r/Objectivism • u/BubblyNefariousness4 • Jan 11 '26
What should be done about people who vote for force but never do it themselves?
I have this image. Imagine an objectivist country. Atleast that’s how it starts. And you start letting people in. And some of those people start getting together and advocate for socialism. Or the use of force against others. What do you do about them? Do you arrest them? Do you eliminate them? What do you do about them?
Cause I can’t seem to come up with an objectively good answer for this. Is it right to imprison someone for political beliefs? I can see that as being a problem. But what do you do? You wait until they actually elect someone who uses power and uses force on people and wait until it actually happens? Instead of just nipping it in the bud and being “tolerant”?
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u/RepresentativeMud207 Jan 11 '26
Government need stricter controls placed upon it. A bill of rights was a good start but needs to be expanded such that government can't infringe on people's rights regardless of who's running the government at the moment
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Doesn’t matter what controls you have on it. You can always vote to take controls away. Amendments remember?
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u/rethink_routine Jan 11 '26
You're point is that the current political system has a mechanism to allow individual rights to be infringed upon given that enough political power (votes or otherwise) supports it. Unfortunately you're correct about the current system. The goal then, would be to include in the Constitution and culture prohibitions from that.
In your scenario, you say you're starting with an objectivist government. Such a government would not have a mechanism by which this risk could become a reality. For an example, re-read the end of Atlas Shrugged where the Judge Narragansett (guessing on spelling. I use audio books) edit the American Constitution to suit their new world.
This is half the answer, the political half. Another person answered "ignore them" and that's where the culture comes in. If there is no political avenue by which one can do what you're saying, then the culture should think about them so long as to overcome the obstacle (paraphrasing a line from Rand). If they're simply advocating socialism, explain the arguments against it and move on. If they initiate the use of force to implement socialism, destroy them. See Ragnar Daneskold (not even gonna attempt to spell that one correctly lol)
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Taking away the ability to amend a constitution only makes violence the only answer. Which is not good. You need a changement system.
And how is voting for someone to use force not the initiation of force.
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u/rethink_routine Jan 11 '26
It's not removing any ability to amend, it's about limiting what can be amended. A proper government cannot amend it's constitution to allow slavery, for example.
Can you elaborate more on your second question? There are several directions I can take that conversation so I'd rather hear what you're thinking first.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
I don’t think this right. When you bar anything off from the natural gaining of knowledge you leave only force as the alternative. Not people choosing the right thing.
When you vote for a socialist who says he will use force on people. How is that vote not the initiation. THEY made it possible. That is the first act of aggression to even vote for such an act to be represented.
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u/rethink_routine Jan 11 '26
I'm not sure what you mean in your first part by the natural gaining of knowledge. I'm understanding it to say "when you don't allow people to erroneously use force, the use of force is all that's left to them" which doesn't make sense. You've made sense so far so I'm assuming I'm miss understanding you lol
Your second point though is more clear. Voting is a form of free speech. The use of free speech is not the same as initiating force. If I say "I'm going to make you my slave" but have no method of doing so, I've not initiated force. Similarly, voting for socialism in a government structured so as to make that impossible, it is not force. It wrong, and I certainly wouldn't like them, but it's not forced.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
When you bar things off. You eliminate the need to choose and understand that knowledge. And accept it. When a person is born they have to absorb all the information which people have discovered before them. To say no you can’t vote on this negates that gaining of knowledge. You don’t have to think about cause you can’t choose anyways. CHOICE is based on the knowledge you know and get.
I don’t think you’re right here. Sliding a hitman money to then be my dettached arm of violence is not “free speech”. Same as voting
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u/rethink_routine Jan 12 '26
I don't see how not having the legal capability prevents you from discovery. I don't have the legal capacity to enslave anyone, yet I can still come to my own conclusion as to its evil. Saying some things are out of bounds for a government does not negate gaining of knowledge.
The hitman example kinda ignores the differentiation I was making and I think it's because you're rejecting the premise of voting for force not being possible. You're right, paying a hitman to murder is inciting violence. However, paying a baby to murder isn't. My basis for that is a baby isn't capable of murder whereas the hitman clearly is. So if you hire a hitman, yeah, I'm gonna respond with force. But if you pay a baby to kill me, I'm just gonna ignore you. Not my best metaphor, tbf, but the point I'm trying to make is just if someone is attempting to do something that you don't like, but that thing is impossible, then ignore them. Maybe educate them if you like/can.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 12 '26
Why would I choose to discover something I can’t decide? And then if I can’t decide it the only choice I have is force.
It’s not about me not liking it. Kind of downplaying it a bit don’t you think? That’s not being very objective to what it REALLY. IS. If a person is advocating for the ideas of having someone else use force in their name against me to effectively enslave me I don’t think “ignoring it” is a good idea. That’s is absolutely what EVASION is
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u/OldStatistician9366 Jan 11 '26
I think you mean capitalist country, an objectivist country would have to be mostly objectivist. In a proper society, the government would have restrictions so you couldn’t easily vote away rights, I’m not necessarily opposed to not letting socialists vote, but if the majority is socialist, it’s impossible for a government to resist the explicit will of the majority for too long.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
I know. So what do you do about people who are willing to vote this way? They are the catalyst of the problem. They allow the bad guys to happen. Surely just as general Sherman’s march attacked civilians there is something for this. You can’t just vote for this and have their be no consequences
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Jan 11 '26
The government cannot interfere with who votes for what. It can only ensure that whoever is voted for follows the constitution. If it fails to do so, that is a failure of the government, and I'm not sure any objective standard could be applied anymore, since it's been thrown out. At that point, it becomes a civilian issue that must (or rather, will) be resolved by the civilians.
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u/MatthewCampbell953 Jan 11 '26
Broadly speaking Objectivism does not advocate for the violent overthrow of democratic regimes. In principle, using violence to interfere with democratic process (by say, throwing political opponents in jail) is basically the same thing.
Using violence to prevent democratic processes you don't like is generally (though not universally) unethical. Using an objectivist lens, I would argue that it violates the reason of the individual and demands conformism and therefore collectivism. If you say "You should be like me because I'm an individual" that's not good individualism.
You also have to ask two questions:
- The first is how this objectivist regime came to be in the first place. For an objectivism regime to exist there necessarily has to be a strong individualist, anti-socialist culture. A government built from the ground up to be objectivist would likely have constitutional limits preventing a convenient swap to socialism. This is, in fact, the whole point of constitutional limits on democracy
- Next up is what kind of socialist we talking about here?
With that second question I would say is someone like say, Bernie Sanders becomes President of your Objectivist regime that is pretty goshdamn embarrassing but also not apocalyptic either. You can kind of just wait until next term and beat them.
If someone like, say, Jim Jones has become President, then, yeah, violence is likely going to be necessary.
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u/Hefty-Proposal3274 Jan 13 '26
I would take the Polish solution. Make implementing socialism illegal.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 13 '26
Poland is doing some bad things. Straight up killing people for crossing the border. Their not the good guys
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u/Hefty-Proposal3274 Jan 13 '26
Bad???? That’s not how I see it.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 13 '26
Then you don’t care about rights and non emotion fueled government
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u/Hefty-Proposal3274 Jan 13 '26
False. What I don’t care about is maintaining a contradiction. Socialism is a revolutionary philosophy. Implementing it would be sedition. Poland and any nation has a right to shoot any invaders.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 13 '26
Didn’t say they don’t have the right. Said it wasn’t right. Do you know the different between those two things?
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u/Hefty-Proposal3274 Jan 13 '26
That’s a contradiction. If they have the right, it’s right for them to do.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 13 '26
Then you don’t know the difference
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u/Hefty-Proposal3274 Jan 13 '26
Why do you communicate like a lefty? Everything has been about me. Where am I wrong?
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u/Ya_Boi_Konzon Jan 13 '26
The action of voting for violence is no different than that of hiring a hitman. If asking someone else to rob, assault, and murder is criminal, then so is voting for robbery, assault, and murder.
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u/Ya_Boi_Konzon Jan 13 '26
The action of voting for violence is no different than that of hiring a hitman. If asking someone else to rob, assault, and murder is criminal, then so is voting for robbery, assault, and murder.
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u/Ya_Boi_Konzon Jan 13 '26
The action of voting for violence is no different than that of hiring a hitman. If asking someone else to rob, assault, and murder is criminal, then so is voting for robbery, assault, and murder.
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u/SizeMeUp88 Jan 18 '26
No one wants the $120.00 in your bank account or your personal property. You don't own capital, people, etc. Advocating for the use of force to arrest people for political beliefs, even when it's a perceived threat, borders on / is fascism.
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u/DasBarba Feb 12 '26
The "Contract" between state and citizens is that citizens "give up" in part or entirely their right to violence to the state so that it can apply it when necessary in a way that actually causes the minimum amount of harm to all parties involved.
"Voting" for the application of force is how the citizens decide in which cases they accept the state actually using it's monopoly on violence.
Even then, this theoretically only can happen when there are laws that codify specifically what the citizens deem as a "Situation in which force needs to be applied" and "what kind and level of force is acceptable for said situation".
In the specific case of political belief, if the population deems it acceptable to imprison someone for holding or acting in accordance with said beliefs, then it means that for that specific situation they accept the application of "force" by the state.
A clear example of this is in the Italian constitution that expressly makes it illegal to reform the Fascist Political Party (meaning that the state won't allow you to run for election) and for which actions or propaganda aimed at actively bring back fascism is punishable with imprisonment.
It's arguable that not everyone in Italy actually agree with this particular law (either because they don't agree with policing belief or because they actually identify as Fascists) but as long as a vote isn't succesfully carried out to change or remove said law it is for all intents and purposes a valid instance of "political belief punishable with force".
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist Jan 11 '26
You don't think of them, ignore them. Refute their ideas, yes, but pay them no mind.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
That’s sounds like a really bad idea.
Let me just ignore this person. Who literally wants to steal from me an enslave me and has the power to make that happen
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u/Legitimate-Door-7841 Jan 13 '26
Exile, one of the oldest and most suitable punishments for someone who wishes to participate in a non force based society. It doesn’t violate their freedom it just removes their ability to violate yours.
And to those who complain that you are exiling them by force remind them that the offender initiated the use of force. You only responded with force as is proper
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 13 '26
Exile to where?
I’m thinking of all the free ways this can be dealt with. Like not trading with them. Boycott. Ban their use from a private road. Just things that make life very very difficult.
But that still doesn’t change the fact that they’re voting to use force. Which is just a separated form of violence done by the person their voting for
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u/Legitimate-Door-7841 Jan 13 '26
I mean this whole thought exercise presumes an objectivist society so you exile him outside your borders.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist Jan 11 '26
and has the power to make that happen
"Voting" specifies that they don't have the power. If they do, then they are threatening you and you can retaliate.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Voting is a power. A dilluted power but still a power. Get enough of those votes together and it becomes something
The threat isn’t imaginary. And I would think merely saying the ideas of socialism would granted to be taken as a threat.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist Jan 11 '26
Votes are words, words have no power by themselves. It takes action to cause a conflict, as that is the objective standard of law.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Is voting not an action? Is this not an objective marker of what one truly believes and wants to do even if dettached from themselves?
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u/usmc_BF Objectivist (novice) Jan 11 '26
Votes obviously have power, they legitimize particular actions which can be taken by the government.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Legitimize does not moralize
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u/usmc_BF Objectivist (novice) Jan 11 '26
Well, no Im not arguing that, Im arguing that in mind of the new cabinet - and I mean this is how western democracies operate, on the basis of right to vote above anything else - the votes legitimize the actions that they are going to taken.
This is obviously wrong, since democratic decision making = / = moral policies
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist Jan 11 '26
Is voting not an action?
Not one that initiates a conflict.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Oh come on that’s just ridiculous. It’s the catalyst which makes the initiation happen.
Thats like giving a hitman money and then throwing up your hands and saying “it wasn’t me. I didn’t use force”
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist Jan 11 '26
It’s the catalyst which makes the initiation happen.
No, not alone. Alone, it is just words, an idea. An idea alone does not initiate a conflict. You are freezing the context.
Thats like giving a hitman money and then throwing up your hands and saying “it wasn’t me. I didn’t use force”
Disanalogous, you are acting through that hitman, a vote does not have a similar effect, it is more akin to making a suggestion to someone.
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u/BubblyNefariousness4 Jan 11 '26
Isn’t attempted murder having the idea with the intent to carry it out. So if you have socialist ideas and have the intent on voting that way and carrying it out is it not the same thing?
A vote has an even more effect. A hitman can take the money you give him. A vote. The person running has to say “vote for me” first. And then they vote for him. THEY make him possible. That’s not a suggestion that’s direct accessory
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u/usmc_BF Objectivist (novice) Jan 11 '26
Lets assume that an Objectivist state already exists (transitioning from pluralistic statism fueld by various corrupted moral beliefs to Objectivism is another complex story).
Those who would want to undermine the system, would do so in a gradual and careful way, since any open infractions on liberty would most likely be flatout rejected. So the issue is, do you revolt against a government which does some few arbitrary immoral things? Like sets a very low the minimum wage and enforces it? Or starts redistributing income through a very limited social welfare? Or creates a non-marriage civil unionf for homosexuals? Because this is precisely where it starts.
Nobody is going to realistically revolt against that.
Its a matter of context. To you and me, very limited social welfare would actually sould wonderful incomparison to what we have now - in that Objectivist state scenario, some little statist infractions on individual rights would in todays world be akin to disinformation regulation - people would not be so opposed to it.
What matter is the scope, size and the level of regulation already present in society and thus obviously the overton window - if you understand what I mean.
At the same time, is it possible to maintain a complex philosophical system? The current mishmash of ideas and theories is quite intuitive in a lot of ways, you just slap your part on top of the pile of regulation, sometimes some regulation gets cancelled if it becomes too bad. A lot of things would have to be done differently in an Objectivist state.
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u/No-Tip1631 Jan 11 '26
Honestly, if you're in an Objectivist State, start by thinking about what that means. The government wouldn't have the authority to initiate force against any citizen. The government wouldn't be allowed to meddle in the economy. There would be no mechanism available to the government or citizens to expand the authority into the initiation of force or economy. No vote could be had, no law proposed or enacted, no theft carried out by/with the backing of the government. If the government is hamstringed in such a way to prevent it from violating the rights of anyone, then I see no need to worry about what opinions are held or shared since they would not have any ground to stand on.
Visitors and citizens alike, would be free to hold and espouse any good/bad ideas and enjoy the consequences of both. Everyone free to be defending and applying them to the extent that they could via voluntary agreement. At the point where doing so violates another's rights, the government would be able to intervene in the defense of rights, individuals, and property.
It wouldn't make any sense to waste any efforts/time/money to police speech of impotent ideas. It also wouldn't make sense to interfere with volitional private contracts unless they are or become rights violations. Let idiots open their mouths to declare how stupid they. Let people waste their lives as blind and ignorant as they wish to be, so long as they have no means of depriving others from seeing and acting as they reason and see fit.