So,
I gave this aspect a brief shout out in my original answer. I did give it as the first justification and maybe the reason I didn't elaborate more on the topic is that it's a topic that doesn't really need elaboration, at least not in itself. Most people want to make ethical decisions and might consider ethics to be a no-brainer although they may be confused about how it can be unethical for me to vote while it's their "duty" to vote. Most likely, they would just blow it off as some crazy notion and give it no more thought because that would require thinking.
What is this "thinking" that you speak of?
It's like when you really try to answer a question but it hurts.
I did that once. Didn't llike it.
You and just about everyone else, my friend.
People don't apply the same ethical standards to government employees as they do to themselves. Government employees are allowed to violate common ethical standards. In fact, they are tasked with actions that violate ethical behavior. That's their job. If they didn't act unethically, they would be shirking their duties and would be fired.
I believe, and this is just my view, that the reason for this obvious double-standard lies in the reification of the abstract concept that people call "government." People speak and act as if there really is such a thing as a "government" when, in fact, there isn't. I have written in the past how this reification is something more, something approaching deification, but most people would reject the notion of the government as a god out of knee-jerk reaction and, once again, give it no more thought.
You're obsessed with this "thinking" thingy.
It does fly in the face of America's Cult of Ignorance (hat tip John McDaris).
In seeing the government as something that exists but something that is not human, something that is greater than humans, something with powers and abilities beyond those of mere mortals, people allow government employees to do things that they would never accept in themselves or their next door neighbor (even if their next door neighbor was a government employee but was "off duty"). It's unethical to murder and steal but it's okay for "the government" to do these things. Now, obviously, to help with the disconnect, this double-think, euphamisms have to be put in place that will be applied when government employees take actions that others would otherwise look down on because of emotional ties to the words like murder and theft.
If you blow someone up with a missile, it's called murder and terrorism and dangerous. If a government employee does it, it's called a targeted drone strike and patriotic duty and promoting safety. In the past, for a quick summation, I have said that government is violence. George Washington said it this way: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force."
Pshah! What does this George Washington guy know about government?
You never cease to amaze me.
It would probably be just as true to add that government is spin. Yes, it's violence, force, coercion, rule by intimidation but I think that it only exists because people mentally and emotionally give government employees exemptions from accepted ethical standards. They do this by talking about how the "government" will do this or that and by hiding the truth of what this or that really is by using euphamisms.
You can see the fringe of this disconnect in stories about individual lawmakers. Many times there is public outrage when a senator or congressperson performs some unethical action for their own benefit. When one of these people, whose lives are a quagmire of evil actions, performs an evil action outside the scope of "government," it suddenly becomes wrong again, in the eyes of the people. The truth is that the action is evil regardless of who the benefactor is but many people will condone these actions if they are purportedly done on behalf of "the public." By lumping themselves in as "the public," they can also pretend like unethical actions aren't being taken for them directly. If a government employee takes money from someone and uses the money to build a road for "the public," then the person using the road can take comfort that the money wasn't stolen and the road built for them. That would be wrong.
This brings us to voters.
Really, two-thirds into the post and you are finally going to get to the point?
I'm with the twit on this one.
When you vote, you are hiring someone to perform evil acts on your behalf (as well as a shitload of evil acts that you would never ask anyone to do, ever). Even if you vote Libertarian and your agent never gets the position, you are still announcing your support of having people act on your behalf in committing actions that you would never do yourself, ever. In that way, it can also be seen as cowardice. You wouldn't steal money from your neighbor but you're more than willing to hire someone to rob your neighbor for you. Most voters may go with the lesser of the two evils (as they perceive it) and Libertarians will go with the least of the three proffered evils but they are all still voting for evil. Plain and simple. People try to console themselves and rationalize away any uncomfortable feelings by telling themselves and others, with a shrug, that they voted for the lesser of the evils. Most everyone around them will let them get away with it, especially if they also voted for agents to peform evil actions on their behalf. It would be way too uncomfortable to delve into what it might mean about their own character, their own ethical standards, if they admit they just hired someone to perform evils actions for their own benefit.
And if you point it out to them . . . goodbye friends.
Truer words were never spoken by a twit.
I should point out that "their own benefit" doesn't necessarily mean some direct benefit. It could be simply to force people to live their lives in a way that the voter finds acceptable. They want laws passed that will require everyone in the country to abide by what they believe to be tolerable behavior. They want to use government violence and threats of violence to force everyone to live within what they personally feel are accepted norms. That's not just unethical, that's psychotic. Laws, used in this fashion, are nothing more than an opinion with a gun.
I would never force anyone to live their life in a way that I see fit. I would never take money from someone through intimidation to use in a manner that I would then have to attempt to justify to be good enough to outweigh the evil of taking the money in the first place. I would never do this and most people I know wouldn't do these things either. Voters manage to get around this inconvenience by voting for a middle man rather than "hiring" one, using abstract terms like "government" and "public" to escape ethical standards applied to humans, and coloring all of the evil actions with euphamisms so they can pretend they aren't really evil actions.
I don't vote because, not only would I not do these actions, I also wouldn't hire someone to do these things for me. That would be just as evil as if I had done the actions myself. I don't pretend that there is a magical entity called "government" that doesn't operate under the same ethical standards as the rest of humanity. When a government employee takes money from another individual through intimidation, it's just as evil as when a non-government employee does the same thing. People are people and the rules that apply to one person apply to every other person. I won't hire an agent to do evil on my behalf and I won't support the delusion used to bypass ethical standards.