How to fix governments robbing the populace by diktat

As of this week, the government of Lebanon has decreed a theft of up to 95% of depositaries' value from their financial accounts.  The main mechanism behind this theft is a dictatorial "conversion" of depositaries' foreign funds into Lebanese pounds (archive at end of article).  This type of theft is one we've seen play out dozes of times in the last decades — a very real danger that everyone who uses fiat currency is likely to face, sooner or later .

A fiat tankie asks the following question (quoted verbatim):

I never understood that argument „bitcoin fix this“ your own the private key so nobody can take your coin but what bitcoin fix really? How the economy of a country will react if everybody would have bitcoin and no bank account? A civil war? People killing others for bitcoins (be you own bank) how the economical system of a bitcoin country will regulate? How a country can collect taxes ? At this point what bitcoin really fix for Lebanese people is that a small subset of Lebanese people owning bitcoin don’t give a shit about others losing money and don’t wanna play by the rules (of the government). These people are maybe the same that stole electricity and anyway don’t care about the society… so yeah great bitcoin fix this… It would be interesting to have some pointers how the current economy mechanisms, instabilities in one country, or lots of people mistakingly burning their bitcoins could impact others Countries or the world we are living in.

Hahahaha!

The point of self-custodied Bitcoin is quite obviously that your government has a harder time stealing purchasing power from you, like the Lebanese government just did overnight, and like pretty much all governments do via inflation.

If the government of the territory where you reside wants to steal everyone's money, you can bet your ass there will be a lot of people who will move heaven and earth to prevent that — up to and including moving all they can to Bitcoin and leaving in a rush.  After all is said and done, these prudent people will always be better off than the sitting ducks who let themselves be robbed and now only have government dick up their asses. You can bet anyone in Lebanon who shielded their money away from the government's grubby little paws — up to right before the theft was consummated — is breathing a huge sign of relief and patting himself in the back right now; this group of people undoubtedly includes everyone who moved some of their wealth into self-custodied wallets.  I bet you none of these prudent people are starting fires on the streets of Beirut — they don't need to, because they weren't robbed.

Of course, you can disagree and believe that the Lebanese government acted righteously in this organized theft of purchasing power. This is fine: not everyone is a sane and decent human being.  Lots of people suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, and they will defend, excuse, or reframe even the most heinous acts, when perpetrated by authorities.  Remember that it was the Lebanese government who suddenly "changed the rules" by surprise (and in their favor) — the antisocial party in that relationship (ha) is evidently the government, rather than its victims.  Only someone with Stockholm syndrome would accuse those who avoid their own robbery as "refusing to play by the rules", somehow "antisocial" or "evil", proof of "not caring about society", cause for "civil war", or "probably thieves of electricity".  Let's be blunt: if anyone is antisocial there, it is the government — and perhaps all those people currently starting fires in Beirut, who almost certainly didn't use Bitcoin to deny the government the loot from their theft.

Doesn't matter, tho.  The fundamental point is that those who self-custody don't have to worry about the opinions of apologists for government theft — they will simply avoid the theft.  That is the problem Bitcoin fixes — voluntarily, peacefully, and ethically — and that's all that matters in the end.