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>We have to learn how to play politics. There will be voices who call for revolution, or who publicly declare that playing this game is tantamount to aligning o
by snitko 13y ago
>We have to learn how to play politics. There will be voices who call for revolution, or who publicly declare that playing this game is tantamount to aligning ourselves with government. I don't believe that these are productive discussions.
It's not aligning yourself with government, it's begging your masters to throw you a bone. What kind of incentive do you think a protest creates? Would politicians suddenly shut down all surveillance programs simply because people on the streets are protesting? If you were a politician, would you? Not likely. You're already elected, you're paid and you have private interests at your back who DO pay you money that directly depend on your ability to pass laws in favor of those interests. The best a protest can do is to incentivize government to create an appearance of change.
Look at history. Protest rarely solved anything. They either transformed into bloody revolutions (which didn't do any good either) or were largely ignored. No, you don't need to protest. You need to ignore the government as much as you can and tell others to. Use Bitcoin instead of govt currency and don't pay them a cut in the form of taxes, use Bitmessage instead of email, use VPN and TOR, don't send your children to school where they are indoctrinated. And never ever vote. Voting is begging your masters. Have some pride.
- ph0rque 13y agodon't pay them a cut in the form of taxes Illegal. You will be jailed for a very long time. Not something the I, or the average Joe Schmoe, will be willing to risk.
- snitko 13y agoI certainly wouldn't advocate tax evasion, it would be immoral to ask people to risk the leftovers of their freedom and confront IRS. What I meant was, don't give them a cut unless your transactins can be effectively tracked. When you tip someone in cash, most likely they're not paying any taxes from that. And there's currently no law requiring you to pay taxes in Bitcoin unless you previously converted it to fiat. Also keeping your savings in gold, silver or Bitcoin saves them from another tax - inflation.
- rsofaer 13y agoThe government presumes that tipped workers get a certain amount in tips, and taxes as if they got it.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoSo without "your masters", who's going to actually enforce the worth of money? Who's going to enforce property titles? Why do you believe the entire society you know and like will run with government cut out?
- snitko 13y agoAnd who enforces the value of Gold, or Silver, or Bitcoin? And why is it impossible to enforce property rights without a monopolistic protection service, which is government police force? >Why do you believe the entire society you know and like will run with government cut out? Why do you believe the demand for safety, property rights and anything else government currently provides, would vanish in the absence of government? And why do you believe the market cannot satisfy this demand?
- foobarbazqux 13y agoProperty rights are enforced through violence, ultimately. Whatever group provides the property rights is a government. To govern is to create rights, to create rights is to govern. Even if it's you with a shotgun next to your nation state of a cabin in the woods.
- snitko 13y agoThe point is, that when it's me with a shotgun or a hired private protection agency, we enforce property rights at the expense of property owners. When it's government, it takes someone else's money by force to provide this service. Thus, with government, you have double violence and a lot less accountability, because you simply can't stop paying if you dislike the service.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The point is, that when it's me with a shotgun or a hired private protection agency, we enforce property rights at the expense of property owners. Same thing with the government. > you simply can't stop paying if you dislike the service. You can do that to governments, too. Of course, many governmens don't like it if you do that, and retaliate. Of course, individual actors who assume defense of their own property rights and become governments (whether they acknowledge the name or not) by getting others to sign on with them also do that, and, unlike modern representative governments, tend not to have even theoretically available constraints to limit the extent of their retaliation.