I call for the elimination of all cash. 
Two of the biggest problems that we have 
in our society today are the result of 
the presence of black markets and various 
services and commodities like the black 
market in labor, the black market in 
drugs, and the black market in guns, 
the black market and prostitution, and 
the presence of violent crime, usually, 
surrounding theft. 
How do you eliminate both of those 
problems without spending many more 
dollars that we don't have on 
enforcement? 
Well, you eliminate both of those 
problems by undercutting the medium in 
which they exist. 
The medium in which they exist is cash. 
You can only have a black market and some 
commodity or service, if you can pay for 
that commodity or service in cash. 
No drug dealer is going to take a credit 
card. 
No illegal gun runner is going to take a 
credit card. 
If you can't give them cash, they go out 
of business or anyhow they go out of that 
business. 
Second, if you don't have cash in your 
pocket or in your cash register, then no 
one can rob you. 
Sure, they can take your credit card and 
commit identify theft, 
but, first of all, they have to be pretty 
smart to do that, not just any old street 
hoodlum could do that. 
And secondly, if they do that, their 
crime isn't going to be of a violent 
nature. 
No one's going to come into a store with 
a gun and steal your identity. 
People come into a store with a gun, 
because they want to steal your cash, not 
because they want to steal your identity. 
So we can solve two of the biggest 
problems confronting our society today, 
namely problems surrounding black markets 
and problems surrounding violent crime by 
eliminating cash and having all exchanges 
proceed electronically, rather than by 
means of some tangible medium of 
exchange. 
Well, that's a terrible idea. 
Sure, let's just get rid of all the cash, 
so that all our purchases are 
electronically recorded and we have no 
privacy or civil rights anymore. 
What you've just witnessed was an attempt 
at refutation that is guilty of the 
fallacy of the straw man. 
Let me explain. 
I was giving an argument just a moment 
ago that a bunch of our problems could be 
solved very inexpensively if we got rid 
of cash. 
Now, getting rid of cash wouldn't solve 
all of our problems. 
There would still be other problems and 
maybe we could solve those other problems 
in various other ways. 
But then, my critic protested, that my 
conclusion that we should get rid of 
cash, was a false conclusion, because it 
amounted to the elimination of all of our 
privacy and civil rights. 
Now, I wasn't calling for the elimination 
of our privacy and our civil rights. 
I was just calling for the elimination of 
cash, and if that means that transactions 
are electronically recorded, well then, 
maybe those electronic recordings can 
themselves be made private and protected 
by various rights just as information 
like our Social Security number is today. 
Now, without getting into the details of 
whether my argument against cash was a 
good argument or a bad argument, the 
point I want to make right now is that, 
my critic's protest against that argument 
was unfair, and it was unfair, because it 
represented me as making a claim that was 
not the claim I was making. 
The claim I was making was that we should 
get rid of cash, not that we should get 
rid of all of our privacy and our civil 
rights. 
But my critic was accusing me of making 
the claim that we should get rid of our 
privacy and our civil rights. 
That's an unfair criticism, because that 
wasn't the claim I was making. 
Okay? That's reputation by straw man. 
My critic was trying to refute me trying 
to show that my argument was 
unsuccessful. 
In doing so, he misrepresented my 
argument. 
He described my argument in a way that 
made it sound silly.