Cryptocurrency: Stop Asking For Permission !!!

[grarpamp]

Forget Politics, Stop Asking For Permission And Lean Into Bitcoin’s
Utility Instead

https:/tftc.io/martys-bent/issue-1281-posture-from-a-position-of-strength/

When one considers the state of the Union today, it doesn’t really seem
like there is a viable path to affect change via the political process.

Monday night was the inaugural Bitcoin Jawn meetup in Philadelphia. I
had the pleasure of being in attendance and participating in the
discussion. The topic of the first gathering was "Bitcoin and Freedom,"
which is very fitting considering that Philadelphia is the birthplace of
the United States of America, where revolutionaries thrust their flag into
the earth and said something along the lines of, "We will no longer be
ruled by an unaccountable despotic king unfairly taxing us while living in
a foreign land. We will be free men."

As a native Philadelphian, I have always been drawn to the Founding
Fathers, what they believed and how they imposed their will on the largest
empire in the world to ensure they and their families could live a life
rooted in the free will of the individual.

During the meet up, the conversation landed on the topic of what can be
done to lobby policy makers to protect bitcoin from overbearing
regulation. What can we do to protect bitcoin mining from climate
hysterics? How can we get a de minimis spend tax exemption? How can we get
bitcoin labeled as free speech, which would eliminate capital gains taxes
altogether so individuals can transact freely? These were all interesting
topics and definitely things I would like to see. However, I couldn't
shake the irony that we were gathered in a small pub in Philadelphia and
essentially begging for the most basic of freedoms: The freedom to choose
what we deem to be the best money for ourselves and spend it as we see fit
without fear of retaliation from a despotic government. The Founding
Fathers would be shrieking in rage over how the Republic they created has
changed. Benjamin Franklin would surely remark, "Well it seems that you
all were most certainly not able to keep it."

When one considers the state of the Union today, particularly the bloated
and tyrannical state of the federal government, it doesn't really seem
like there is a viable path to affect change via the political process.
The whole system has been corrupted by special interests and an
intelligence apparatus that has gone drunk with power. It seems like a
completely idiotic strategy to think that lobbying the goliath to act
favorably toward a tool that is destined to destroy it is a good way to
spend one`s time and resources.

Instead, anyone who would like to see bitcoin succeed in defanging a
shadow government gone mad with power would be better off spending their
time and resources working as hard and as quickly as possible to initiate
and fortify a bitcoin circular economy that equips those looking to
peacefully escape the goliath and supporting them from a position of
impenetrable strength. Asking the goliath for permission to defang it is
acting from a position of weakness that is destined to fail. The goliath,
understanding its perceived authority in the eyes of its subjects, will
probably give subjects looking for permission a false sense of security by
saying things like, "Ok, but..."

* You can use bitcoin, but you have to report all of your addresses to
me.
* You can mine bitcoin, but you can only use these approved energy
sources and only include these transactions in blocks you mine.
* You can use the Lightning Network for payments, but you can only open
up channels with channel counterparties on this credentialed list.

If this is the route taken by Bitcoiners, it will lead to a dead end that
renders bitcoin's value proposition completely useless in the United
States. This is certainly a path I do not want to take and an outcome I do
not want my children to be subjected to.

I want to live free. I want to rid the goliath from my life. I want to
have agency over my money. I do not want to ask permission for something I
should be able to do freely. Does that make me a "radical" in the eyes of
the goliath? Maybe, but I'd sooner change my name to David and take the
goliath head-on than bow down and let it lord over me in a tyrannical
fashion any longer. I think the founding fathers would have the same
inclination and you shouldn't be afraid to do the same. The goliath
morphed from an entity that was supposed to represent us and protect our
freedoms into an entity that causes great harm and erodes more and more
freedoms every single day that passes.