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Comment by jakeogh | Hacker News Reader

The psychopaths that demand we accept their "protection" want to regulate the exchange of information at all costs.

Exchanging numbers is speech. The war on the 1st continues.

I'd love to trade email addresses so that we can exchange numbers in the future! My favorites are 17, 3225, and another one that I don't want to exchange with just anyone.

Unrelatedly, there's a problem with calling things only numbers when they're much more than just numbers. If bitcoin were only numbers, nobody would buy them. People buy them because there's an expectation to store and liquidly transfer value.

The claim that the government can't regulate atoms won't stand up if the atoms you have are in an arrangement that fires bullets.

> The claim that the government can't regulate atoms won't stand up if the atoms you have are in an arrangement that fires bullets.

Well, it might, given the 2nd Amendment. That's not to challenge the general principal you are arguing for, only the specific choice of analogy.

Heh. I'm assuming this is some weird sort of parody. In which case: Well done, sir.

It's hard to tell. I'd like to see the whole brochure.

Yeah, especially since I usually exchange numbers on little folded-over pieces of napkin, instead of with speech. Just easier to remember that way. (And the war on which 1st? Hopefully the 1st of January, because that day's always a mess. But August 1st I like because it's kind of the peak of summer.)

First off you have to understand that contracts are just information and don't apply to you. The state has created a legal 'person' with your birth certificate, but as long as you avoid creating joinder you are not bound to this admiralty law and are free from the sea of commerce.

> Exchanging numbers is speech.

Fraud isn't protected speech. Even if you use speech in the course of comitting it. The issue here is securities fraud, not prohibiting the exchange of bitcoins.

Exchanging bits of paper with writing on them (EDIT: Paper money if you're confused) is probably also speech then. Your argument seems a bit misguided there.

Remember the "Citizens United" decision? From wikipedia:" Justice Kennedy's majority opinion found that the BCRA §203 prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech. The majority wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." "

This. And I agree with Justice Kennedy.

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