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I think it's less about the frothing at the mouth folks that are too far gone to rationally evaluate any circumstance.
It's about every other person watching. It may sound ludicrous, but imagine if they had executed every last person that set foot in the capital building that day, and managed to do so within a few months of the incident. I think a lot of people might say "holy shit, they had a point, I thought they were crazy but that was an insane authoritarian response".
Different people have different thresholds for their tipping point for "government is overreacting and threatening free speech", and from what I've seen in the cases I could find, I think they did a fairly good job of typical judicial results. Some of the key people responsible got years in prison. Random people who just followed the crowd without any evidence of committing assault or vandalism or intent to do those things (just trespassing and repeating seditious channts), and for whom this was a first offense, ok they might have gotten probation.
Leniency is pretty common in the justice system under various circumstances, and this seems about the normal amount.
I don't think anybody in their right mind would call for an execution when the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I don't know where you got that idea. But more sensibly, people have gone to prison for longer for less and that's what really makes no sense. You're absolutely right, though, I do take an insurrection as seriously as we should.
I'm using an example, an example that almost anyone would take to be blatanty overreacting, and then say for different people, that threshold is different.
People in this thread are saying "hang them all" "during the Civil War, they would execute people like this" "they should all spend the rest of their lives in jail" "the judges are corrupt for ever letting them see the light of day". Meanwhile these courts are being asked to rule on the nuance of the individual circumstances. Some pretty screwed up stuff happened, and people received reasonably harsh sentences in those contexts. There were also people who violated the law, but basically were walking with a group where only the leaders actively did anything and they almost looked like they were touring the building. They did wrong and they should have known better, but if it is an isolated incident for that person, and they have people in front of them and people behind them all going along with it, and they didn't directly initiate or participate in theft, assault, vandalism, then maybe we should be willing to accept the court might do probation instead of a long prison sentence.
The courts are punishing pretty much everyone they got a hold of. Out of about 1,300 cases, like 2 resulted in acquittal, almost half received real prison time, a bunch more house arrest, and lots of probation. This seems a pretty reasonable mix of response given the large number of people, differing criminal records, variety of circumstance, and different levels of engagement with the activity.
Regardless of how granular you want to go with the argument or how fair you think the issuing of these sentences was, it's still baffling how you can get more time for literal drug possession or even texting a minor without going so far as assault, than trying to disrupt government proceedings in the hopes of interfering in an election. That's my whole point. This is some serious stuff. It's baffling that you want to hand-wave the event like they were browsing the galleries at the local art museum. You really don't need to do all that. I'm well aware that there were some passive participants. But the bottom line is that were groups planning it on Telegram and other social circles beforehand and they all willingly and consciously participated. It was premeditated and coordinated and in cahoots with some government officials who are still actively serving. Nobody was lost in Jan 6th or took the wrong bus and walked nosily along. A slap on the wrist is all you get for trying to stop a fair election because you didn't like the results. What a precedent, it's insane.
You know there are black and brown people sentenced to life in prison for having been arrested for having cannabis on them, right? In what world do you think Americans care about the encroaching police state? Or is that not an authoritarian response, for some reason?
It's always nuts to see "certain" Americans struggle to see any of the melanin in their fellow countrymen' skin or just blatantly ignore it.
It's obviously because they're all fuckin White, dude. How are some Americans still so damn clueless?
I've never said or implied that people of color get fair treatment.
You propose the solution is everyone should get imprisoned without nuance as a remedy? Seems messed up. Seems you'd want to make sure persons of color receive justice under the law rather to inflict more injustice on more folks.