I really would like to see an attempt to defend Tether (and by extension most of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in practice) that doesn't require me to buy into ultra-libertarian ideology. Most people, including me, do not in fact believe that the US dollar is a scam.
I don't think that the US dollar is a scam but I think The Fed is struggling to keep it afloat. Also, the ever increasing debt of the US concerns me, as well as all the money printing. I just wonder, where does it end? How does it end? Just borrow more and print more? Drop rates to 0%, and then go negative if there's no further to go? Does all that seem sustainable? I do hope inflation will drop when / if The Fed raises rates again. Maybe that will bring some sort of balance. We'll have to see what happens. I don't think the US debt could ever possibly be paid off now though, and we'll have to keep raising the debt ceiling or remove it. There's also some absurd ideas like minting a trillion dollar platinum coin [1]. I just don't think this ends well.
The point re: tether directly is that it doesn't matter if tether is backed 1-1 or .05-1 or .01-1 as long as people trust it as a stablecoin.
The point re: the ecosystem is that there are a lot of stablecoins and you can pick the one that isn't a scam. You can use crypto and not touch tether at all. There's no need to tie the ecosystem to it.
