The doorbell rang. Tired I got up from my lazy chair and walked up to the door to open it. Before me stood a nice man in his forties, somewhat balding, badly imitating some smile from a toothpaste commercial. His jacket with the logo of the labor party didn’t match at all with his nice khakis and polished shoes.
The labor party logo caught my attention. A stylish rose with a fist hidden inside of it. When seeing the logo I couldn’t resist thinking about the meaning that I always keep in mind: The rose looks beautiful, but stings very nasty. Hidden inside there’s a fist, the international symbol of violence. The labor party couldn’t have chosen a better logo: sweet talk, but meanwhile policies that hurt everybody, based on government violence.
The Dutch Labor Party of the Netherlands
Source: PvdA.nl
“Good evening,” the man began to speak with a voice that didn’t really fit his posture. Some way it was half an octave too high. “May I ask you who you’re going to vote for next week?”
“Well, what shall I say?” I responded nicely, “let’s keep it at that I don’t have plans to do anything of that kind.” This response apparently surprised the man, his eyes went to and from, but rapidly he got a hold of himself and asked me why I wasn’t going to vote.
“Well, you see, politics is all about money, my money to be precise. And that doesn’t make me very happy.”
“Money, yes of course, but politics is mostly about ideals! And ideals are more important than money, I think.”
The rain outside began to get heavier and the man began to get pretty wet, so I couldn’t help it to ask him to come inside to talk a little more. “How would you like your coffee?” I asked. “With milk and a little sugar, please!” This was the answer I had hoped for. Thankful the man got inside fast and took off his red coat. Underneath he wore a thick, dark blue sweater, which could have been made by grandma in front of the fireplace.
“Have a seat. Milk and sugar you said?”
“Thank you, and yes please!”
While I prepared the coffee in the kitchen, I asked the man if he was a politician of the labor party himself.
“Indeed, I’m number five on the list. So I need a lot of votes to become a member of the council.” You could hear the enthusiasm in his voice.
“And if you make it, what are your plans?”
“Well, there is a lot to do in the municipality. There is the need for a social atmosphere, public services need to be maintained, the playgrounds have to be renewed, there is a lot to do, all kinds of things that have to do with our ideals.” The man started to loosen up, just like I wanted him to.
“But, those ideals have to be paid for,” I said. “I assume you’re not going to pay for all of it yourself?”
A smile appeared on the man’s face. “No, of course not, that’s what you and I pay our taxes for.” He looked somewhat triumphant.
“Can I ask you something strange?” The man nodded while slowly taking a sip of coffee. “Of course, go ahead.”
“Do you think you can give something you don’t have to someone else?”
That was indeed a strange question. The wrinkles on his forehead became deeper, his eyebrows moved towards each other, and after a while the man shook his head. “I don’t think I fully understand the question, but I believe you can’t give away that which you don’t have. That seems logical to me. But what do you mean by that question?”
“I’ll address that later, but I would like to ask you something else. What is your opinion on criminality, things like theft, extortion, burglary, that kind of stuff?”
“Well,” the man started energetically, “the labor party is all for tackling crime, but in a social manner. In our opinion, it is important that people have a job. Only combating heavy crime with an iron fist doesn’t work.”
“Alright, but what do you think of ordering someone to commit a crime? Is that allowed? Or is the order-giver also at fault? I mean, if I order my neighbor to extort you, am I a criminal too?”
The man started to get more surprised. He definitely didn’t know what to make of my questions. “What a strange question. Of course the order-giver is just as guilty! That’s logical.”
“Good,” I continued, “so we have three things now. Nobody has the right to extort. You can’t give away that what you don’t have, and ordering someone to extort somebody else isn’t allowed either. Is that right?”
The man nodded, took a sip of coffee and said: “Yes, all those things seem right to me.”
“Good, then we agree. But let’s combine those things. Then you’ll also know why I’m not going to vote. That’s what you came for after all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, look,” I spoke calmly, “politics is all about money. You call it ideals, but those ideals have to be paid for in order to achieve them. To collect that money the state levies taxes, but nobody pays them voluntarily. The people pay them, because they know if they don’t, sooner or later the police come knocking at your door. Basically, taxation is a form of extortion.
You could read the surprise off the man’s face. He definitely didn’t expect this. “But, we do very good things with tax money!” was the first thing he could answer.
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the way the money is collected is any more moral. It was and still is money that is collected through extortion. And like we had established earlier, ordering someone to extort is just as wrong as the extortion itself. If I were to vote for you, which I won’t do, I would order you to extort other people, including myself. And that’s immoral, that should be clear now.
I too took a sip of coffee, but continued talking. “Voting is therefore an order to criminal behavior. Moreover, which we had also established, I can’t give away the things I don’t have. Right now I don’t have the right to threaten someone with force, so I can’t give that right to a politician either. What I don’t have, I can’t give away. That also counts for rights.”
“Whelp,” the man stuttered perplexed, “if you look at it that way, the whole democratic system is wrong.”
“That’s right, democracy is nothing more than legalized extortion. And any sane human being will wish to not have anything to do with it. So I hope you enjoyed the coffee, so I can go on with the non-criminal things that I was doing.”
The man got up rapidly. While the last raindrops fell off his coat, he walked towards the hall. “Thank you for the coffee, I will think about it again, about what you said.”
“Very well, sir. It’s nothing personal, but I don’t think anybody should vote for you. And for nobody else either. That would make life a lot better. Good night!”
The man shut the door behind him. There he went, like he should, as a thief in the night.
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