FWIW, I'm personally convinced Ulbricht is guilty. I bet he's going to get a retrial, but I'd bet on him going to jail anyway. Bitcoin angle aside, Ulbricht is just another crook. There is absolutely nothing special about him. He did what crooks do, he got caught like crooks get caught, he's going to jail like crooks go to jail.
Force and Bridges on the other hand are special. They are corrupt Lions, and they are the people who are supposed to be taking crooks down. Police corruption is not merely bad, it's WORSE than anything an ordinary crook can do. Those guys? I want them to rot in jail. Not just for stealing or extortion or bribe-taking or money laundering or all those other ordinary-crook kinds of things that they could and should do time for - although they deserve jail time for that too. But the horrible thing, the poisonous thing, the thing that absolutely cannot be tolerated in a nation that aspires to be free, is this: I want them to rot in jail for betrayal of the public trust.
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Interesting, because what Ulbricht did is against the law, you just throw him under the bus with all the other "criminals". Ross did what he did because the war on drugs was killing and hurting way more people than it helped (for starters). It was hurting the planet. It enriched the wrong people and governments, a tax on the poor. He sure wasn't living a kingpin lifestyle and a quick view at the life he lived showed he was a great guy by every account. So, he created a website which allowed people to freely trade whatever they wanted. Yeah, lots of it was drugs, lots of those were legal drugs without prescriptions (I hear).
To side with law because it is law, removes ones ability to think. And it is not such a crazy thing to say. The war on drugs is a HUGE failure and it was designed to be, it is a war against people and their consciousness. Cannabis looks to be going full legal over the next few years and our government is being forced to compassionately and rationally reconsider these archaic laws. The silk road brought down violence by all accounts. Silk Road(s) are not actually needed, but they are just speeding up the inevitable legalization of drugs, breaking the corrupt monopolies that certain... groups possess.
BTW - From every account, Ross sure is special in many peoples opinions. You can see it here, on Reddit, on podcasts, etc.
Its about sharing