Call it rhetorical if you like, but that does not make your point.  The IRS has the ability to audit your bank accounts.  That makes it really hard to cheat on your taxes in any significant way.  Your bitcoin wallet is easily hidden, however.

And no, the IRS is not ok with Linden dollars and the rest.  Congress is already nervous about transactions that use anything other than the US fiat currency.

http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com/2010/01/irs-may-push-for-tax-compliance-in.html

You guys are fooling yourselves if you think bitcoin can be successful as a currency instead of a commodity.  If you treat it as a commodity I think it'll survive.  If you try and talk retailers into accepting bitcoins then you are just digging your own grave.

Have you forgotten the raid on the Ron Paul silver dollars?  Their mistake wasn't the silver dollars.  It was the move of retailers in the north-east to accept them instead of the US fiat currency.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10390631/raid-on-ron-paul-dollar-maker.html