Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

[Beliathon]

"Ross got life in prison, without parole for running a website which challenged the bankers' supremacy."

It didn't challenge bankers supremacy. Not in the same universe. And it also had murder for hire.  

"On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has indirectly caused millions of deaths in Bosnia, Serbia, Libya.etc and she is running for POTUS now.
If there is justice, then it should be applicable to everyone. You can't say that some people are very special, and the laws are not applicable to them. "

Justice for everyone means making the powerful accountable to justice not letting the less powerful do whatever they want. Politicians and bankers should be held accountable to the law and we need to take actions to make that the case. However, RU should be accountable too.  

And how do you propose that happens if the powerful control the entire system?
How do you take away their power over the system and the less powerful and judge them accordingly?

With glorious revolution of course, comrade!

"A lifetime of wealth and power have made you blind in one eye. We are the many, you are the few. And when the many stop fearing the few..."
-High Sparrow

[chesthing]

This has been bothering me all day, this case just shows the lengths the US gov will go to keep all us sheeps in line. They don't care about the drugs, that's just an excuse. What they are threatened by is the lack of control they had over Silk road. They couldn't make a buck out of it.

[MicroGuy]

This has been bothering me all day, this case just shows the lengths the US gov will go to keep all us sheeps in line. They don't care about the drugs, that's just an excuse. What they are threatened by is the lack of control they had over Silk road. They couldn't make a buck out of it.

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

The government often oversteps its bounds, but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

[BADecker]

The Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht are not the thing that government and the media make them out to be. Perhaps government doesn't completely lie, but its focus is so skewed that it might as well be lying.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/deep-web-silk-road-alex-winter/



EDIT: If you ever want freedom from the stupid, picky things that people use government to do to you, you better fight government in this case. It might be late, but we can still set Ross - and ourselves, thereby - free.

[jubalix]

im so glad im not in the US, its insane there.

RU provided a serivce, how can he be blamed, for some kid choosing to take the drug or any other person, where is the personal responsibility?

the whole war on drugs is stupid beyond reason.

I don't disagree that the war on drugs is stupid and utterly futile, but Ross is still a criminal in the eyes of the law with money laundering and facilitating the sale of drugs... and then of course the hits he tried to put out on people. I would have had some respect and sympathy for him and supported his freedom had that not happened.

We can all agree that his sentence was by far too hard for a website owner..  as if hes a drug cartel who personally killed people and distributed drugs..  in that case, we can also convict the us gov for printing the money allowing people to buy guns and drugs..

That's not the same. The money wasn't created to explicitly buy illegal things but this market was. And just because he didn't personally kill anyone doesn't mean anything. Hiring someone to do the job is just as bad as the intention is the same. Had he not done that I'd have a totally different opinion of his but I think he certainly acted like a drug kingpin as the power of being one obviously went to his head.

We can simple say the he searched the prison, you can't think to make illegal things for a long time and not be arrested... maybe if you know what you are doing (you can continue for a long time) but it seems that this is not the case.

Yes, it is not a shame... if you make illegal things you will be mostly imprisoned... we are not in an anarchy  .

We live in an anarchy of the bankers/rentseekers/those with/big government, your just not allowed to partake of that anarchy. So you get the worst of both worlds.

[chesthing]

This has been bothering me all day, this case just shows the lengths the US gov will go to keep all us sheeps in line. They don't care about the drugs, that's just an excuse. What they are threatened by is the lack of control they had over Silk road. They couldn't make a buck out of it.

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

The government often oversteps its bounds, but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

Gullible much?

[Beliathon]

We live in an anarchy of the bankers/rentseekers/those with/big government

What we have is called a neo-fascist polyglot oligarchy, not anarchy (without rulers).

[mishax1]

This has been bothering me all day, this case just shows the lengths the US gov will go to keep all us sheeps in line. They don't care about the drugs, that's just an excuse. What they are threatened by is the lack of control they had over Silk road. They couldn't make a buck out of it.

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

The government often oversteps its bounds, but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

If you go to the store, buy a knife and stab yourself to death, is that the stores fault ?    Just wondering, how your logic works..

[btcxyzzz]

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

The government often oversteps its bounds, but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

Ross Ulbricht forced no one to do anything, and you're classic example of sheeple. Actually, his site brang nothing but quality in free market.

[bryant.coleman]

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

Do you have any solid evidence to prove that he attempted to kill people, other than the pathetic arguments framed up by the cops? This can happen to anyone. Just remember that even you yourself are not safe. Ross Ullbricht was targeted, just because he dared to oppose the big three (drug cartels, pharma cartels, and banking cartels).

[Kprawn]

Conspiracy to commit murder? He can be glad it was not the death penalty.  

Most of the people in my country only serve about 50% of any sentence ....Even lifer's do only 50% and then they go out.

The thing is... and my figures might be old.. It costs about +/- $115 per inmate per day for the tax payer to keep him locked up.

If he did 20 years, this will amount to roughly $1 000 000 to keep him locked up. {So the taxpayer suffer a second time}

Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

 *Data old, and future increase not taken into consideration....

[bryant.coleman]

If he did 20 years, this will amount to roughly $1 000 000 to keep him locked up. {So the taxpayer suffer a second time}

Prison industry is actually quite a large-scale business in the United States. In the rural US (especially in the Southern states such as Texas and Louisiana), entire communities sometimes depend upon the prison business. And this might be one of the reasons why the prison population in the US (at around 2,500,000 inmates) is the largest in the world.

[jubalix]

We live in an anarchy of the bankers/rentseekers/those with/big government

What we have is called a neo-fascist polyglot oligarchy, not anarchy (without rulers).

by anarchy  I mean they get to live and do as they want without rules we do not....excepting for BTC tech which is probably the first thing beyond their control.

By BTC tech i mean BTC and the 1000+ more coins ready and waiting to take over even if you did take out BTC

[jmurjeff]

This has been bothering me all day, this case just shows the lengths the US gov will go to keep all us sheeps in line. They don't care about the drugs, that's just an excuse. What they are threatened by is the lack of control they had over Silk road. They couldn't make a buck out of it.

Actually, the guy tried to have people killed and children died buying drugs from his website.

The government often oversteps its bounds, but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

Do you know how many people die from prescription drugs? People who want drugs are going to get drugs. The punishment did not fit the crime. There were many people who have done far worse and barely served any jail time. Look at the cash for kids scandal. If anything these judges should have got life. Should have stacked everything and ran it consecutively.

[forevernoob]

Even if he did commit all those horrible crimes people say he did he should at least get the chance of parole.
Otherwise what's the point of the criminal justice system? Isn't it called correctional facility and not storage facility?

If he never gets a chance to get out of there is no need to "correct" him.

It's hard to say what punishment he deserves if it's really true that he tried to murder 6 people.
But he should at least be given the chance to explain himself to a parole board.

[AGD]

In the end he knew about the strict drug laws in the US and he still broke it. It doesn't matter how musch people think this is unfair. You don't even need to know the law of your country to still be responsible when breaking it. If you spend your holidays in a country, where you get jail for "public kissing", it doesn't help saying you didn't know. Ross is an intelligent guy. He can't tell the people, that this was an "economic experiment", when in fact he was simply earning commission from illegal goods, just like Pablo Escobar  and all the other leaders of drug empires. Even worse, he didn't organise his business eye to eye, but everything with the anonimity of the internet. Simply write some lines and somebody gets killed! It's as easy as that. No more meetings with shady killers and handing over big money in a paperbag. He might have been a nice guy once, but based on the presented evidence it looks like he has changed a lot into a mercyless drug lord.

[WhatTheGox]

In the end he knew about the strict drug laws in the US and he still broke it. It doesn't matter how musch people think this is unfair. You don't even need to know the law of your country to still be responsible when breaking it. If you spend your holidays in a country, where you get jail for "public kissing", it doesn't help saying you didn't know. Ross is an intelligent guy. He can't tell the people, that this was an "economic experiment", when in fact he was simply earning commission from illegal goods, just like Pablo Escobar  and all the other leaders of drug empires. Even worse, he didn't organise his business eye to eye, but everything with the anonimity of the internet. Simply write some lines and somebody gets killed! It's as easy as that. No more meetings with shady killers and handing over big money in a paperbag. He might have been a nice guy once, but based on the presented evidence it looks like he has changed a lot into a mercyless drug lord.

You have some decent points and some not so decent imo.

I know for sure i wont be spending my life supporting/keeping track of the BS laws the centralized govs make up.  If we all follow the laws to the letter and never push boundaries things would get even worse for the average man in society.  The more controlled we are the better it is for elites so the goal posts just shift inward if we all good boys and girls.   Its not really about morality & it should be.

I'm not sure they used any charges of hire murders vs Ross in the case so we dont know anything conclusive there do we?

A just system wouldn't be putting him in a maximum security prison for life.  What a waste of tax money and waste of an intelligent forward thinking human.  Give him community service im sure we could use his insight.

[Balls]

In the end he knew about the strict drug laws in the US and he still broke it. It doesn't matter how musch people think this is unfair. You don't even need to know the law of your country to still be responsible when breaking it. If you spend your holidays in a country, where you get jail for "public kissing", it doesn't help saying you didn't know. Ross is an intelligent guy. He can't tell the people, that this was an "economic experiment", when in fact he was simply earning commission from illegal goods, just like Pablo Escobar  and all the other leaders of drug empires. Even worse, he didn't organise his business eye to eye, but everything with the anonimity of the internet. Simply write some lines and somebody gets killed! It's as easy as that. No more meetings with shady killers and handing over big money in a paperbag. He might have been a nice guy once, but based on the presented evidence it looks like he has changed a lot into a mercyless drug lord.

I think you can argue it was an economic experiment as it was the first of its kind, but that doesn't mean it wasn't highly illegal. Maybe SR and the markets that follow will pave the way for drug reform or a change in the laws or at least decentralized markets which LE will have a very tricky time trying to police given their nature. I think Ross was silly to have been a resident in the states whilst running it. He seemed to travel a lot so he should have just holed up in some far away country and operated it from there  and they would have had a very difficult time trying to arrest him then.

[WhatTheGox]

In the end he knew about the strict drug laws in the US and he still broke it. It doesn't matter how musch people think this is unfair. You don't even need to know the law of your country to still be responsible when breaking it. If you spend your holidays in a country, where you get jail for "public kissing", it doesn't help saying you didn't know. Ross is an intelligent guy. He can't tell the people, that this was an "economic experiment", when in fact he was simply earning commission from illegal goods, just like Pablo Escobar  and all the other leaders of drug empires. Even worse, he didn't organise his business eye to eye, but everything with the anonimity of the internet. Simply write some lines and somebody gets killed! It's as easy as that. No more meetings with shady killers and handing over big money in a paperbag. He might have been a nice guy once, but based on the presented evidence it looks like he has changed a lot into a mercyless drug lord.

I think you can argue it was an economic experiment as it was the first of its kind, but that doesn't mean it wasn't highly illegal. Maybe SR and the markets that follow will pave the way for drug reform or a change in the laws or at least decentralized markets which LE will have a very tricky time trying to police given their nature. I think Ross was silly to have been a resident in the states whilst running it. He seemed to travel a lot so he should have just holed up in some far away country and operated it from there  and they would have had a very difficult time trying to arrest him then.

We need philosophers consulted to make judgements of his fate, its a very tricky situation for society to make sense of.  Laws should be in place to protect morality only.

[Balls]

Everyone knows what he did was wrong in the eyes of the law and he profited substantially from it without paying taxes on earnings, but you can argue that selling drugs and also taxes are not immoral or you shouldn't have to pay them any way, but I could have respected him and what he created had he not tried to have people murdered as they made me lose all respect for him. Sadly I think the position he was in as the anonymous and mysterious DPR corrupted his vision and beliefs and he got lost in a world that he was never really cut out for or should have been a part of.