So I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed and see a tweet from the Charlie Shrem @charlieshrem featuring a Vimeo video for his March 14, 2018 episode of "Crypto + Coffee" from Crypto.IQ. Considering I knew his name and a bit of his story yet hadn't heard or seen ANY of his interviews, I thought it high time to check out what this heavy hitter had to say and to get familiar.
I'm watching and I'm liking his analysis: head nod material. So far, so good. Then at exactly the 5 min mark of Charlies Shrem IV, goes on a jaw-dropping, pro-government rant about the South Korean government raiding exchanges.
"This actually is a good thing. You want the governments to be going after the frauds and the negative aspects. You want the government to be going after the people that are stealing everyone's money."
Dismayed and in shock, I paused the video and started writing this article. I'm going to finish it right now actually. OK, all done.
His rant's irony is clearly lost upon him: The people called government are the BIGGEST frauds and the main ones stealing people's money!
Taxation is theft!
Statism remains slavery!
Even more ironic yet: the people called government came after Shrem himself. "In December 2014 he was sentenced to two years in prison for aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money-transmitting business related to the Silk Road marketplace." (PS I tried to find "perp-walk" photos of mans for this post...none are on Google. Now, my inner conspiracy theorist has awaken. If you know of any, please post in the comments.)
One can (and very well should) easily throw his words right back in his face and ask, "So is that why the people called government came after you Charlie? Because you were/are a fraud and was stealing everyone's money?"
What makes cryptocurrencies relevant and important in our current context of ever encroaching government surveillance over every aspect of our lives, is that it's a mean by which the everyday man can have "a Swiss Bank account in their pocket". This means one can have a safe storage of one's fund where the common thief and governments/the central banking cartel alike cannot seize one's funds.
In essence, de-funding these groups of murderous thieves that spend 54%+ of taxes (USA) lining their own pocket with military industrial complex spending (not to mention whatever other percentage the spend on caging people like Charlie up for victimless crimes in the prison industrial complex).
It's always disconcerting to see and hear big names in the Cryptosphere say ANYTHING pro-government; especially someone that has a degree in Economics and Finance* and has actually had to suffer from government tyranny.
Makes me think maybe whatever happened to Chelsea Manning in prison (if something happened) might of very well happened to Charlie as well; that is of course assuming he even went to prison in the first place. (Don't act like I'm the only one that thinks they did some powerful psyops on that mofo.)
Shout out to Roger Ver @rogerkver for being a principled Voluntaryist before and after he did a bid.
PS Roger you might want start either talking with ya mans or back out of projects with Charlie. Don't wanna catch another brick, fam.