What happens when the US makes crypto-currency illegal?

[acs26]

I doubt the U.S Government has the power to stop Cryptocurrencies. I also doubt that they'd try.

If they ever do, I'd laugh right in their faces.
And I think other people would also know my reason why.

[acoindr]

Again with the "living document" horseshit.

No. It. Is. Not.

It's at best a contract, and a contract CANNOT be unilaterally altered. It has within it provisions for making a change. Those provisions DELIBERATELY make it very difficult to change.

The constitution is difficult to change, but it can change (there have been 27 amendments), and those changes are a reflection of our societies views at that point in history.  

How exactly is that not a living document?

It depends on what you mean by living document. If you only mean amending the Constitution yes that is constitutional, but "living document" would not be the right way to refer to this process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_document

In United States constitutional law, the Living Constitution, also known as loose constructionism, permits the Constitution as a static document to have an interpretation that shifts over time as the cultural context changes. The opposing view, originalism, holds that the original intent or meaning of the writers of the Constitution should guide its interpretation.
The claim that the US Constitution is a living document is often made by partisans who disagree with some parts of it. This is most often because they disagree with specific freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

[SEC agent]

The first part of that Wikipedia article states, "A living document or dynamic document is a document that is continually edited and updated". 

I suppose (depending on what you consider "continually") the definition may apply to the Constitution or not.  My interpretation is that since the document can (and is) updated through Ammendments, it would qualify.  That said, I see how you arrive at your interpretation as well.

The reality of the situation is that there is not one definitive answer, which is why we have the supreme court to analyze and interpret the law, and why different judges, legal scholars, and lawyers have come to conflicting conclusions about how the constitution should be interpreted.


 

[acoindr]

The reality of the situation is that there is not one definitive answer ...

I disagree. Occam's razor. The most common sense thing to any person is to read the text only for what it says.

..., which is why we have the supreme court to analyze and interpret the law, and why different judges, legal scholars, and lawyers have come to conflicting conclusions about how the constitution should be interpreted.

Okay, but how many ways can you interpret the following:

No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts

[acs26]

Reason why the U.S won't ban it:

Don't you think a Country would want to make a powerful currency? Right now BitCoin is used by millions. All from different cities, towns, states, countries, and regions. BitCoin is probably the highest cryptocurrency right now. Instead of destroying it, wouldn't you think the U.S would want to control all of it?
I doubt they'd have the guts to destroy the future currency of the world. Most likely try to control it.

[Rampion]

IMO is obvious that sooner or later factual powers will attack Bitcoin. But banning it may very well be a short sighted and counterproductive strategy,  and they should know it.

Mid term would be more effective for them to buy as many coins as possible and then crash the market so millions of people are ruined. Sure, they would have created notable fortunes in the process, but that's just collateral damage. Most of people would just avoid to go nowhere near Bitcoin, at least for a while.

Long term, not even that kind of stunt may be enough to kill Bitcoin (or a superior decentralized crypto)

[Darktongue]

IMO is obvious that sooner or later factual powers will attack Bitcoin. But banning it may very well be a short sighted and counterproductive strategy,  and they should know it.

Mid term would be more effective for them to buy as many coins as possible and then crash the market so millions of people are ruined. Sure, they would have created notable fortunes in the process, but that's just collateral damage. Most of people would just avoid to go nowhere near Bitcoin, at least for a while.

Long term, not even that kind of stunt may be enough to kill Bitcoin (or a superior decentralized crypto)

Many people would be ruined.  But huge buys would be seeb miles away in a sence.  Lots of people would cash out rather quickly with the hike.  Look what happend when it hit $250. The winners wher the ones who bounced some serious coin at that pinnacle price  I certainly bounced a fair amount.  Most didn't really give two shits.  They would hang on reguardless.  The losers however kept buying at that high rate without feeling it out.  The same thing would happen if the feds engulfed the market.

The major problem I do see.  If it was to hike up to ab insane price would these exchanges be able to pay out? Can you see btc cashing out a few million?  Not I

[5EC948A1]

It has been interesting to observe the development of our thread.

My comments so far are:

1. The current US government requires the US dollar. It is necessary for its survival in its current form. Hence, Bitcoin will be made illegal soon in the United States. (With Peter Vessenes organizing a lobby, he will fuck it up. Perhaps there is a reason he will fuck it up).
2. Hemp and certain Mushrooms are illegal in most of the United States. They have been here for millions of years, Bitcoin for about 4 years.
3. The current US government is controlled by a layer above.
4. Most people who in live in the geographical area of the United States are good people. They are not the US government.

Predictions for the future:

1. People will be put in "Crytpo-Camps" for reprogramming by the US government.
2. The idea of distributed crypto-currency is out of bottle, the next stage of economic organization will take place. It will be a difficult transition.

Comment on the dork (troll) SEC Agent:

Where was the SEC for Lehman, Enron, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and AIG scams? The SEC is an unnecessary appendage of the US government.

Comment on charters:

These charters are old, they refer to god. There is no god. If god shows up with a charter then we can take a look.
There could be a new charter for the rights of people in this digital age.

Comment on countries:

There should be no countries and no world government. Let's get back to the freedom of the Magna Carta days where you could travel where you wanted without papers. But let's get rid of the Lords too.

Comment on discoveries:

Bitcoin was a wonderful discovery by Satoshi. All the pieces were there and he put them together. Let this be encouragement that there are other great discoveries that can be uncovered to free people from the Lords.

[Biomech]

Again with the "living document" horseshit.

No. It. Is. Not.

It's at best a contract, and a contract CANNOT be unilaterally altered. It has within it provisions for making a change. Those provisions DELIBERATELY make it very difficult to change.

The constitution is difficult to change, but it can change (there have been 27 amendments), and those changes are a reflection of our societies views at that point in history.  

How exactly is that not a living document?

that is an AMENDED document. Under the living document argument, it means whatever the PTB say it means (read Oliver Wendell Holmes, I believe he coined the term).

[Tywill]

I simply lose the investment i totally can sleep at night without. srry. my bad

Love this

[Geez]

If the government really wanted to get rid of Bitcoin they could take down the internet, although that is unlikely because too many businesses in this day and age rely on the internet. I think another dangerous outcome could be the investment in mining equipment. Who are the best miners? The richest people. Who is the richest entity? The government.
They could litteraly invest millions in building ASICs just to take over the network.

[Zarathustra]

Do you actually have any evidence there are such mysterious objects in this universe as citizens?

Do me a favour and tell what a citizen is factually.

A citizen is an undead cartoon of a human, an enslaved payer of protection money to the state/church mafia, farmed in monogamous pairing families.

[Loozik]

Do you actually have any evidence there are such mysterious objects in this universe as citizens?

Do me a favour and tell what a citizen is factually.

A citizen is an undead cartoon of a human, an enslaved payer of protection money to the state/church mafia, farmed in monogamous pairing families.

This is an opinion. I asked for facts. I wanted him to tell me what a citizen is factually.

BTW, I find your opinion on what a citizen is 99% in concordance with mine 

[KSV]

Hi Bitcoiners,

At some point in the not too distant future, the government of the United States will figure out that Bitcoin is a very high risk to its Hedgmony. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony, Alan Greenspan loved this word.) The United States will make cryto-currency illegal because it will threaten the government's form of money (Federal Reserve Notes). Something similar happened on April 5, 1933 with Executive Order 6102. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102). History tends to repeat itself.

Those who disobey the upcoming Executive Order or new law will learn what truly backs a Federal Reserve Note, that is, the force of its military and growing internal police state.

What is the solution to prevent the United States government from implementing such an action against cryto-currency?

move to a real country . . .

[KSV]

Surely it's not possible to ban them as it would be tantamount to banning the Internet. U.S.A. don't really control the world anymore hahahaha 

they never controlled the world anyways, tried to - failed miserably.

[Biomech]

Do you actually have any evidence there are such mysterious objects in this universe as citizens?

Do me a favour and tell what a citizen is factually.

A citizen is an undead cartoon of a human, an enslaved payer of protection money to the state/church mafia, farmed in monogamous pairing families.

This is an opinion. I asked for facts. I wanted him to tell me what a citizen is factually.

BTW, I find your opinion on what a citizen is 99% in concordance with mine 

Literally, someone who lives in a city.

I mostly agree with the above opinion as well. Through no choice of my own, I am a subject of the Empire, but I refuse to bend the knee so far as to be called a citizen.

[Biomech]

Hi Bitcoiners,

At some point in the not too distant future, the government of the United States will figure out that Bitcoin is a very high risk to its Hedgmony. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony, Alan Greenspan loved this word.) The United States will make cryto-currency illegal because it will threaten the government's form of money (Federal Reserve Notes). Something similar happened on April 5, 1933 with Executive Order 6102. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102). History tends to repeat itself.

Those who disobey the upcoming Executive Order or new law will learn what truly backs a Federal Reserve Note, that is, the force of its military and growing internal police state.

What is the solution to prevent the United States government from implementing such an action against cryto-currency?

move to a real country . . .

Got any candidates? (Not snark, I mean it. I hate what the USA has become. It doesn't even resemble the nation I grew up in, and I am only middle aged.)

[Loozik]

Literally, someone who lives in a city.

Someone (human?) living in a city (densely populated area / building saturated area?).

Then if a human lives in a rarely populated area / building unsaturated area, such a human cannot be a citizen (therefore is not a citizen)?

[tvbcof]

Got any candidates? (Not snark, I mean it. I hate what the USA has become. It doesn't even resemble the nation I grew up in, and I am only middle aged.)

Although I agree significantly, I'm not really completely convinced that the US has ever been all that angelic.  The Vietnam war and the Latin American activities which transpired during at least part of my early lifetime were pretty repulsive.  It is true, however, that the spoils of our 'activities' have been more evenly distributed in times past.  Of course that does not excuse morally wrong activities, but it does add incentive to not wish to participate.  And as sure as eggs are eggs, an increase in income gap brings with it the need for enhanced internal security apparatus.

The Assange thing knocked Sweden way down no my list of interesting options and elevated Ecuador to near the top.  As best I can tell the actual people of Ecuador themselves had some understanding of the Wikileaks/Assange details, and support their government's actions.  To me this says a lot about the people.  Like most folks though, I've mostly thought about such thing and have made little concrete action.

[Biomech]

Literally, someone who lives in a city.

Someone (human?) living in a city (densely populated area / building saturated area?).

Then if a human lives in a rarely populated area / building unsaturated area, such a human cannot be a citizen (therefore is not a citizen)?

Well, having done both, I would almost posit that you cannot be both a citizen and a human. To live in a city requires so much loss of self/autonomy as to fundamentally alter you.

But, yes, the original meaning did exclude the rural folk. It's an old, largely useless concept, and in its modern/Roman conception, anti-human.