Interview with MK Lords of Bitcoin Not Bombs
In keeping with this blog’s purpose of putting out there the various issues, events, and alternative viewpoints that do not often make it into Pensacola’s local media, I did an interview with my friend and young local businesswoman Meghan Kellison (M.K.)-Lords of Bitcoin Not Bombs. I talk with her about libertarianism, politics (and their unimportance), Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, fire-dancing, Pensacola, and other things:
Steven Poulin: First of all, you are a local here from Pensacola. What has your experience been like here in Pensacola and how has it shaped you as a person?
M.K. Lords: I have lived here my whole life. I grew up here with a pretty, I would say, conventional upbringing. My parents skewed to the Right and obviously, this being a military town, the politics tend to be more right-wing. So, being a bit of a contrarian, I backlashed very far to the Left. I got into antiwar activism during the Bush administration. That was my introduction into activism and politics, and then I realized that I didn’t quite align as much with the positions of the Left as far as government intervention and markets, and as I learned more about libertarianism I became very active in that. I worked on the 2008 Ron Paul campaign at the grassroots level phone-banking and canvassing. Then I moved away from that into more anarchist activism and outside-the-system stuff, and that has been very fulfilling. I have made a lot of contacts and met a lot of great people. Pensacola is an interesting place, there is a lot of potential for growth and I would really like to see it come up and rival some of the cities around it. I have also been getting into activism around Bitcoin, which is a cryptocurrency that is very up-and-coming. My philosophic views, I would say, are pretty anarchist, but I am also open to working with a wide variety of people. I have friends on all sides of the political spectrum, and anyone wanting to change things for the better I tend to get along with.
SP: What exactly do “libertarianism” and “anarchism” mean to you?
MKL: I never liked being told what to do by people. I have always had a kind of rebellious streak going back to high school, where I would get in trouble every now and then for my writing. Libertarianism appealed to me because it is all about individual freedom and individual responsibility. I have a very “live and let live” attitude when it comes to people’s social practices and how they live their private lives. I don’t think it is anybody else’s business what people do with their lives and I think people should be able to do whatever they want as long as they aren’t harming other people. I have always been anti-government since the Bush Administration because of the wars, and from a historical perspective it's clear that governments throughout history have done a lot to restrict both the individual and collective freedoms of people. I was into left-anarchism before libertarianism or individualist anarchism as part of that rebellious, contrarian streak. I want people to be as radically free as possible and take responsibility for those freedoms too, and letting people be if they are being peaceful and not harming anybody else. With anarchism, I think it answers a lot of questions as far as people’s self-worth and responsibility, and it provides solutions to a lot of these social problems which were created by government intervention and by trying to force policies on people. Especially in this country there is a long history of restricting freedoms of lower-class and underprivileged people.
SP: What are some of the ways you see government as having done harm to people?
MKL: I think the biggest thing is the wars. There are thousands of people being killed every month in other countries, and this has been going on since the very beginning of the United States. We saw it ramped up especially during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and war became less of a defensive reaction to violence and more of a preemptive offensive action. I think it is abhorrent that so much of our tax dollars goes towards killing people in other countries who never harmed us, and I don’t think it has changed much with this administration. That is why I take more of a hard anarchist position on this: I don’t think there are any pro-peace candidates coming out of either major party.
SP: Libertarianism is typically associated with free market views, but you also hear a lot of these conservative and Republican politicians give lip service to the idea of free markets too. But there are major differences I am sure. What do you think are some of the biggest differences are between libertarians and conservatives?
MKL: I think to understand why libertarianism gets associated with the Right you have to look at its history going back to the 1970’s and 1980’s. There were several prominent libertarians coming out of that period who had different ideas on how to best influence the political sphere and give it more of a libertarian bent. I tend to side more with the Karl Hess view of libertarianism and anarchism, which is more left-leaning socially. Murray Rothbard is another prominent libertarian who advocated an alliance with the New Right in the 80’s, and what this did was caused libertarians to become more aligned with Republicans. That has been a constant thing since the 80’s, and you saw it a lot with Ron Paul and his campaign. He ran as a Republican and a lot of libertarians supported him, and I did at the time even though I didn’t agree much with his social views. It still has a lot of those leftover Republican associations and I think that’s unfortunate because libertarians are very live-and-let-live people who don’t want to legislate your body, who don’t want to put religion into legislation like the conservatives. They are for much freer markets than Republicans. When Republicans talk about free markets what they really mean is the current system already in place, which is a very unfair market that gives large benefits to corporations, corrupt CEO’s, and other government cronies. Most libertarians would say that the current system we have is very, very far from a free market, whereas conservatives would say that anything Democrats do the market is an unfree market but anyway they try to control it is a free market. The thing is, you don’t have a free market if you have any kind of government control or influence on the market. The idea of free market is more radical than conservatives would like to admit.
SP: So in other words, the average libertarian would not be comparable to Donald Trump [laughing].
MKL: Oh no, no! Actually, Donald Trump spoke at a libertarian-themed conference recently and got a lot of backlash on his views towards immigration. I think the libertarian strategy of aligning with the Right is a failed one because the GOP is a dying party. I think we have more in common with the Left as far as social views. You are seeing more libertarians align with the Left now.
SP: So you feel there are many important differences between the positions of many people on the Right and libertarians on social issues like LGBT rights, women’s rights, immigration, etc.?
MKL: Totally! For instance, a lot of libertarians are for open borders and no kind of restrictive immigration policy, whereas conservatives are more for closed borders and wanting to limit who can come to the country and work. Especially when it comes to women’s rights and LGBT rights conservatives still base their approaches on very outdated religious views while libertarians whereas libertarians tend to be very libertine when it comes to social issues.
SP: Libertarian and libertine! [Laughs]
MKL: Yeah, libertarian and libertine! In fact, libertarianism does come out of libertinism if you go back far enough, as much as the Right has tried to hijack the term. There are right-leaning libertarians who are turned off by this libertinism, but there is an element of self-responsibility to it to where it’s not destructive. When it comes to women’s rights too, libertarians advocate for things like over-the-counter birth control which I think is a no-brainer. Why we don’t have over-the-counter birth control is insane to me, it is 2015.
SP: On LGBT issues, there is same sex marriage, transgender rights, etc. Here in Florida we have had some legislators in government try to pass laws telling transgender people they could not use the restrooms they feel safest in because of their gender identity. Would you say libertarians side with LGBT people on issues like those?
MKL: I would say so. With libertarianism, I think it is important to distinguish that there are right-leaning libertarians and left-leaning libertarians. Left-libertarians are all on board with those things, right-leaning libertarians have more of a paleo-conservative influence and may be not so much on board depending on who you are talking to. You can have right and left libertarians, but if they are advocating government force to enforce their preferences then I would strongly question their understanding of libertarian principles. Maybe they are minarchists, who advocate for very small government, and there are libertarian anarchists who advocate for no government. It's is a very big tent, and there are many different ideas in it. You can’t speak for all libertarians and if you try to they will be the first ones to say “Ah! I don’t agree! I’m an individual”.
SP: What are some common misconceptions people seem to have of libertarians?
MKL: It depends on who you ask. If you ask someone from the Left they will say “Oh, it is just a bunch of Republicans who smoke weed” but it is a bunch of white dudes hanging around talking about economics and Bitcoin, and it’s boring and they don’t have any kind of empathy. If you ask Republicans they view libertarians as living in a libertine hippie fantasyland and with no basis in reality, and that they want to do all the drugs all the time. A popular libertarian position is the legalization of all drugs, and conservatives don’t like that and think the War on Drugs has been a good thing. I think both sides are very skewed and they see libertarians as either very far Right or far Left depending on who you talk to, when really it is about economic and social freedom across the board.
SP: So it is about trying to get away from that whole political spectrum we tend to compartmentalize things into?
SP: You have been a co-host of the syndicated radio show Freedom Feens. How have you been received by audiences?
MKL: The radio show is interesting because it is very much a fun, humorous take on a lot of topics. It has a following of very dedicated listeners and a sort of weird sense of humor. The tagline is “Michael W. Dean and his weird friends.” I’m one of the weird friends. Michael is an old punk rocker who was in a band called Bomb back in the early 90’s. He’s a very live and let live kinda guy too. It has been pretty well-received because it is a break from all the ultra-serious libertarian podcasts out there so focused on economics. We are the fun, silly radio show that plays in Pensacola now too Saturday at 5:00 in the morning and Sunday at 8:00 in the morning. Sometimes we talk current events, sometimes we talk history, sometimes we wing it. Michael W. Dean is in Wyoming, we do the show remotely from differently places all across the country and we even have two hosts in Scotland and one host in Mexico.
SP: You have also done work with a group called Bitcoin Not Bombs, which is an organization that helps non-profit groups doing charity work launch themselves using the decentralized digital currency Bitcoin as a donation platform. What are some of the advantages of using Bitcoin to fund charitable work or work for non-profits?
MKL: Bitcoin Not Bombs came out of an alliance with Antiwar.com. In 2013 it was revealed that the FBI was spying on Antiwar.com and that was scaring a lot of people away. When you find out the FBI is spying on you and monitoring your communications it is going to freak a lot of people out, so a lot of larger donors backed out and as a result the funding suffered, and Antiwar.com is an invaluable resource for foreign policy news. To survive my friends at Bitcoin Not Bombs said “we can help get you set up with Bitcoin.” Bitcoin had already gotten a reputation as a sort of underground digital currency around the same time Wikileaks started taking Bitcoin because their funding was threatened and Paypal refused to process transactions. Bitcoin became a way for Antiwar.com to continue to thrive because no government agency can stop or shut down the network of Bitcoin. From there, Bitcoin Not Bombs became an organization to try and raise awareness of the subversive benefits of using Bitcoin. If you need to take donations because your funding has been threatened, it is really good for that. It is also a really convenient way to pay people. It is a very straightforward payment system. We also started doing this project called Hoodie the Homeless, where we took Bitcoin donations and used them to buy hoodies for the homeless during the winter. We have been trying to get other places to accept Bitcoin, whether they are local businesses or non-profits. We also take a hardline radical antiwar position because we believe Bitcoin came from a radical place. It is a safe currency, but we have been a radical voice within the Bitcoin space.
While Bitcoin can be a good tool for privacy, it can be an even better tool for transparency. If you donate money to the Red Cross then you aren’t always sure where that money is going. But if they have a single Bitcoin address then you can view all the transactions going and all the transactions going out. There are even wallets where you can put notes to tell people what was going on. It brings an almost scary level of transparency, and this is why you may not see some places jumping on board with it, but it is good business practice to be as transparent as possible especially if you are operating off of donations. There are many possibilities other ways for Bitcoin to be used besides as a payment system or currency, and I think we are going to see a lot of those being used in the near future by businesses, charities, and individuals.
SP: There seems to be many young people who are also becoming disillusioned with both political parties. I may not outwardly identify as a libertarian, but I have voted third party as a protest vote during elections before. Do you feel there is a lot of potential for young people to get involved in a libertarian movement, or some movement that challenges the typical two-party political structure in this country?
MKL: Yes. I think that the future is going to become less and less political as people realize that the political structures in place don’t serve them or their interests. I think people are smart enough to realize that technology does in a lot of ways, especially our generation. We grew up in the Age of the Internet and we have seen it progress and what it can do and we know that it is more stable, more interesting, and more disruptive than the political process. The political process has pretty much the same for a very long time. There is not growth there, there is not innovation, and young people realize that and I think they are very disillusioned. Most young people don’t vote because we know that the political system does not serve us, it serves very special interests and serves the people already in power, so I think that any young person who is disillusioned with the way things are should look into disruptive tech as a way to sort of broaden their horizons of what’s possible. I got into activism in a very low-tech kind of way. I didn’t have a very deep understanding of technology. I had a very basic understanding, and the more I learned the more I realized there are a lot of things that could be addressed through tech like Bitcoin. I think it is good thing that people aren’t getting involved in politics. Don’t stress yourself out about that s*** because it doesn’t matter ultimately.
SP: Getting back to Pensacola, I know you work with Roberts & Roberts Brokerage here. Do you feel like Pensacola is a good place for entrepreneurs?
MKL: I think it [Pensacola] has a lot of potential for growth, but there is very much a Good Ole’ Boys Club which doesn’t want the kind of innovation that could be brought here and it is a conflict of interest for them in some ways. Now, Roberts & Roberts has been great because they have been around since 1974 and our clientele is pretty loyal and we’ve worked to update our business model. We take Bitcoin, and we like to support progressive things like that. I think there is a lot of potential, but I think a lot of it relies on younger people making it happen. There is a reason people move away, and that is because there hasn’t been as much progress in the past few years as some people have hoped.
I don’t want to bash Pensacola as a whole. It may be just that I’m young and I’m impatient and I want change now, and not everybody wants that. I don’t want to say Pensacola is a failure. I’ve lived here my whole life and it has a lot of really good things going for it. I guess I just want to see things move a little bit forward a little faster.
SP: What are some of the ways you think Pensacola could move forward as a city?
MKL: I think it could do more to support the local people who have contributed so much to its growth. For example, we have this whole Maritime Park now. Another side job of mine is a fire performer, and I was asked to a gig there a long time ago [unpaid]. It is a smaller occupation than my main one, but it is one I expect to be compensated for and I think artists and musicians deserve to be compensated for their work. I was taken aback. Here it was, my tax dollars went to this project that I didn’t even necessarily want in the first place, and they couldn’t even give that money back to the local people who they were going to use the skills of to promote it.
I will say that I like what is happening with the downtown scene. I like how more businesses are coming in and changing things up. I would like to see more art, culture, and alternative spaces come up. Another event I like is the Farmer’s Market. I think that is a great way to bring people and show what local people have to offer. I think Gallery Night should be a less restrictive event for businesses. Some of the ways the city has handled that has been very heavy-handed, and they need to make it easier for people to participate in these things that could be really cool instead of just trying to extract as much money as they can out of the local economy and putting it towards things that don’t have that kind of feedback loop for the locals.
SP: You mentioned being a fire performer. In your bios you describe yourself as a poet and a fire dancer. Do you feel like such creative activities give you a great outlet to express yourself?
MKL: Absolutely! If I didn’t have these creative outlets to express myself I would be in a very bad place. I struggled with depression for a long part of my life, and I have to be creating something and doing something to feel healthy and to feel like myself. I think it’s great for other people too, I think whatever creative outlet people can find is a form of therapy. It has been very good for my mental and physical health. Even something like writing: when you sit down and write something, even if you are not a writer per se and you are just writing to get your thoughts out, you are revealing your true self to you and I think that is important as a form of self-empowerment to connect with that.
SP: Where do you find a lot of the inspiration for your writing and your poetry?
MKL: A lot of it comes from the experiences I have had. I have had a very interesting life to say the least, and so a lot if comes from the personal experiences and relationships I’ve had with people, and also of course my political views and idealism, and the way I see things could be by aren’t quite there yet. So, my poetry focuses on the personal and political, and sometimes they intertwine, but I find it to be therapy more than anything else. I used to read at open mic nights a couple years ago, but I have made my poetry a little more private because I see it as more of a therapy, but I would encourage everyone to find something they like to do that feeds that creative part of them.
To see what plans M. K. Lords has for the future you can follow her on Twitter @mklords.
