But what if the ballot is just one more government form to be filled out and filed. What if the process itself is nothing more than a ritual designed to give you a feeling of control over your life, and elections are what they give you instead of real change? …

Tonight I’m addressing the specific act of voting that involves giving your personal sanction – usually by pulling a lever or marking a ballot. I’m talking about giving your personal sanction to a candidate in order to assist that candidate into a position of power over the lives of others – a position like senator or president. …

Politically speaking, I believe your consent and the right to withhold it is the most important thing that an individual can possess. Quite apart from the voting issue, as a larger statement, your consent is the most politically powerful thing you own. …

I want to pause … to look at a common pro-voting argument that makes no sense to me. And, by the way, it would make no sense even if I believed in voting.

This particular argument derides non-voters – as most of the arguments do – but it also is vaguely threatening. It is: “if you don’t care enough to vote, then you have no right to criticize the outcome.” In other words, if you don’t vote, you lose your voice – or at least you lose the right to voice specific criticism of the government that emerges.

I think the opposite is true. Those who vote, those who play the election game, have implicitly agreed to the rules and they are the ones who have no right to complain about an outcome they don’t like. It is non-voters who say “no” to the game and reject the rules who have a moral right to complain about outcomes.

Imagine a comparable situation: you are urged to play Russian roulette – a form in which a 2nd person controls the gun. You say “hell, yes!” At that point, with the act of saying “yes”, you have the lost moral right to complain about whatever happens when the trigger is pulled. Why? Because you agreed to the rules, you said “yes” to the rules. If you say “no” at the outset, however, then when the gun is fired, you have a right to scream bloody murder. …

… many dictatorships – including the former Soviet Union – make voting mandatory….

It should also raise the corollary question: why do the tyrants want you to vote? Or expanding that question; why do all politicians want you to vote? They want it so much that their ads claim to not care if you vote for them or their opponents. …

To understand the politician’s desire for everyone to vote whatever his or her vote might be, you have to look deeper. An old joke says, “don’t vote, it only encourages them.” The underlying message of the joke is that you should be so disgusted and disillusioned with the political system that you will not sanction it through your participation. …

whatever you think of the man George W. Bush – even if you think he cheated his way into office — you respect the authority of “president” because you accept the institutional legitimacy of that position. You believe that anyone who wins enough votes has a right to occupy a position of such vast power over your life and the lives of others …

And that’s why all politicians want you to vote… that’s why even the worst tyrant will conduct a massive election charade. Your act of voting legitimizes their office of power. It transforms their office from raw, unjustified force into a position of just authority. …

In concluding, let me return to a point I raised at the beginning of my talk. And that is – I think voting is a very serious matter.

I know that some of you will think I am making too much of the act of voting…and, by extension, you must think the “get out the vote” people (who take the act as seriously as I do) are also over the top. Some people will say that marking on a ballot is nothing more than a “slide of ink”…saying “yes” to candidate is nothing more than an expulsion of air. In short, giving your approval, your personal sanction to a political candidate is no big thing; it doesn’t mean that you bear any responsibility for the candidate’s later actions.

Well…a mark on a ballot is a slide of ink in the same way that your signature on a contract is. Saying ‘yes’ to a politician is an expulsion of breath in the same manner as a verbal contract.

I take your word seriously. I hope you do too. And I hope the word you use in November is “no” to the entire process.

On another topic, some people have “taste memory.” A first started thinking about this at a wine tasting. So most of us have a “mind’s eye” and a “mind’s ear” where we can generate the site or sound of something in our head without the presence of the object of perception. But does this work for smell, taste, or touch? Not for me.I scratch my arm, and then try to generate that feeling. Nope. How about the taste of root beer? Nope. Certainly philosophers have written about this, but really, this is out of their league. This is a matter of psychology and neuroscience.