Silk Road was, at its height, uniquely successful and making an absolute mockery of the United States government's capacity to regulate drug trafficking. In addition, he fashioned himself an anti-establishment persona, going by the handle "Dread Pirate Roberts" online.

He was unique in his magnitude of success. Governments can successfully magnify their enforcement ability by making an example of outliers.

Dread Pirate Roberts is legend, look up the silk road marketplace.

Theres probably a movie or two about it too

American Kingpin by Nick Bilton is an excellent book covering Silk Road and what makes this unique

The seven offenses in question: distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering

To be fair - he was not pardoned for that, he could still be charged for it. He was only pardoned for crimes related to drugs.

He was never tried for that. Don't believe the disinformation.

blatant entrapment and gaslighting for more than a year by law enforcement dedicating 24h to it.

the real criminals for that prank were never even tried.

This was a pandering to get Libertarians' votes. It has nothing to do with the crime itself. I wouldn't commit any crimes and expect to get away with them unless I anticipated becoming the pawn in someone's scheme to get elected.

MLK was himself referencing Saint Augustine:

>Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Considering that his rhetoric was very much based on Christianity, it's clear what standard of "unjust" he was applying.

Touche, however there is plenty of evidence of people throughout history making this assertion, including MLK.

He was trying to create a more just, egalitarian society. I don't understand how you can consider acting in accordance with leading research on successful drug policy "moronic"?

As I recall weapons weren't permitted on the platform.

The society didn't decide, the ruling class decided to use drug policy to attack their own citizens.

History shows that prohibition is an abject failure. The fent epidemic is symptomatic of this failed policy.

If they actually cared about the epidemic, addicts would have access to regulated, pharmaceutical grade heroin whilst also having ready access to treatment.

But then we'd have empty prisons and the police would be free to solve real crimes so we can't have that.

There are healthier middle grounds we could explore where e.g. advertisements are banned and individuals could register themselves as being banned from participating in certain addictive vices because they don't consistently have the willpower to quit or don't want to tempt fate trying it (and make it a crime to sell to an individual who has voluntarily banned themselves), but it's hard to argue that The War on Drugs has been in any way just.

I expect in such a society, certain groups (e.g. Mormons) would normalize banning yourself from vices the day you turn 18.

What is just is decided both by an individual and the society they exist in. "It is one's moral obligation to fight injustice" is a pretty common tenent to hold. Injustice can be city laws encouraging anti-homeless spikes. Injustice can also be genocide in a remote country. Those injustices get fought in very different ways. One can be handled by individual vigilanteeism and peacefully petitioning local governance. The other might require global war.

In my personal belief, everyone[0] has the right and moral obligation to fight the injustice they care about at the level they can manage. If that's handing out water at the protest or inventing penicillin, do what you personally can do to improve the world.

[0]the average layperson, obvious exceptions for power/money apply

Don't worry - jefferson never actually said this because he wasn't a complete idiot.

Don't take my word for it though, the monticello folks looked into it too - https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffers...

It is a fun quote though, because it's one of those quotes that people want to use to justify their own dumb behavior.

"If you don't like the law, feel free to ignore it" - Albert Einstein

If you come to disagree with the justice of a law, your options are to conform or, yes, decide that the law is unjust.

I mean strictly speaking the people voted for Trump, so collectively they're all okay with this.

Of course Trump's platform was enormously based on law & order and combatting the drug trade, which he seems to think should still be actually illegal and is not ending the war on drugs so, I don't know - make of that what you will.

So were most aristocrats of the time. Applying presentism doesn't invalidate the idea.

… in a society where slavery was legal, widespread, and rarely questioned.

Murder has never been legal.

Jefferson did, certainly. He was instrumental in starting a war from what I understand.

Ross though? The government alleged it but never bothered to prove it. Furthermore the government agents involved were laughably corrupt, so anything they alleged needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. For all anybody here know, they fabricated the entire assassination story to distract the public from their plot to loot Ross's money (which unlike the assassination stuff, has been proven in court.)