Just as there are lobbyists in Washing DC, and think-tanks that survey popular opinion to sway the people in a certain direction (e.g. why do you think the rich

Just as there are lobbyists in Washing DC, and think-tanks that survey popular opinion to sway the people in a certain direction (e.g. why do you think the rich are getting richer; see Koch brothers), there are those who rely and profit from tax revenue who do not wish to see the Bitcoin experiment succeed. Just as Bitcoiners lobby for bitcoin, others will lobby against it. I'm not Rothbard and I can't prove to you that we will be better off with an unregulated decentralized currency. But I do want to see the experiment through, for the alternative is worst from a point of view of my morality -- certain members in government shutting down the Bitcoin experiment by decree, because it is inconvenient for them. They will cite history and circumstances to justify their centralized control of a currency and the need for income taxes, but I also know alternative lines of reasoning that negate them. What I do know for sure is that control over currency gives near-absolute power to those who handle the levers, and I would imagine that such power is not something you simply abdicate. There are aspects of the economy that does require a policing authority, in such areas as environmental sustainability to prevent a tragedy of the commons. A growing income disparity between the wealthy <1% and the impoverished majority is also another tragedy of the commons, but perhaps the current way of dealing with these issues aren't actually helping. I suspect that a better way to deal with these issues is more competition amongst alternative economic forces, and for that we need a diaspora of currencies; currency and economy is what helps people converge upon a stable state solution in a distributed fashion. It's a heck of a tool, and we'd be damned if we don't explore its uses. I'm not sure what the future holds for us in terms of governance structures. Bitcoin shows us that not everything need be "privatized" as the old libertarians had predicted. I think we're just now entering the beginning of the end for government as we know it. It's going to be exciting, wrought with pain, and probably unfathomably rewarding. All that I ask is that any time you encounter an argument that assumes that taxes must be paid to fund a centralized government that controls the issuance of currency (for the good of the people), think twice before nodding your head. Our technology is new and we don't yet know what is possible.