Congressman Accepts BitCoin For His US Senate Run 165
SonicSpike writes "U.S. Representative Steve Stockman, a vocal opponent of Federal Reserve policy, told reporters that he wants to promote Bitcoin, whose most fervent evangelists tout as an alternative to fiat currency. To do so, he is now accepting Bitcoin for his Senate campaign against incumbent John Cornyn of Texas. The announcement was made last night at the launch event for the NYC Bitcoin Center, located just up the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Center founder Nick Spanos a real estate developer and Bitcoin enthusiast says the Center itself is still in something of a planning stage, existing more as a statement about Bitcoin itself, though he plans on hosting a hackathon later this month."
I like the idea (Score:5, Informative)
Re:By all means (Score:5, Informative)
Campaign donations are subject to federal reporting regulations regardless of what currency they use.
Which raises a question. So if someone anonymously dumps 1000 bitcoins on him, then what happens?
He has to not spend it, or run afoul of the FEC for not having his campaign funding papered up nicely. Now if they give it to a superpac, and that superpac goes and gets him elected with a billion dollar campaign, no one could care less.
Re:Colour me confused (Score:2, Informative)
We are talking about Steve Stockman. Even most of the Republican crazes think he is out in lala land.
Re:Colour me confused (Score:5, Informative)
His main argument seems to be that John Cornyn (R-TX) is too liberal, so he's challenging him in the primary.
Also, the U.S. Constitution is too liberal for Stockman, so he wants to amend it in like five different ways. Oddly, given his claim to be some kind of individual-liberty crusader, the ways he wants to amend the Constitution are mostly in the direction of removing individual rights, in favor of giving the government the power to enforce his own particular ideas of collective morality and cultural norms. For example, the Constitution currently guarantees that all native-born Americans are U.S. citizens. Automatically, by right: no federal-government bureaucrat had to confirm my right to be an American, after I was born in Indiana. Stockman doesn't like this. What if some of these Americans aren't enough like him? Shouldn't they have to take a test devised by federal bureaucrats showing their cultural conformity before they're allowed citizenship? Stockman says yes!
Oh, and that First Amendment is a big problem for him. Protects too much liberal nonsense in his opinion. I mean freedom is one thing, but isn't there such a thing as too much freedom? When people do things that offend Steve Stockman, like burn the American flag, well that's just a step too far. Better amend the Constitution again to remove those rights.
Re:I like the idea (Score:3, Informative)
the divisibility of bitcoins is set on the current version of the protocol and can be increased any time with a update version. the protocol already had several updates, one of then a mandatory update to solve a large block fork issue [bitcointalk.org]