7 ms·

Seems fair to lump in with the rest since it was in fact an illegal market place.

• atemerev 9y ago
  Not everything that is illegal is wrong. E.g. being gay is illegal in many places.
  • SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    Even if it was -- not all illegal (or wrong) things are equally wrong. I'm much more okay with, eg, petty theft than murder, and would find it weird if people tried to make people stealing candybars from Walmart out to be equal to murderers.
    • trhway 9y ago
      >would find it weird if people tried to make people stealing candybars from Walmart out to be equal to murderers. it is pretty equal for the 3rd strike
      • jack9 9y ago
        Isn't the 3 strikes system for felonies?
        • arkad 9y ago
          Surprisingly, no. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114301025 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1143010...
          • z574389659 9y ago
            Actually yes. But California allows some stupid felonies. Petty theft with priors can be charged as a felony, so, third strike can be shoplifting a candybar, since a third strike for stealing anything can be a felony at the prosecutor's discretion. So, it has to be three felonies, but the third doesn't have to be violent, and "prior conviction" upgrades make a lot of petty third strikes "felonies" in CA that would not be such elsewhere.
      • nnfy 9y ago
        Except it is completely unequal because you've been given 3 chances to follow the laws of the society in which you live. And because sentencing will still be much less severe than that of murder.
        • mulmen 9y ago
          Why three? Why not two or five? What's so special about three that it fits such a wide range of offenses?
          • freeone3000 9y ago
            Baseball.
            • mulmen 9y ago
              I rest my case.
          • nnfy 9y ago
            Why not three? This "wide range of offenses" generally applies to felonies, which are grevious enough to be placed into their own category with its own suite of punishments, and it is not entirely unreasonable to apply a singular repeat offense rule to all of them. The fact that the number seems arbitrary to you does not make it invalid. I am sure we can agree that repeat felony offenders need to be handled specially, and, unfortunately, given the [archaic] nature of the judicial system, laws must be codified and at least in theory represent majority agreement. Whether influenced by baseball or something else, three is the number that lawmakers deemed reasonable, and you have not presented a valid argument against the concept or the number.
            • mulmen 9y ago
              Three strikes applies to both violent and non-violent felonies and the example earlier in the thread is for petty theft. Do you consider those crimes to be equal? Are all felonies equal? Why does sentencing vary but strikes do not? Why is there a "suite of punishments" for these felonies but only one number of strikes? I never said the concept of strikes is wrong or even that three is the wrong number. I asked why the value is fixed across different crimes because it seems arbitrary. I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary. My question stands, why three instead of some other number? Do you have a reason for three strikes other than "because that's what we always did" or "baseball"? If those are the only reasons then I think we need to rethink this practice.
  • wybiral 9y ago
    True. It sounds like the site was mostly dealing in drugs, which for small time dealers I feel is a waste of time to prosecute... But the problem is that larger organized criminals often get their funds to do worse things from the drug market.
    • xwvvvvwx 9y ago
      good argument for legalisation....
      • wybiral 9y ago
        Agreed.
      • jandrese 9y ago
        The counterargument is that if drugs are legalized then the crime syndicates will need to find a new line of work. It's possible they'll go "legit" like the mob did after prohibition and get into the Casino business, but it's also possible they'll switch to human trafficking or gun running or some other harmful trade. This is an especially big danger if you're talking about a gang that currently deals mostly drugs but also smuggles forced prostitutes over borders on the side. Take away the drugs and they're likely to expand the side business.
        • xtian 9y ago
          Right, we need to make sure that selling drugs continues to be a viable black market business model.
          • TotallyHuman 9y ago
            Or conversely, we need to legalize gun running and trafficking.
        • senorjazz 9y ago
          Then use the billions saved targeting gun runners and human traffickers.
  • jimmyk 9y ago
    >being gay is illegal in many places. Is that true? Or is it the behavior that's illegal?
    • acchow 9y ago
      Can you explain why and how you think these are different?
      • jimmyk 9y ago
        They're pretty obviously different. One is a characteristic of a person, and one is an action that can be taken by a person.
        • wybiral 9y ago
          Sure, if we're being pedantic it's hard to enforce laws against "being" gay so they enforce laws against "acting" gay. And until those countries figure out mind control it's just going to be oppression of their actions. Now that we've cleared that up, I still think laws against "acting" gay are wrong (within the same framework that it's legal to "act" heterosexual).
          • jimmyk 9y ago
            Laws against inherent characteristics seem to me at least to be worse than laws which ban behavior. Conflating the two in order to make some particular law sound worse seems sort of dishonest to me.
            • 7952 9y ago
              Perhaps. But within the context of gay rights it is the government that behaved improperly. Society bundled behaviour and innate characteristics into a single thing. That was wrong, and it is important to highlight that. Of course in a post homophobic world the distinction is rather irrelevant. It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours. Why would it matter either way? But for a while it was necessary to remind people that you don't have any choice about being gay, or about having gay relationships. That claim was a response to homophobia, not something rooted in science of philosophy
  • BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    Buying drugs can fund actions far worse than just creating drugs. From human slavery (drug mules) to murder. Some of the other things on that list are bad not because the actual item being traded is bad, but because of what the trade enables. I'm not seeing a significant difference between the markets in this regard, except for popularity. Compared to the example you gave, where no one is harmed and no further harm is caused or funded by people being gay. Edit to specify that this doesn't happen in every drug transaction.
    • valuearb 9y ago
      Buying drugs doesn't fund those actions. Making drugs illegal does, just like when Prohibition started murderous gang wars, gave us the highest murder rate in modern history, caused thousands of deaths from adulterated spirits, and funded the modern mafia.
      • robotresearcher 9y ago
        Murder is illegal. But somehow the profits from tens of millions of murders aren't injecting cash into a vast underground economy. It's the money that does that.
        • TylerH 9y ago
          Except for the small problem of money not being sentient.
          • robotresearcher 9y ago
            It's the (people choosing to inject their) money that does that. Fixed.
      • BearGoesChirp 9y ago
        Buying drugs does fund those actions. Drugs being illegal are a major reason why, and why I support legalization. But that doesn't excuse anyone currently making a purchase today. Think of it this way, illegal images could be produced by advanced CGI, but aren't because that tends to be just as illegal. That doesn't excuse anyone who consume images not produced by advanced CGI.
  • stephengillie 9y ago
    Smart "would-be" criminals don't commit crimes; they make their intended action lawful, then act freely.
    • honestoHeminway 9y ago
      Or they get others to commit them for them, bearing the blame while sharing the wealth. Thus - the first gang or cooperation was formed.
    • celticninja 9y ago
      That's not how it has happened throughout human history.
  • averagewall 9y ago
    There's a big discussion about what's bad about drugs. But I wonder if we can rationally work out what's bad about child porn. My understanding is that possessing it means you obtained it from someone, who probably wanted some kind of payment, who abused children to produce the material so he could get that payment. There are quite a few gaps there. What if it was published for free? What if children weren't physically abused but were secretly and anonymously photographed? Shouldn't there be exceptions for victimless child porn? Of course the dominant factor is people are horrified by deviant sexualities. We're barely managing to accept homosexuality which is probably more common than peadophilia.
    • nnfy 9y ago
      While I believe that western sexual norms are a bit puritanical, the premise behind protecting children with zealous laws is that it is extremely difficult to judge whether child pornography is truely victimless, even if you believe that harm from childhood sexuality is overstated in modern society. Because of the power imbalance between adults and children, and the permanent effects that abuse can have on children, it is reasonable to err on the side of caution and keep all child/adult sexual interactions illegal, and reduce demand for such interactions by keeping pornography illegal. As an aside, I am curious as to the reason you are being down voted, besides your audacity of expressing an unpopular opinion.
      • hallman76 9y ago
        That's not expressing an "unpopular opinion". They're being ignorant about the harm being done to the victims of child pornography and (it seems) trying legitimize that harm by drawing a dotted line to homosexuality. It has no place on HN. I would downvote if I could.
        • nnfy 9y ago
          >They're being ignorant about the harm being done to the victims of child pornography You are foolish to believe that all children are harmed by childhood sexuality and/or child pornography. Sex is part of the human nature, and we do not wake up on our 18th birthday and realize that we are ready to begin exploring our bodies. Never mind the fact that human beings can be conditioned to both be traumatized by and accepting of sexual activity by/as children. >It has no place on HN. I would downvote if I could. This amounts to morally-derived censorship. It is foolish to presume that your cultural programming should not be scrutinized; society is worse off for this kind of puritanical closed mindedness. No, I'm not asking you to accept victimization of children, but if you cannot honestly discuss and/or examine both sides of an issue, you cannot be confident in your opinion.
• romanovcode 9y ago
  Coloring everything in black and white is not very good way to categorize anything, especially bad things.
• mindslight 9y ago
  Home Depot is an illegal market place.
• mulmen 9y ago
  In what way does that seem fair? This is a dangerous way to present facts that changes the perception of the reader in ways that may not be noticed while not technically telling a lie. You are claiming that all crimes are of equal severity and should have equal consequences. That is absurd.