What I'm reading seems contradictory. On the one hand, we should get the ball rolling since government will always exist. On the other hand, the republican bitcoiners learned that giving power to anyone in government does not guarantee their freedom or livelihood will improve.

Just to be clear, I don't believe that there will always be some form of government. Governments are made up of people. Those people will not work for free. If they don't have an easy way to tax people, it will wither away and die. The end of fiat makes a world without government technically possible. Voting for government to do bitcoin things only extends the life of government. Not sure why anyone would want that especially bitcoin whales.