Bitcoin is being killed by governments and nobody seems to care!

[SEC agent]

I am just stating a fact. Theft is theft. It is understandable if you are ok with stealing to pay for "society", you are in good company with most Americans.

If you don't like paying for the "society" you live in and benefit from, thats OK too. It just makes you a freeloading societal leech, much like a welfare queen or career criminal.  

If/When you don't pay all of your taxes, you are stealing from the rest of us who do. You can try to justify it all you want, but the truth is YOU are the thief, not the government.

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[SEC agent]

Governments are shooting themselves in the foot when they clamp down on bitcoin exchanges.

Not if the volume of transactions are thieves and other non-tax-paying launders...

*snip*

If YOUR exchange refuses to "follow laws"... You might not want to be dealing with them. That is why THEY pulled support for LEGAL exchanges. Why would any legal exchange want to accept illegal operating transactions. They might as well be taking counterfeits and running pawn-shops themselves.

If enough HONEST people WANT that exchange... then it will come back. There are more honest users here now, and without that market, there is only trading among thieves and goons.

OMG they want people extracting more than $10,000 to declare a statement saying this was "earnings" or "a transfer of owned funds". Kill the connection! Kill the connection!

This guy gets it.

[davidpbrown]

Could we not just sack the SEC and save on taxes?

[nwbitcoin]

Today's lesson is that there are far too many Asperger types interested in Bitcoin and Rand!

Tax could be considered theft, if you were not already aware of the deal for employment in your country.

If you are not willing to pay a percentage of your income in tax, you are not allowed to work.  That rule applies before you accepted the deal to work for an income. In an ideal Rand world, you would have read all the terms and conditions before you took on the contract - wouldn't you?

If you don't work, you don't get an income, and might consider government charity - also known as welfare benefits.  If you are not willing to accept the rules of the country, you don't get those either!

The down side of some ideologies is that they don't work in the real world.  This seems to be true for all the isms like communism, socialism, Marxism etc, but also for Libertarianism and Capitalism.

The only system that actually works is corporatism - and that one is awful!

While bitcoin could make things better, it needs to get through the isms that wants it dead - and that is quite a task!

[davidpbrown]

Jumping to stereotypes.. seems rather apt considering the lack of imagination coming from traditional economics atm.

[Chaoskampf]

In the long run, governments are handicapping their own currencies by making them incapable of buying Bitcoins. In the short term however, this really is a problem. I wrote an article about this a week or so ago. Kind of extreme, but it's really just food for thought. If you're interested...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207764.0;all

[justusranvier]

Today's lesson is that there are far too many Asperger types interested in Bitcoin and Rand!

That was really the lesson? I just learned that my ignore list is one name too short.

Tax could be considered theft, if you were not already aware of the deal for employment in your country.

If you are not willing to pay a percentage of your income in tax, you are not allowed to work.  That rule applies before you accepted the deal to work for an income. In an ideal Rand world, you would have read all the terms and conditions before you took on the contract - wouldn't you? Wink

If you don't work, you don't get an income, and might consider government charity - also known as welfare benefits.  If you are not willing to accept the rules of the country, you don't get those either!

This is a fairly standard style of sophism that I like to call the "hypocritical parent" technique. Notable characteristics of this fallacy include rampant begging of the question, unilaterally imposed demands referred to as a "deal", faux fairness, and a complete avoidance of the question of why it's justified for the the people imposing the demands to do so, but it's not justified for the people ordered around to impose demands on the rulers. Many people have the misfortune of being the target of this kind of treatment at a young age. Sadly as most of them grow up they mentally convert this experience into, "this is how society should be organized!" and very few of them manage to achieve the enlightenment of, "actually my parents were just hypocritical assholes and I shouldn't seek to replicate that now that I'm an adult."

[Elwar]

If you don't like paying for the "society" you live in and benefit from, thats OK too. It just makes you a freeloading societal leech, much like a welfare queen or career criminal.  

If/When you don't pay all of your taxes, you are stealing from the rest of us who do. You can try to justify it all you want, but the truth is YOU are the thief, not the government.

Merely living does not imply consent to be robbed.

Please do take away all government services, including the SEC, DEA, CIA, IRS, DHS, FBI, FDA, EPA, NSA, TSA, DOT, CPS, Foreign Aid, bank bailouts, automobile bailouts, welfare, warfare, and everything else.

Are you saying that anyone who does not pay taxes and still uses government services is a thief?

[Elwar]

Tax could be considered theft, if you were not already aware of the deal for employment in your country.

If you are not willing to pay a percentage of your income in tax, you are not allowed to work. 

Just spending bitcoins incurs a tax when the value goes up compared to the dollar, no employment required.

And just because a government has its rules of theft if you perform your daily activities does not mean that you consent to the theft by performing your daily activities. We are born with inherent rights to life and liberty.

[Loozik]

Tax could be considered theft, if you were not already aware of the deal for employment in your country.

Where and when and in what circumstances was this deal you are talking about concluded? Can you offer us some facts on who made this deal?

[Kazimir]

Tax could be considered theft, if you were not already aware of the deal for employment in your country.

What deal? I'm not aware of being part of any such deal, and I sure as hell didn't agree upon one.

I don't know what my country's employment has to do with this. I'm currently getting paid bitcoins for developing some software for someone else (who, as far as I know, doesn't even live on the same continent as me) and that's the only deal I'm involved in. I give code to him, he gives bitcoins to me. And now you're claiming it's not theft when some 3rd party would suddenly come knocking at my door and took part of my bitcoins by force?

[biganth]

I live in Euro-land and I've had exactly ZERO problems with decent exchanges like bitstamp.net and bitcoin.de.
(and I used to trade on intersango.com as well but they're too small now, no significant volume going on anymore)

So yeah mate, I think you're looking in the wrong place

Why the hell would you go for a Russian exchange, having to deal with utter crap like OKPay, if there are plenty alternatives.

Well?  Where would you suggest?

Both bitstamp.net and bitcoin.de have their fair share of critics, and their prices do seem very high.

I also still need to transfer my sterling into something else before I can use them, so I am no better off!

Besides, I trust BTC-e far more than I do any of the other names in the exchange universe at the moment. 

I have sent 3 wires into Bitstamp from BoA and they all were credited in less than 24 hours. A bit costly for smaller amounts as BoA has a $45 international wire fee and Bitstamp a $15 fee but convenient and pain free otherwise.

[Viceroy]

I care, I WELCOME regulation.  It improves our ability to operate in a safe and legal manor.  It reduces corruption and the whole point is that no legitimate government, like ours, wants to allow a quasi-currency to fund terrorism.  Nor do I.



 

[Loozik]

I care, I WELCOME regulation.

What kind of regulation do you welcome:
a) the voluntarily one agreed on and enforced between consenting individuals, or
b) agreed by a small number of people and coercively forced onto non-consenting individuals at a gun point?

[Viceroy]

Sorry dude, I am an American.  People don't tell me what to do at gunpoint because I am not a criminal.  And don't waste your time telling me some cock-a-mamy scheme that if I don't pay taxes men with guns will show up at my door.

[Kazimir]

Sorry dude, I am an American.

No problem, that's not your fault.

People don't tell me what to do at gunpoint because I am not a criminal.

Not as long as you comply to their rules, and pay whatever taxes they tell you to pay.

Stop paying your taxes, and by definition you become a criminal and will be treated as such.

Regardless of the whole tax thing, you Americans seem to think that the USA is the "land of the free" but it's actually one of the most restricted NON-free countries in the world.

And don't waste your time telling me some cock-a-mamy scheme that if I don't pay taxes men with guns will show up at my door.

Try it. Stop paying your taxes, and eventually, they will.

[Viceroy]

No they won't.  It's easy to think the US government is some evil group who shoots at non-tax payers but there is no evidence to support that.  

All the government does when you don't pay taxes is seize your assets.  They do not shoot at you or take you to jail or point guns near you because we are a civilized people who do not jail paupers.  You are spreading FUD.

[Elwar]

No they won't.  It's easy to think the US government is some evil group who shoots at non-tax payers but there is no evidence to support that.  

All the government does when you don't pay taxes is seize your assets.  They do not shoot at you or take you to jail or point guns near you because we are a civilized people who do not jail paupers.  You are spreading FUD.

Tell that to Ed and Elaine Brown who tried to live peacefully and free but because they did not pay taxes were survailed by SWAT teams and police for weeks for not paying taxes and then finally attacked. And when they chose to defend themselves (as a free person will do when attacked) they had more charges thrown against them and are now in jail for life.

Or Irwin Schiff who had all of his property seized and was taken away to jail after being in front of a judge who said "I will not allow evidence in my court room".

They take you to jail.

Do not ever claim that America is the land of the free as long as people cannot live free without being kidnapped and held prisoner.

[Loozik]

I WELCOME regulation.

Sorry dude, I am an American.

Trust me, I am sorry too. All your regulation is supposed to be derived / based on the so called US constitution, i.e. a piece of paper with ink on it from year 1787 or something.

Trust me, there is no evidence to prove the US constitution or any other US laws apply to you. Just like there is no evidence that bible from 2000 years ago and church laws or regulations apply to you or anybody else.

If you can prove this with the evidence US constitution, laws and regulations apply to you, I will pay you BTC 100.

If you believe you easily earned BTC 100 from me watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE&list=UUFeK8ZdHbCqAq3gekWs8aEQ&index=38

And don't waste your time telling me some cock-a-mamy scheme that if I don't pay taxes men with guns will show up at my door.

All I want is to pay you BTC 100 if you can prove US constitution and other laws or regulation by the so called US government apply to you or anybody else othe than the so called US government.

[justusranvier]

because we are a civilized people

Please don't do that again. My keyboard's warranty doesn't cover vomit damage.