alt Hacker NewsActual murderers get out in the time that Ross served.
The concept of justice must include an element of proportionality, I would argue that Ross's sentence, for a first time non-violent criminal, was over the top. Without proportionality justice becomes arbitrary, based more on luck and your connections to power.
We punish those we can punish: the little guy. Whilst those running governments, corporations and networks that facilitate repression, hatred and genocide go scot free.
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If a Mafia boss never strong armed a merchant, never busted any kneecaps, and never pulled a trigger but simply paid other people to carry out various crimes, should the law give him a short sentence because he was non-violent?
I don't know what the appropriate sentence for Ulbrecht, but I think your claims about proportionality are missing the fact he didn't just direct commit a few crimes, such as trying (unsuccessfully) to hire a hitman, but he facilitated hundreds of thousands of crimes. Maybe you think selling drugs and guns to randos should not be illegal, but that is a separate question of whether or not he broke the laws as written.
As for your last point, I don't disagree that the wealthy/powerful/connected live under a different justice system than everyone else.
"Actual murderers get out in less than a decade" is a reason to put actual murderers in prison forever, not to let everyone else out even sooner.
Wasn't silk road selling way more than just drugs ? Like, pornography and gun, worldwide. When you facilitate both sex trafficking, organized crime and potentially terrorism you can't exactly be surprised you get hit with everything.
I once noticed (in the UK) that two people who I read news stories about in the same week got similar sentences. One for breach of copyright, one for sexually assaulting a teenager.
That said, I think Ross did knowingly enable violence?
Yeah, but in that case, we should pardon all people convicted of drug possession or distribution, not specifically Ross.
We punish people all the time for non-violent, white-collar crime; often very severely. Bernie Madoff got sent to prison for 150 years and died there and, as far as I know, he never solicited a murder for hire.