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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 20 Aug \ parent \ on: What is PROPERTY? BooksAndArticles
I consider the taxes I pay extremely good value for money...compared to the alternatives.
As you say you are always free to leave the jurisdiction of the government you currently feel so oppressed by but you will not because if you were to go anywhere where there is no government you would find it extremely uncomfortable and probably life threatening.
There are places with little or no effective government but you will not go there because they are fucking hell holes.
BTW- I agree that government can be and usually are to some degree flawed if not corrupt- usually to the extent citizens allow them to be.
I have fought my own government directly through the courts on one occasion and many times through criticism and protest be cause we need to try to keep them honest or they will never be!
Governments are ultimately only able to do what citizens allow them to do and most citizens are lazy apathetic bleating sheep who do as they are told and get what they deserve.
There is nowhere and I doubt there ever will be where people behave in the highly principled manner that an absence of government would require for any degree of prosperity and security - but if you believe me wrong GO to somewhere with no functional government and see how it is!
But no, you will not- instead you will remain living under the benefit of your government but complaining how unfair it all is.
Your mainstream definition of the tax code is not the reality. There is no exchange of value being made. If you follow the monetary transactions from beginning to end you'll see that it boils down to someone with no skills aside from intimidation and deception demanding money from productive workers who have no means to defend themselves. Those useless bureaucrats then spend that money on frivolous and violent self-serving pet projects that would never have been approved by a free market. Not to mention they're also running a ponzi scheme to raise tax revenue deceptively, without any public negotiation and without full transparency of how the government's monetary system is actually operating.
The fact that some countries in a state of pure anarchy and war are technically without government is a poor excuse for the way governments attack civilians during peacetime, and they might indeed be better off temporarily cycling through such a state than dealing with semi-peaceful slave drivers indefinitely.
The simple act of owning Bitcoin is effectively separating oneself from government manipulation, and that's why the individual who hoards it eventually discovers a better quality of life and a higher degree of freedom than if they bought in to the government's platitudes about altruism being the supreme good.
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You are wrong.
Governments provide rule of law and protection from potentially hostile foreign entities including other governments.
Read some history.
Governments also provide infrastructure and services like health and education, roading, food standards, environmental protection, building codes and social welfare.
You can argue the merits of these services but they are provided and are decided based on the demands from citizens and industry.
A nation without government cannot project its power- it is defenseless against foreign capture and control.
The wealth of nations largely depends on the quality of government they enjoy.
Seeking to remove government because it is always to some degree flawed is flawed reasoning as without government you cannot function as a competitive entity in the global environment.
Regarding Bitcoin- it is a good example of how government can over reach its mandate- I agree the issuance of money is a process that is arguably better left to the market- and Bitcoin does this brilliantly- and we do have historical precedent where money was issued by private banks, not governments and where the economy was arguably stronger.
I like Bitcoin because it frees me from debasement governments and bankers engineered and forced upon me for most of my life and now Bitcoin frees me from their over reach to some degree.
The banks and governments have gone too far and Bitcoin brings back some balance- that is why I hold Bitcoin...not for NGU...though that's a nice bonus!
So dont get me wrong- I do not blindly follow and accept government - I instead believe government is to some degree unavoidable and up to a point valuable, but also that it must be kept in check and we must do that.
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If I hold a gun to a taxi driver's head and compel him to drive me or anyone else around for free, that doesn't make me the provider of public transportation. The worker is still the one providing the service. The fact that some other psycho might do the same thing or worse is no reason for me to be doing it.
Bitcoin, if adopted fully, severely cripples the government's ability to exercise that kind of control. To use the US as an example, if they have 200,000 bitcoins, that's about $24 billion worth if BTC. But they spend about $6 trillion USD annually. There's no closing that gap. That represents trillions in wealth that gets released into the market's control if USD loses its social status.