Originally Posted by
Politeia
For the record, I did not "admit he's racist", but that's another discussion entirely that has no place here -- any more than thinly-disguised advertising for commercial ventures that have no real connection to the Ron Paul campaign. It was you who injected this deliberately inflammatory, reason-trumping term into the discussion, not I.
As for whether the Liberty Dollar pushers should be prosecuted, punished or whatever, I'd say no, they had a legal right to do what they did, even if morally it may not have been entirely on the up-and-up. I don't see that they lied about anything exactly, though they do seem to have allowed their less-than-astute customers to infer "facts" which may not have been strictly true, though certainly those inferences were to their (the sellers') benefit.
IOW, there may be a sucker born every minute, and in a libertarian society there can be no laws designed to protect fools from themselves ... but for a Buddhist anyway the concept of "right livelihood" prohibits taking advantage of the naive even if it isn't strictly illegal.
I agree with Steele at least in this: the attempt to get NotHaus's customers to pick up the bill for the problems he's caused himself by acting like a fool (at least) I find less than ethical. If you want to beard the lion in his den, better make sure you have bigger teeth before you start. If what you really want is martyrdom, I have no argument with that, so long as you're honest -- first with yourself -- about it.
All I said, again, was that it seemed fishy to me, as have NotHaus's other, previous "currency" schemes. That wasn't an argument, just sharing my impression: an alternative view, as a counterpoint to the uncritical love-fest that the thread had been up till then. I also shared Edgar Steele's analysis for anyone who might be interested in investigating further. If you don't care to put the time into rebutting his detailed criticisms, that's fine with me. Like I said, I didn't think your initial post belonged here in the first place.
Basically, the message is: Caveat Emptor. And, if you claim to be a libertarian, don't come crying to me if you got taken because you didn't do your homework.
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