In my view, it no longer makes sense to attempt to think in terms of "legal or illegal". Trying to think in these terms can only work if there is some meaningful, objective difference between the two; yet there is no clear evidence this is the case. In fact, if one actually attempts to get some idea of what activities are legal or illegal on the books, she will quickly realize that almost all of our mundane, daily activities are illegal on the books, sometimes highly so, but neither average joes nor political enforcers generally realize this. Legal vs illegal seems to be completely arbitrary, and quite often, ambiguous, based on a variety of influences I will reference simply with the umbrella term 'political expedience,' so what value is there in asking the question at all? It is a question for which the answer has little value, if an answer can be consistently derived at all.
Legal vs illegal is a crapshoot, so what are the questions worth asking? Certainly ethical/moral questions, as you may see fit to apply them. Does buying and selling crypto help to, in your view, make the world a better or worse place? In my opinion, the answer here must almost certainly be "better," but to someone else the answer might be different for some reason, and that reason could be perfectly legitimate. This is a question worth pondering long and hard for all of our activities.
And another question worth asking is "Are political enforcers going to attack or hurt me for this?" and of course the answer to this question may inform whether/how you engage in buying and selling crypto. But even the answer to this question has little to do with legal vs illegal. Legal versus illegal is so irrelevant to real life at this point, most people do highly illegal things all the time, and not only is no one bothered by this, they would be extremely bothered (if they could survive at all) if everyone did make an honest and informed effort to only behave in legal ways.
That state of ambiguity is one of the primary hallmarks of totalitarianism, and is not an accident. Some individual get a little too loud or disruptive? Simply open up the enormous index of potential crimes and search until one fits and now you have an excuse for locking people away who are inconvenient.
This is pretty much right on. Had wanted to include a blurb about this in my "EOS Highlights and Favorites from Ethereal and Consensus 2017" post, though it seems @crypt0 had deleted the video for some reason. Perhaps they asked him to take it down, but one event was "Chasing Privacy in Blockchains" with Anne Wallwork, a "Policy Director" for the US Treasury Department.
The way she described it was that basically the Treasury Department regulates all forms of wire transfers. By extension, coin exchange is also then a form of "wire transfer", and technically anyone moving money electronically for any purpose, and certainly "privately" and/or "anonymously", could be considered as running afoul of KYC (know-your-customer) regulations...
You start to get the idea. As @modprobe wrote, potentially everyone's guilty of something, if "the powers that be" choose to come after you. That's sort of how Ms. Wallwork ended it, (paraphrased) "We're just watching and observing for now, but that could change at any time, as we see fit..."
Sort of like when the IRS retroactively changes the rules and goes after people 10 years later, except here they would see it as finally deciding to "enforce" laws (for certain players, at least, to "make an example" of them), that they already believe they have jurisdiction to pursue, as they see fit. Or say, just like they did to @charlieshrem. Another story that really started "waking me up" to how bad it had all become was Martin Armstrong's story: When There is no Justice – It is Time To Turnout the Lights
And of course, there's still the IRS probe into Coinbase, which is ironic since I think many coinbase users are likely also small businesses using coinbase to accept bitcoin and immediately convert it back to cash for sales (as opposed to people trading bitcoin and raking in "huge" profits): Congress Seeks Answers From IRS About Its Bitcoin Tax Investigation.
I tend to agree, everything we do is confusing when it comes to legal or otherwise. It's painful and worrisome to find out that an act is illegal when you read that someone was charged and convicted. It's as if we have to collect all these cases and read them and deduct what is legal and what is not. I did not find it weird when people who were involved in drug trafficking were convicted, but it's not the same when it comes to trading. The government needs to present laws that clearly define this, not use laws written in 1960 to prosecute cases involving Bitcoin. Until then we try in good faith to practice what we think is legal based on outdated laws.
It's as if we have to collect all these cases and read them and deduct what is legal and what is not.
I think that to most people in western culture today, this has become how they determine legal vs illegal. In other words, illegal vs legal, in their minds, is not a function of law, but rather a function of the behavior of political enforcers.
In the words of Confucius though, The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their proper names. My first hand experience has shown me that this is completely true. Words are our minds' handles on reality. Once we clarify the meaning of our words and how we use them, our thinking becomes clearer. When our thinking becomes clearer, we understand our world better. When we understand our world better, our plans to make our world better become more effective.
Thus it is counterproductive (unless you're going into public manipulation/politics, but if you do that you must not be wanting to make the world a better place anyways, lol) to think in terms of legal or illegal; it is more beneficial to think in terms of "What's going to make the world better, at least to me?" and "What's going to get me beat up by political enforcers?" since that's what we really care about, rather than "What does some incomprehensible legal document, which no one, least of all political enforcers, has ever read, say?".
Of course it can be a bit scary to think that clearly. Many of us don't want to admit our world is that messed up. It feels much more comfortable, much more safe, to think in terms of legal and illegal. But, at some level, I think we all know that doing so is living in a fantasy. At some point I gave up on that fantasy, and although the world looks a bit darker than the fantasy, the future started looking brighter because I realized that by choosing to see the world as it is rather than as I wish it were, I gain the power to change it for the better because I plan my actions based on reality rather than fantasy. Of course, I, like everyone, still make mistakes a plenty. I have a long way to go, no doubt, but I remain convinced that this is the right path.
Your argument is based on the assumption that people do highly illegal things routinely, but you don't provide any example. What are examples of highly illegal things people are doing routinely?
This is a well documented phenomenon known as overcriminalization. I will not attempt to summarize it here, but there are abundant examples readily available by searching online, or even just randomly opening a major state's code books (the United States Code being a fairly canonical example) and thinking about whether the contents are a sane way to run a society or not. You might also find the book Three Felonies a Day instructive, which was written by a lawyer who became concerned at the 'crimes' and convictions he began to see in his daily work. I have not personally read this book, though, and know it only by reputation.
I am aware of the concept. I'm actually quite in agreement with Ayn Rand's view that law is intentionnally designed to criminalize an always higher number of people so that they may be controlled through their own guilt, fear and shame, and increasingly through direct blackmail and legal bullying thanks to all the dirt that the all watching eye of the NSA is capturing and storing forever in their data vault.
What I was pointing to is the fact that not everyone is convinced of that, and that without clear, real-life examples, the argument isn't very convincing.
I'll give one example based on my own circumstances. Where I'm living, the tax code states that long term capital gains are gains from profits made on a "long enough" period of time, "depending on specific circumstances" and "the nature of the activity". None of what I put in quotes is defined at all anywhere in the tax code. And calling the IRS doesn't help because they just explain that it is determined case by case, and there is no precise guideline. In other words, if you are actively managing a financial portfolio, you are routinely misreporting some of your gains because no matter what you do, an IRS agent can always arbitrarily decide that your definition of "long term" is too short to his liking, or that your circumstances are the type of circumstances where you can't claim long term capital gains, and find you guilty of misreporting your income. The only way to be safe is to volunteer to declare all your trading as short term trading income and pay more taxes. And even then, you'd still be potentially doing something illegal: reporting more income than you actually made is a false declaration. As soon as your inflated tax statements start being used to increase your credit card limit or get a loan, you could be found guilty of fraud.
I'd be interested to hear a better everyday life example that more people can relate to though. Speeding perhaps?
Brilliant example! I agree, real world stories of the harm of the state are indeed important. Pathos is a technique of persuasion I have not mastered yet.
As for me, I think I've always felt at some level that if I chose to become savvy at that system, I'd be embracing my slavery to an extent I simply wasn't comfortable with. At that point I would be choosing to develop myself within and through that system because it is the 'safe' choice. I instead chose to pay the higher extortion rates on ignorance of that system and that pain motivated me to end my enslavement sooner rather than later. I now have detached myself from it and consent to it no longer.
So I have few stories of mishaps with the state. I have, for the most part, left it behind me now.