I'm simultaneously conservative and liberal on drugs. What is certainly true is that the issue is far more complex than the media, Ulbricht's supporters and everyone in between make it out to be. However, I'm definitely worried about the practical side of this result. Silk Road was in a utilitarian way probably a good thing, because ... drugs will out. Removing the human element from the selling is a start. I'm glad Ulbricht is going to jail, because it turns out that he was a fucked up semi-sociopath. But the corresponding indictment of the online drug trade is scary. I don't think most drugs should be legal or particularly accessible, but Silk Road was a step up on the status quo. This case represents the sort of shortsighted attitude that makes Erowid persona non grata for significant funding and recognition.
in the end Ulbricht went to jail for the wrong reasons, maybe because the hit man situation blew over and I missed it, or maybe because of some legalistic thing. Oh well.
You really hit the nail on the head. It's a bit naive to think that darknets end drug violence on anything more than a street dealer level. They're still going through most of the fucked up cartel channels after all, just a little detour at the end. It's a step in the right direction for sure. And you'll never destroy Silk Road like you'll never destroy Napster. I think it's simple. Illegal drugs and hitmen? That's the CIA's job. They don't like competition. I'm not a crackpot I'm just saying the industries currently in legal control of these commodities will do whatever they can to stop thugs (let's face it the guy's a thug) from changing the status quo.
I was just thinking about the hitman thing. What happened with that? I assume something to do with the corrupt investigators? There were too many stories for me to follow throughout this entire shitstorm.
Dude guys it was thrown out because he was basically framed for the hit man thing. One undercover cop pretended to be a hit man and another undercover cop was the guy Ross said to kill. There was no real attempt at murder there. There's all sora of ethics violations that the undercover cops involved in the investigation committed. In a typical demonstration of our justice system those homicide counts were really mostly thrown on in an attempt to discredit him in the eyes of the public and the media and make it easier to ensure he got time for the actual 'crimes' he committed - law enforcement always loads up on charges for indictments because it gives them a better position at the bargaining table and in court.
Ouch. I understand the charges. I understand how the system works. I understand that he was most certainly guilty of the charges. But I still can't help feeling like being in prison for the rest of your life for running a (illegal, drug filled website) sucks and doesn't seem fair. I mean people kill other people with their own hands and don't get that much time. Maybe I'm just empathetic because I feel like I understand his mindset. He was doing a thing that he didn't connect to his actual self. It was a thing, an experiment, an action that he never figured he would do forever. Now his life is over. I suppose you could say the same thing about some rapists or murderers but. I don't know. I feel for the guy. For the record, I also have empathy for white collar criminals who end up getting 1000 years. There are so many ridiculous cases. Ugh.
I feel like anyone is caught selling drugs and/or with money in the quantities that this guys was attributed to drugs would go to jail for this long. They probably dropped the murder charge because they already had him for life on a plethora of other charges and don't feel this one was worth pressing, maybe due to the fact that both parties hit man/hit were undercovers. A hazard of doing business like this is possible jail time, if he actually tried to have someone killed he more than deserves what he got. He's like a mafia don that thinks by having other people do his shit work, he stays clean. Thanks to laws like conspiracy and intent though, this isn't the case.