All cryptocurrencies are under the scrutiny of the FBI--it's the FBI's job to monitor darkmarkets, tax evasion, and the like--it's the fact that the FBI is worried about Monero that is the point of the article.
The FBI is singling Monero out for the very fact that its special properties put it on the same footing as two of the oldest and most trusted coins used for illicit activities--this is what cash is supposed to do, this is what capitalism is supposed to do. Good money does bad things. You will never see Washington wince when he's used to buy crack, you will never see him yawn when you buy the morning paper, and you will certainly never see him cheer when you buy an ounce of your grandmother's illicit cataract medication. Good money does bad things, period.
Those people fretting and hand waving do not see (or likely choose to ignore) that real freedom is tied to private money--good money capable of exerting its holders free will at any moment, at any time. Those that say big government has already won, have already lost the will to fight, to do what's right in the face of impossible odds, to be vigorous freemen in a time apathetic slavery. At the end of the day, every man and woman's choice is simple, to be a slave or a master--if you are waiting for the powers that be to validate your investment, you have made your last free choice and will gladly take what's handed to you--and though I will feel pity for you, and can even emphasize with the conditions of your slavery, I will never sympathize with the conditions of your failure to break free and set a new course for humanity in this dark time of surveillance states. If you are waiting for an authority to take you by the hand and lead you greener pastures, you will be continually disappointed that greenest pastures, the choicest venues, the sparkling rivers, the places you always wished you could be, are reserved for those you follow.
The digital world before us is as vast as our imaginations, a land beyond the scope of any nation, no matter how powerful they may seem in the confines of their physical state--they are limited by nature's bounds, constructs of hierarchal determinism, incapable of pondering virtual states of each man his own, each woman her own--it is not by accident that the final battlefield is our imaginations, and the quickness in which some give over their ultimate freedom matches the long drawn out physical history of rule or be ruled, and then the cataclysm of the wisdom that asserts--I have only myself to rule or be ruled.
The FBI is singling Monero out for the very fact that its special properties put it on the same footing as two of the oldest and most trusted coins used for illicit activities--this is what cash is supposed to do, this is what capitalism is supposed to do. Good money does bad things. You will never see Washington wince when he's used to buy crack, you will never see him yawn when you buy the morning paper, and you will certainly never see him cheer when you buy an ounce of your grandmother's illicit cataract medication. Good money does bad things, period.
Those people fretting and hand waving do not see (or likely choose to ignore) that real freedom is tied to private money--good money capable of exerting its holders free will at any moment, at any time. Those that say big government has already won, have already lost the will to fight, to do what's right in the face of impossible odds, to be vigorous freemen in a time apathetic slavery. At the end of the day, every man and woman's choice is simple, to be a slave or a master--if you are waiting for the powers that be to validate your investment, you have made your last free choice and will gladly take what's handed to you--and though I will feel pity for you, and can even emphasize with the conditions of your slavery, I will never sympathize with the conditions of your failure to break free and set a new course for humanity in this dark time of surveillance states. If you are waiting for an authority to take you by the hand and lead you greener pastures, you will be continually disappointed that greenest pastures, the choicest venues, the sparkling rivers, the places you always wished you could be, are reserved for those you follow.
The digital world before us is as vast as our imaginations, a land beyond the scope of any nation, no matter how powerful they may seem in the confines of their physical state--they are limited by nature's bounds, constructs of hierarchal determinism, incapable of pondering virtual states of each man his own, each woman her own--it is not by accident that the final battlefield is our imaginations, and the quickness in which some give over their ultimate freedom matches the long drawn out physical history of rule or be ruled, and then the cataclysm of the wisdom that asserts--I have only myself to rule or be ruled.
Epic post brother.
When Chaum declared "The difference between bad and well-developed digital cash will determine whether we have a dictatorship or a real democracy" it wasn't just cyberpunk LARPing.
We will have a real democracy if we use well-developed digital cash (IE fungible coins stored and exchanged on a diverse/diffuse/defensible/resilient network) such as Monero.
We will have a dictatorship if we use bad digital cash (IE non-fungible white/black-listed coins stored and exchanged on a centralized network) such as Dash+Coinfirm.
Please note Bitcoin will eventually transcend these categorizations because its ultimate fate is to "be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash."
The question remains: what are they going to do about it? or in better words what can they do about it?
Democracy is better represented on a decentralized blockchain and there is no central authority to decide one way or another.
Are they concerned because of criminals? I would like to see some data/statistics of criminal activity on any blockchain vs Fiat.
