Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

But he’s only served a tiny fraction of what you say was an unjust sentence. So the jury’s still out as to whether he’s served enough time. Other hard drug dealers get way more time than Ross has served.

Its astonishing that granting pardons to drug dealers and attempted murderers is something Trump sees as one of the more urgent matters affecting the most powerful nation on Earth.

I wish this weren’t true.



He's served over ten years. That's 1/8th of an average lifespan. It would be a fairly normal sentence for second degree murder where I'm from.


And in Singapore drug dealers get death penalty. Wherever your from seems extremely lenient.


And where you are seems extremely insane. Literally every adult I know has done an illegal drug at some point.


Trump also says he's bringing back the death penalty so he seems to be somewhat inconsistent.


It's not insane, it depends on what you value.

If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in:

Swift capture Swift trial Swift execution

And with those three things, you get a highly ordered, law-abiding society, because it becomes common knowledge that breaking the law results in death, guaranteed, so unless you're just stupid or insane, you don't break the law.

If you don't value that kind of clockwork societal order, then you get... Western civilization.

Frankly I'll take the chaos of our Western civilization over the stifling draconian societal order of places like Singapore any day of the week.


> If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in:

You're ignoring the issue of which acts are criminalized.


so... smoking weed gets you the death penalty? Does that not sound like cruel and unusual punishment?


The United States incarceration rate is 4x higher than of the rest of the world, in part because it hands out much longer sentences than most other countries. You're not wrong, but it's still the US that is the outlier in terms of sentence lengths [1].

[1]: https://counciloncj.org/new-analysis-shows-u-s-imposes-long-...


The US is wholly inefficient with the Death Penalty, so I'm against it from a purely financial point of view. By the time many cases get to a point of being convicted they will have already served years, maybe even a few decades in prison already.

And yes, there is the open secret that the US uses its prison system as a form of soft slave labor. Many people don't want to reduce that supply.


That one's easy. Don't sell drugs in Singapore. Give them away and then the recipients accidentally drop money a block or so away.


Good luck with that. Possession is also illegal.


Highlighting the polarization and weaponization of the justice system is worthy subject matter for the most powerful nation on Earth. It needs to be set onto a new path that is fair to all involved.


Maybe Trump is counting on Ulbricht starting a blockchain based online grocery chain to bring down the price of eggs.


Trump owed the libertarians for their support. This is what they got in return. It's bizarre seeing Trump designate the Mexican drug cartels as terrorists a few hours earlier while Ross facilitated billions in sales of the same products.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: