Camus's argument mostly confuses the issue by introducing the notion of voting for the one you love to hate, instead of voting for the one you love, because he mentions but does not solve the problem the pragmatic emptiness of voting, the fact that it doesn't do anything in the world for the voter. He does confuse the issue, though, because following his advice, one is encouraged to engage in a chain of inexact negations that can come out anywhere. An act whose value is symbolic had better be less ambiguous -- unless, of course, one is composing novels for intellectual tastes and savoring the ambiguity.
Gordon Fitch
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Well, read him or look through some of the sections and see what you think (The Rebel, Neither Victims nor Executioners). I adapted some of the discussions and twisted them around to apply to voting. He wasn't dealing with anything as marginal the US electorial system.
Once you get the idea that the state is murder then the discussion becomes less murky.
``...following his advice, one is encouraged to engage in a chain of inexact negations that can come out anywhere.''
This is a common impression after a first reading. But after more consideration, I figured out that this first take in effect, shifts the positive and constructive act onto the rebellion, and away from the state. If the state is completely devoid of constructive government, then resistance to it can only be effective, if in the process of resistance, constitutive and constructive positions are undertaken.
By positing the State as the seat of destruction, the equivalent of murder, the entire relationship between citizens and state is reversed.
Tonight at any rate this shouldn't be too much of a leap of the imagination, considering the news video from Philly this afternoon. (Rodney King Part Two)
Chuck Grimes