Silk Road forums

Organizations such as the DEA are there to enforce the law. They may be cunts, but they're doing their job in accordance to what we currently recognize as law

The Gestapo enforced the law. The people who ran concentration camps in Nazi Germany enforced the law. Following orders has never been recognized as a valid excuse for committing crimes. This holds true for the Nazis who were tried with war crimes and it holds true for DEA agents. Following orders does not absolve them of responsibility. They choose to have the job they have. Nobody has forced them. Additionally, I do not recognize the laws of the state. You think as a statist if you think that there is any we involved with recognizing the law. I recognize right and wrong, not the law. If you think that following the law is all that matters then you must have been against the Nazis being tried for war crimes right?

I assume you're not a lazy ass and you have a job, pay taxes etc. Shall we try you for sponsoring terrorism? Sure, working for the DEA is their choice and taxes are compulsory, but at the end of the day, you paid them and by your own logic are fully responsible for your own actions. For sponsoring terrorism, you're equally as guilty as those who commit it, so you should too be put to death.

Should someone who is extorted for money by the mafia be tried for sponsoring criminals? No, the mafia should be tried for extortion. The IRS should be tried for extorting me, I should not be tried for sponsoring terrorism.

On a final notes, let us remember almost all the DEA guys and citizens in our countries are brainwashed into seeing drugs as horrific trades which fund violence and murder when in almost all cases, it is not. You're aiming at the wrong people and worst of all, you aren't debating opinions, you're throwing down other opinions on the matter to promote your own agenda without even considering alternatives on an unbias platform.

Let us also remember that the Nazis were brainwashed into thinking that it was morally right to exterminate the Jews. Thinking that you are doing the right thing is not an excuse for your actions. People who commit crimes while thinking they are doing the right thing should not be excused of their crimes!

Whoa, just hold on a minute. Values change all the time in society, I don't think you can hold people responsible for doing what what was widely believed to be the 'right' thing to do at that time and place.

So you wish that the Nazi war criminals were not tried for their crimes? The German society hated the Jews and their extermination was completely lawful. What about all of the other armies that have committed war crimes that were acceptable in the eyes of their societies? The list is enormous. Following your logic, people should not be held accountable for genocide if enough of their people supported the mass murder of innocents. You believe in moral relativism, I believe in moral absolutism. Morality does not change with the times. Following your logic it was not bad for people to own slaves because hey it was socially acceptable at that point in time.

In 1660 in New England there were witch hunts and innocents died.
Previous to the 1970's in North America homosexuality was illegal (most states or provinces)
Currently there are people in prison for drug related offenses, but secret police didn't put them there, we all know the risk we take when we cross the line.

The people responsible for innocents being burned at the stake deserved to be burned at the stake themselves. It is so insane to think that the majority of a society at a point in time determines what is right and what is wrong. It is a form of defeatism to accept things the way they are merely because the majority of society accepts things the way they are. There will never be positive change if everyone thinks this way! Yes, secret police have put hundreds of thousands of people in jail for drug crimes. What do you think undercover agents are? What makes the snitch networks of today different from the Stasi snitch networks of Eastern Germany? Absolutely nothing. To think that there is a difference is an artifact of your social conditioning.

Now-a-days Wicca is an acceptable belief/religion
People of the same sex can legally get married in many places
I believe it's only a matter of time until drug reform absolves those in prison

Indeed, and those who put them in prison must be punished. Following your logic it is acceptable to punish them if the majority of society agrees that it is!

Because you and I believe we are are more enlightened than the current status quo doesn't mean we should reign down righteous hell-fire when values come around to our way of thinking. Simply accept that times have changed and be thankful.

Should the Jews have just been thankful that they were done being exterminated? Or should the Nazis have been punished for crimes against humanity?

There isn't really a way to fight back proportionately without involving collateral damage.

And the collateral damage is on the hands of those who began the aggression. Although we should take efforts to minimize it, we can not let the possibility of innocents being hurt get in the way of bringing justice to criminals.

However if you shame them in the same way the Nazis were shamed after WWII, then you can return any discussion of a return to the Drug War a taboo subject. That's a kind of revenge.

On the off chance that you were not aware, several Nazis were executed after WWII and even to this day Mossad agents hunt them down and assassinate them.

Morality aside, your idea is completely impractical. You were advocating mailbombs once. It doesn't make sense because if you start a violent assault you have to take it all the way. That doesn't mean killing DEA agents. It means you'll also be forced to kill anybody who steps in to defend them, you'll have to adopt a preemptive strike ideology.

Anyone who steps in to defend them has become an agent on their behalf and if they die it is nobodies fault but their own.

Put simply; the entire US government and a fair amount of the population would get dragged into such a mess if you began a violent campaign against the DEA. So it is Total War or nothing.

Targeted assassinations seem to have worked pretty well for Mossad in their bringing justice to Nazi war criminals...

I think you are overestimating the advantages of hard power over soft power. Our biggest ally is soft power, is good PR, is cultural influence. If you turn into Rambo, you throw all that away and you'll lose with close to 100% certainty, since the other government agencies aren't exactly going to stand by while you proceed.

And do you think that government agencies stand by idly while Silkroad is in operation? No of course they try to bring it down. You seem to see the government as some all powerful being. Well, in a war between an all powerful being that (paradoxically) is not all knowing, and an all knowing being that is not all powerful, I think that it is anyones fight. Who will win, an ultra powerful government or a bunch of anonymous attackers? If we take to the streets with guns and march as an army against them we will be wiped out. If they mysteriously are killed off one by one it is a different story. 

On the other hand, if you are personally threatened with violence, then you have to respond in kind or you'll die. But that's a different situation to the one you're talking about, you're talking about an ideological war.

No, we are threatened with violence. We are threatened with our doors being kicked down by paramilitary troops with automatic weapons, having our property stolen from us and being imprisoned for decades. If that is not violence I do not know what you consider violence to be. They have initiated force against us and it is our duty to bring them to justice for their crimes.

As a libertarian I would not oppose people seeking reparations, as long as it is only based on proven damage and individual liability. But personally, I would not pursue it, and I would urge forgiveness in others. After all, there's nothing worse we can do to them than what they would do to themselves. We will have won, beat 'em fair and square despite all their cheating. If they don't reform and join us in our newly created freedom, then they will punish themselves with resentment and bitterness.

We will have won when we are free todo what we never should have been restricted from doing?We will have won when we have people released from prisons decades later? We will have won when they are retiring and getting a monthly government paycheck and we will have people with wasted lives? No , we have lost. Even if drugs are legalized entirely today and all of the prisoners are freed, we will have lost. It is not possible for us to win. The best we can hope to do is make sure that we have not lost alone. The only way to win the drug war is to never have played it, they decided to play it and now it is up to us to make sure that we both lose. No matter what we already have lost.

Right and wrong are subjective. Right now, society at large believe that drugs are bad. DEA is acting because they were told to by the government. The representatives in government are voted in by citizens like yourself (I'm assuming here). So in the end, it's your responsibility to ensure that you educate people so as to vote in representatives that would accurately represent you.

So it was right for the Nazis to exterminate the Jews? It was right for blacks to be enslaved? According to your logic it will be right to kill the DEA agents as soon as I have convinced enough people. Moral subjectivism is absolutely fucking disgusting.

In your "libertarian" society, you would have us prosecute former members of the DEA for carrying a different set of ideals than us, and fighting for that set of ideals. Although their actions may be misguided, I seriously doubt any of them actually think of what they are doing as oppressive. By doing something like that, not only would we be sinking to their level, we would take it further and torture/murder/publicly humiliate them.

Indeed the Nazis did not think they were bad. By your logic nobody who acts thinking their actions are good deserves to be punished. Are you really so fucking dumb as to believe this?

Additionally, in a just society, the penalties they face would be equal to the penalties they would face if they engaged in these highly criminal activities without the benefit of being agents of the state. So the real question is, what should the sum penalty be for conspiracy, kidnapping and armed robbery? Obviously they must be held in cages for a very long amount of time if they are not to be killed, but who pays the bill for this imprisonment? I believe the cleanest solution is to simply execute them, certainly we should not be any more inconvenienced by them than we already have been?

When has this logic ever applied to anything made legal in society?

Slavery? When this was made illegal the people who then complied with the new laws (abolishing slavery) that had previously participated, how were they punished?

The logic applies very strongly because it is the only thing that makes sense. If today my act of trying to enslave a person is a serious crime, then it is an equal crime even if we go back into the past. Right and wrong do not change with time or numbers of supporters, so indeed I think that the slave owners and those who enforced alcohol prohibition should be punished.

While I would like to see some loss on the 'other' side of the war on drugs thinking it will ever actually happen is exceptionally naive. Suggesting things like mass executions is akin to suggesting a holocaust for fighters of the war on drugs, how does that sit with you? Do you really think that sort of blanket murder (which is exactly what it would be) would even be reasonable or appropriate?

Living in a libertarian society is essentially a fantasy at this point in time, however in a world with strong agorist defense agencies, drug police would be assassinated very frequently. Seriously if someone made a blind mix betting pool on the date that the next fed explodes, I bet a lot of people would play (and hopefully some will be winners!).

Secondly, I do support a holocaust against the DEA. I don't mean that they should be tortured , simply lined up and shot. They are a cancer on this world. They need to be the example so that in the future people can see that oppression is not something that works to the oppressors advantage. The DEA doesn't give a fuck about us. They think we are evil and sick criminals who both consume and push poison onto their kids. Do you even realize the type of fucked up shit these people do? They will pretend to be your friend and then bust your ass. They make it so that nobody can be trusted and everyone is fucking paranoid or stupid not paranoid and in jail. They serve no legitimate function. They are essentially highway robbers who kick in peoples doors, take all of their shit, kidnap them shove them in basements for forty years. They are the worst sort of criminal, and they deserve mass executions. They have committed crimes against humanity.

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So instead of combating violence with the war on drugs (which is a much greater issue than the actual drugs for LE) you will insist on violence against them? Doesn't this strike you as somewhat foolish at best? Instead of killing and ruining lives for doing drugs, you are going to kill and ruin lives for stopping people from doing them, whats the difference?
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The major and enormous difference is the initiation of force. They have viciously, relentlessly attacked us and oppressed us ,with absolutely no provocation. The consequences from their actions have been more far reaching and negative than many people will ever even recognize. 

More importantly this begs the question, have you ever actually had to take a life? Do you even comprehend what that does to ones psyche? I really very very seriously doubt it.

I have no doubt that if I had a gun and was in a magic room in which my actions could never be tied to me outside of it, that I would blow the fuckers brains out. I mean really what are they going to do beg for their lives? What about the lives of all the people they fucked. I have absolutely no empathy for them.

Some people think that we will win the war on drugs when drugs are legalized. But this does not sit well with me. Why is it a win when we are free to do what we should have never been restricted from doing in the first place? In the meantime, there will be people who made fortunes off of our oppression continuing to live happily. We will have people on our side who have spent decades of their lives in prisons for bullshit, they will have a government pension after retiring from fucking us over. Clearly it seems that even if drugs are legalized, we will not be winners, we will be more free but we will have lost enormous amounts while they will have gained enormous amounts by enslaving us. I believe that it stands to reason that if we accept that there could be a world where drugs are legalized, that we must then ask ourselves what to do to the people who oppressed us when drugs were illegal? If I take an innocent person off the street and throw them into a basement for a year, I am a pretty bad criminal right? Well if drugs are legalized, then if I take a drug user and put them in a basement for a year I am a pretty bad criminal for doing this right? Well what about the people who behave in this way while drugs are wrongfully illegal? Some justice must be brought to them, and I wonder how we can best go about this in a libertarian society.

you can decrypt an encrypted file and have it display on terminal with gpg -d and it just treats it as any other ciphertext, the output will not be very helpful in 99.99% of cases though, your shell doesn't know what to do with a pdf file it just displays the raw bytes. To get it so that you can view it with a pdf reader, I don't know of a solution other than to save the output as a .pdf on the disk and then open it with the pdf reader. I tried to pipe the decrypted output to a reader from my terminal in the following way and it failed to work:

gpg -d test.pdf.gpg | evince

a solution would therefor be to put the ciphertext in a virtual machine, then decrypt it and save it as a .pdf file, then open that file. You can do all of this from memory with a virtual machine, but without a virtual machine I don't know how else you would load the plaintext as a .pdf file with your reader without having to write it to the HD, since the file is saved as a .pdf only in the virtual machine which you can configure to be entirely in the hosts RAM.

I also am not understanding the problem (if the solution is not 'do it in a virtual machine').

But it is possible your question is not indicative of not properly using GPG, for example you could decrypt an encrypted .pdf and not want to save it to disk. I imagine  you can output the decryption of a .pdf onto your terminal , but it will not be very helpful. In such a scenario one solution might be to load the ciphertext in a virtual machine and decrypt it there.

They suggest not using Tor Via Tor because someday they are going to make it impossible, but if they don't add layered entry guards for hidden services at the same point in time they will essentially be fucking hidden services. Hidden services can be traced up to their entry guards in a matter of minutes, the only reason the feds don't know the IP address of SR is due to an insane amount of incompetence, if it has any entry guards in the USA it wouldn't even require a warrant to deanonymize it past entry guards (ie: trace the hidden service) with a trap and trace / pen register. Using  layered guards makes this attack more difficult, using Tor via Tor essentially is a work around to get layered guard nodes for hidden services, so I do hope that they add layered guards when they remove the ability to do Tor via Tor.