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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> You're gonna prosecute Minnesotans for accepting cash?

If supporting domestic terrorism for economic gains, yes. How you provide the support is irrelevant. State charges cannot be pardoned. Based on the general strike this week, good luck finding a favorable jury for aiding and abetting.

"You can just do things." If the federal government files suit, ignore them and keep going while you tie it up in court and run out the clock on this administration. It is easy to forget that supporters of this admin and these actions are in a minority.

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions - https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal...

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So know your customer regulations at the gas station then?

Sure, whatever it takes. You somehow think it’s incredulous when Pornhub was deplatformed from credit card rails easily, and is still age gated in 23 states through statute. This is far worse, and laws can be made to do whatever the target outcome is.

I get it, your mental model differs, and that’s fine. The tools exist and can be used. They could start by blacklisting the BIN of any federal government payment card, and tighten further iteratively based on continuous monitoring and ground truth acquisition. If aggressors have to start carrying large quantities of cash around to operate, sounds like that’s going to be an operational risk.

Federal supremacy is based on respect of their authority and providing them material support in state through economic exchange. Revoke both and they are powerless on the ground, and are at the mercy of the locals.

https://smartpay.gsa.gov/smarttax/recognizing-your-account/

Even in the absolute best case scenario where this just works, the bare minimum retaliation is withholding of federal funds, and I guarantee you any state or state populace in that scenario will blink first.

Blue states fund red states, they are the economic engines of the country. California has the forth largest economy in the world. The federal government has more to lose. Red states are poor. Blue states can simply withhold federal support, keep federal tax revenue in state and let the federal government try to sue for it.

I encourage the federal government to try to support itself off of red states.

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-mo...

I understand that, but you're assuming they also stop paying federal tax altogether? Your initial point was to just not allow federal employees to transact, but now we're quickly entering secession territory. The red states mostly grow the food, anyway. Is Manhattan prepared to starve? Feds may block imports to such a rogue state.

If your point is that states should essentially secede to prevent federal agents from doing anything within, that's possible, but I don't think most citizens of even the bluest state want to secede.

“secession territory”

Honest question: what territory do you think we are in now that is better than “secession territory?”

Honest to god question. Federal agents are executing citizens in the streets!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_secession

> The major power lever that could be used in soft secession is if a state normally giving more in taxes to the federal government than it receives back would cease to send tax revenue to the federal government. These states, which generally are blue states governed by a Democratic Party majority, could leverage finances to exert influence over the federal administration, i.e. a Republican administration seen as hostile to their interests.

Interestingly, if done strategically, you could cause the US government to default on treasuries through a loss of federal revenue (a component of which is used to service US debt), forcing a debt spiral. This would enable the states with economic power to "wag the dog" in partnership with the bond market, because the federal government cannot operate if they lose the power of funding via issuing debt while also losing revenue from these states. Net contributor states could issue muni debt directly into the bond market, avoiding the need for federal dollars.

Blue states can force the federal government into default, if they have the will.

US can’t default on its debts (unless it wants to) as it can by definition print US dollars.

That is factually inaccurate.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-24453400.amp

It can choose to default. It's defaulted before. Many republicans have been clamoring for a default.

You are proposing that every customer identify themself for every transaction, and that every store verifies that identity against a state maintained list.

"Stop their payment cards" just makes things a little inconvenient for the bad guys. What you are proposing makes everything very inconvenient for everyone. Mental models differ indeed.

That's not what I'm proposing at all.

Are you and toomuchtodo the same person?

I have no other accounts on HN except throwaways previously created with mod permission. I cannot speak to any comments written by others using the content of my own.

Would you prefer if an app was provided to the public to enable facial recognition of federal agents against a database?

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