What the American Votes For
Albert Jay Nock on voting and elections:
An issue? There was none. You could not get a sheet of cigarette paper between the official positions of the two parties. A candidate? Well, who were they? Both of them seemed to me to be mediocre timeserving fellows who would sell out their immortal souls, if they had any, for a turn at place and power, and throw in their risen Lord for good measure. Suddenly, the ridiculous truth of the matter struck me: that the whole campaign was based on no political reason at all, but on an astronomical reason. We were voting simply because, since the time we last voted, the earth had gone 1461 times around the sun, or some such number, and for no other reason in the world.
Comments (2)
Kilmore
This time A.J. failed to convince me. Everything he tells about English or French form of government can be told about constitution of my country (Czech Republic). Yet people here are not interested in politics more than Nock's average American used to be (is). Current government musters flimsy majority 101 of 200 votes, opposition tries to crush it every month or so, but average Joe does not pay any attention. That is hardly surprising because particular persons governing country are not important at all (interestingly this is Nock's point). ANY government is going to ratify Lisbon Treaty, budget won't be cut, any regulations abolished, sound monetary regime restored (euro seems to be inevitable) and so on. Why should Czech Pepa pay more attention than American Joe just because some ridiculous differences of constitutional arrangement?
Published: January 5, 2009 2:26 PM
winston smith
love this:
but doesn't Al mean 4 times around the sun? great point but the error kind of discredits....
Published: January 6, 2009 10:14 AM