smittyoneeach's Journal: Cash is liberty

And we certainly don't want either, do we?
Perversely, I think that this is a good thing. The more the Orwellian over-reach, I think, the greater the likelihood of the people rising up and overthrowing their Progressive, Orwellian overlords.

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[fustakrakich]

Yay! The JE mod bomber is back! Hiiii...

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[smittyoneeach]

I think you're missing the point. Banks as such aren't even the issue. The issue is: information. The same obsessive control freaks that want to crawl your phone metadata in some Hadoop cluster would like to have nauseating detail on everything you do.
Naturally, the actual "underground economy", or barter, will thrive. But it will also be increasingly illegal. To quote the Prophet Zappa [azlyrics.com]:

It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Based on the principle that
If we were ALL crooks
We could at last be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of THE LAW
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
REAL CRIME
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President,
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions

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[smittyoneeach]

The state is there to serve (the financial industry in this case), it is not the master.

I think the system is big and dumb enough to lack explicit "master" figures, though certainly some try and achieve some momentary gravitas. No; Leviathan is more of a dumb "god"; your perceived "masters" are really its high priests; and our current mess is the fruit of idolatry.

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[fustakrakich]

Yet you still try to separate the "state" without acknowledging what created and controls it.

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[smittyoneeach]

The "state" is wholly a by-product of the individual human minds. It's a continuously variable vector sum of a bunch of individuals. Do you really think it is "controlled" in the fashion of, say, an X-Box?

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[fustakrakich]

It can be, when we learn to control ourselves.

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[smittyoneeach]

Will that learning occur in the dimension of the body, the mind, or the soul?

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[fustakrakich]

All

Not a chance.

[BarbaraHudson]

How else will people be able to receive their bribes without it being traceable? Just look at who benefits by untraceable cash, multiple anonymous donations just under the legal limit, etc.

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[smittyoneeach]

Your momentary lapse in imagination would end in a cash-free system. You'd figure it out. Alternatives would spread via samizdat.

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[BarbaraHudson]

Nah - "Cash is King". Like "In God we Trust - everyone else pays cash."

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[smittyoneeach]

Cash is a dodgy king, as Greece will tell you.

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[fustakrakich]

Yeah, the banks stole theirs...

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[smittyoneeach]

Always with the banker demonization. . .

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[fustakrakich]

Well, they did it. They stole the money. They engage in loan sharking. Does it "demonize" John Gotti to say he is guilty of his crimes? Why would you defend criminals? Oh, that's right, it contradicts your desired narrative that poor people are to blame. Of course you will just dig in your heels. That's the typical response of a fanatic.

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[smittyoneeach]

Who's defending criminals? I would rather bemoan the lack of economic freedom to start competitive banks and level the playing field.

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[fustakrakich]

I would rather bemoan the lack of economic freedom to start competitive banks and level the playing field.

Instead of always bemoaning this and that, vote for people that will open the market instead of serving the banks... Otherwise you are defending criminals by not removing them from office.

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[smittyoneeach]

Yes, that is the logical and democratic thing to do, having decided upon the systemic issue at hand. I am deeply grateful to you for your assistance in carrying the idea to the next step. Thanks.

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[fustakrakich]

I am deeply grateful to you for your assistance in carrying the idea to the next step.

I've been doing my part for a very long time, simply by shunning the democrat/republicans. I cannot account for anybody else. The choice is always personal.