Why don't I vote?

"Your vote counts." "Don't let your majority stay silent." "The best answer to low turnout is to vote." "Make your voice heard."

At every election, we hear the same lines. You have to vote. Voting is a civic duty. Voting is taking part. Some countries even go as far as fining people who don't turn up at the polls.

And for me, it's precisely because voting is taking part that I don't vote.

Because taking part means entering the game. It means accepting the rules of the game. It means choosing a candidate, a party, a political vision, and literally handing them your voice. And I don't want to give my voice to any of them.

You can show me ten candidates, twenty parties, fifty manifestos: if none of them represents what I think, why on earth should I have to pick one? Because they'd be the "lesser evil"?

You often hear: "If you don't vote, you're letting other people decide for you. At least vote for the lesser evil."

Can you hear yourselves? I'm supposed to give my voice to someone I don't support, just because the person on the other side appeals to me even less? No.

I don't play the game of choosing, like in South Park, between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. In fact, I don't play at all. And that's exactly the difference.

For me, carrying on voting would mean carrying on going on stage in a play where I don't like the script, the actors or the rules. And a blank ballot? That's still buying a ticket to watch the play.

Personally, I want to be neither actor nor audience. I simply don't want to take part.

But there's something false in everything I've just written. Because in reality… I do vote.

I probably vote every single day, in fact. My ballot just isn't made of paper. My vote is the satoshis I own.

Every time I buy Bitcoin, I vote. Every time I keep part of my savings outside the traditional banking system, I vote. Every time I choose to hold a currency whose supply nobody can change on a whim, I vote. Every time I make a transaction without asking a bank for permission, I vote. Every time I choose an open network over an institution that can set the rules for me, I vote.

I vote with my money. And above all: I vote with my feet.

I'm not trying to take control of the system. I'm not trying to convince 51% of the population to adopt my ideas so I can then impose them on the remaining 49%. I'm simply trying to take back control of what belongs to me. My time. My work. My savings. My money.

So no, I don't give my voice to a politician every four or five years. I'd rather keep it. And use that voice every day.

Every satoshi I own is a ballot. A vote for another way of thinking about money. A vote for individual responsibility. A vote for the possibility of leaving a system rather than spending your life trying to change who runs it.

You can keep your ballots. I'm taking MY MONEY out of YOUR SYSTEM.

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