This is an opinion editorial by Bruce Fenton, candidate for U.S. Senate and the founder and CEO of Chainstone labs.
It’s the money. The money is broken. Politicians broke it.
This truth pretty much summarizes much of what is wrong in our world today: inflation, war, the failed drug war and violence — all a result of bad monetary policy. Even obesity can be traced back to bad money and the broken incentives it causes, such as corn syrup subsidies. We must fix the money to fix America and the world.
In order to finance World War II, our government sent war heroes to American towns to sell citizens war bonds. They would have to make a case for the war and the use of citizen money. Even when facing Nazis, the government still had to make a case. They had accountability. Today, that accountability is gone.
In 1971, the U.S. went off the gold standard and modern fiat was born. Unlike in the days of WWII, the government no longer needs to sell you. They don’t need accountability. They have a magic money printer. That money printer says that they can print however much money they want for war or cronies or whatever else they choose. Accountability is gone.
This modern fiat system is not just unsustainable and harmful to the finances of citizens, it causes great evils in the world. I’d actually go so far as to say that fiat is evil. Fiat, indeed, is the ultimate force for bad deeds in our world. War, death, destruction and many evils of our world would not exist to the scale that they do if we took away the ability of tyrants to print money from thin air. If we starve the beast of government by cutting off its funding, we end up with more peace. Bitcoin offers an alternative.
In a world of sound money where you control your own wealth, politicians would have to make a case to take your money, they could not print it from thin air. If politicians had to sell you on for-profit prisons, the drug war or drone bombs, like they did in WWII, we’d have a very different world. The lack of accountability leads not just to bad economics but to evil.
America’s greatest strength has been its freedom and the protection of the rights of citizens enshrined in our highest law of the land. Our Constitution says we have the right to free speech and our courts have said that code is speech: Bernstein v. Department of Justice — this serves as a great foundation for Bitcoin.
Ideally, this solid base of freedom will help America serve as a model for the world. That ideal model is not one where the government embraces and adopts Bitcoin and has official wallets. It’s a world where the government ignores Bitcoin and the world of money and politics drift apart just as Church and State once drifted their own separate ways.
There are those with very different ideas. There are those who see money as a tool to control the people. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and other tools of control and regulation must be rejected entirely. This is why I decided to run for office. Our world faces actual evil and we must fight for freedom and human rights. I believe that sound money can do more than I ever could in office for good and for peace, but I also think that it is crucial to have more voices for liberty in Washington. I’ve been psyched to meet so many people on the campaign trail and talk about liberty, freedom and sound economics. It’s also nice to be known as a Bitcoiner and I’m asked questions about Bitcoin every day. This isn’t a simple tech hobby, this may be a foundation for a more free world.
The foundations for America and for Bitcoin are both based on freedom and voluntary interaction. It’s a natural fit for America — specifically American citizens — to embrace the technology of freedom in order to further our national strength and independence by breaking out of the broken fiat system. If we fix the money, we fix our nation.
This is a guest post by Bruce Fenton. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.