22
Apr
2016
Outrageous Rulings in the Silk Road Trial
I have seen Lyn Ulbricht, Ross’ mom, give talks on how her son got railroaded in the “Silk Road” trial a few times. After the most recent one in San Antonio, I realized that a lot of libertarians probably aren’t aware of these details. Regardless of what you think about Silk Road, this is pretty jaw-dropping stuff. I think the 8-minute video below strikes the right compromise between details and your scarce time.
Oh to be a fly on the wall during that weekend “discussion” that took place.
It was almost surely an ex parte discussion with the judge along the lines of…
“your name is in the ledger”.
So who got a hold of the judge and what offer was made to her? For it is not just the court proceedings that appear corrupt but the sentence is obscene. I believe Ulbricht broke the law and deserved to be convicted and punished. But life without parole is an excessive punishment and I believe a violation of the 8th amendment. Since the Silk Road concept has been independently duplicated what is the government’s objective about throwing the book at Ulbricht? Just to show how powerful they are? OK, point proved. Was there ever any doubt about that?
The reason life without parole is excessive, is the same reason any punishment whatsoever is excessive.
The law is unjust.
“Just to show how powerful they are? OK, point proved. Was there ever any doubt about that?”
Actually there kind of was. Silk Road got loads of media attention for operating in open defiance of the feds for quite a long time. Very embarrassing for them. They need to throw the book at him, HARD, to send the message of “it may take us some time but we will find you and when we do, you will be destroyed.”
It may take us some time, but we will use commodity money, and when we do, you will be defunded.
I always accept with question what an interested party tells me about a legal proceeding. Or about an ex-husband or ex-wife.
(I understood you to mean “without question”.)
Oh, you mean interested parties such as activist judges?:
How stare decisis Subverts the Law
http://constitution.org/col/0610staredrift.htm
“One of the most important doctrines in Western law is that of stare decisis, a Latin term of art which means “to stand by decided cases; to uphold precedents; to maintain former adjudications”.[1] In modern jurisprudence, however, it has come to take on a life of its own, with all precedents being presumed to be well-founded, unbiased legal decisions, rather than political decisions, and presumed to have both the authority of the constitutional enactments on which they are based, plus that of the precedents on which they are based, so that later precedents are presumed to be more authoritative than earlier ones. …”
“… There is a fundamental logical problem with stare decisis as it is currently practiced, which is that it is a logically separate system of propositions that is independent of, and potentially inconsistent with, constitutional enactments.[3][4] One who takes an oath to uphold the written constitution is bound to ignore precedents in conflict with it, and to rest decisions strictly on propositions that are logically derived from constitutional enactments, considering precedents only where they sharpen ambiguities in the language of the written enactments. To treat precedents as superior to constitutional enactments is to introduce contradictions into the law, and in any system of logical propositions, acceptance of a single contradiction accepts all contradictions, rendering every proposition logically undecidable. Contrary to the view of some judges, the law must be logical, or it is not law.”
And remember this gem?:
Kagan thinks Government has the power to tell you how to eat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea5Zgrn5hsI
Government prosecutors lie with the best of them.