Paraphrasing an aphorism I saw elsewhere: "Crime is legal now".
“If a law is unjust a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so” - Thomas Jefferson
Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
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Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#22Paraphrasing an aphorism I saw elsewhere: "Crime is legal now".
Providing online forums is legal now.
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#23Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#24Trump refused to pardon Assange and Snowden. I suppose he has priorities. In 2021, presumably during SBF's (big Democrat donor) FTX scam, Trump thought that Bitcoin was a scam: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57392734 Now he is best friends with the "crypto", AI, and H1B bros.
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Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#25Absolute no brainer, he should be celebrated. Countless lives were saved via the harm reduction effect of a peer reviewed, reputation based platform. Of course if we had less draconian drug policy, it wouldn't be necessary but here we are.
He tried to hire multiple hitmen.
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#26I had no idea this was a campaign promise. Why? I don’t understand.
* Ulbricht's conviction became a cause célèbre in American libertarian circles.
* In May 2024, candidate Donald Trump said that if re-elected President, he would commute Ulbricht's sentence on his first day in office
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht
I doubt Trump cares about Ulbricht as much as he cares (for whatever reason) about the continued support of various American libertarians (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and various crypto elites).
While he has made many promises this is significant for being one that he has kept.
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#27I really wonder who benefits from this. Trump only does things that are good for him, or those close to him. I realize he's been making connections to the crypto world, and has his own meme coins. Does pardoning Ross somehow make crypto more valuable?
A video from Reason magazine a few days ago[0] mentioned a deal between the Libertarian Party leadership and Trump in which they selectively didn't run their candidate in several states in order to help Trump. If this is true, Trump could have reneged, but evidently decided whatever political blowback for pardoning Ulbricht (which is probably small potatoes at this rate) wasn't worth the credibility cost.
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#28I really wonder who benefits from this. Trump only does things that are good for him, or those close to him. I realize he's been making connections to the crypto world, and has his own meme coins. Does pardoning Ross somehow make crypto more valuable?
It’s also just good politics. There are a vocal group of voters that are in favor of this, so it gets those people on his side. And no reason not to (politically), as most people just don’t care about this topic, or if they do and disagree with the decision, this isn’t going to be the action that moves the needle for them on how they feel about Trump or the Republican Party.
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#29Wasn’t he in jail for hiring a contract killer? I’m all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract killing essentially. Also I’m not an apologist for the FBIs handling of this case either.
Some info from a previous thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33045520
Re: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
#30Without any snark, why? What's the motivation?
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