Ross Ulbricht: Implications for the Future of Freedom in America

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International Man: In 2011, Ross Ulbricht founded the website Silk Road.

It was a cleverly designed online marketplace that leveraged decentralized technologies like Tor and Bitcoin to establish an anonymous and completely free market without government interference.

Much to the chagrin of politicians like Chuck Schumer, the Silk Road operated openly and successfully for about two and a half years.

Eventually, the government managed to identify Ross, arrest him, and shut down the Silk Road.

What’s your perspective on the concept of the Silk Road and the government’s response to it?

Doug Casey: This is a question that touches a lot of bases. It has roots in the drug war.

My view is that drugs should generally be avoided because they typically cloud your mind and obscure your understanding of reality. But it’s entirely up to the individual, a matter of personal responsibility and personal preference. It’s certainly not the business of the notoriously corrupt DEA, which should be abolished.

The government and its employees have learned absolutely nothing from their prohibition of alcohol from 1919 to 1933. Prohibition turned drinking from a social custom where some individuals overindulged into a “crime” that destroyed tens of thousands of businesses and millions of lives and tore a hole in the fabric of society. It fostered wholesale violence and serious police corruption while supplying the Mafia and other criminal organizations with a huge and consistent source of funds.

Today’s illegal drugs are exactly analogous to the Prohibition of alcohol 100 years ago. Making drugs illegal causes vastly more damage than any possible good.

In a free society, you should be able to buy and sell whatever you’d like freely. That includes not just drugs but weapons, literature, plants, animals, or what-have-you. We all understand that some things are dangerous, including matches and kitchen knives. If you damage another person or his property, you’re liable. That’s the only practical and moral way to encourage people to be competent and responsible—end of story. We can talk about the myriads of straw man arguments against that view another time.

I was all for Silk Road when it existed. It was an Amazon for things that were illegal or that various busybodies considered socially objectionable. Silk Road was a good thing, enabling peaceful commerce between consenting adults. Violence—which is always an element when the DEA or similar government agencies are involved—was never an issue with Silk Road.

International Man: The government charged Ross with participating in a continuing criminal enterprise, a narcotics conspiracy, and a conspiracy to commit money laundering, among other offenses.

Despite being a non-violent, first-time offender, Ross was convicted and handed a double life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Judge Katherine Forrest implied that Ross’ alleged “privilege” influenced her decision to impose a much harsher sentence than she might have given to a “drug dealer from the Bronx.”

What are your thoughts on Ross’ sentence?

Doug Casey: First, we ought to define the word “crime”. A crime is best defined as the use of force or fraud against another person or his property. By that definition, Ross was in no way guilty of a crime.

He was only guilty of violating an arbitrary political law. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his excellent 2011 book “Three Felonies a Day,” it’s almost impossible to live in the US today without violating lots of laws, unknowingly.

It’s said—stupidly—that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. That was once true when laws were largely modest extrapolations of Maybury’s two great laws: “Do all that you say you’ll do” and “Don’t infringe on another’s person or property.” But we increasingly live in a world like that of Lavrenti Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, who once assured Comrade Stalin: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Silk Road epitomized the paradoxical term “victimless crime.” Nobody was hurt by what they were doing. In a free society, victimless crimes would not exist. And the sentence for committing real crimes, such as murder or theft, would start with making the victim whole—not arbitrarily punishing the offender. Offenders should first restore (to the greatest degree possible) the damage they did, with interest and the cost of his capture. Prison sentences would largely be for the ultra-violent. For a full explication of this line of thought, I urge you to download a superb short book, “The Market for Liberty” (link). It crystallized my thinking, as well as that of Javier Milei, who’s transforming Argentina.

The whole criminal system today is corrupt and inept. In a just free market society, things would be quite different for someone accused of a crime. Instead of being tried by some judge under arbitrary laws, both sides would mutually agree on an arbitration panel. Arbitrators necessarily have to compete on their fairness and low cost, unlike politically installed judges, including the vicious woman who sentenced Ross.

International Man: After exhausting every avenue of appeal, Ross’ only chance of leaving prison alive was a presidential pardon.

During a speech last year at the Libertarian National Convention, Trump promised to pardon Ross if he became president.

What do you make of Trump courting libertarians?

Doug Casey: As I’ve said many times before, Trump has no philosophical center, no real personal philosophy. He flies by the seat of his pants. But many of his instincts are quite good, especially now, after he’s suffered at the hands of the Jacobin State. He’s light on principles, but he’s a cultural conservative who wants to keep most of what made America unique. I think he’s righteously angry, and intends to clean house. And he won’t take any prisoners.

This episode with Ross brought him into contact with lots of libertarians. I think it’s had an effect on him and made him aware of libertarian values because he, too, was unjustly convicted. I suspect he’s become libertarian-adjacent in a number of ways. Not just because libertarians and Austrians gave him moral and practical arguments for low taxes, deregulation, and free speech. But because Argentina’s Javier Milei, an avowed anarcho-capitalist, has become a close ally. It’s bound to influence his thinking and those around him.

Trump is far from a libertarian, but the horrible injustice that Ross suffered may yet prove to be a cloud with a silver lining.

International Man: After Trump was elected and sworn in as President, he fulfilled his promise by granting Ross a full and unconditional pardon.

Trump issued the following statement after granting the pardon:

What are your thoughts on Trump following through on his promise and this statement?

Doug Casey: This is a fantastic and wonderful statement on Trump’s part. I would specially draw the reader’s attention to the words “scum,” “lunatics,” and “ridiculous.” These are keywords. It shows that Trump truly hates the Jacobins who’ve controlled the government for so long, and he hates them on a visceral level.

One of Trump’s virtues is that he’s loyal and likes to support people who support him. The other side of that coin is that he will definitely seek retribution against his enemies.

Now, in the case of the Jacobins, who have committed so many crimes, like incarcerating Ross, I feel reasonably confident he’s going to try to root them out. That’s excellent. Sometimes imposing justice can also be retribution. We see it all the time in Western movies, and it’s one reason we love them.

But there’s a serious problem. He’ll essentially be ruling by executive order because, as concrete-bound and dysfunctional as Congress is, it’s about the only way he can break the back of Wokism. He’s a man on a mission.

Unfortunately, the Constitution has long been just a chimera and a dead letter. We’re seeing a replay of the collapse of the Roman Republic, followed by the institution of the Principate. After the death of Julius Caesar and a civil war, Augustus kept the trappings and appearances of the old Republic, but the reality was a veritable dictatorship.

And, again, unfortunately, the sword cuts both ways. My view is that after the financial markets and the economy collapse in the next four years, the public will likely blame it on Trump’s reforms. They’re fickle and will look for a savior. That’ll be some leftist who will promise to kiss it all and make it better. Perhaps by offering three hots, a cot, and free internet for the “unhoused.”

My guess is we’ll get a left-wing general since the military is the last government institution that still has some trust from the public. The shoe will then be on the other foot and, courtesy of Trump, ruling by executive order will have become a kind of SOP. Morning in America, as mornings do, will only have lasted 6 hours.

Although many things Trump is doing are excellent and necessary, the way he’s doing it is very dangerous. As ancient Rome devolved from a republic to a dictatorship, it became worse and worse over time. The same thing is happening in the US, with the extensive use of executive orders.

I genuinely hope I’m wrong, though. A real renaissance is always possible. However unlikely.

International Man: What does Ross Ulbricht’s story reveal about the future of freedom in the US?

Doug Casey: I’d like to think that the eviction of the Jacobins means that we’ve turned over a new leaf and that it’s morning in America. But I think it’s more likely that this is just an uptick in a long-established downtrend.

As far as Ross is concerned, I met his mother, Lynn, at a FreedomFest in Las Vegas. She’s genuinely heroic. The calls I made to various political people I knew in Washington, DC, were, predictably, completely futile. All anybody could do was sign a petition. The bright side is that 600,000 people did.

The dark side is that it is only two-tenths of one percent of Americans. Proof of how degraded what’s left of the Republic has become.

Ross’s case appeared hopeless. It shows that if you’re seriously caught up in “the system,” you might as well repeat the words inscribed at the entrance to hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Relinquish all hope ye who enter here.”

The fact that Ross is a decent person and that the laws were unjust meant absolutely nothing. We’re just lucky the criminal Jacobin Party lost and Trump was actually inaugurated. But it ain’t over till it’s over… It will likely evolve like one of those horror movies with Freddie Kruger or Jason.

The Babylon Bee was right when they joked that although Ross has been released from prison, he’s been sentenced to doing hundreds of podcasts for the next 20 years. I expect he’ll be on the one Matt Smith and I do soon.

Reprinted with permission from International Man,

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