Recently, Bitcoin investor and ex-American citizen Roger Ver issued a video challenge on Adam Kokesh’s Youtube channel to Bernie Sanders. In the challenge, Ver begins with a preamble on what he views as the immoral roots of paying taxes and goes on to explain why he believes in voluntaryism vs. socialism.
The video concludes by Ver saying he will donate $100,000 USD worth of Bitcoin to the charity of Bernie Sanders’ choosing if he accepts a live and in-person 3-hour long debate with Adam Kokesh anywhere within the United States between now and the end of 2016.
Ver has made headlines in recent years for both his successful investments in Bitcoin and blockchain related businesses along with his very public renouncement of his U.S. citizenship in 2014. At the beginning of the video, Ver takes aim at Sanders for listing him in a campaign supporters video which put Ver’s name in with various other wealthy individuals who have given up their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
Ver proudly states the reasons why he considered patriotism to be on par with racism as far as its motivations to pledge allegiance to a group of people over another based solely on where one was born.
Kokesh has been attempting to engage Sanders on debate through multiple channels and wants to distinguish some of the Democratic Party candidate’s views in relation to socialism against those of voluntaryism. Kokesh’s view’s on “voluntaryism” are summed up in his definition which he describes all human relations should be voluntary, free from violence and free from coercion.
It appears the common theme that Ver and Kokesh share on the matter of Sander’s view of socialism vs. voluntaryism is that Ver and Kokesh simply don’t believe that paying taxes to any form of government is right and just and that it’s immoral to support the activities a government does, such as war, with that tax money.
Ver made it clear that this money he’s willing to donate to charity on behalf of Sanders is money saved that he would have probably paid on taxes back in the United States.
There’s been no official word on whether Sanders has considered this proposal yet.
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