This is an opinion editorial by Robert Hall, a content creator and small business owner.
According to news reports, a well-known Iranian Bitcoin advocate Ziya Sadr was arrested in Tehran on September 19. There isn’t much information about his arrest, but with the ongoing unrest in Iran, the government may have seen him as a threat to their system.
The young people of Iran are fed up with the current regime’s inability to create economic opportunities and tackle rampant inflation that saps their savings and makes it impossible to save for the future or afford the present. Iranians are no strangers to inflation and are currently experiencing an inflation rate of 25%.
Iran has a relatively young population that has a hunger for change, as shown by these recent protests that are destabilizing the entire country; it is not hard to see why someone promoting a revolutionary technology would be targeted by the Iranian government. If too many protestors learn about bitcoin before the regime can stop it, it could contribute to the end of the clerical regime.
The Iranian authorities targeted him because he was effective at sharing the message of Bitcoin and the hope that it inspires. Mr. Sadr, before his arrest, was well known for translating Bitcoin content into Farsi and educating people about how to use Bitcoin in a privacy-enhanced way.
Educating others about Bitcoin and how to use it is exactly what governments worldwide don’t want to see happen on a mass scale. At this stage of the game, governments tolerate Bitcoin because they don’t see it as a threat … yet.
They believe they have everything under control with their FUD narrative in the media. It’s not working. Adoption has continued unabated, even in a bear market. Miners are plugging in. Node counts are going up. The Lightning Network is maturing, and new exciting products are being developed. The revolution is here. They just don’t know it yet.
The gerontocracy that currently holds political power in America doesn’t understand that Bitcoin was created to take away their ability to make money out of thin air and enslave the entire planet.
Once it is taken away — and one day it will be — all bets are off on what will happen. The powers that be don’t want you to leave the fiat plantation. I know this isn’t politically correct, but I will say it anyway. What Bitcoin content creators are doing to educate people about Bitcoin and how to use it is akin to teaching enslaved people how to read and write during slavery.
Education undermines governments’ control mechanisms they have in place to control your mind and keep you on the fiat plantation. It starts with the fiat education system. The goal isn’t to create highly educated citizens capable of thinking of themselves and sustaining our form of self-government.
The unstated goal of education, as the late great George Carlin said, “They want people who are just smart enough to do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to accept these increasingly shittier jobs with lower pay, longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and a vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.”
If you manage to break free from that control mechanism, you still have to contend with the media machine and how they control the minds of many people worldwide. The media is owned by only a few corporate interests vested in keeping the current system limping.
The power of the media to collude and influence was on full display back in 2020 during the height of the pandemic when the world was bombarded with messages about wearing a mask, despite that being reversed, “15 days to slow the spread,” despite that not being true, and all the other propaganda that was being aired on behalf of governments. It worked. How many people ended up doing exactly what the government said? Billions of people. They could quickly turn this power against Bitcoiners.
“This Is Extremely Dangerous To Our Democracy”
Who was portrayed as the evil people that wanted to kill grandma? The people who were questioning the narrative about the virus. They were ridiculed by their families and lost their jobs because they didn’t want to be forced to take a vaccine.
When push comes to shove, the government must crush dissent and opposition to the fiat system in order for it to survive. They have to block exits and burn the bridges; it’s that simple. As recently as last year, the President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, made a passing reference to blocking access to “cryptos” in general, but we all know bitcoin is the real target.
Will Public Bitcoiners Be Targeted In The Future?
Honestly, anything is possible. If you are a significant Bitcoin influencer with thousands of followers on social media, you should probably assume you are on your government’s radar. Governments make plans for this type of stuff all the time. If you are Bitcoiner, you are automatically a dissident in their book and will be treated as such if the stability of government operations is threatened.
It would not be that hard for the media to label Bitcoin advocates as domestic terrorists, urge the public and their family turn against them, and throw them in jail. They could use a “crisis” in the sovereign debt market as a pretext to come after Bitcoiners in general.
Bitcoiners should take note of what is happening worldwide and plan accordingly. We are in the midst of a financial revolution; it’s up to Bitcoiners to ensure the revolution is a success. Education is the key.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
