Bitcoin Forum

I spent a good few hours speaking with the man last night discussing the elimination of the gold standard and competitive private currencies. Eventually the subject came to Bitcoin. After firmly convincing him that Bitcoin is the monetary standard of the future, he wants to back his entire campaign with BTC. I am negotiating with him to become his funding manager when it comes to Bitcoin funding.

Well, this is going to be huge.

Unless this is an April Fool's joke, of course...

I'm with the April Fool's joke.  Considering that I live in Rand Paul's district, campaigned for both him and his father (2008 presidential run); and that I am a Kentucky State Delegate, I have more to say about this than the average bear.  I can say for certain that 1) the Pauls are aware of Bitcoin (as well as other alternatives) but don't think too hard on that,(gold is another subject) neither has a couple hours to spend talking to anyone outside of their family or professional teams, and Bitcoin cannot be accepted for a political campaign due to campaign finance laws.  (I checked).

How's Bitcoin compare to all the however many small donations that Obama received?

1)  I wouldn't call Obama's average donation "small" and...

2)  the campaign finance laws require that they cannot accept donations from anyone that they cannot show is an American citizen; which in practice requires disclosure.  Bitcoin undermines disclosure.

No, it could be done.  It's just not (perhaps, yet) worth the work to set up a bitcoin donation system that will not provide the donator a bitcoin address until s/he provides the data, and asking for that data tends to offend the kind of person who might otherwise donate to a Paul.  Using credit card donations, the credit card company provides most of that required data.

Wouldn't be "too" hard. Setup a donation site, people register there with some sort of IRS approved proof of their identity (let's say social security #), then send a wallet.dat through the site, or burn it on a cd and ship it via the postal office.

This gives me an idea for a poll (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5292.0)

Instead of check an action against LAWS that are obviously corrupt .. how about checking the action against the 'constitution' of you nation (which most governments intentionally violate).

Bitcoin is just currency .. hence it is lawful to use as currency ... not because I said so .. but because it does not violate constitutional rights or liberties.  It's just money.  Only the corrupt laws made my high treasonous central bankers make it 'illegal' .. but it's still lawful, depending on it's application.

Unfortunately, for the average citizen, it doesn't matter whether a law is corrupt or not, they will be punished all the same for breaking said law. Especially since most jurors probably don't even know what jury nullification is (by design I suspect), not to mention the perversion that is case law. Knowing a law is corrupt is one thing, intentionally ignoring it because of that knowledge is another. While this can be an exciting undertaking for activists, it's something the grey man wishes to avoid. Of course, avoid it for too long and you can only try to enjoy your slavery. 

The issue isn't that Bitcoin is illegal, actually it isn't (yet). The issue is that you have to prove you are an American citizen to donate to an American political party. The true issue actually is that such a party has to prove it received its donation from American citizens only. This is obviously a law to prevent the involvement of non American interests in national politics, but then again, given the USA involvement in the world, maybe foreigners should have their word in American politics.

Right after American citizen's get theirs!  ;D

I am American .. I'm Canadian .. duh!
You guys really need a name for your Nation, instead of taking the Continents name.

Patience...

Actually im French =O

Corporations, unions and PACs have different political donation rules altogether.  I don't know them well, but I doubt that this would work.

Or if you are a United States citizen.  And send it with a published address linked to yourself.
As I said .. it all depends on how you APPLY it.

bitcoinusa requires ID to use their service. It would be easy for them to say who is a US citizen or not.

Very good point.  In my defense, they didn't exist when I brought this up.  Perhaps bitcoinusa is a solution.

If there were a way to verify donations made to a candidate then you could pay american citizens to make donations.

I suspect that many people who would support Paul do not because they do not want to end up on a "list" that gets published.  Many others do not care about the "list", but have no money.   

Solution:  make a donation, get a receipt, get reimbursed via bitcoin and keep a small percent.

Only if the campaign can record all of the data that campaign finance laws require.  In effect, no.

This thread made me picture a troll in an Italian jester hat.