edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong.
> But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road.
[0]: https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-master...
Apparently his first attempt he hired an fbi agent, posing as a hit man and his second attempt seems to have been a con-job...
He tried though. Apparently the fbi agent sent fake photos as proof.
Article from Ars Comments. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-09/us-says-si...
Ulbricht's argument to the effect that he wasn't properly charged with the murder-for-hire scheme was addressed in detail by the court:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...
Ross is 31 years old, so he may live for 40 years. That mean imprisoning this man will cost the US taxpayer 1.4 million USD in lifetime cost.
This doesn't take into account opportunity cost, expenses for trial, the cost of the drug war, and so on.
[1] http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2...
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss...
I agree with you that drug trafficking is way overprosecuted, but...
Instead of imprisoning for drug usage - provide treatment and rehab. It's cheaper and has better results. One could argue culture differences in drug usage, but that looks like an attempt to "knock it before you try it".
That's without going into how broken the US prison system is! See: privately owned prisons that require a quota to be filled [0].
[0] http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal-how-lock...
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan rejected Ulbricht’s claim that he was naive and impulsive when he started Silk Road as an economic experiment.
“It was a carefully planned life’s work,” Forrest told him Friday. “It was your opus.”
and:
Ulbricht, who plans an appeal, asked for mercy in a May 26 letter to the judge. He called Silk Road a “naive and costly idea” that had ruined his life.
“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age,” Ulbricht wrote. “Please, leave a small light at the end of the tunnel.”
So much for mercy.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road-...
Narcotics trafficking, distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet, and conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identification documents, participation in narcotics trafficking conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged-si...
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...
[0] see p. 5 of the indictment: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
Distribution and intent to sell are still illegal. I was specifically referring to the users of drugs.
Our war-on-drugs sentencing is quite disproportional, IMHO; imputing societal harms that are unfounded. After all, Mr. Ulbright simply provided a safer way for consenting individuals to enter personal financial transactions.
Silk Road is a drop in the bucket compared to all the transactions arranged over SMS messages and using cash - but we don't hold AT&T and the Federal Reserve responsible for running a criminal enterprise.
===== ULBRICHT, 30, of San Francisco, California, was found guilty of: one count of distributing narcotics, one count of distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, and one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics, each of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years; one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison; one of count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years; and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The maximum sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided for informational purposes only, as the sentence will be determined by the judge. ULBRICHT is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15, 2015.
[1] http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2015/ross-ulbricht-the-creator-and-owner-of-the-silk-road-website-found-guilty-in-manhattan-federal-court-on-all-countsThey staged torture and murder to satiate Ulbricht's need to clean up loose ends.
http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-wa...
People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of a murder for hire. - http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/
Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of human nature and the nature of the game.
One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.
Is little else known about this figure, even as he is nearing completion of his prison term?
[1] http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html
[2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487038592045755264...
If humans followed the law above all else, then we would not have democracy, or even republics. We'd have totalitarian nations of smiling slaves.
"As explained above, the murder-for-hire evidence is probative both as evidence of the charged offenses and to prove Ulbricht’s identity as DPR—a key disputed issue in this case. In addition, the charges in this case are extremely serious: Ulbricht is charged not with participating in a run-of-the-mill drug distribution conspiracy, but with designing and operating an online criminal enterprise of enormous scope, worldwide reach, and capacity to generate tens of millions of dollars in commissions."
There are a lot of misconceptions about what is or is not entrapment. A lot of things like lying about not being a cop when under cover, putting out a bait car, or just watching you commit a crime without warning you it was a crime are not entrapment and the reason why is explained in the guide.
It's only entrapment when they do something to overcome some resistance you put up to committing the crime. So unless you can show that they somehow changed your mind, the entrapment defense won't work.
Sure, the thief wouldn't have stolen the bait car if they knew it was a bait car, but the question is whether they would have stolen any car.
In regards to the harm from drugs-- I'd add the obvious point that prohibition comes with a really high cost.
I recently did dry-january and I was really happy with the results of cutting back on my drinking. I wake up more rested, and had more energy in the evenings. I've been thinking that going totally dry might be a good thing to do in my life.
But would I make alcohol, one of the top killers in america, illegal? (ref: http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm ) Absolutely not. If you went to US high school you know why--- alcohol-dealing gangs took over. People turned to bad products (wood alcohol, that potentially included methanol) to get their alcohol fix. I imagine we needlessly jailed a lot of alcohol drinkers and pushers.
A more indepth analysis of alcohol prohibition: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html
Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition??
These were the evaluation criteria: drug-specific and drug-related mortality, drug-specific and drug-related damage, dependence, drug-specific and drug-related impairment of mental functioning, loss of tangibles, loss of relationships, injury, crime, environmental damage, family adversities, international damage, economic cost, and community harm.
Infographic: http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/or...
Original study: Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_old/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf
Conclusion: We did not find use of psychedelics to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems.
Maple syrup may not have been a good example http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics
He was not charged for murder itself. During the trial testimony, they were very clear about this (regardless of whatever tptacek may say based on a few random pretrial documents); they worded it so the plots entered in as SR related activity and Bitcoin transactions but that was not part of the charges. From the trial itself: https://www.capa.net/case/2014-cr-00068/page/2159
> Here is the text where he says after redandwhite said I prefer to kill all four, DPR: Hmm, okay, I'll defer to your better judgment. 500,000 has been sent to bitcoin address, transaction number. You look it up on the block chain. There is the payment. The payment was made. How do we know that the payments were made by the defendant? Because they were sent directly from the defendant's bitcoin wallet. That's what Special Agent Yum testified to. Those payments came from addresses that were found on the defendant's laptop, the same wallet we were just discussing earlier, the wallet that was moved to the defendant's local machine right around the same time; in fact, it was moved to the defendant's laptop on April 7 and then on April 8th, he's making the payments. So it was the defendant who made these payments. It was the defendant who was trying to murder five people. Now, to be clear, the defendant has not been charged for these attempted murders here. You're not required to make any findings about them. And the government does not contend that those murders actually occurred. The defendant may have fallen for a big con job, which would only go to show that the Dread Pirate Roberts is not a criminal super-genius that the defendant wants to make him out to be, but what the murder-for-hire exchanges do show is how far the defendant was willing to go to protect his criminal enterprise if users got the idea that their anonymity wasn't safe on Silk Road, that their identities could be leaked en masse, they weren't going to use the site, and the defendant was going to lose business, and he was willing to use violence to stop that from happening.
The Green hits did not come up at all, as far as I know, but I don't think we have all the transcripts yet (the last of them seem to be locked until tomorrow) so maybe the prosecutors managed to work them in tangentially.
However, the hit allegations certainly did affect Forrest in sentencing: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road-...
> Prosecutors said he was more like a drug kingpin, profiting from cyberspace sales of illegal wares, and that he allegedly tried to arrange at least five murders to protect his business. The government said it didn’t believe any were carried out. Forrest said there was “ample and unambiguous evidence” of the plots.
The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea...). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one.
When thinking about this issue, I've found the following thought experiments useful:
(1) Should someone who ran a multi-million dollar illegal gun operation get life in prison, even though unlike drugs, the right to own firearms is explicitly protected by the Constitution?
(2) Should someone who ran a multi-million dollar website selling only weed in legal venues (Colorado, etc) be convicted of any crime, never-mind sentenced to life in prison, even though it is against federal law?
Personally I answer (1) as YES and (2) as NO, and place Ulbricht's conduct significantly closer to (1) than to (2).
> Is anyone here a lawyer in this area of law? I don't really trust webcomics....
" Yes. I went to Georgetown Law, where I was an editor of the American Criminal Law Review. I started out defending juveniles in D.C., then was a prosecutor with the Manhattan D.A.’s office for about 9.5 years, first in the Special Narcotics office and then in the Rackets bureau. I’ve been doing mostly criminal defense since then, both white-collar and street crime, federal and state. "
Here is an in-kind rebuttal to your link: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-like-turtles
You mean the ones whose provision making them mandatory was struck down as a violation of the right to trial by jury in 2005, and which have since been advisory only? [0]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencin...
http://freeross.org/the-case-the-goal-and-why-this-matters-2...
Or if you don't grep, you could just start from the beginning; the judge essentially leads off with the murder-for-hire subplot right from the beginning of her ruling.
As mentioned by dragonwriter, this murder-for-hire scheme was an overt act charged as part of Count One of the indictment (p5)
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...
You can find further details here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864
It's written by an actual lawyer, in spite of being in comic format.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/29/technology/silk-road-ross-ul... "Prosecutors had charged Ulbricht with commissioning six murders-for-hire but those charges were dropped"
The overt act is there in the new indictment they changed after dropping the 6 murder for hire charges, guess it's my fault for trusting journalists who said nothing about it http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...
According to The Federal Bureau of Prisons: - 48.7% of prisoners are in for drug related offenses
Apparently a large number (12.3-27.3%) are for Marijuana related offenses.
See http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offens...
Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.
I don't see how prohibition and the War on Drugs prevented them from happening too. All that was achieved by the War on Drugs was a massive waste of taxpayer money[0], the creation of a large, organised, violent and powerful criminal underground[1], filling up of prisons with non-violent offenders[2], denying treatment to millions of addicts and treating them like criminals, and the violation of the rights, freedoms and liberties of large numbers of innocent people[3].
[0]-
1) http://cdn.thewire.com/img/upload/2012/10/12/drug-spending-v...
2) http://www.drugpolicy.org/wasted-tax-dollars
3) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on...
[1]- http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Crime-brief...
[2]- http://www.ibtimes.com/drug-offenses-not-violent-crime-filli...
[3]-
1) http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_w...
2) http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/26290903/police-militariz...
3) http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10826084.2015.1...
[0]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
[1]- http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/William-Pickard-s-long-s...
[2]- https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/pickard_leonard/
However, that would not be so easy for hundreds or thousands of Bitcoins. It's hard for a snake to discreetly swallow a pig. Numerous wallets and small transactions would be prudent. But the process could probably be automated.
Texas was the first thing to come to my mind : http://nation.time.com/2013/06/13/when-you-can-kill-in-texas...
The laws do seem to allow less after the fact, with good reason. My point was that we clearly allow for people to value money over lives.
When is a robbery over? The stuff never stops being yours, and they never stop running away with it.
A lot of things come into play here, but I'm pretty sure you could still post a reward, 'dead or alive'. I think it's legal to try to catch the robber yourself indefinitely, and defend yourself if threatened in the process.
Our wild west laws are only slightly less savage than what was alleged in this case.
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-...
"In any case, I decided to rewrite the site in an mvc framework as suggested by my benevolent hacker adviser. So, while still manually processing transactions and responding to a bigger and bigger message load, I learned to use codeigniter and began rewriting the site."
From your source " the protection-of-property element of the deadly force law is “pretty unique to Texas.” ".
If this type of law is pretty unique to Texas, let's look at the Texas law, instead of necessarily simplistic summaries.
Here [1] is the actual Texas state law. The relevant section is 9.42. The law states that deadly force may only be used in the case you claim if the person meets (among other conditions) that "the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.". Section 9.42B.
So no, you're not just free to shoot people for robbery, willy nilly. There are several steps that, even in Texas, need to be met.
>When is a robbery over? The stuff never stops being yours, and they never stop running away with it.
and
>I think it's legal to try to catch the robber yourself indefinitely, and defend yourself if threatened in the process.
is just nonsense. Even Texas requires that a person be defending their property or (Section 9.41b) "if the actor uses the force immediately or in fresh pursuit after the dispossession and:" with some more constraints after that. You cannot just chase them months later and do anything.
So, "laws don't allow killing for robbery," unless there are quite a bit of other circumstances, and very few places allow it for any circumstance except when there is presumed lethal threat to the defender.
And absolutely certainly the laws do not allow Ulbrecht to hire someone to kill another no matter what the circumstances.
Please cite law statute or legal cases with links. Poorly researched news stories and opinions are much less useful.
[1] http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.h...
>I think it's legal to try to catch the robber yourself indefinitely
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine#State-by-state_...
Louisiana appears to allow lethal force just to prevent unlawful entry into a dwelling, place of business, or motor vehicle.
You're also looking at one law about one situation to dispute what I conjectured about a different situation. Is it not legal to chase down the thief yourself? If you are threatened in the process, is it not then legal to defend yourself? Are 'dead or alive' bounties not legal? The effect may well be the same.
Further, offering you hitman services is NOT entrapment. This would never ensnare an innocent person: they'd say no!
To the best of my knowledge, DPR's lawyers have not even alleged that the police committed any crimes. That would have allowed them to suppress the evidence and, as learned in the link I posted earlier, the evidence that he hired a hitman WAS allowed in court because it was part of the crimes he was charged with.
I did reply to your other post about it 'not being his idea'. That EXACT argument is explained in the law guide, right here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=646
The short answer is that, even if they offer you a hitman, all you ever had to do was say no. Giving you an opportunity is not entrapment. It just shows that if it hadn't been for the police, you would have committed a crime (solicitation for murder, here).
Finally, 'due process' means that he had his day in court. He got that and was sentenced by a jury of his peers. You can disagree with the reasons behind it, but there are good reasons for these rules which are clearly explained in the guide.
The fact that he was willing to deal with hitmen is the problem here. It's not self-defense, nor can it be. It's not a solution a non-criminal would ever accept. The fact that he had only bad solutions was due to his own guilt--there would be no illegal activities for the blackmailer to expose if he had not engaged in any. And if the blackmail was false, he'd have every reason to want to cooperate with the police and prove his innocence by working with them to catch the blackmailer.
=====
Can the police give you the idea to do something bad?
YES - http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=646
You're supposed to refuse.
=====
Can the police commit crimes along with you?
YES - http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=649
There are limits, though, to what sort of crimes, explained in the guide. Assuming they haven't overstepped those bounds, they're not in trouble, and you are. Not only that, but YOU can even get charged for the crimes they did if you were both members of the same criminal conspiracy.
=====
If you're under duress, is it okay to kill someone to save your own life?
NO - http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=813
It would be good to go back to review the necessity section, as well - http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=722
EDIT: Fixed a mistake.
Further, this is all 1L stuff (i.e. the basics). DRP's lawyers know all this stuff. And yet, as far as I can see, they didn't even try this argument. There's only one reason a lawyer doesn't raise an argument that would get their client off the hook: because it's bogus. (Raising bogus arguments in court is a bad idea... it wastes everyone's time and angers the judge, do it enough and you can get sanctioned.)
And they did cover the hitman issue--they most certainly did try to suppress the evidence that he hired a hitman (just not with arguments over entrapment). You can read more here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...
But not once did they say 'entrap'. You seem to be trying to argue that DPR wasn't predisposed to hiring hitmen before the cops got there, but that the cops convinced him that it was his only option.
I've covered why that doesn't cut it: the police CAN join your conspiracy, they CAN lie to you, they CAN give you the means (and the idea!) to commit the crime, and he DID have other options (he doesn't have to like them). Each of those cuts out elements of his defense, leaving nothing.
So the case you have to make is that the police overcame his resistance to hiring a hitman, but the chat logs given never show him saying "no, I don't want to do this" they show him as eager to make use of this "solution."
To establish a claim of entrapment, you have to show that he resisted the idea and that the police overcame this resistance. From there, courts may follow one of two approaches: deciding whether this defendant had been predisposed to commit the crime or whether this approach would have caused any law-abiding citizen to commit the crime.
I've been pointing to the latter approach, as I think it's more productive to take an objective approach than a subjective one. Were a law-abiding citizen in DPR's shoes, they would NOT have hired the hitman. A law-abiding citizen hit by this would have turned to the police for protection from the blackmail, not to a hitman.
The discussion of necessity and duress is relevant to whether he had "other options." Both of those are arguments that one does not have other real options. Because both of those unqestionably fail, he had other options.
To establish entrapment, you have to prove that he had no way out and that they used this to overcome resistance. In the example of actual entrapment, we have someone shown as refusing to commit a crime for money, then agreeing only because someone's life is at stake and the papers aren't really important.
Nowhere have you cited any of the chat logs with him showing resistance to hiring a hitman (this is required!). And then you have to show them overcoming this resistance.
Maybe if you can show the police telling him that police protection is worthless or shooting down his ideas for avoiding hiring a hitman you could get somewhere, but... no such evidence is on offer.
Rather, all of the evidence points to the fact that he was predisposed to commit this crime. From the legal brief cited above:
The next day, Ulbricht told another coconspirator, CC-2, about the theft. (Id.) Ulbricht expressed surprise that the Employee had stolen from him given that he had a copy of the Employee’s driver’s license. (Id. at 6-7.) Later in the conversation, Ulbricht and CC-2 discussed the possibility that the Employee was cooperating with law enforcement, and CC-2 remarked:
So if you want to argue this, take facts cited from court papers (e.g. papers filed by DPR's lawyers), then fit those to the elements of entrapment. Show me from the chat logs or similar sources where he exhibited resistance to the idea, then show me how the police convinced him to give up that resistance.
Because that's how you establish entrapment.
Or if you want to go straight to the source, see item 10b on page 5 of: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...
As far as I can tell, the only reason people are saying he wasn't convicted of murder for hire is because the top-level charge is "conspiracy" or somesuch, with "murder for hire" as one of the specific conspiracy items, and they haven't dug down.
Is it (A), (B), or (C) that is incorrect?
It sounds like you are saying that (C) is incorrect. However you are confusing how this is shown in court - what needs to be established - from the principle and definition of coercion.
Law enforcement did not charge him for the hitman so the defense did not need to put up a case for entrapment, and as far as I can tell the legal defense dropped the ball a number of places. So it is not enough to point at the defense and backwards reason that if there were entrapment that it would have been established. There was no opportunity. There will be a separate hearing on the use of law enforcement coercion and we may see an argument and evidence presented there.
Neither of us would be willing or able to establish a full defense of DPR or a full case for law enforcement - suggesting that this is my responsibility is intellectually dishonest.
Take any number of resources:
http://www.pdxcriminallawyers.com/articles/entrapment-and-po...
"What Is Entrapment?
When it comes to police coercion, a defendant is assumed to have the responsibility to turn down an opportunity to commit a crime when posed by a law enforcement officer. Instead, a defendant will need to prove that the law enforcement officer took additional actions to force a person into an illegal act. The following may be considered sufficient actions to force a person into committing a crime they otherwise wouldn’t:
- Fraudulent claims or promises
- Depending on the specifics, verbal harassment or flattery
- Threats against a person, their property, or their job
If a defendant wants to cite entrapment, they have a duty to present proof of entrapment. As it is what is known as an affirmative defense, the defendant has to offer evidence to clear their willing involvement in a crime."
http://www.grayarea.com/entrap.htm
"So, a defendant cannot be exonerated of a crime on an entrapment claim even if he or she can prove that police had no reason whatsoever to suspect even the slightest of criminal inclinations. What they must prove is that were induced by police to commit the crime. This leads us to the second of the four questions: What constitutes inducement?
An officer merely approaching a defendant and requesting that they commit a crime does not. To claim inducement, a defendant must prove he or she was unduly persuaded, threatened, coerced, harassed or offered pleas based on sympathy or friendship by police. A defendant must demonstrate that the government conduct created a situation in which an otherwise law-abiding citizen would commit an offense."
Yes, what you are arguing against is a straw man. Quite simply you are not charitably interpreting the situation whereby law enforcement created a situation in which DPR had an incentive to hire a hitman as entrapment. It is the simulation of blackmail, fraud and threats to DPR's business that constitute coercion.
Merely suggesting that there be a hitman is not coercion. But simulating blackmail, defrauding him and threatening his business constitute coercion.
This is what we're talking about and you have repeatedly been ignoring.
Because you are arguing merely in the context of "they offered a hitman and he agreed" you are arguing against a weakened form of my argument.
My argument, in full, charitable form, can be seen in the second reference quoted.
"An officer merely approaching a defendant and requesting that they commit a crime does not. To claim inducement, a defendant must prove he or she was unduly persuaded, threatened, coerced, harassed or offered pleas based on sympathy or friendship by police. A defendant must demonstrate that the government conduct created a situation in which an otherwise law-abiding citizen would commit an offense."
An officer did not merely approach DPR and request that he commit a crime.
They simulated blackmail, fraud and threat to property: that is coercive.
Definitions of blackmail includes the word "coercion".
Please, I don't care how long your posts are if you don't bother to address the premises of the argument.
Because you are refusing to address the use of simulated blackmail and fraud to coerce DPR, you are not charitably engaging the argument. You are arguing against a straw man. You are pretending that law enforcement merely chatted with DPR online without setting up coercive pretenses.
Please, for your own sake, be charitable when debating people - either in person or online.