The other day on Facebook, I saw this touching letter
from Ross Ulbricht @rossulbricht to Jeff Berwick @dollarvigilante:
I was really moved by Ross's letter,
and left this comment on Jeff's post.
(I apologize for not, for the life of me, being able to figure out the formatting to reduce the font size! I truly don't mean to yell. Please imagine all of the following words spoken in a calm, soothing voice. Because the reality itself, screams.)
For a long time, I've wanted to give public thanks to Ross, and his crusading mom, Lyn.
HIS LIFE HAS BEEN SACRIFICED -- TWICE! -- while many of us "on the outside," enjoy the liberties all adults should be granted, without hindrance or interference.
In a recent Steemit post, Lyn cautions of our threatened privacy rights, and opens with:
"My son, Ross Ulbricht, received two life sentences for non-violent charges associated with his alleged role in the Silk Road website."
The hyper-excessive sentencing heaped upon Ross is proportionate not to the "crime" he committed, but to just how formidable agencies recognize this SUBVERSIVE TECHNOLOGY to be.
Look how many of 'em came together to gang up on him!
Why can't they coordinate their efforts to figure out the riddle to why our top three leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer and pharmaceuticals) are all lifestyle induced?
Why are we living socially-engineered lives that oppose our very own well-being, while a brilliant digital abolitionist gets his life stolen, twice?
Up, has become down. Down, has become up.
Meanwhile, Silk Road put power + medicine in my hands, and thousands of others.
Well before Illinois rolled out its highly restricted medical marijuana program, I had stumbled on a way AROUND their disinformed tyranny.
That. Was. And. Is. EMPOWERING.
And the fact that this man's innate rights have, in turn, been so deeply violated, breaks my heart.
He deserves a Nobel Prize for technological innovation, not a double life-sentence.
Learn more at freeross.org
Upvote. Resteem. Follow Me.
from Ross Ulbricht @rossulbricht to Jeff Berwick @dollarvigilante:
I was really moved by Ross's letter,
and left this comment on Jeff's post.
(I apologize for not, for the life of me, being able to figure out the formatting to reduce the font size! I truly don't mean to yell. Please imagine all of the following words spoken in a calm, soothing voice. Because the reality itself, screams.)
For a long time, I've wanted to give public thanks to Ross, and his crusading mom, Lyn.
HIS LIFE HAS BEEN SACRIFICED -- TWICE! -- while many of us "on the outside," enjoy the liberties all adults should be granted, without hindrance or interference.
In a recent Steemit post, Lyn cautions of our threatened privacy rights, and opens with:
"My son, Ross Ulbricht, received two life sentences for non-violent charges associated with his alleged role in the Silk Road website."
The hyper-excessive sentencing heaped upon Ross is proportionate not to the "crime" he committed, but to just how formidable agencies recognize this SUBVERSIVE TECHNOLOGY to be.
Look how many of 'em came together to gang up on him!
Why can't they coordinate their efforts to figure out the riddle to why our top three leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer and pharmaceuticals) are all lifestyle induced?
Why are we living socially-engineered lives that oppose our very own well-being, while a brilliant digital abolitionist gets his life stolen, twice?
Up, has become down. Down, has become up.
Meanwhile, Silk Road put power + medicine in my hands, and thousands of others.
Well before Illinois rolled out its highly restricted medical marijuana program, I had stumbled on a way AROUND their disinformed tyranny.
That. Was. And. Is. EMPOWERING.
And the fact that this man's innate rights have, in turn, been so deeply violated, breaks my heart.
He deserves a Nobel Prize for technological innovation, not a double life-sentence.
Learn more at freeross.org
Upvote. Resteem. Follow Me.
and left this comment on Jeff's post.
(I apologize for not, for the life of me, being able to figure out the formatting to reduce the font size! I truly don't mean to yell. Please imagine all of the following words spoken in a calm, soothing voice. Because the reality itself, screams.)
For a long time, I've wanted to give public thanks to Ross, and his crusading mom, Lyn.
HIS LIFE HAS BEEN SACRIFICED -- TWICE! -- while many of us "on the outside," enjoy the liberties all adults should be granted, without hindrance or interference.
In a recent Steemit post, Lyn cautions of our threatened privacy rights, and opens with:
"My son, Ross Ulbricht, received two life sentences for non-violent charges associated with his alleged role in the Silk Road website."
The hyper-excessive sentencing heaped upon Ross is proportionate not to the "crime" he committed, but to just how formidable agencies recognize this SUBVERSIVE TECHNOLOGY to be.
Look how many of 'em came together to gang up on him!
Why can't they coordinate their efforts to figure out the riddle to why our top three leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer and pharmaceuticals) are all lifestyle induced?
Why are we living socially-engineered lives that oppose our very own well-being, while a brilliant digital abolitionist gets his life stolen, twice?
Up, has become down. Down, has become up.
And the fact that this man's innate rights have, in turn, been so deeply violated, breaks my heart.
He deserves a Nobel Prize for technological innovation, not a double life-sentence.
Learn more at freeross.org
Thankyou Erika, you are an inspiration.
You can make all the friends you need right here, so you don't need the silk no mo..
Cheers and Best
Silk, for Steem... is that it, @surfyogi? I'm in!
Thanks for your encouragement. It's much appreciated. :-)
Nobel Prize's are reserved for the worst criminals in the world, like Barack O'Bomber. Not only would Ross never get it but even if they offered he should turn it down and spit on it.
lol, @dollarvigilante. Yeah, was just thinking of him deserving recognition for having been a person who made an outstanding achievement that conferred the "greatest benefit on mankind."
Thank you Erika! This reminded me of one of my favorite modern anarchist think-pieces, Jeff Tucker's "Ross is Our Socrates".
HTTPS://tucker.liberty.me/ross-is-our-socrates/
Just read, and loved, that @lesliestarrohara! Thanks. It's excellent.
Nice piece, i totally agree he deserves to be free and the nobel prize is also deserving of him.
Hello erika, thanks for the moving post.
I pray for Ross to be pardon.
Interesting to see that takedown notice after a few years... At the time, people were pointing at the camel watermark in the background and saying it was fake, why would these agencies put the watermark of the site. People figured Dread Pirate Roberts took down the site and ran off with their money... Btw, it's never really a good idea to keep your funds on a drug dealing website.
I sent a letter to Ross myself a few days ago. Took me a little while to write... I figure he has some time to read so I wrote some 7000 words.
Thanks for sharing your story Erika.
Thanks, @churdtzu. 7,000 words? Wow!
I was curious about the camel watermark, and figured it was comparable to Chicago's "vehicle immobilization program," where the city comes 'round and slaps on a yellow boot to the tire of cars that have accrued more than 3 vehicular tickets...
Perhaps, similarly, these agencies put their stamps of paralysis on top of the seized site?
Don't know if that's a reasonable or viable explanation for the watermark... not that the agencies "put" the site's watermark... but that they just overlayed theirs in the seizing? I dunno. I just perceive Ross as the victim here, not as a thief who happened to get busted.
Right... Well, it was weird, because the only thing on the site was the seizure notice, just as a picture. So it was like they screencapped the logo, then put their notice on top of it. So a lot of people thought it was fake. Basically, people thought that the federal agencies weren't even involved, and so they thought that Dread Pirate Roberts was a thief. We can rule out that possibility now.
Yeah I sent Ross a big ass letter telling stories about Anarchapulco, about my performance, Jeff getting up and rapping... all kinds of fun stuff.
Nice post. And while Ross' story is indeed frustrating to many of us, your story of reminds me of something I heard just recently.
In 2012, my friend's son (who was 13 at the time), managed to use his mum's credit card to get on silk road to buy bitcoins and then weed from Sweden and have it sent to Australia. And it totally worked! Obviously when my friend found out she wasn't happy and he was grounded.
He also told her she should buy bitcoin. Ah if only she'd listened. It's probably the smartest thing that's ever come out of his mouth.
Ha! Great story, @choogirl. And what a bright young boy. I'd be curious to see what kinds of things he's into now... at the ripe age of 18. He was forward-seeing at 13, and probably continues to be.
I've got major regret for not having held any of the BTC I bought back then.
When I tried to explain to my friends what I was doing, I compared the process to taking your fiat dollar to an arcade, loading it into a machine, and getting "tokens" dispensed back to you so you could play the games. (The arcade was SR, the games were each vendor.) But, yeah... $3K tokens! #hindsight
He's about to finish school in December and when I asked my friend what he wants to do next year she said his response to that question is "I don't know so I'll probably just do accounting". I told her she needs to tell him to chase his dreams before he ends up being an auditor at KPMG.
Yeah, we all wish we'd bought bitcoins back then. Oh well, live and learn.
This post received a 4% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @kennyskitchen! For more information, click here!
Wonderful post @erikaharris! Ross is a wonderful human, and deserves lots of love to be sent his way while he's locked up.
I just gifted you a @randowhale vote as part of an idea I'm calling #payitforward. As you can see from this image, my 2 $BD payment to @randowhale just turned into an increase of around $2 on your expected payout, only the second one I've had that sort of flopped. Oh well, it's still an extra $2 for ya :-)
Thanks for being part of Steemit, and maybe share some whale-vote love with other folks you enjoy reading, friends who join the site, or great posts you see. Check out @randowhale's introduction (linked in the comment above) and my announcement of #payitforward to learn more.
Steem on!
PS: Thanks @randowhale
Woohoo, thanks for the kind tip, @kennyskitchen! You are such a genius at living it forward! Much love + respect. 💚🌿
You're very welcome sister! Going to have to give it another shot sometime and hope for a bigger % haha
Great stuff, @erikaharris. It is amazing how dangerous the state's sociopathic "drug war" has made the world. So glad to hear you were able to find help via channels that respect individual self-ownership and freedom.
^^^ Beautifully, perfectly said, @kafkanarchy84!! Thanks :-)
Cool ... I love this and love your nice posts.
love your style also.
thanks for being one of the users who make me enjoy this site.
Aw, you are kind to say that, @hatemmkh. Thanks, very much! :-)
Nice Post
Stay strong Ross Ulbricht!
As a grower and smoker I am always happy to see someone getting help from the green! If someone can make their life better with the herb, let them do so.
Bless! Keep it green!
I am deeply moved by Ross's plight, and urge President Trump, and others that agree, to commute his sentence.
The ruling in Ross's case is a travesty, not only because of the length of the sentence, but that the case was prosecuted at all, as the officials of the US agencies that provided the evidence against Ross were themselves convicted of stealing BTC during the conduct of their investigation.
Their evidence and testimony is tainted, suspect, and never should have been allowed, or should have been discarded, and Ross granted a new trial.
Unfortunately, Ross is not alone in being unlawfully victimized by a justice system that not only resembles Orwellian dystopia, but exemplifies it perfectly.
Thank you for reminding me of Ross and the sacrifice that has been imposed on him by tyrannical and barbaric overlords without justification contrary to every ideal and tenet upon which the American republic was founded.
resteemed and followed.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment, @valued-customer! Thanks, also, for resteeming and following. I'm grateful for your support, and resonant heart.
In many ways I have lived my life to maximize other valuable things than mammon. Time with my family, for example. It is what I am.
You're welcome. Thank you for your post!
Silk road changed my life. The greatest invention of my lifetime easily. Not exactly silk road itself, but the tech that allowed it to be possible.
I understand exactly what you mean, @blackjok3r.
Can STILL hear the locks coming undone inside my head.
That tech changed everything. And 'they' knew it, too. Hence, the double-life.
Moving post.... Straight to the heart
Mission accomplished, then. Thanks, @alokkoshal.
Welcome :)
thank you for filling us in on this.
My pleasure, @arqetype.
Everything is control and set up to make us sick and slaves. We need to keep fighting back!. Thanks for this post.
I agree 100%, @midnight-g!
Ross has saved lives. Thank you for sharing.
He HAS, @full-measure! Healed. Saved. Expanded. Improved. Profited.
He's made a ton of peoples' lives better. His reward for that MUST + WILL find him.
It's my pleasure to share. Thanks for receiving it :-)
I have noticed that Markdown doesn't always work as expected, and can result in font issues and more apparently without cause.
I also had my own proposal (now past payout) to honor Ross and make his case more public. What do you think?
Thanks for letting me know you have similar issues with Markdown, @jacobtothe.
And I think your proposal is great! (The naming part. I'm less able to follow the math, but the love the heart and spirit of it.)
I hope you keep putting forward positive suggestions like that. :-)
Wow! How can I be as successful as you?
How do you define success, @wallsnow?
Depending on your answer, I may need to point you to better examples, elsewhere :-)
I'm sure time will come to be more forgiving to the heroes of this World and I'm quite positive Ross will see the light of the freedom again.
YES, @bluudz! Like Nelson Mandela, but sooner. Way sooner.