As we head into 4th of July weekend here in the United States, I thought it'd be appropriate to write a rag on Liberty in the Digital Age and how Bitcoin represents one of the few remaining beacons of hope in clawing back civil liberties, private property rights, and freedom in a world that is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Many Americans like to opine about living in the "freest country in the world". However, if you open your eyes and look around, America is not as free as many like to think it is. Sure it has its advantages when compared to full blown authoritarian regimes like the CCP or Maduro in Venezuela. However, these advantages shouldn't blind individuals from the increasing authoritarian nature of the US Federal Government.

Last year millions of people were forced to stay home from work by the government to "stop the spread". The NSA spies on US citizens regularly. Americans are herded like cattle through airports these days and forced to humiliate themselves and have their bodies violated to get on a plane in the name of "stopping terrorism". Taxes only ever seem to go up as the quality of the services those taxes fund decreases significantly year over year. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury can work in conjunction with each other to print money ex-nihilo to the tune of trillions; debasing the purchasing power of the dollar significantly as a result. Many more encroachments on individual civil liberties are thrust on us by our government, but we'll just list these for now to save some time on this early Friday evening.

Each activity listed in the above paragraph is enabled by the last activity; unchecked money printing. The ability to produce monetary units out of thin air creates the ability to fund the activities that erode our civil liberties. In a world in which individuals decide to adopt a Bitcoin Standard over the Fiat Standard, it becomes much harder to fund these activities and, therefore, ensures that civil liberties increase over time as we unshackle ourselves from a bloated government that hates and wants to control the populace it now rules over.

The inherent iron-clad property rights that are guaranteed within the Bitcoin network due to the nature of the public-key cryptography are a step-function improvement when compared to the property rights of the traditional monetary system. It is very trivial for authorities to unilaterally seize or freeze bank accounts in an instance if they do not like what a particular individual is saying or doing with their money. Under a Bitcoin Standard, if individuals are savvy enough to properly protect their private keys, this type of unilateral action from an authority is made practically impossible. Once we restore strong property rights as they pertain to money, we can begin earnestly clawing back our civil liberties by starving the bloated government.

Luckily for us, the natural economic incentives that make Bitcoin operational will help usher in Liberty and Freedom in the Digital Age with haste. The movement for the restoration of civil liberties in the United States will be driven at the state level. The abundance of cheap energy resources across the United States incentivizes states to either encourage local citizens to begin mining bitcoin very profitably or to participate themselves to drive revenues to permanent funds that allow them to keep taxes low. I think we'll see a combination of the two materialize over the next five years. We're already seeing the former happen in states like Kentucky, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Texas where the state governments are actively drafting legislation to court bitcoiners.

At the end of the day, humans exist to live free and prosper. Any hindrance from governments that prevent individuals from living free and attempting to prosper is anti-human. The way the US government hinders these activities at the moment is by printing money out of thin air and funding things that actively aim to prevent civil liberties. Slowly but surely bitcoiners are working to usher in a world that runs on a much fairer monetary network. Eventually, due to the superiority of the Bitcoin network as a monetary asset and network when compared to the USD reserve system, we will live under a Bitcoin Standard. When that day comes, freedom and liberty will reign supreme in the Digital Age and there's nothing the egomaniacal kleptocrats in positions of power throughout the Federal Government will be able to do about it.

Onward!

Final thought...

Cold beers and a burger for lunch on the Friday before 4th of July seems like the best way to kick off the weekend.

Enjoy your weekend, freaks.