Quote from: xonar on June 18, 2011, 08:48:49 PM

What kind of anarchy is it when the group with the most guns tells you what you can do & what you can't do under threat of violence?

As you see, all power ultimately comes from violence and coercion.

Most people don't want violence in their daily lives, just want to be left alone and are basically decent human beings when they know other people are watching. That being the case, the majority of people can easily defend themselves against a violent minority that don't care who knows they're murdering thieves.

You're right that authority grows from the barrel of a gun which is why we need to make sure that most of us decent folks that don't want constant violence, don't want to harass others and don't want to kill and steal, are well enough armed and organized to keep the minority at bay. That kind of power is simply self-defense and if you think that self-defense is morally wrong then you might as well just lay down and wait to die.

Quote from: passerby on June 18, 2011, 08:52:42 PM

this thread lends indisputable evidence to the hypothesis that political discussions have to be airgapped from the rest of the project

I think it's evidence that the kind of crowd that's interested in Bitcoin has strong opinions about politics and therefore political debate is inevitable. Therefore, it makes more sense to give it a place to happen rather than having it sprinkled all over the forum. A moderator can now come along and split the thread, moving the political debate posts to the proper section. That's pretty much why the politics section got started in the first place.