> <i>While I don’t support what went on on the Silk Road – the hacking services and illegal gun trading alone made it more like the Wild West than Utopia, not to mention the alleged murder-for-hire plots – I do support its right to exist. No government should be able to shut down a conglomeration of like-minded people who wish to do business anonymously. We cannot judge the pot dealer or the LSD buyer any more than they can judge our habits and predilections. The morality of this can be debated but the right to an anonymous exchange cannot.</i><p>This makes no sense at all. Why the heck can't the 'right' to an anonymous exchange facilitating illegal activities 'be debated'? Just cause the author says so, apparently. Why does he think no government should be able to shut-down a 'conglomeration of like-minded people' (what?) who want to buy and sell weapons, computer intrusions, and murders? I don't know, he doesn't say, it's just obvious, right?<p>He doesn't 'support' people selling murder on an anonymous exchange, but does 'support' 'the right' to have an anonymous exchange where you sell murder? He thinks you can debate 'the morality' of 'this' (what?), but you can't 'judge' the people doing the thing whose morality you are debating, and in fact apparently can't (can't? ethically?) judge anything that can be described as a 'habit or predilection'?<p>What does all that even mean? It's just nonsense put together into sentences.<p>There might be some ethical defense of Silk Road that makes sense, but that sure wasn't it. This is what passes for thought on the techno-libertarian internet? Really, tech crunch?