erin quoted Why Anarchists Don't Vote by Andrew Zonneveld
Whatever we hear from all quarters we are very apt to believe, whether it requires some effort to believe, whether it is true or not, especially if it requires some effort to examine it. Of all the modern delusions, the ballot has certainly been the greatest. Yet most of the people believe in it.
— Why Anarchists Don't Vote by Andrew Zonneveld, Nani Ferreira-Mathews, Mikhail Bakunin (Page 59)
After Bakunin and Kropotkin, Lucy Parsons is a breath of fresh air. The next piece in this collection is The Ballot Humbug by Lucy Parsons. It's a short essay attempting to show simply that a legislature operates not based on the will of the voter, but through party lines, vote trading, and lobbying. In doing so, Parsons attempts to show that the voter has no real sway on what happens in a legislature, and the passed laws themselves are at best hollow shells of the principle they were based on, but more likely something that benefits only capitalists.
"Can you blame an Anarchist who declares that man-made laws are not sacred?"