Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his Republican-led government has banned central bank digital currencies (CBDC) from the state and imploring others to follow suit.
SB 7054 bars the state from treating a CBDC issued by the Federal Reserve or other a foreign central bank as legal currency under Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code. The bill passed with an overwhelming amount of support, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
They could block, if you filled up your gas tank too much, hey, they’re fighting global warming, ‘You can’t do anymore. Maybe you bought a firearm last week. They don’t want you to buy another one this week.
Sometimes government will do things where they provide kind of a benevolent rationale for what they’re doing but it’s really nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Well I think with central bank digital currency, this is a wolf coming as a wolf. This is something that will be a massive transfer of power from individual consumers to a central authority. And that’s just fundamentally antithetical to a free society.
DeSantis said on Friday after the bill passed, reported by the Pensacola News Journal
The Governor also noted that he felt that the introduction of a CBDC would hurt the broader cryptocurrency market. “I think they want to crowd out and eliminate other types of digital assets like cryptocurrency because they can’t control that, so they don’t like that.”
DeSantis claims this action was spurred by President Joe Biden’s move to further development of a digital dollar controlled by the Feds, even though there is no CBDC in circulation as of now, and the Federal Reserve has claimed that they are not even sure if they want to introduce a CBDC; though evidence of the contrary has been presented, such as their trial runs with top U.S. megabanks to test a digital currency, along with the rollout of the FedNow instant payment system that can be used a launchpad for a CBDC.
John Montague of Florida-based Montague Law told Cointelegraph:
This bill stipulates that transactions involving CBDCs won’t be afforded the usual UCC protections, potentially dissuading entities or individuals from engaging in such transactions with CBDCs.
The UCC can establish obligations and alter third-party rights, even without their direct contractual involvement. Florida has the authority to alter this definition.
He said
The bill takes effect starting July 1st.
DeSantis had indicated back in March he wanted legislation passed to ban CBDCs, citing what the implementation of one would mean in terms of personal finance and liberty.
It’s all about surveilling Americans and controlling American behavior. How do we know, look at China, where they cut off access to goods and services.
He said at the time
In March The WinePress reported that some Republican senators are trying to pass legislation that prevent the Federal Reserve from creating a CBDC. In that report, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has also enacted similar legislation to that of DeSantis’, but has gone even further to ban cryptocurrencies, regarding them not as legal “money.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.
Proverbs 18:17
While on the surface level of things it seems that these actions taken by DeSantis, Noem, and others in the Senate and Congress are nice; but it is, the way I see it, a front and bills that hold little validity with all the loopholes that can be created.
I noted this in my aforementioned report (see above), where backdoors have actually been created to facilitate a CBDC. Yaël Ossowski told Bitcoin Magazine that these actions still do not genuinely prevent a CBDC. The publication wrote:
The bill in question — based on an update to the Uniform Commercial Code — not only expands definitions and protections for Bitcoin, but actually creates a legal mechanism for recognizing self-custody and for the protocol’s inclusion in traditional lending, insurance, and commercial transactions.
To have CBDC-bashing as the latest litmus test for conservative politicians is indeed revolutionary, and from the point of view of individual and economic freedom that Bitcoin provides, is a positive phenomenon. But why is the battle being played out in rudimentary state commercial codes that have nothing to do with Central Bank Digital Currencies?
He writes
Ossowski described how, for conservatives, this bill represents “a backdoor for a CBDC and for eventual federal government control of economic freedom.” Because it gives a precise definition of money that excludes Bitcoin, it is assumed that a CBDC is what the government will qualify as money. This, however, is not necessarily a given, and the leaving out of bitcoin within that definition is actually a positive, according to Ossowski.
Not being defined as money means that Bitcoin transactions are not recognized as money transmission, which would otherwise require various licenses, permissions, and legal registrations.
Overall, that keeps the Bitcoin protocol outside the regulatory scope of restrictive rules that apply to legal tender like the US dollar.
While [Noem’s] understanding of the bill was flawed, her instincts were correct. The same applies to DeSantis’ mission to snipe CBDCs before they ever reach Florida’s shores.
He wrote
Furthermore, most Americans still don’t realize this, but the Federal Reserve is NOT federal neither is it a reserve: it is a private bank owned and controlled by bankers and investors in the private sector, who print fiat money backed by nothing (save only oil). Their “tools,” we hear Powell talk about all the time, are printing money, manipulating interest rates, and occupying the markets and broader economy; artificially rigging and managing the markets and asset classes.
Even if states banned CBDCs, the Fed still regulate both paper and digital currency. Therefore, people will have to capitulate in some facet or another. And if the state tries to do their own currency, that would get shutdown immediately by the “men in black” to set the politicians straight.
So, while I am vehemently against CBDCs, it is in my opinion that these bills and shew of hostility by these politicians are just vain. After all, this is the same DeSantis that tried pushing the Covid death shot on people, then backtracked once the backlash was big enough; while having laws on the books that allow the government to forcibly arrest and vaccinate residents by “any means necessary” if that time ever comes.
SEE: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Passes Law That Allows Forcible Vaccination By ‘Any Means Necessary’
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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