Adventure Capitalist

I received my Swedish voter registration paperwork today to allow me to vote in the Swedish Elections this fall. The video above shows exactly how big my belief is in the political process and what I think of it.

There are a number of reasons why I have no interest in voting now, or ever again:

• Swedish politics consists of arguments on whether the top rate of income tax should be 57% or 58% (I’m not joking). Choices are between different shades of socialism.
• I haven’t lived in Sweden for a long time, nor do I have any intention to return unless there is revolutionary change. What right do I have to tell what government the people should have there when it doesn’t affect me?

The biggest reason by far is legitimacy
The other reasons above are minor though, my biggest reason is one of legitimacy: I refuse to grant a corrupt system legitimacy by voting. It is a system that sees no limits to its ability or right to regulate and meddle in peoples private lives on a day-to-day basis, yet its supposed legitimacy comes from people being allowed to chose their supposed masters once every four years. Really? How about they take a f***ing step back, stop treading on people and allow people to mostly chose how they live every day, especially when it comes to matter of lifestyle, opinions and information?

I don’t object to democracy, but what I do object to is unfettered mob rule, which is what democracy without restraint becomes: when politicians turn one special interest against another in order to curry political favour. Where no single matter, however private is too small to regulate and poke at. The greatest gift democracy gives us is the ability to depose our rulers, but when the system is gamed to the point where it meddles in anything and everything, and where the choice of overlords becomes one of different shades of the same thing, it has lost its legitimacy in my eyes.

My statement by refusing to vote is simple: I am not a serf. I refuse to give a corrupt, broken system legitimacy through my vote, and the implied submission to the whims of the mob appointed rulers that a vote entails. I am a free man.