This collection examines what it is to step outside of the boundaries created for us by big government and resist the dystopian future they have mapped out, whether it's by protest, joining the counterculture, exercising political apathy or creating your own 'cult'.

The ability to cast a vote is often viewed as the ultimate democratic act, exercising an imperative human right to discern our own future. Fifty years ago, we lived in a world of greater political apathy and yet greater trust in politics. Now there is both passion and distrust. These are turbulent times, as current events demonstrate all too clearly. And yet, for all this turbulence, there has been little reflection on the tools that our democracies use. It is still a heresy to ask whether elections, in their current form, are a badly outmoded technology for converting the collective will of the people into governments and policies?

Henry David Thoreau noted back in 1854, that a government rarely proves itself useful, it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. He contends that people’s first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law dictated by the majority, “When a government is unjust, people should refuse to follow the law and distance themselves from the government in general. A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils”.

Charles Schulz had a similar feeling in 1968 when he used the full power of his daily comic strip, read by millions of Americans, to satirise the Presidential Election. Eventually, he vocally announced his opposition to Nixon and the war in South East Asia on a prime time news interview.