This is insanity! Life imprisonment for starting a website?!? Where are the "kingpin" charges for these guys http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...
Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
471–480 of 641 posts
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption. Shutting down The Silk Road isn't quite the same thing as arresting the corner dealer. Aside from that - let's posit that Ross Ulbricht's arrest and punishment and the shutdown of The Silk R…
> it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption. It seems quite likely that Silk Road was one of the safest ways to acquire these drugs. It seems likely to me that shutting down Silk Road would have two effects: reducing consumption by casual (n…
I agree with your overall point, but you're forgetting a third effect: preventing non-current-drug users scared of more conventional venues, but not by Silk Road (which, as you point out, is comparatively convenient and safe), from buying drugs from there (and then possibly developing an addiction). I don't know how large a segment of the population that might be, but addictions have to start somewhere.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#473The guy who ran "The Farmer's Market" AKA Adam's Flowers who was pre Silk Road and busted during Operation Adam Bomb was only given 10yrs for hustling MDMA/Acid/weed, and ran an impressive smuggling operation where he had US resellers pick up ocean freight shipments, and his plea has him serving time in a Netherlands prison. The difference is he didn't make his black market political, which unfortunately Ross did. He…
No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted. Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.
Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying desperately to make an untruth truth.
Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I knew it wouldn't be a popular angle, but maybe some counterpoints along with those down votes please?
You don't get to claim self-defense when your own illegal actions led to the situation. Nor when there isn't an immediate threat to injure you and threatening to expose your illegal actions just isn't going to cut it. You can find further details here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864 It's written by an actual lawyer, in spite of being in comic format.
I didn't mean to imply that it could be considered self-defense according to the letter of the law. Just floating the scenario where you're running a business that, while illegal, is not morally wrong, and you're faced with the possibility of spending the rest of your life behind bars. What do you do?
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. I agree that drug sales should be regulated but that doesn't in any way make sentencing someone to life in prison for running a website any less fucked up.
> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those When car or gun buying addiction becomes more then a negligible problem, you'll have a terrific point.
So many people were convinced that "Obummer is gunner take r gunz" that they created a bullet shortage that lasted for years.
Um, sounds like like addiction to me.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#476Sad to see him get life, but I'm going to withhold my opinions beyond that statement because I know the feds will read this one day. Fuckers.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption. It seems quite likely that Silk Road was one of the safest ways to acquire these drugs. It seems likely to me that shutting down Silk Road would have two effects: reducing consumption by casual (n…
I agree with your overall point, but you're forgetting a third effect: preventing non-current-drug users scared of more conventional venues, but not by Silk Road (which, as you point out, is comparatively convenient and safe), from buying drugs from there (and then possibly developing an addiction). I don't know how large a segment of the population that might be, but addictions have to start somewhere .
The overwhelming majority of opiates that kids begin experimenting with are found from professional chemists, with testing requirements on purity -- and are safely packaged in their parents' or friends' parents' cabinets.
Spending the money on the Silk Road trial on ads talking about how addictive and dangerous stuff from the pharmacy can be -- even more so than stuff on the street -- and that you need to be careful experimenting with medicines would likely do more to keep people safe from opiates than shutting down Silk Road.
(There's a similar argument to be made about stimulants and ADD/ADHD meds.)
Really, the only things that people can find on Silk Road which doesn't have a ready medical analog that's abused by people all the time is marijuana and hallucinogens -- the drugs on the safest end of the spectrum.
If your conjecture is true, and Silk Road gets people out of their pill cabinet on to safer things to experiment with, then it's actually making people safer to let them explore like that.
The problem with these debates is that drug policy involves a complex network of different pieces that are interlinked, and what seems like a straight forward solution to one issue actually ends up backfiring when the effects move through the network.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#478After reading comments here and on arstechnica, I'm terrified by the number of people who still seem to blindly trust our government and support the drug war.
Another scary thing is how many people have "convicted" this guy of things that he was never convicted of, and used those things as a point from which to justify his sentence here.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted. Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.
Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying desperately to make an untruth truth. Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.
Yes, he was convicted of the Narcotics Conspiracy count in which the murder-for-hire scheme was one of the several charged over acts.
Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison
#480> But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business dealing drugs in the first place.” Lovely.
Mistaking some delusional world of zero crime doesn't do any good for people living in reality. That 'moral dealer' who hands out clean needles would be doing good. I guess the moral high-ground is ignoring the number of users who die or contract diseases from dirty needles? That's a pretty fucked perspective. I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as somehow "less than human" because…
> I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as somehow "less than human" because of their choices.
The justice system only sees them as "less than human" until they can conveniently be used to create an emotional scene which can be used as ammo against someone the government doesn't like.
See: the poor defenseless kid who would still be alive today if it weren't for the silk road forcing him to buy drugs and take them