Roberts also has a political agenda: He sees himself not just as an enabler of street-corner pushers but also as a radical libertarian revolutionary carving out an anarchic digital space beyond the reach of the taxation and regulatory powers of the state–Julian Assange with a hypodermic needle. “We can’t stay silent forever. We have an important message, and the time is ripe for the world to hear it,” says Roberts. “What we’re doing isn’t about scoring drugs or ‘sticking it to the man.’ It’s about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong.”

We don’t allow the sale of anything that’s main purpose is to harm innocent people, or that it was necessary to harm innocent people to bring it to market. For example, anything stolen is forbidden, counterfeit money and coupons which are used to defraud people, hitmen aren’t allowed, and neither is child pornography. No substance on Silk Road falls under those guidelines.

“I keep hearing this argument come up when people talk about drug prohibition: legalize, regulate and tax it. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. No more drug war, more tax revenue, government regulators can make sure it is safe. Makes sense, right?

I can’t help but think something is wrong though. Feels like the bastards that have been screwing everyone over all this time still win in this scenario. Now all that money can go to the state and to their cronies, right?

Here’s the rub: the drug war is an acute symptom of a deeper problem, and that problem is the state. If they “legalize, regulate and tax” it, it’s just one more part of society under their thumb, another productive sector that they can leech off of.

If prohibition is lifted, most people here will go away. You’ll go back to your lives and get your drugs from whatever state certified dispensaries are properly licensed to sell to you. Drug use will be as interesting as smoking and drinking.

Here’s my point: Silk Road is about something much bigger than thumbing your nose at the man and getting your drugs anyway. It’s about taking back our liberty and our dignity and demanding justice. If prohibition is lifted, and the drug industry is placed under the yoke of the state, then we won in a small way, but lost in a big way. Right now, drugs are ours. They aren’t tainted by the government. We the people control their manufacture, distribution and consumption. We should be looking to expand that control, taking back our power, no giving what is ours to the very people that have been our enemies all along.

Source?

That's assuming the government's story is on the up and up, an assumption that can no longer be made from the outset.

So, I wonder what Barry Silbert thinks about this news. Will it stop his SecondMarket project?

Why would they invent such a thing?

I don't think DPR was the one selling all of that. All of that was available on his marketplace. A little different, no?

I would if someone blackmailed me and I thought I would get away with it. You guys would not? Seriously