer’s just desserts.

When plunder is legalized – via the ballot box – it becomes a “crime” to resist being plundered; even more galling, the plundered is obliged by law to assist in his own plundering (as by filing out tax forms detailing his financial affairs). The dissonance is remarkable, is it not?

When plunder is legalized, the moral sense is badly injured. Taking other people’s money – theft, fraud, robbery – becomes routine business; a thing actually debated openly by ostensibly decent people seeking the votes of ostensibly decent people. And yet it is not fundamentally different than these vote-seekers debating whether your wife or daughter ought to be placed in service to the men who vote for that (and it will probably one day come to that, too). Why not, after all? Property is property and if others can vote to take some (or all) of one form of it then it stands to reason they can vote to take all of some of another form.

This is the inevitable result of putting anyone’s right to keep what is theirs – including their very corpus – away from the mitts of others up for a vote. To expect anything less than perpetual plunder and all the evil pathologies associated with that, such as contempt for others and the elevation of the worst-imaginable kinds of grifters and sociopaths to positions of power is as preposterously naive and deluded as believing the Noah’s Ark story is actual history.

Instead it might be better to put away childish things and look squarely at the reality of things – as unpleasant as that often is.

. . .

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