The Richmond Tea Party has a large number of supporters with myriad views on various topics. RTP supporters comprises conservatives, republicans, libertarians, independents, and even some disaffected democrats (among others). The commentary below is from a frequent contributor to this website. The comments presented do not reflect official positions of the organization.
JJac’s post is in its entirety.
In earlier times, perhaps I’m just imagining it, but I believe you could vote for liberty, for the continuance of liberty. But over the years the two-party system has completely co-opted the election process. Your vote’s value has been nullified by the parties’ lock on the candidate selection process. By the time you get to cast your vote, you have a choice between two evils.
That’s a problem. Voting, you see, is force. Voting is the exact equivalent of pointing a gun at your fellow man. You are simply hiring someone else to do it. When you “vote” you are saying “I am willing to threaten with imprisonment and even with death anyone who chooses to live in a manner other than one I personally endorse.” This is something that should be done very carefully and with great forethought. I don’t think enough people understand the gravity of it. When you “vote” you are endorsing the actions of an armed gang, a gang which claims a legal monopoly on the use of force against your neighbors. Cut your grass to the prescribed height or ultimately you will get a visit from the armed constables. Drive around on roads you’ve already paid for in a vehicle with the wrong piece of paper stuck to it and you will be detained by these very same armed men. In the case of American national elections, the gang claims jurisdiction over the entire planet, killing, in an increasing number of cases, indiscriminately and by remote control. The gang claims it can murder American citizens whenever and wherever it chooses. To prove the point, the gang has done so, and no one has made them stop. The “homeland” is now a “battleground.” Was I supposed to overlook this? I wasn’t able to.
No one with an IQ over 60 truly believes that Romney would try to stop it. Of course, the notion of bringing “democracy” at the point of a rifle, to a foreign society that hasn’t done the generations of vital homework, is a fools’ mission. Worse, it merely provides cover for imperialistic policies. As far as “supporting the troops” goes, I want to support them by bringing them home, right now. People who are willing to swear their lives to defend us are far too precious to sacrifice unless there is absolutely no other choice. Any other decision about “American interests” is a crock of horse poo, Fox news “expert” pundits be damned. How many other peoples’ children are you willing to sacrifice? If you voted for Obama or for Romney, you endorsed this killing. As far as I am concerned your hands are bloody.
How can I say such a thing? Because I refuse to vote for evil. When you vote for evil, even if the “lesser” of two evils, you still are voting for evil. This makes YOU evil. YOU have a direct hand in the evil that ensues. Don’t think so? Use the comments section and name for me a major difference between Obama and Romney when it comes to the liberty of the average American. Include details, and explain why it matters. You might wish to tell me how anxious you are to send other peoples’ children to die in an Iranian war. We could discuss the Ryan plan to cut the deficit by using fantasy numbers for economic growth and by merely cutting growth rates in spending. We could discuss the Obama plan to tax the rich, even when everyone knows that the coming budget compromise will increase taxes on the middle class; the whole “tax the rich” thing is a red herring to divert your attention from the fact that YOUR taxes are about to go up. Trust me.
When you look for these details to support your contention you will find there are none, because there are no substantive differences between Obama and Romney. There never were. Be prepared for my response. You were offered a choice on social issues alone. Social issues should be private matters, not public ones. We express our public liberty in our economic dealings through work and spending decisions. We express our private liberty…privately. This is why I am so focused on economic matters. It is also why the economy was overlooked during the campaign in favor of social issues. No one (save Ron Paul) has a real plan to get the economy going again.
So now, onward towards the fiscal cliff. Are you ready for a debt ceiling increase? You’re gonna get one, I guarantee it. No one talked about it during the campaign, did they? They wanted you to “vote” on social issues. Well, the debt ceiling soon will be breached once again, and the Fed has promised to print “whatever it takes.” And this, too, is an act of violence. Because theft is violence, isn’t it? And economists almost universally agree that printing money steals from savers, and savers are, after all, the prudent ones who provide the capital on which capitalism is based. Who will stop the destruction of capitalism? Romney and the Republicans? Don’t make me laugh.
What will the Republican-dominated House do about the fiscal cliff? Will they continue to allow the government to operate without a budget? You’d better believe they will. Will they continue to appropriate money while ignoring the desperate realities of deficit spending and “entitlements”? Yes, they will “compromise,” of course. You’re not nearly deep enough in debt, so you will get a debt ceiling raise, and a tax increase. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it happened during the lame duck session, starting right about…now. Inflation will continue to eat away your standard of living. The wars will continue. Armed drones will begin to fill your skies. The number of Americans on food stamps, which recently hit yet another all-time high, will continue to increase. Your children’s future, nay, YOUR future, will continue to darken. And it will all be brought to you by the very same one-party system that way too many of you endorsed with your “vote”.
So who did I vote for? I wrote in the people I really wanted in office. In one case, I wrote in “none of the above.” Thankfully, the electronic voting machine gave me 20 spaces for my write-in. I expect that to be changed soon, since “none of the above” is only 17 characters and we sure as heck can’t have people using the ballot to express their disgust. And I am as disgusted as I can be with people’s willingness to use violence against their fellow man.
Isn’t it interesting just how many new and shocking revelations come out just after the election? What are you going to do about it? How many times will you be fooled into endorsing this bunch?
Just one more time? “This is the most important election in American history.” How many times have they used that line to get us to vote for one of their evil false choices?
I will end with a few bracing quotes from Frederick Douglass on the topic of slavery:
“The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd’s slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties….. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd’s slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd’s slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson’s slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd’s slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson’s slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!”
“…the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those [holi]days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,-feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.”
