6 Comments

If you had to "hold your nose while voting," DON'T LET GO of your nose just because you finished voting.

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Good you align with Epicurus, Bryan; and as a Voluntaryist I consider him to be Free Friend of mine too.

Some quotes to add to yours:

“Most men are in a coma when they are at rest and mad when they act.”

“I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.”

“Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.” Epicurus

Oh yes, there is good old P.J. O’Rouke “Don't Vote, it Just Encourages the Bastards”

And I would add a favorite Voluntaryist scholar Robert Higgs on the whole notion of government from dictatorships (caged chickens) to democracies (free range), the answer is to Leave The Farm (pace, Stefan Molyneux):

“If anarchists are idealists, they may simply be likened to someone who finds himself swimming in the cesspool and, rather than paddling about looking for the area with the least amount of floating feces, seeks to climb out of the pool completely. When you are presented with a choice between two evils, do not choose the lesser. Choose the exit.”

Btw, etymology shows “friend” and “free” to have the same PIE root which means “to love”—the development being only free persons can choose those to love outside of the evolutionary authoritarian structure of the collective family/clan one is born into.

Get free, then stay free with friends.

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I agree in that there are almost no candidates I support (today , a brutally honest politician is unelectable), but I tend to vote against those I dislike the most.

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The "the wisdom of Epicurus" link is broken.

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Well, since you bring up Romans, here is one quote that might be fitting for you. Cicero: “I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all, but glory.”

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Oops. Epicurus was Greek, but Greek philosophy was adopted by many Romans. Phew.

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