podcasts
Bitcoin, with its decentralized nature and fixed supply, better reflects American constitutional principles than the US dollar, which centralizes power and undermines governance checks and balances.
This episode dives into a critical analysis of the US dollar's role within the American economic and governance structures. A key insight from the discussion is that the US dollar, contrary to popular belief, may not be as fundamentally American as it seems.
The conversation brings to light the dependencies and bailouts between central banks, such as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, and how these actions may not be in the best interests of the American public. The dollar's ability to be created out of thin air undermines the separation of powers enshrined in the US Constitution, leading to a loss of accountability within the government. By not needing to tax the American people directly for government spending, the consent of the governed is bypassed, and the power becomes concentrated within the legislative branch and the private interests that it serves.
Contrasting with the dollar, bitcoin is a currency that aligns more closely with American ideals and the structure of American governance. Bitcoin's governance model, with its decentralized nature and fixed supply, mirrors the principles of checks and balances that the US Constitution aims to establish.
Bitcoin, rather than the US dollar, is a currency that truly reflects American ideals of individual liberty and a balanced governance structure. The unchecked ability to create dollars has led to an imbalance of power within the US government, undermining the foundational principles upon which the country was built. Bitcoin, with its decentralized governance and fixed supply, restores the intended checks and balances, promoting a return to a system where the government must seek the consent of its citizens.
0:00 - Intro
0:14 - Welcome back to Tales From The Fridge
1:13 - US/Japan swap line
6:56 - Dollar is undermining the US
9:38 - Sponsors 1
10:54 - Framing bitcoin and the dollar correctly
17:01 - Importance of America’s government structure
26:23 - Hamilton describing the slippery slope
34:10 - Self-funding uniparty
41:08 - Sponsors 2
42:45 - Owning the frame
52:07 - How bitcoin decentralizes power
1:02:31 - Sticking to truth
1:13:24 - Final message
00:00:00:27 - 00:00:08:19
Marty
I know. Are we good, Parker? It's really cold in the studio. Can we get. Can we? We've been complaining about this for how long now, Logan? A month. Two months.
00:00:09:11 - 00:00:15:17
Parker
I think it's probably more like five days. But it has. It's taken a toll. Freezing.
00:00:15:29 - 00:00:21:09
Marty
That's literally the studio. It's three degrees colder than every other room in this floor.
00:00:21:14 - 00:00:22:25
Parker
I know the freezing is out.
00:00:23:25 - 00:00:25:24
Marty
This is a smart thermometer.
00:00:26:14 - 00:00:26:29
Parker
Not that.
00:00:26:29 - 00:00:29:09
Marty
Smart. Are they targeting me? Particular? I mean, it's.
00:00:30:08 - 00:00:37:05
Parker
You're more on your game when it's colder. I'd be worried if they were, you know, putting the temp up to 80 degrees.
00:00:37:06 - 00:00:38:25
Marty
Apparently, that's what they did in Soviet Russia.
00:00:39:09 - 00:00:39:27
Parker
Dropped the tent.
00:00:40:02 - 00:00:56:13
Marty
It turned out I don't know if it was intentional or they just didn't have a functioning economy to have sufficient heating. But apparently the kids, when they were in school, they put them in colder rooms and that would be more is a better learning environment, apparently.
00:00:56:15 - 00:00:59:19
Parker
Yeah. So let's have a really sharp conversation then. Yeah.
00:01:00:14 - 00:01:28:27
Marty
A lot of. I mean, we're here to talk about the fact that Bitcoin is more American than the dollar. And we were just provided with like a lay up Segway conversation into the broader conversation, which is the fact that the US and the Bank of Japan, I believe the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan have agreed to a swap line, I believe, to intervene in the yen markets as they lose control of their currency.
00:01:31:01 - 00:01:40:07
Marty
And it seems like it's a bail out of a central bank, but it may be a bail out of the Treasury market where the US doesn't want the Bank of Japan selling all those treasuries that they hold.
00:01:41:17 - 00:01:43:20
Parker
They're certainly intertwined and.
00:01:44:01 - 00:01:45:01
Marty
It's like an auto barrel.
00:01:45:12 - 00:02:18:23
Parker
Dependent on each other that the Fed doesn't want Fed and the Treasury doesn't want the Bank of Japan or the Japanese government unloading treasuries as a way to protect the yen. And this isn't the first time I couldn't quote on the multiple times it's happened before, but it's certainly happened before. I don't know. I don't think they actually broadcast that they're doing it.
00:02:19:00 - 00:03:06:20
Parker
It's more you find out years after the fact, but that this isn't unprecedented basically in prior crises. I'm trying to recall I'm almost positive they did it around the financial crisis. There were other times around, like the European debt crisis in 2011, 2012, where the Fed has done this to other central banks, where there's a seriously weak currency as a way to to relieve pressure from that, essentially opening a swap line which creates a lending vehicle to say, hey, here are some dollars so that you can either defend your currency in the market or not have to take some other action to dump dollar denominated assets as a means to do that.
00:03:06:29 - 00:03:08:11
Marty
Is this another form of QE?
00:03:10:15 - 00:03:28:18
Parker
Anything that's in my book, anything that supplies dollars to the market, increases the supply of dollars and is a form of QE. Yeah. Now, in their minds, this might hopefully be something that's, quote, temporary. It never is because of the massive imbalance in the US dollar system.
00:03:29:03 - 00:03:31:19
Marty
Yeah, fun times.
00:03:33:00 - 00:03:33:21
Parker
Crazy times.
00:03:35:00 - 00:04:01:01
Marty
In. It's great the social conditions here in the United States. So I wonder how this will be received. I wonder if the public will look at this and pin it to something like all the war funding that's been going on recently. Um, people are some people that all but some are angry with that spending bill passed sending all this money to Ukraine.
00:04:01:23 - 00:04:17:07
Marty
Conversations going around about sending money to Israel right now and like do they see this effects intervention with the Bank of Japan and say, hey, why are we helping the Bank of Japan out as well? We're struggling here in America. Inflation's high or we're printing dollars and giving it to Japan.
00:04:18:18 - 00:04:45:01
Parker
I think the people who are paying attention was, yeah, Bitcoin world, the dollar world, the problems with central banking generally, everyone will be sitting on the table and shouting very loud about this. But I don't think that the general populace or the American people will be as an up in arms about something like this. I think no one really understands how the Fed operates.
00:04:45:01 - 00:05:09:23
Parker
I don't think they will associate the two. I don't think that, you know, podcasts like this, we can talk about it a bit kind of to understand. But when someone hears that the Fed opens up a swap line to the Bank of Japan, it's not the same signal as they're not securing the Texas border, but they're sending $100 billion to fund unpopular wars, you know.
00:05:10:10 - 00:05:37:06
Parker
You know, so I think that things that hit closer to home are those things that just have this disconnect that make it more clear. What interests are you actually protecting? Are you protecting the interests of the American people or some other interests? So I, I doubt that something anything about the Fed operations will raise to the same level as something that hits closer to home.
00:05:37:21 - 00:05:38:24
Parker
Just naturally.
00:05:39:18 - 00:05:45:00
Marty
People are worried about a spreading democracy, not so much about us spreading the US dollar into other markets.
00:05:45:11 - 00:06:25:10
Parker
Yeah, and I think mostly because it's just not understood. It sounds like some financial jargon that that just isn't as relatable as sending dollars to somebody else when particularly at a time, even though it is functioning the same thing, it just sounds different. The headline reads different. Fed Open swap line. What the fuck does that mean? Yeah, versus Congress funds $95 billion or Congress actively prevents the state of Texas from defending its border or Congress passes a warrantless Pfizer bill.
00:06:25:10 - 00:06:41:15
Parker
You know, Congress has a $2 trillion deficit or two or $3 trillion deficit. Those things are much more relatable to the average American than that open swap line to Bank of Japan.
00:06:41:16 - 00:07:06:17
Marty
Yeah, Of that being said, they are contributing to the same problem that we have here, which is what we're here to talk about, is the fact that the US dollar is arguably undermining the structural integrity of the governance structure of the United States. You gave this presentation a put bok boom last month. There's nothing more American than Bitcoin.
00:07:07:09 - 00:07:16:08
Marty
I wrote a newsletter about it yesterday. Parker may or may not have been sitting right next to me and helping me write the newsletter as I was typing it out around 5 p.m..
00:07:17:09 - 00:07:22:13
Parker
I was just helping clarify points. But now we're on the podcast to be able to talk about it in greater detail. Yeah.
00:07:22:24 - 00:07:43:20
Marty
And I think it's an important topic too, because when we talk about you, I mean you framed it as there's nothing more American to Bitcoin. I framed it as the US dollars anti America in the newsletter and it's two sides of the same coin. And I think it's important to have both frames in the frame that I decided to run with it.
00:07:43:20 - 00:08:10:06
Marty
Just to highlight that when people talk about the US dollar, the global reserve currency being anti-American, they typically talk about things that we just discussed. You're spreading democracy, you're going into debt and you're going to engage in wars that arguably are not beneficial in the long run. And people say these wars are to defend the US dollars reserve currency.
00:08:10:06 - 00:08:45:10
Marty
They talk about the petrodollar system and how forcing other countries to convert their local currencies to dollars to buy oil on the international markets can piss some of those countries off who are saying, Why do I need to buy dollars to do this? Why can't I just use my own currency? And obviously the printing of money leading to inflation, What's undermines the social cohesion of American citizens throughout the country as they struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table because prices are going up?
00:08:45:11 - 00:09:14:20
Marty
I think what you've honed in on in your presentation is unique and something I haven't heard today. So I love having Parker Lewis as a good friend is you teach me you're only bringing new perspectives to the world. And I think what you've honed in on is a very potent angle in terms of juxtaposing why Bitcoin is really aligned with American ideals and why the dollar is actually eroding.
00:09:14:21 - 00:09:24:18
Marty
The ideals of this country was founded on all revolves around how the dollar plays into the balance of power between the three branches of government.
00:09:25:28 - 00:10:07:18
Parker
Yeah, and so one of the things I guess is framing to the presentation that I gave at that block, boom. And one of the reasons why I gave that talk was because as Bitcoin advances, I am a realist, both being able to observe how different stakeholders have reacted to Bitcoin, public, private, across the board that as Bitcoin advances, Bitcoin will inevitably become in the crosshairs and increasingly in certain corners become controversial.
00:10:08:07 - 00:10:35:08
Parker
I'm also working on a company to help facilitate Bitcoin payments because I think that Bitcoin payments is the other side of the same coin of people storing their value in bitcoin and that more people need to start to think about Bitcoin not just as a niche store of value, but start to depend on it as an active rail because the legacy rail is incredibly fragile.
00:10:35:20 - 00:11:05:15
Parker
And I think that the framing not just of Bitcoin as a form of payment but also as a store of value, The framing is very important because there are different stakeholders who might send a message about how Bitcoin is important, but the dollar is also important. Or, you know, Bitcoin is not controversial as a store of value. But second, it starts to be used to facilitate exchange.
00:11:05:23 - 00:11:48:01
Parker
It becomes more controversial and realizing the appropriate frame and leaning into it because Bitcoin, whether you're an individual using it to save or your business using it for payments is an incredible story that is perfectly aligned with the not just American ideals, but the American structure of government. And the dollar is actually, in my view, the single greatest force that's undermining the American structure of governance, which is the foundation of American stability and prosperity.
00:11:48:16 - 00:12:21:06
Parker
And that rather than shying away from the fact that Bitcoin is in the process of replacing the dollar, not having to be in a position of apologizing for that fact and saying, well, the Bitcoin and the dollar will coexist. That is not logical in my opinion. If you think about Bitcoin and money from first principles that you can't store the same unit of value, the same exact unit of value both in the dollar and Bitcoin at the same time.
00:12:21:15 - 00:13:11:04
Parker
And if Bitcoin is a better store of value, then each individual, each company, each country is going to make the transition to the better store of value. But it also only source value because it's so easily, easily exchangeable. And so the kind of coming back to the presentation of why kind of framing it as nothing's more American than Bitcoin, the other side of that coin is that there's there's nothing less American than the dollar and that I think the subject is important because now with Bitcoin at $1,000,000,000,000 with recent regulatory actions, you know, with the the same error case, but really the chilling effect that's happening more broadly, recognizing that Bitcoin at 1,000,000,000,010 X adoption
00:13:11:04 - 00:13:45:24
Parker
from here Bitcoin and eventually it starts to become more apparent to more people that these two things are related and that you can either take one path apologizing for Bitcoin and say and I think ultimately advancing something that's going to prove out to be false, which is the two cannot coexist, that's perfectly fine and lean into the fact the reality that Bitcoin really does align and I think in my view will help restore the separation of powers and make the structure of government in the US far more functional.
00:13:46:07 - 00:14:09:14
Parker
And at the same time, it's actually the dollar that has undermined the separation of power. So we can kind of go into either side. I think I had a great quote that was something along the lines of, you know, patriotic allegiance to the dollar is very strange because it's just debt issued by a private entity that's not actually the U.S. government.
00:14:09:29 - 00:14:49:24
Parker
And I think that's one place to start, which is there's this very weird, like false dilemma that somehow the US dollar is patriotic and that somehow the US dollar advances the, quote, national security interests of the United States. My view, and I think anybody that gets beyond the surface level will agree there's nothing patriotic about the dollar. You know, I would point to things like our national debt, the ability to print dollars ad infinitum without any costs associated is what enables that drug.
00:14:50:15 - 00:15:27:20
Parker
And it funds endless wars. But at the core level, the non topical level is the fact that the ability to print money detaches the consent of the governed from the representative form of government that the US Congress, in concert with the President of the United States that signs any funding bill, they no longer have to come to the American people for funding, whether it is via taxation or via going to the private sector and asking friends they can just go to the Fed and get them to print more money.
00:15:27:24 - 00:15:33:03
Parker
And that itself is at its core. What undermines the U.S. structure of government.
00:15:33:15 - 00:16:01:27
Marty
Yeah, and I think to take a step back and better understand what is the structure of the US government and why it is that structure that makes America as free or made it as free as it was at one time. And arguably the erosion of that structure has made it less free today. And going back to Antonin Scalia and how he would describe it and the rhetorical question he would ask students.
00:16:03:09 - 00:16:37:00
Parker
I want to recommend everybody go watch this seven to I think it's seven or 8 minutes before Congress, kind of like it's an opening statement before testimony that Antonin Scalia, the late U.S. Supreme Court justice, gave probably seven or eight years ago. And he explained that when he would go around and talk to law students around the country, he would ask the question, what differentiates America, what makes America exceptional, what makes us different?
00:16:37:21 - 00:17:09:27
Parker
And that the most common or practically every what everyone would say is they would point to the Bill of Rights. They would point to a free press freedom of speech. No unreasonable search and seizure enumerates a few others of the Bill of Rights. But what Antonin Scalia points out is that said, he said something along the lines of every banana republic has a Bill of Rights.
00:17:10:11 - 00:17:51:01
Parker
Every president for life has a Bill of rights. He actually even pointed to the Soviet USSR as objective, having a better Bill of Rights than the U.S. But he also explained that it would be what the founding fathers of the United States would have referred to as a parchment guarantee that it's just words on paper, and that if you go through the exercise of if you pull up the US Constitution, there's a very short preamble that talks about how to put forward a better form of government, but it then gets into directly the structure of government.
00:17:51:01 - 00:18:49:01
Parker
It enumerates the separation of powers. It enumerates what the federal government has as its powers, what within their Congress has the power to do, what the executive branch has to do and what the the the judicial branch has to do. It doesn't talk about the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights came later. And when you start to think about what makes America's structure of government different, it is and this is paraphrasing Antonin Scalia, it is that it was designed to be gridlock, that the balance of power in the Constitution were designed to do one principal thing, which was prevent the centralization of power, and that once power centralizes everything else is lost.
00:18:49:27 - 00:19:22:22
Parker
And so when you think about it in that context, is this the Constitution, the Bill of Rights are secondary without a structure of government to create contradicting powers. And in Scalia's view, words, it was that gridlock by design in those contradicting powers that the framers believed would be the primary protection of minority rights, not minorities, but people that are in the minority to say, Hey, you can't pass any law that contradicts these foundational principles.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:46:18
Parker
Well, why can you not? Because these contradicting powers exist, this gridlock, this by design, there would have to be overwhelming support for something, for something to change. And that when you think about in that context, it is the structure of government is what affords rights. Without that structure, the rights don't mean anything because they can't actually be enforced.
00:19:47:04 - 00:20:06:15
Parker
And for a number of reasons, that's not only does the centralization of the money supply cause the centralization of industry, it also actually undermines the that a very important separation of powers that designed.
00:20:07:02 - 00:20:27:23
Marty
Yes. And let's dive into how it does that. Right, because you have this set up via the Constitution this way where you have these three branches, and it's designed in a way to make it extremely hard to get things through to protect the rights of the individual, the minority. So you make it very hard to pass any laws.
00:20:27:26 - 00:20:47:20
Marty
We're spending bills, whatever it may be. The emergence of the fiat system and the dollar's reserve currency is beginning to erode this. And I think let's dive into how it does that and what parts of this triumvirate at the federal level does it undermine.
00:20:48:22 - 00:21:24:18
Parker
So think about, you know, one of the things that Scalia points out is the bicameral nature of Congress itself, so both a House and a Senate, and that both must approve laws that then have to get signed off on by a president that can veto it. And then there's mechanisms to override the veto. And so kind of start with that kind of part of the structure and that also recognizing that Congress has what most people are familiar with, the power of the purse.
00:21:25:24 - 00:22:22:11
Parker
Well, the primary mechanism that existed then to fund the government was via taxes. The levying of taxes. So a key part of this representative form of government was if Congress wants to pass a law that requires funding, they have to go to the American people via taxes to fund it. And if that were the case, every time the government wanted to create a spending bill that was $6 trillion as an example today, and they had to actually either go tax the American people and for whatever they couldn't tax, they had to go out to the same private sector and say, buy our war bonds or buy bonds to fund this program that that that was
00:22:22:11 - 00:22:25:29
Parker
this very important. Congress did have the ability.
00:22:26:07 - 00:22:48:09
Marty
Go ahead by our lockdown bonds like imagine if they didn't have the power of unfettered fiat monetary levers that going back to COVID like if they wanted to do lockdowns, they wanted to do that 6 trillion. They had to go to the American people, say, hey, you need to buy our lockdown bonds, We're in a lockdown, distribute this money and we'll pay you back in the future.
00:22:48:23 - 00:23:16:23
Parker
Yeah. And so now in the world where the Fed exists, a in a way to try to emphasize in a way that in my view, the founding fathers could have never imagined. Right. And there's this. Maybe we could pull it up now, but there's this great quote by Alexander Hamilton, where he certainly warned of the the risk of the emissions of UNbacked paper money that warned of the risks, predicted what would happen.
00:23:17:04 - 00:24:02:20
Parker
But while I would say he perfectly predicted what would happen, also recognize that when the founding Fathers and the framers of the Constitution were getting together to figure out the right way to essentially create gridlock and to ensure that the Constitution is honored and that can't be undermined, that while they could have conceived of a reserve back currency like a gold back currency, they couldn't have envisioned the Internet and the modern central bank and the ability to create $1,000,000,000,000 with simply a click on the computer screen.
00:24:03:02 - 00:24:50:12
Parker
And so I also I talk about that in this framing of saying like people have this flawed idea that somehow the dollar's important to national security, somehow the dollar is patriotic, when in reality it would be anathema to the founding Fathers. Even setting aside this other reality that entirely undermines the structure. And so I like to read the quotes I had you pull it up because when you when you hear in the actual words of the founding Fathers, it makes it far more difficult for an average person when they hear this idea that the dollar is patriotic, or that somehow the current construction of the dollar would align with the founding principles of America harder
00:24:50:22 - 00:25:22:04
Parker
to to believe kind of cuts out anyone who would parrot that line kind of at the knees. So the quote from Alexander Hamilton, he is is he's issuing a report to US Congress, to the US Congress from from himself as the Treasurer. If you just unlock that. So it says and this is a 1790 report to Congress, the omitting of paper money by the authority of government is widely prohibited to the individual states by the national Constitution.
00:25:22:04 - 00:25:58:13
Parker
Again, so this is enumerated in the Constitution that the federal government can coin money, the state governments can't. And Alexander Hamilton is making the case for why they should never allow the admission of paper money that is UNbacked. And so he says, in the spirit of that, prohibition on the states ought not be disregarded by the government of the United States, though paper emissions under a general authority might have some advantages not applicable and be free from some disadvantages which are applicable to the like emissions by the states separately.
00:25:59:00 - 00:26:37:07
Parker
Yet they are of a nature so liable to abuse. And it may even be affirms as certain of being abused that the wisdom of the government will be shown in never trusting with the use of so seducing in dangerous and expedient. So recognizing it's like the printing of money is almost akin to trying to play God. And if you could do that and nobody else could, and you just did it a little bit, he's basically saying maybe that could result in good if no one knew about it and you just fix the problem over here.
00:26:37:07 - 00:27:02:23
Parker
Problem is, it's so liable to abuse that that you should never start down that path. Very prescient for this, you know, where we've ended up today. And he goes on to say, in times of trends quality, it might have no ill consequence. It might even perhaps be managed in a way to be productive of good, but in great and trying emergencies, there is almost a moral certainty of its becoming mischievous.
00:27:03:14 - 00:27:26:03
Parker
The stamping of paper as an operation so much easier than the laying of taxes that a government in the practice of paper missions would rarely fail in any such emergency to indulge itself too far in the employment of that resource to avoid as much as possible one less auspicious to present popularity. So that's where I say he perfectly predicted.
00:27:26:03 - 00:28:02:24
Parker
If you if you take this out of Pandora's box, you're not just going to do it a little, you're going to inevitably do it a lot. There might be some benefit in times of tranquility, but in times of emergency it will certainly be abused. So when you think about this and it was certainly abused before QE, but once they started down that path of slowly feeding more dollars, it set the table and would then be impossible not to abuse in a great and trying emergency financial crisis.
00:28:03:08 - 00:28:33:04
Parker
Oh, we were doing this in small ways. In times of tranquility. We now have an emergency. We have this ability to do it. How about we print 3.6 trillion over four years and see what happens? And he goes on and this is the end. He says if it should not even be carried so far as to be rendered an absolute bubble, it would at least be likely to be extended to a degree which would occasion in an inflated and artificial state of things incompatible with the regular and prosperous course of the political economy.
00:28:33:20 - 00:29:04:24
Parker
And in that prior sentence, he he kind of connects this idea that the stamping of paper is an operation so much easier than laying of taxes that a government would never fail to do it because they would. Applying taxes is unpopular. If you have to go to the American people to ask for consent to all of your the operations that you're funding, the government, that in those great and trying emergencies, the government would never go to the American people to tax them if they had the ability to print because they choose present popularity.
00:29:05:00 - 00:29:35:16
Parker
And that's this the very key thing coming back to the structure, which is if they don't have to tax the American people to fund a $2 trillion deficit or a growing $34 trillion debt, they can just horse trade with each other. And that's where the separation of power gets out of balance. This the structure that was very important to this prevention of centralization of power that people in the US Congress can just go back and forth with each other and horse trade and say, I'll give you that, you know, $100 billion if you give me this 100 billion.
00:29:35:16 - 00:29:47:10
Parker
I was there trading against themselves and they just keep stacking more and more amounts up because they don't have to sacrifice present popularity, which would be going to the American people.
00:29:47:14 - 00:29:48:13
Marty
There's no accountability.
00:29:48:18 - 00:30:15:06
Parker
There's no accountability. But they have this mechanism that didn't exist when the framing of this constitution was there to just say, Oh, and you know what? We don't really have to go to the American people. We can just print the money, we can go to our friends down the Fed, which we helped charter and create. So even though it's a private entity and also it gives them the money to fund the private interests that then fund their campaigns.
00:30:15:15 - 00:30:56:29
Parker
MM Right. So you could say, well, if the American public was so opposed to this, they could just vote them out of office. But it's that no, this creature not only functionally controls the money, but that can also buy them offices. And so when people start to realize that this this dollar again in its current construction at the time where someone like Alexander Hamilton might have in the other not irony but just fact is that Hamilton has a really bad rap in many circles.
00:30:56:29 - 00:31:32:12
Parker
Right. And reasonably so. He was one that advanced the First Bank of the United States. He was essentially the primary proponent of the need for at least the prior version of the central bank. At the same time, he still was vehemently opposed to this idea that you could have a central bank that had unfettered money printing. Again, just recognizing that he you couldn't conceive of what the digital world would bring in, that whatever he was warning about would be that on steroids in the QE version of the dollar.
00:31:32:21 - 00:31:39:15
Marty
Yeah, they would sit here, their mouth agape in all that. How much money is being printed.
00:31:39:15 - 00:32:07:25
Parker
Yeah. And and also that they couldn't then put a protection in place in the constitution in that world where it was true because even in the world where the government, the federal government had the power to coin money, which they do, it was still tied to some physical metal. You couldn't just, you know, like in that world, if they tried to print paper money, people like Hamilton would be there to, you know, or other founders to say, absolutely not.
00:32:08:04 - 00:32:32:18
Parker
But but, but in the world where there was physical currency, someone would at least have to take gold to the United States Treasury, deposit to get dollars back. That that connection no longer exists, which now puts them in a world of click a button and you get your trillion dollars. And that has dire consequences to the the aggregate structure of the Constitution and why it can be so easily undermined.
00:32:32:29 - 00:32:33:09
Parker
Yeah.
00:32:34:06 - 00:32:35:11
Marty
Yeah. There's no accountability.
00:32:35:18 - 00:32:43:04
Parker
A functionally puts far more power in Congress than the framers had clearly intended.
00:32:43:06 - 00:32:57:08
Marty
Yeah, if you have. I mean, it's crazy. It's gotten to a point where even now you have a Democratic president and Republican majority Congress. But it seems like the unit party is winning out.
00:32:57:29 - 00:33:25:14
Parker
That's what it is. The unit party, right? It's the creature that's funding itself. And they put out appearances to be at odds. But then why does it always happen time and time again? Some funding bill gets passed. There's always some theater about, you know, shutting down. The government never happens. They know they can go to the Fed to fund it.
00:33:25:19 - 00:33:53:03
Parker
They know they don't actually have to go to the American people to tax them. And, you know, connecting this idea of like think about, you know, not only how un-American is that, to not pay your debts functionally, to go to put future generations massively in debt to a degree that can only happen in this world of QE, where the dollar is entirely detached from the consent of the governed and reality.
00:33:54:25 - 00:34:22:15
Parker
It's not patriot like just start with with that idea and it's a complete opposite. And if you think that it is, if you think that there's other reasons why, then it undermines our national security. But if you think somehow the dollar is patriotic or that there's some reason to put this in a collect of entity, that is the dollar above the American people, and you think that somehow that's American, go back and read your history because it isn't real.
00:34:23:07 - 00:34:40:03
Marty
That's completely at odds with the interest of individual Americans. Yes, it helps you in a party, helps the interest funding you in a party, but it does not help the American citizen, as is evident by rampant inflation. Rampant debt.
00:34:40:16 - 00:35:06:09
Parker
It really. Yeah, really at two levels. And I would say to this Congress is clearly not interest in the interest of the American individual, the person, because their savings are being destroyed. The food at the grocery store is getting more expensive. But I think more consequentially to the discussion of how American or not the current congressional dollar is, it is that it undermines signs the structure.
00:35:07:00 - 00:35:38:23
Parker
And if you think about this faux idea of national security, that's always used, it's like, who's security? It it purposely puts the collective of the, quote, American people above the individual. And I think that's another idea, both that's consistent with the intended framing of the Constitution as well as the preamble that the rights of the individual are what are enshrined.
00:35:39:03 - 00:36:26:27
Parker
They only exist because the structure is there to protect it, and that if the rights of the individual are compromised, then the security of the nation. It's derived from the strong individual. The protection of the individual is what makes the the whole worth protecting. If that doesn't exist, then what are we talking about? And so when you think about it in the framing of, well, if that structure is so important to the rights, and if you don't have rights as an individual or those rights are being infringed both from a legislative perspective as well as from a monetary debasement perspective, then you have no national security.
00:36:26:27 - 00:36:47:06
Parker
And if the dollar, both from the economic standpoint is causing centralization of power, but it's also the single greatest thing that's causing central power in the actual structure of government, then you're looking at the primary problem being the US dollar many ways. Yeah, not just one. Yeah.
00:36:47:21 - 00:37:23:03
Marty
You know, it's a there's so many people stuck in that mindset though. I mean Trump even, I mean that he's changed his tune a little bit from when he was president until, uh, his campaign running up to this election. But when Steven Mnuchin was his Treasury secretary, I imagine that was him feeding Trump comments on Bitcoin. And he said, it's, uh, it undermines the US dollar, which give us, gives us our strength and that is the assumption that I mean, even I don't know.
00:37:23:11 - 00:37:32:01
Marty
Do you think the politicians recognize the undermining nature of the US dollar or do you think they're psyops into believing that it is what gives us our strength?
00:37:34:05 - 00:38:07:21
Parker
Uh, I would say most certainly there if you just listen to any politician speak, it's certainly the latter that the dollar is important to national security. And one way, one way I would frame it is if you don't look at the inputs, then you're certainly going to get the output wrong and the output is the dollar. The output is the fact that we have a military that they view protects us.
00:38:08:16 - 00:38:40:00
Parker
They fund that military with the dollar, fund the military industrial complex with the dollar, take the dollar away. How do how do we fund that? And the reality of it is, well, what created the thing that was so worth protecting, right? Like if you're if you're not looking to the individual and what protects the individual, then you can't add up a bunch of weak individuals and get a strong country.
00:38:40:11 - 00:39:08:24
Parker
Yeah. And I think that that is what they miss. That's why I also think that this framing is so important because even people that are very supportive and sympathetic to Bitcoin fall victim to this idea. Partly, I believe for appearances, but also because there is a psyop, you know, they do. It is easy to look at the U.S. Navy in the function that it does and protecting waterways and saying, how would you do that?
00:39:08:25 - 00:39:39:10
Parker
Well, there's a reality that you can fund certain things with Bitcoin too, right? It's just that if you want to fund your operations as the government in the future, you're just going to have to come back to the American people and ask them either via taxes or bonds that are funded with real money, whether that activity is actually something that the American people want to support, not what the unit party that just horse trades back and forward or back and forth.
00:39:39:10 - 00:39:42:00
Parker
It doesn't actually have to go back to the people for consent.
00:39:42:11 - 00:40:18:01
Marty
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. The what name names. But the people that I see beat around the bush, maybe pussyfoot, maybe it's because they've been psyops or maybe they understand the gravity of bitcoin success. Um, that's one thing I'm proud and happy that you're doing is getting out there saying on it. I mean, you referenced Michael Goldstein's 2019 bit block boom presentation in your presentation, and I think that was actually powerful.
00:40:18:01 - 00:40:40:00
Marty
I was there in person. We were both there in person when he gave that speech. And like owning the frame and really owning what Bitcoin is like. No, I think it's okay to acknowledge that Bitcoin is the best money ever and it will eventually replace the dollar. And that's a good thing for Americans because Bitcoin there's nothing more American than Bitcoin, which is.
00:40:40:25 - 00:40:52:29
Marty
But the next argument we have to put forth is, is the US dollar is working against the interest of the American people, How does Bitcoin work for their interests?
00:40:54:10 - 00:41:03:18
Parker
So first shout out to Michael Goldstein, Nakamoto Institute. For anybody who hasn't seen that presentation, I think it was 2019.
00:41:03:18 - 00:41:04:11
Marty
2019, that.
00:41:04:11 - 00:41:12:18
Parker
Block boom. He basically gave a presentation about how to meme Bitcoin, the.
00:41:12:18 - 00:41:12:25
Marty
Art of.
00:41:14:03 - 00:41:45:11
Parker
The Art of Bitcoin rhetoric. And in part of that talk, you know, it's a very funny talk. We're certainly watching, but a lot of truth to it. You know, only a lot of truth and memes. He talks about how it's important that, well, everything is good for bitcoin. There's no bad for Bitcoin and that the right position is to be maximally bullish and then address nuance from.
00:41:45:27 - 00:42:08:09
Parker
And so in this context, when someone talks about how and he he also talks about how to reframe if someone's framing bitcoin and ballot, you have to grab their framing and reframe it. You think about that in this context is it when people raise this idea that the dollar is patriotic and that if Bitcoin is competing with the dollar, that's bad for America?
00:42:09:11 - 00:42:39:27
Parker
Two things applying the logic from the art of a Stephens rhetoric is these are my words, not his. But applying that logic, it's first reframe. The dollar is not patriotic. Let's debunk that cited the interests of national security. Let's debunk that. And also, by the way, maximally bullish Bitcoin is threatening the dollar. That's how great Bitcoin is. And the government has had a monopoly on money.
00:42:40:21 - 00:43:18:19
Parker
And six years ago, Steve Mnuchin was saying six years from now, I'm not going to be having to talk about Bitcoin. Now, he's not Treasury secretary anymore, but somebody is and they're having to talk about that coin that that's very bullish, that that's how great Bitcoin is, that it's so great that we're even having this discussion that powerful interests are starting to pay attention to Bitcoin and we're not going to let those powerful interests frame that we're going to provide the correct frame, which is the dollar is not patriotic, by the way, and Bitcoin is the thing that most aligns with both the individual as a result and enough of those individuals up the American
00:43:18:19 - 00:43:48:09
Parker
people and certainly the structure of government. And so kind of rejecting that first frame and reframing, then leaning into it and addressing that, it's only relevant because Bitcoin's winning. This is what winning looks like are both important. And so then when you go to the other side of the argument about why Bitcoin is winning and start to compare it, because one of the things I talked about in the Bill boardroom presentation from about a month ago was that this isn't just a beat your chest animal spirits.
00:43:49:06 - 00:44:37:01
Parker
You're bitcoin's American because it's a free market. It is a free market. But also when you start to actually understand what makes America different and that it really originates from that structure of government governance and government, as well as having people there willing to protect it. Right. And then you translate that to Bitcoin and this idea that the framers created a Constitution, a set of rules by which everyone would agree to live rule of law, that was gridlock by design, difficult to change by design, that those were what would actually protect the rights of the individual.
00:44:40:13 - 00:45:10:07
Parker
Go to Bitcoin. What makes Bitcoin valuable? I will go out and I will talk about the fact that they're all only ever be 21 million. And if Bitcoin can credibly enforce its fixed supply, it's going to emerge as the global reserve currency. It's going to replace the dollar. But the properties that exists in Bitcoin, the valuable things, the fact that there is a fixed supply that can't be undermined, the fact that it is censorship resistant and I oftentimes will gloss over these things, but it's not to be confused.
00:45:10:16 - 00:45:30:14
Parker
Bitcoin can only enforce is fixed by because it is resistant to censorship. So those two things are two sides of the same coin. Those properties that are so valuable about Bitcoin, it's fixed supply. The fact that it can't be printed, that it's money that can't be printed, that solving the problem of printing money exists because the structure of governance in.
00:45:30:14 - 00:45:31:16
Marty
Bitcoin rhythmically.
00:45:31:29 - 00:46:17:12
Parker
And that there is this intentional by design structure to prevent the centralization of power to ensure decentralization. And in my world, when I look at that, we can talk about it, but I look at it as private key holders. First and foremost, the control of economic ownership, Bitcoin's consensus rules, which have two powers which are miners, writing new history, validating blocks, but then also nodes of validating the work that Bitcoin miners do, such that if invalid work is proposed, that gets immediately rejected at the minimus cost.
00:46:17:24 - 00:46:56:22
Parker
But also these nodes provide a permissionless access to the network that have a relationship, but a different relationship than private keys that control the economic ownership and that those and there might be other people that have slightly different triumvirate. But those three core stakeholders have contradicting powers and that as Bitcoin grows, as Bitcoin becomes more decentralized because that structure exists, then the output of that is the thing that creates the valuable properties, the fix supply, the censorship resistance.
00:46:57:02 - 00:47:26:13
Parker
And it's also that design that protects the right of the minorities. And Bitcoin says that if you buy Bitcoin, you can opt in knowing that it's not a simple vote. 51% of people don't get to vote to change the rules. The person that has 1000 Bitcoin does not get to change the rules and that they can enforce rules that disadvantage people that have less money than them, which is functionally the current form of the U.S. government.
00:47:26:13 - 00:47:49:00
Parker
So when you think about these ideas that the structure of governance, both the U.S. Constitution as well as Bitcoin are what create the properties that are actually a value and that protect the individual, that in my view, is what creates this. I'd say such beautiful parallel between the two and that at the end when we can talk about the individual arguments there.
00:47:49:00 - 00:48:25:00
Parker
But it's also I want to make this point that a lot of people, as it seems like the social fabric is fracturing, they want to point to the structure of government. They want to cast aside reality. It was this beautiful system that provided this prosperity that had never previously existed. And rather than throw that out, recognize the parallels in the system, recognize how the dollar has undermined the US structure of government, and start with Let's take the fly out of the ointment, let the dust settle.
00:48:25:00 - 00:48:47:00
Parker
And if there are other things that need to change from there, then change. Change it. But the the most important problem in that structure, in my view, is the dollar. But yeah, we can go into the sides of bitcoin, but I think like having that parallel view that it's not just a, you know, animal spirit. This thing is American, so let's just say it's American.
00:48:47:00 - 00:49:06:20
Parker
But decentralization by design, gridlock by design, equal rights within Bitcoin, privatizing the individual, ensuring that the system can't change is only valuable because it's difficult to change. And that's what protects anybody who option to no, that their money is not going to get debased if they do because it's not up to a vote.
00:49:07:24 - 00:49:27:28
Marty
Yeah, it's just shocking how similar the structures of the governance of the Constitution set forth in the Constitution, in the governance of the Bitcoin network are, um, terms from like a simple design where you create this gridlock that enables this incredible system. When did you first realize that there were these parallels?
00:49:29:06 - 00:50:01:15
Parker
Well, the first time that I read that Hamilton quote was before I understood Bitcoin, I think. But having that in my mind and then shout out to Buck Perley, he wrote a great article about U.S. governance structure trying to I mean, it was very much focused on the US governance structure and then hearing Antonin Scalia kind of piecing all those things together with my deeper understanding of Bitcoin as money and recognizing the importance of it.
00:50:01:26 - 00:50:31:18
Parker
So it was kind of an idea that had started to come to the forefront of my mind of kind of combining those three or four data points and then having bit Stevens talk, but then also saying, okay, wait, I need to think about this at a more first principle level because people like Brad Sherman in California are talking about how we should ban Bitcoin because, yes, we have the ability to print money, but we don't want anybody else to.
00:50:32:12 - 00:51:01:19
Parker
And that it's also just very logical and natural that Bitcoin will become controversial as it becomes larger, as it becomes more apparent, and that as government entities start to lash out like that or as a result of that, that having the proper framing of this to help other bitcoiners kind of realize that to push back and not accept it and be like, oh well the two can coexist.
00:51:01:19 - 00:51:28:21
Parker
Like no, just reject it entirely, reframe it. It's important. It's getting important. Now, whether we're at the then the fight stage or this is just kind of a one off or two off, there's no avoiding the fact that as Bitcoin gets larger and one of the beautiful things, as it gets larger, gets harder to stop and everything is good for Bitcoin, but there's still a rhetoric fight to be had that can, in my view, lessen the pain by having the proper framing.
00:51:29:03 - 00:51:29:12
Parker
Yeah.
00:51:30:02 - 00:52:03:07
Marty
Letting individual bitcoiners individual Americans really understand that you have a good argument against the dollar and the fact that it is undermining the sovereignty, the quality of life of individual Americans at the end of the day. And it really corrupts the structure of governance that made us free in the first place. And that's why I even said it in the article last night, which was like like Antonin Scalia is like, why do you think we are as free as we are?
00:52:03:07 - 00:52:22:26
Marty
It's like, I would even argue like, why do you think we America at one point was as free as it was? Because the dollar has acted as this parasitic. The cancer within the structure of government that we have here in the United States. And I would argue we're not as free as we once were because of this problem.
00:52:22:26 - 00:52:42:09
Parker
I completely agree. Think about it. It's hard for people to really conceive of what would a $6 trillion budget is. And I don't know. I think the budget is something like 6 trillion. Logan could fact check me, but that the number of 16 and even 1 trillion it's too hard for someone to possibly grasp. You know what the number is.
00:52:43:06 - 00:53:09:27
Parker
One of the ways I related QE for people in the to 2020 2022 time frame when the Fed created about $3 trillion over the course of six weeks or so, you know, is 13 weeks. It was three months to $3 trillion to help someone distill what that is. And then you got to double it to get to the US budget cost.
00:53:10:23 - 00:53:19:20
Parker
Jerry wrote about the Dallas Cowboys football stadium, which still is one of the nicest that exists certainly at the time was nice Eagles fans might.
00:53:20:21 - 00:53:23:19
Marty
It's never been a jury. Well I've heard great things about it.
00:53:23:19 - 00:53:53:21
Parker
Beautiful stadium. Okay, $1 billion. It was 1.1. But let's use around that $1 billion that coordinated economic activity for six years to build, paying all you know, for design, all the contractors building six years, billion dollars. There's 32 football stadiums in the United States. Jerry's is one of, if not the nicest $3 trillion over the course of three months.
00:53:53:21 - 00:54:26:03
Parker
It's the equivalent of 3000, Jerry. It's just flooding the market. So connecting this idea that you that the average not the average person any person can't actually quantify what $1 trillion means in terms of the value around them and then recognize that the US government is doling out 6 trillion. So it's hard to do that in terms of related just how much power comes from that, but except that it couldn't exist if they didn't have their friends down the street at the Federal Reserve that are financing it out of thin air.
00:54:26:11 - 00:55:01:01
Parker
Yes, it's coming at the cost of the American taxpayer inflation. But just think about the power, the centralized ation of power From that go to one unit of the government, the IRS. Imagine the US government wanted to fund 80,000 new other citizens to tax to go audit people and to extract more money from them. If they had to go tax the American people and say, Hey, do you want to fund these 80,000?
00:55:01:01 - 00:55:01:13
Parker
You want to.
00:55:01:13 - 00:55:02:21
Marty
Fund your colonoscopy.
00:55:02:22 - 00:55:33:15
Parker
IRS agents, would you do that? No, of course not. That's a microcosm of how the power gets centralized. They fund a program that wouldn't otherwise be funded and then they control people combination through fear and actually making your life miserable. Same thing fundamentally with FBI are different. You know, Justice Department, those people have to get paid if they didn't have the money to continue to fund this, what happens?
00:55:34:07 - 00:56:01:18
Parker
Only the programs that the American people actually want to be funded get funded, and not in a way that has to go to a vote in a way where they actually have to hit your wallet. And so we've we've just gotten so far detached from reality that people just look at these horse traders in Washington, DC and think that they're, you know, and I.
00:56:01:19 - 00:56:19:07
Parker
Bucheli did a great job of this is like, why are they why did they tax if they can print money? There was this other great video that just came out from the chair of the economic adviser to the president who was posed with the question, why do they issue debt if they can print money? And he certainly couldn't explain that.
00:56:19:21 - 00:56:41:08
Parker
But it's for appearances. It's to be able to, you know, sell bonds to foreign and domestic interests and say, oh, we have the cash flows to pay it. They don't really they just funded by going to the Federal Reserve. So, yeah, it's a total bastardized system. But, you know, when you strip away that ability, you insert Bitcoin to it.
00:56:43:14 - 00:57:10:07
Parker
Now you come to the American people and say, we want to fund this program. The reality is they won't even come to the American people because they know in that world that they're not going to get funded. So they're not going to ask for ridiculous thing. They become re tethered to reality and that when that happens without even making any change, the separation of powers and the balance of powers begins to be restored without anything else.
00:57:10:27 - 00:57:32:18
Parker
I do personally believe I didn't talk about it in the presentation, but I, I think that at some point we are actually going to have to pass if people in America are going to have to pass an amendment to the Constitution that qualifies the government's ability to coin money and enshrines the right of Bitcoin. I thought about whether or not it would require actually enumerating Bitcoin and.
00:57:32:18 - 00:57:54:16
Parker
I think that it actually has to enumerate Bitcoin and can't, you know, define other things because just by enshrining a right say you can use this thing if you want to, it doesn't mean you have to that you can and that the government cannot infringe on those rights doesn't mean you can't. You can commit some other crime. But I think that that that will be a change that the American people seriously have to consider.
00:57:54:23 - 00:58:19:16
Parker
That's also one of these great parallels between Bitcoin and the U.S. structure of government. It was gridlock, gridlock by design. But even in a world that existed pre the untethered dollar, the dollar infinitum, that allowed power in Washington to centralize, it was difficult to change, but possible. You take that parallel to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is very difficult to change by design.
00:58:20:13 - 00:58:39:23
Parker
The importance of why is difficult to change is because they can't change spot. No one can. No one's in control. In theory, you could change the supply, the coin, or you can make other changes. It's just that it's very difficult to change. The only changes that could possibly happen in that world are ones that people overwhelmingly agree on.
00:58:41:01 - 00:59:14:15
Parker
Certainly rational economic actors that have opted into Bitcoin for the purposes of supply will not unanimously or near unanimously decided to change that applied to the American government. Very difficult to believe that all of these funding programs continue to naturally, if they had to go to the American people to say, hey, here's a 50% tax bill because you're paying in or really realistically, here's 100% tax bill, you know, it was just would never happen.
00:59:14:15 - 00:59:25:03
Parker
So there's my view of it as this thing kind of naturally take care of themselves once money that's tethered to the real world, Bitcoin naturally rejoices.
00:59:25:03 - 00:59:46:28
Marty
The fly in the ointment. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it seems is makes again it's why I love having you as a friend is you're very thoughtful first principles, logical thinker and like the logic as you just laid out things and it's almost irrefutable.
00:59:48:09 - 01:00:22:04
Parker
But also think about the dollar like if you if you don't if you're not convinced that it's controlled by 12 people. Right. I mean, a few more. But functionally. So it's it's inherently collectivist system versus an individual system created out of thin air versus Bitcoin being issued by proof of work, actual power being generated to secure the Bitcoin network value for value, work for work, equal rights.
01:00:22:15 - 01:00:56:28
Parker
And when I talk about equal rights, it's not equal outcomes in Bitcoin. It's that if you are a Bitcoin holder, there's consensus rules and they applied to average it's censorship resistant in the dollar world seigniorage access matters that who's ever to the money printer and that that it is important as Bitcoin advances for people to to recognize this to not apologize because also as an example if I was to say if I was to know this information, if this was just the truth, because I believe there's also truth and objectivity that exists in.
01:00:57:01 - 01:00:57:20
Marty
A word to matter.
01:00:58:16 - 01:01:24:00
Parker
Words matter. So this is the truth. And I knew it. And I went around parroting that, you know, the dollar and Bitcoin can coexist. Well, if the natural force of reality proves that to not be true. And then someone comes and says, Oh, you said that Bitcoin wasn't threatening the dollar. Now it's clearly threatening the dollar. Either you're a liar or you're misinformed.
01:01:24:00 - 01:01:41:19
Parker
Why should someone listen to what you have to say? If you're just honest about the reality, you explain why that's a good thing and lean into it. It will be far harder for the creature itself to make criminals out of all of us, and that now is the time to more.
01:01:42:17 - 01:01:43:10
Marty
To speak the truth.
01:01:43:11 - 01:01:49:12
Parker
To speak the truth and that the longer you wait to do that, the harder it becomes. So.
01:01:49:26 - 01:02:14:10
Marty
No, it's funny. These same people who are pussyfooting around Bitcoin competing with the dollar, we're doing the same thing with the USD five six years ago where it was like now, like Bitcoin only uses renewable energy, it's only going to use renewable energy in the future. And I was almost out there on an island with a few others 20, 19, 2020 saying it's not the case, Bitcoin's going to use a lot more energy.
01:02:14:21 - 01:02:18:23
Marty
It's not all going to be renewable. Some of it will be coal, some of it be natural gas.
01:02:19:14 - 01:02:34:15
Parker
Uh, Bitcoin actually called that one out too. And when it was like part of this, you know, the art of rhetoric, when people would say, you know, Bitcoin consumes as much energy as Denmark, we only Denmark.
01:02:35:06 - 01:02:35:16
Marty
Yeah.
01:02:35:22 - 01:02:40:02
Parker
Like, until bitcoin's consuming as much power as the United States. Like, Yeah.
01:02:40:14 - 01:02:41:01
Marty
What are we doing?
01:02:41:01 - 01:03:04:09
Parker
What are we doing here? But I agree that like that, yes, narrative is a, is a, is a great parallel that there were a lot of people in the energy industry that knew that ESG was a fraud, but they had to bend the knee to Wall Street because Wall Street was who funded their operations? Well, they cut off, I don't know, maybe something equivalent of cutting off interest by the face.
01:03:04:09 - 01:03:38:21
Parker
But they they made a compromise on their principles that was against something that was fundamental to their businesses. And somehow they thought they would stop there if they would go along with it. And then the rules just keep changing and the goalposts keep moving. And if you had actually just been honest and stand your ground and not bent the knee, you don't end up in the situation where a lot of people are like in California or, you know, increasingly more unreliable energy come in.
01:03:38:21 - 01:04:09:27
Parker
Texas too, is everywhere. It's just again, broken incentive of, again, the monetary system. If you can't if you didn't have unfunded tax credits for made up carbon credits and carbon offsets, then, you know, maybe our energy infrastructure would be a lot more stable and our power grids would be more stable and people would have cheaper energy. But we don't you know, and so I agree with you had people spoken up more about the truth than not bend the knee, then they would be they would continue to be in a position of lot more economic power than they are today.
01:04:10:01 - 01:04:26:18
Parker
And they're gonna have to give that ground back. But they gave the ceded a lot. And in the parallel here I say is don't wait to have this conversation if it's the true one, if it's the principal one, which I believe it is, have that conversation. Now reframe that argument. The dollar is not patriotic. The dollar's not in the interests of national right.
01:04:26:27 - 01:04:51:12
Parker
It weakens individual both on the economic level as well as from a structure of governance of the United States. And Bitcoin fixes that not in a in a detached and linear way, in a way that is very linear and very direct. And also the underlying structure of it maps so perfectly to the U.S..
01:04:51:13 - 01:05:21:17
Marty
Exactly. It's almost like I want to say it mimics I don't know if Satoshi was mimicking the structure of the U.S. government as set forth in the Constitution, but maybe I don't think he was mimicking that, at least never explicitly said it. But maybe it's just like how these natural, robust, decentralized systems need to work. Like you need this balance of power with a bit of gridlock to enable these structures to be successful in the long run.
01:05:21:17 - 01:05:24:01
Marty
I think it's maybe it's some sort of.
01:05:25:04 - 01:05:55:11
Parker
My view is that that was whether whether he modeled it after the U.S. government recognizing the importance of separation of power being critical and balance of power being critical to reconstituting power and and robustness to the actual design, not not being susceptible to arbitrary change and to prevent centralization of power, had to have been thinking about the same principles.
01:05:55:11 - 01:06:19:17
Parker
And that's I would be shocked. But it would be surprising if that principle wasn't there. One of the things I do like to qualify, though, for qualified in the presentation is want to say now is that when I talk about how there's nothing more American than Bitcoin doesn't mean that America has some claim on Bitcoin and that there aren't values in other outside systems that are also embedded in Bitcoin.
01:06:19:29 - 01:06:41:11
Parker
It's just that for yeah, people in this country thinking about this dilemma that the right framing of Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is a lot of things to a lot of people. The American people certainly have no more claim to Bitcoin than others. It's a open source project and it only works because of that way or because of that reason.
01:06:43:06 - 01:06:56:20
Parker
But with our dilemma specifically carrying that message of pointing out these parallels is the right way, in my mind, an effective way to. Provide the proper narrative and reframe the false narrative.
01:06:56:26 - 01:07:00:19
Marty
Yeah, yeah, reframe the narrative in the narrative.
01:07:00:19 - 01:07:10:08
Parker
And that is how great Bitcoin is, is replacing the dollar. Yeah, it's not a net rock. It's not for criminals. Something that's just for criminals. Can't replace the dollar.
01:07:10:08 - 01:07:38:04
Marty
Yeah, and I don't want to belabor the ESG thing, but I think we should take that lesson to heart because again, the reason why I was taking the position I did years ago and continue to take that position is because this is objectively false, like some of the companies I'm involved in are building mining operations behind the meter at coal plants, like by going out five, six years ago and saying, don't worry, Bitcoin's only going to use renewable energy like it was objectively not true.
01:07:38:04 - 01:08:04:02
Marty
And you know this because there's varying energy sources that in different parts of the world are lower cost and sources in other parts of the world and sometimes they just so happen to be what the ESG zealots would label as dirty energy. And you can't fall into that trap because you get to the future and you get Elizabeth Warren saying, Five years ago, you told me you were never going to use coal.
01:08:04:04 - 01:08:04:18
Marty
It's like.
01:08:05:19 - 01:08:36:03
Parker
That's exactly right. That is that is the exact point. So it's not just great parallel, but also on this idea of rhetoric. It is if you go around parroting that Bitcoin is good for renewable energy and that bitcoin's going to promote renewable energy and there's just a fundamental problem with whatever energy source you're talking about that's not actually renewable or not sustainable, Then You go out there and you tell a politician that and that's how you get that politician comfortable.
01:08:36:17 - 01:09:05:10
Parker
Well, then when a coal plant returns up because Bitcoin doesn't actually incentivize renewable energy, it just incentivizes anyone who can go get the cheapest power to turn on and supply the Bitcoin network. And if that is a natural gas combined cycle turbine, a nuclear plant or a coal plant, that is what Bitcoin is going to incentivize cheap power at scale that's reliable.
01:09:05:10 - 01:09:33:10
Parker
The cheapest power. If suddenly that happens and someone comes to you and says, Well, hey, you told me X would happen and why is happening, well then what position does that put you in? Either you're not a credible person because you didn't understand the actual incentives or you were a liar. So then when they come to take some action to say, Oh, well, now we need to ban this, what leg do you have to stand on?
01:09:33:22 - 01:09:56:28
Parker
If you were the person carrying the true message, the accurate message, then if that fight is inevitable, you never ceded either the truth or the moral high ground and that there are enough people out there that do care about the truth, that put enough of those people together. Those are the people who create loss. Just make people understand why Bitcoin is important and why it's valuable.
01:09:57:09 - 01:10:22:23
Parker
And then there won't be this dilemma of the government taking negative actions against Bitcoin because they just become Bitcoin eyes. And also the government's going to need to be funded to the government needs money that works. They just are going to have to be funded with actual money and tax people to fund the operations and ask for the consent of the governed, which is what our system was designed to do.
01:10:23:00 - 01:10:38:14
Marty
Yeah, own it. Bitcoin is money is going to replace the dollar. We need a lot more energy. Some of that energy may not be wind and solar or hydroelectric or geothermal. It's the truth. Live not by lies.
01:10:39:16 - 01:11:00:27
Parker
The dollar is not patriotic. Think about the Founding fathers, what they would think about today. Whenever somebody says that, reject the narrative, reframe it and help them understand why Bitcoin aligns with the American individual, the structure of governance, and why when you add enough of that up, the collective interest, yeah.
01:11:01:21 - 01:11:03:05
Marty
We're going to we're going to have.
01:11:03:29 - 01:11:04:16
Parker
White Hills.
01:11:04:26 - 01:11:07:20
Marty
Wipe us little part earlier. Only white pills.
01:11:07:25 - 01:11:08:13
Parker
Random acts of.
01:11:08:13 - 01:11:10:08
Marty
Kindness. Yes, White pills. Yeah.
01:11:11:12 - 01:11:13:29
Parker
Well, it's chaotic out there, but hold the door.
01:11:14:11 - 01:11:15:08
Marty
Right. Handwritten letters.
01:11:15:08 - 01:11:15:27
Parker
Say thank you.
01:11:16:00 - 01:11:20:10
Marty
Say thank you. White pills. We're going to do this. We have the truth on our side.
01:11:20:22 - 01:11:22:13
Parker
Yeah, And that's why we're going with live.
01:11:22:13 - 01:11:24:09
Marty
Not lies. Peace, love, freaks. Okay.
