Thursday, July 10, 2008

What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Poor Max Sanders. The 19-year-old University of Minnesota student faces five years in jail and a $10,000 fine; he is accused of putting his vote in the presidential election up for auction on eBay. He started the bidding at $10. The charge is bribery, treating, and soliciting.

I'm confused. Aren't all our votes for sale? Each candidate tries to bribe us with future benefits of all sorts. Basically, a campaign is an effort to buy votes wholesale.

The rest of my latest Future of Freedom Foundation op-ed, "What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote," is at Counterpunch.

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3 comments:

  1. Balls of SteelJuly 10, 2008 at 3:04 PM

    Bingo! Great article, Sheldon.

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  2. LarryRuaneJuly 11, 2008 at 2:22 PM

    Very good, Sheldon. Your article calls to mind Joe Sobran's observation that if the vote is our most precious right, as we're constantly told, then the penalty for not paying your taxes should be that you lose the right to vote.

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  3. Grung_e_GeneJuly 14, 2008 at 11:55 PM

    You can't be so vulgar about it! Good Gravy! Americans love to be lied to and hate the truth teller the most I say (someone else might have said before me in better prose but screw him!)

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