People espouse libertarian ideals because they are terrified of the power of the state and do not trust it. To go with this kind of defense, especially when you don't have many options, is not hypocritical. It's easy to say 'have some balls' from the safety of your keyboard.
I didn't suggest it was hypocritical, and nor did I suggest Ulbricht should feel compelled to defend the principles he wrote about. I'm saying that I wish he (or anyone in his position) would fight for those ideals, which are entirely justified in a world where NSA spying is treated as the punchline to a late night show monologue joke.
Someone always has the de facto authority to wield violence.
In modern society, this authority is the state.
In Dread Pirate Robert's universe, no authority should wield violence... except Dread Pirate and his associates if it suites them.
Libertarian and anarchistic ideologies start from the wish that no-one would wield violence and all would be equal.
Unfortunately, how real world scenarios evolve is that existing system is replaced by chaos, from which a few entities reach political authority, at which point they take the authority to wield violence and make the decisions for everyone else they want to make.
Anarchy and the like work only in smaller social groups such as a family or a commune where everyone can rationally assume everyone can be trusted and to act fairly within the context of an uncodified behavioral standard - to stay within the groups culture.
At larger scales these types of population dynamics just don't work, and the stuff rises up which require the equivalent of the functions of modern state to function properly as a whole.
The point is, if there is no central auhtority, someone will become that authority (picture somalian warlords, russia after 1917 revolution and so on).
So replacing current state with an entity on 'non-violence' and non-coercion does not work - these are sociological oxymorons that do not exist.
Well stated, and I completely agree. I think there's a balance to be struck between personal liberty and social responsibility and DPR's writings don't address that balance at all, not to mention his alleged actions.
But there are some core arguments about freedom of choice that Silk Road addressed in some ways, and DPR was a figurehead for those arguments, and to see him ignore those ideals in exchange for a half-hearted defense like this is disappointing, that's all. Whether or not he's guilty, DPR is dead and Silk Road achieved nothing.
