If Ulbricht is guilty for providing a safe place to buy illegal drugs then aren't San Francisco and other cities complicit since they hand out clean needles freely for addicts to use? Sure the idea behind it is noble but aren't both still technically illegal whether you supply the paraphernalia and you absolutely know what will be done with it or whether you provide a safe environment where people can trade $ for drugs?
The problem becomes when the laws are structured to favor certain entities or when the laws purposely aren't changed because they're a very useful financial tool for 3-letter agencies.
Noone is being favored here. Silk road would not have been shut down had it been selling needles.
Likewise, whoever sells illegal drugs, delivers drugs, or knowingly fascilitates either of those things is held accountable.
Two disclaimers:
1. Not all favoring is inherently evil. Eg. favoring based on objective criteria.
2. Not all things that are legal are morally justified. Eg. abortion.
You seem to like the word "facilitate" as you used it in both your replies to my post. If I were to ask you if it is easier to mail vacuum-sealed drugs across the U.S. or to drive them there yourself then what would you say? Mailing is obviously easier. Therefore I could say that UPS/FedEx/USPS facilitate the sale of drugs. They most certainly know they do it as well as it is common knowledge and drugs have been successfully mailed for years. They also take actions to try to prevent it though. Is that where the difference lies?
Silk Road doesn't engage in drug trafficking as it does NOT: cultivate, manufacture, transport, deliver, distribute or sell drugs. Those actions are solely up to the sellers.
SR is a marketplace.
The postal services are excused by the same logic that manufacturers of knives are from their misuse.
On SR, however, the contents of each advertized item are public knowledge. SR is therefore accountable.
If the postal service knew any particular package carried contraband, they too would be obliged not to deliver it, and to report it.
