boon

Has anyone here purchased one of these? If so, any insights on quality and comfort? They sure have some great prices.

+1 purely for self-recognized Clinton-style grammar argument.

No one is forgetting history. I think those of us pointing out that Bitcoin enables perhaps less regulation is because it provides new technologies for self-regulating and self-organizing. n of m wallets, self-executing contracts, autonomous organizations, etc. are all paradigms that we've never seen before and solve some of the efficiency/regulatory problems of the past.

One could imagine a world where the government doesn't regulate, it only provides guidelines that all people can use as a framework or template for the self-contracting they do with potential risk.

I don't disagree that in a post-regulation world, people are going to have to be more cautious with their monies from a security and risk perspective. That's a good thing.

But a lack of regulation still doesn't make this Bitcoin's disaster. You're doing a great injustice to those of us that did lose money to assign blame to any party other than Mt. Gox.

When are we going to see a change in the rhetoric? This isn't Bitcoin's disaster, it's wholly Mt. Gox's.

Like this comment, right? :)

Fair enough.

Wait. How do I get down-voted for saying this a fascinating idea? Does that even imply that I support it? Lame.

What do you expect in a perfect libertarian free market system??? Oh. Wait.

Sorry, I had to after reading all the bitcoin hate in other threads.

Fascinating idea.

Traditional paradigms of banking might have to change when each person can be his or her own bank.

I guess in practice I don't disagree with you, if your definition of government is "anything that can fully oppress you". Sure, our government is an organization that has the ability to take away our self-claimed rights. The whole point that our founding fathers set out to achieve was to give government so little power, and to check the power it did get, so as to allow people to live free of government coercion. But no, people decided along the way that we needed to make government bigger, and here we are.

I have yet to understand where you're going with this. If companies inevitably become so powerful that they become governments, then letting the sitting government regulate them is inconsequential; takeover is inevitable! Let's just all eat worms and die!

No. I think the original thinking during the age of reason makes more sense to me. I think that the people truly hold the power, and as long as we don't give up our inalienable rights to governments (in whatever form they exist), and be sure to always question and hold suspect the people we put into the collective positions of power, then we'll be ok.

Don't forget that the limited liability that we give corporations is a government-granted right. That's one of the major reasons we have issues with large companies.

(I'm not going to get into a debate about Coolidge. I think he was a great President, truly the last of his kind — though even he had his moments of growing government.)

At this point I'm almost forced to call you intellectually dishonest!

Just finish off that tid-bit of quote you pulled, and you'll find they specify exactly where they come from — a Creator. Whether or not you believe in a Creator might determine whether you reject natural rights, but for those of us that aren't so quick to reject God, then there's a sound basis for believing in them.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

What do you see as the new hotness that has replaced them?

You're giving me a history lesson, again. You really should stop playing teacher. It sort of makes you come across as an ass. But I really want to believe that's not what you're going for, so I'll try my best to just remind you. ________

You're leaving out entire swaths of the DoI that explain where natural rights come from. But I find it interesting you pick part of the document to argue for what you want, and then try to lecture me about your own philosophy of where the rights come from.

1. It's not completely unregulated. 2. If you think a highly regulated system works better, just google "jon corzine mf global".

How could the right to vote possibly be a natural right?

Ignoring your second part. (But I'm guessing you'll focus on this rather than my first sentence.)

YOU'RE the one challenging what I'm saying. Leave whenever you want.

I'm just challenging your absolutist statement. I don't have to come up with a third solution. That was never my objective. My point is that it's not wrong to think about it, and the act of going down that theoretical path doesn't automatically make it authoritarian.

I'll just make a statement that if "Preventing people from voting is authoritarian." then the US system of government at various points would have to be considered authoritarian.

Glad we could find common ground here.

What about my distinction in your definition of government? You seemed so adamant about the fact that a private owner and our current government are the same, effectively. I thought I gave a reasonable response to that claim. You didn't continue that line of debate in your response, though.

My quote was within the context of a free market.

Democracies are anathema to anarcho-capitalist societies, because NO ONE should be able to vote to force you to do something you choose not to. Again, this is the pure governance/political theory I'm using to explain why I'm not being ironic in my thinking.

I never said I had thought of a good way to test voting. I only said that I thought it strange that we were attacked for suggesting that we even think about it — particularly when this "right" to vote is actually only a privilege granted by our various constitutions, and not a true, natural right.

If you're afraid of where the question goes, don't answer.

Would you consider the US at any time in its history to be authoritarian?

"The freedom to vote."

That isn't a natural right. That is born out of the system of governance that we've decided is best. There is no natural right to vote — not in the same way we have a natural right to speech or defense or anything else of that manner.

Democracy is dangerous. Our founding fathers despised true democracies, which is why they founded this country as a Constitutional Republic, and notably one that not everyone could vote. Many call them racist and sexist, and no doubt that was part of it, but they also understood that having a bunch of uneducated people voting could be disastrous. NO ONE should be allowed to vote your natural rights away, yet you see this in democracies all the time. You're right, though, the trick is figuring out an acceptable way to proof voting privileges.

Even the word "democracy" didn't come into popular use until the progressive era.

So yes, when we follow true Constitutionalism, voting is important because we should be selecting our leaders to uphold that limited government. But in our current system, we've given government so much power that we allow people to elect leaders that are going to give them the most, all whilst selling off the power they have taken from us to companies that want to protect their business model.

And once again, you really need to stop doing the whole, "I'm surprised you aren't smarter" bit.

I appreciate you haggling over the definition of government. The difference between a government and a private entity in this situation is that the government can force you to pay taxes to pay for this river management whether you interact with the river or not, or else you get imprisoned. On the other hand, if you don't want to interact with the private owner of the river, then you don't have to. The world is round; go the other way. The river is only so long; go around it. The river is on the surface of the planet; fly above it.

Now, I have NOT said that I subscribe to a full-on anarcho-capitalist system; I mainly understand the theory behind it, and think that it makes the best theory ON WHICH TO BASE A PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. I do think government is needed for some things. I'm a huge fan of our original form of government in the US, namely federalism — though I'd have some cuts I'd make there too.

And I mainly felt like leaving this conversation because you seemingly try to insist that I don't know what I'm talking about. I do know what I'm talking about. Just because you don't agree with me, or you feel you've thought about this more than me doesn't make it so.

Did you even watch the video of Milton Friedman on market failures? He left it open at the end to say there are times where government might be best, but you cannot immediately and automatically say that government is better — which is exactly what the progressive movement in this country tends to claim.

That's fine. I don't care about convincing you. I care about convincing people who have the same perspective on individual freedom that I do that are reading this thread.

I guess if there's no convincing you, then your open-mindedness claim dies with this discussion.

Toodle-oo.

It's only a paradox if you believe in the first place that dietary animal fat is bad for you.

The completely anarcho-capitalist solution is that someone owns the river. If you want to dump into that river, then you have to deal with the owner; if you want to take from the river, then you have to deal with the owner. The owner would have a vested interest in keeping the water clean for people buying the water coming out of the river.

I'm not saying there aren't externalities to free markets, I think there are. I just don't think government is any better at dealing with them than markets. Friedman always says it better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHFIbfUi5rw

"Furthermore, it has been proven that ALL pure systems are imperfect."

I'm really curious where and when this 100% free market system existed that was proven unworkable. Because from my understanding of history, we've only ever had government.

ZERO monopolies have become what they are/were without help from the government.