If that's what they really want, and support, than they are even more incompetent than they are corrupt. Voter patrticipation is at an all time low.
First of all, voter participation has actually increased a bit recently, but it is still fairly low compared to historic standards. Regardless, as I have been trying to explain endlessly, it is entirely expected that voter participation will be low. What is unexpected is that voter participation is as high as it is. It is next to impossible to convince a large number of people to do something that is irrational. Voting is irrational in that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. Even the most competent and honest politicians would not be able to get people to act irrationally.
You can educate yourself as much as you want; if you, through apathy, give all the power to govern to the few, no amount of education is going to make you any freer.
My point is that education, unlike voting, is something that we can do can change the actions and beliefs of other people. My vote has no significance on the outcome of an election; my ability to spread ideas and knowledge can effect people other than myself and help create institutions and memes that promote liberty.
Just the opposite? What has voting accomplished in terms of reducing the role of government in people's lives? Absolutely nothing. Your strategy has failed. It is time to look at new strategies.
Then keep looking
So you admit that your strategy of voting has been entirely useless. As much as you wish it were not so, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change the fact that voting from the point of view of the individual is irrational.
You have two basic choices. 1) try to inflluence voting more effectively, or 2)armed insurrection.
This is false. There are more than simply two options. I already mentioned two: education and entrepreneurship. Cultural change is another.
Apathy in regard to selecting your government will NEVER be a useful strategy in gaining personal freedom.
But you have already admitted that the alternative to apathy has failed. Voting has not accomplished the goals that you seek.
Notice what I said. Until we find a solution to large public good problems like national defense, we may need to have a socialized system. But that does not mean it is impossible to live without that system at some point in the future.
Don't hold your breath.
So said the naysayers who believed that transportation in the railroad age would always require state intervention to enforce standards and regulate monopoly. Until, of course, trucking came to fruition.
We hear the same arguments from opponents of school choice and social security privatization. How will the market provide? These people are so blinded by socialism that they are unable to conceive of a world were these goods could be provided by private individuals as opposed to governments, even though education and retirement savings do not differ fundamentally from clothing and food.
And speaking of clothing and food, after communism collapsed in Russia and Eastern Europe, people expressed the same doubts. How will the market provide these basic necessities? They could not conceive of an economy that was not commanded and controlled by a benevolent - or more often not so benevolent - supreme leader.
I don't understand your hostility to the idea that one day we may no longer need state monopoly control over a military. Assuming the circumstances permitted, why would you object to such an arrangement? I accept that you believe this is unrealistic, but do you have any principled objection?
