"Dread Pirate Roberts" can't be caught

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Whilst Ross Ulbricht was imprisoned for founding and maintaining the Silk Road darknet market, the threat he represents to the statist elite can't be defeated.

Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) writer Ryan Calhoun argued in a post on  that Ross Ulbricht, who allegedly used the shared pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, defied the US state and that his trial was based upon the fears of the ruling political elite rather than any crime committed by Ross himself. From Calhoun's emotive account:

By placing him in your torture chamber known colloquially as the U.S Prison System you have broadcast your hatred and your fear of what he represents to the world once more. “Here remains The Dread Pirate Roberts, Defiler of the Narrative of Necessity”. He may remain there for a time, but his story cannot. The truth cannot. There are no cages that can hold the truth and I will do whatever I can to spread it. Ross was not the first nor is he the last. The people have been striking out against this bogus fiction since it was first taught to them. You called them criminals. You called their actions violent and you call your own violence necessity.

In many cases, the rationale for banning websites and services has more to do with conserving power in the hands of the state and traditional economic elites rather than actually preventing social harms. Calhoun sees this as the case in the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht. The analysis is in agreement with many other antistatist writers, who regard the Silk Road as one in a long projected trend of web-borne rebellions against traditional state power.

Describing the US prison system as a "torture chamber", Calhoun stated that the life imprisonment of Ross Ulbricht is no less than a cynical death sentence against a bright and principled man whose only crime was threatening the ruling US mafia state's grasp on power.

Real reason for bans is always to conserve the 1%'s hold on #power + #wealth: Szymanski http://t.co/l0LuU1CH5I pic.twitter.com/T9aVZraytL

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) May 17, 2015

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Substances and sites get banned, why?

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The case for eliminating the criminalization of drug use isn't about being pro-drug, a Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) post argues.

Going beyond the stereotypes of the libertarian arguing that marijuana is a miracle cure and the conservative pundit striking back about the libertarian being "stoned", Joe Szymanski lends the opinion that drug users should seek rehab and that drug use is not a virtue. However, making such use a criminal offense is still absurd.

The reasoning given follows a strikingly similar path to the ethics of morphological freedom at the heart of the techno-liberation philosophy transhumanism, as well as the mainstream pro-choice position that a woman should be allowed to make the final decisions about her own body.

In his conclusion, Szymanski presents this same argument succinctly, and will bring a smile to any transhumanist reader: "The only authority that holds the right to regulate what someone decides to put or not put into their body is that very person; no other person or institution has that privilege."

While drugs can indeed be harmful, alcohol can be far more harmful and yet isn't illegal, and responsible adults are consistently given the right to be responsible for their own health in almost every domain except drugs. Szymanski, an antistatist, argues that the reason the state makes an exception for alcohol and medical drugs, refusing to outlaw them, is that they serve special interests of the wealthy whereas illegal drugs do not.

The @TranshumanParty has been making shockwaves in national #media #GE2015 http://t.co/IbBcNuicvx pic.twitter.com/yMNm0nVt0m

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) April 17, 2015

Indeed, the rationale of making something (including new and "disruptive" technologies) illegal due to adverse health or environmental effects tends to be oddly restricted only to possessions that endanger the elite's hold on power and wealth, and perhaps empower other entities that are no less arbitrary such as drug cartels or perceived criminal individuals like Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

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