641–650 of 1001 posts
What’s the overall take of HN here? Was the government overstepping? Is everyone supporting this undoing of his sentence? Are we generally pro free drug trade? Or are we more anti-FBI?
Government wasn’t overstepping, facilitating bad stuff on such scale has to be taken down with big consequences.
There is no „I was just running a site and people used it for bad stuff” he had all intentions and he profited from it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish instead of criminalizing addiction we'd fund harm reduction centers and rehabilitation services. I would much rather the police be focused on stopping violent crime rather than these victimless crimes. Legitimizing drugs/prostitution makes is easier to regulate and ultimately make safer. Shoving this stuff into a black/gray market is what ultimately creates violent crime.
no victim means no crime. victimless "crimes" are just 'arbitrary rule' violations (like going 56mph in a 55mph zone) or infractions. the twisting and distortion of language by the state is counterproductive to society.
If you feel entitled to redefine the word "crime", that is.
We need pardon reform. I’d argue the President should not be allowed to issue pardons that are: (1) Preëmptive ( i.e. absent conviction); (2) To himself, his current or former Cabinet members, or to any of the foregoing’s current or former spouses or children or grandchildren (or their spouses); or (3) Issued after the presidential election in the final year of their term. Furthermore, pardons for violent offences or…
I think this is necessary class of pardons. A hypothetical example of a good preemptive pardon would be Congress repealing an unjust law, and the president pardoning anybody who broke that law before the repeal.
>(2) To himself, his current or former Cabinet members, or to any of the foregoing’s current or former spouses or children or grandchildren (or their spouses)
Agree on not pardoning himself or cabinet members. Maybe could extend that to include all political appointees. Politicians shouldn't enjoy special privileges like these. But I'm less convinced about preventing family pardons. Those people (generally) aren't politicians. And, if they plan to abuse the president's pardon to commit crimes, they'd either be asking after the crime and risking the president refusing, or asking before and leaving the president open to conspiracy charges.
>(3) Issued after the presidential election in the final year of their term.
I've grown too cynical about the voters to believe this would matter. Most people don't follow politics closely enough to know who's been pardoned, what they did, and any political/personal connections they had with the president.
If I may suggest a limitation, how about allowing the House or Senate to veto a pardon with a 2/3 majority?
Tangentially related: I had the disconcerting experience of reading a Wired article about his arrest[1] while unknowingly sitting about six feet from the spot where he was apprehended. When I read that the FBI agents had stopped at Bello Coffee while preparing their stakeout, I thought, huh, interesting coincidence, I just had a coffee there. Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table dire…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Madoff got 150 years for non-violent charges (and he didn't even try to have anyone killed). Died in prison.
Madoff stole $20-35B, but by some measures a human life is only worth $10M. I am not really asserting those figures are comparable, just that Madoff stole a lot of money.
I am happy to see that Trump is a man of his word. I voted for him just because of this campaign promise. I would have voted for almost anyone who promised this.
LOL. You're a conservative Christian[1] who thinks climate change is a hoax[2].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29187368
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&query=author:macinjosh+...
I think his original sentence was absolutely deserved—even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped, I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein. Even if you support his original pursuit of a free and open online marketplace, I think most people would agree he took it a bridge too far in the end. That said, I do think he absolutely deserved…
"he took it a bridge too far" is a massive trivialization. The guy operated a marketplace for illegal goods in order to enrich himself. The illegality wasn't just incidental, it was literally his business model -- by flouting the law, he enjoyed massive market benefit (minimal competition, lack of regulation, high margins etc) by exploiting the arbitrage that the rest of us follow the rules. Said a different way, he…
Your argument is not an argument for incarceration, it is an argument for abolition of prohibition and regulating the sales of some psychoactives.
The same stone would hit the fentanyl epidemic, it would hit the pushers of ”zombie drug” laced cocktails, it would hit cross-border trafficking, to name only a few. Society would massively benefit. So would the economy.
Well, I think that justice has been served. The feds' prosecution of Ulbricht was the epitome of throwing the book at someone to make an example, when the government's case was pretty flawed, in my opinion. 10 years is enough time to pay the debt of running the silk road. I am glad that Ulbricht has been pardoned and I feel like a small iota of justice has been returned to the world with this action.
wasn't there evidence of hiring a hitman to commit a murder in furtherance of the Silk Road? that's not part of "the debt of running the silk road"
Someone might have already pointed it out but for me, the sentence of RA is not the main issue, the issue is allowing a single person to stamp through an entire legal system and undermine all of the time and money that is invested in it, even if that person is a president. I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve but if it is used more than a few times by a President, it makes a mockery of it…
Tangentially related: I had the disconcerting experience of reading a Wired article about his arrest[1] while unknowingly sitting about six feet from the spot where he was apprehended. When I read that the FBI agents had stopped at Bello Coffee while preparing their stakeout, I thought, huh, interesting coincidence, I just had a coffee there. Then Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table dire…
Regarding your edit. The first paragraph kind of lines up with you reading about it. But the second one is kind of confusing, and I think it's because "then" can mean two different things here. You meant "at the time of his arrest". If you casually read it without cross referencing the first paragraphs context, you might think it means "as I was sitting there". And there's nothing in the following sentences that corr…