Wednesday, December 27, 2017

A Follow-Up On a Trump Pardon for Ross Ulbricht

Paul Grant emails:

Just read your December 26 article about Ross Ulbricht and thank you for writing it.

It would be fantastic if Trump would find a reason (or excuse) to pardon Ross or to commute his sentence.

I haven't read your "The Fed Flunks" book but I will.

It reads like you have been keeping pretty well informed on the progress of Ross' case.  Thanks for being concerned.

Far too many libertarians have naively thought they should directly challenge the state and many have paid a terrible price.  I have been watching that all of my adult life.

Ross is a good man who deserves to be free.  He is a brilliant and kind young man who will help make this a better world if he is free.

Paul Grant
(I represent Ross in some post-conviction matters)

1 comment:

  1. "Far too many libertarians have naively thought they should directly challenge the state and many have paid a terrible price. I have been watching that all of my adult life."

    Totally agree.

    I think a lot of libertarians (eg. Adam Kokesh) think the "movement" will jump to their defense when they get into hot water. The problem is, for someone to essentially risk their actual or free life is a massive cost for close to zero perceived benefit. That makes it very difficult for a mass-defense to form.

    I think this is a fundamental problem for a Private-Property Society (PPS) to overcome that does not have an obvious solution. For literally millenia, people have shown they will band together to take things from other individuals or groups of people. This is historically well established. A PPS would have to be able to defend against this, and the "group" incentives are not there. If they were, there would be a PPS today as many people desire it.

    I believe personal defense technology has to improve to allow a PPS to evolve into reality.

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