I agree that the establishment attacks on Monero are despicable. Dark money must be allowed in a free society and if it is not we are heading toward tyranny. A black market is a free market and I support that. Monero has a different function than Bitcoin and cannot have the same impact on politics. Capital leaving a jurisdiction because the jurisdiction is authoritarian will have an impact on politics. This is the domain of Bitcoin game theory. Jurisdictions that respect individual liberties will attract capital (Bitcoin) and outcompete authoritarian jurisdictions. Monero cannot achieve this as dark money. Bitcoin over LN, Liquid and other L2-L3 solutions will be the everyday 'e-cash' formats. L1 will be for store of value only. In a free market competition the user can achieve a desired balance between speed, cost and security. Bitcoin and Monero aids different liberty mechanisms. I am personally not into Monero, but dark money might be useful at some point, so I am not ruling out the possibility that Monero will have a liberty impact. It is just that its liberty function can be achieved equally well by a Monero competitor.
Bitcoin has first mover advantage. So has Monero. It's unlikely any competition will take the provacu kings crown. It's constantly increasing market share. Appreciating both aspects dark and light gives us more strategic leverage to tackle governments.
Agreed. Cash is dark money and it is important that people have access to dark money in the digital age. History has demonstrated to us what crimes surveillance regimes can commit when they go unchecked. Under authoritarian systems, dark money will always be vital. It is my hope that Bitcoin can compete with Monero on L2-L3's in regards to dark money. The base layer obviously cannot be both a store of value and dark money at the same time. As such Bitcoin and Monero occupy different niches.