In aggregate, there is value to going hard on all the traitors.
I’ll generally agree with your stance, but here I’d say there’s also value in not going too hard on the traitors. There’s a balance.
You go too hard (“fullest extent of the law”) and you may inspire some people to say “hmm, that seemed overboard, maybe they have a point about the government oppressing them after all”.
From what I’ve seen, almost half of the cases got real prison time, and the rest got probation or house arrest. Cherry picking a few cases and I think it’s consistent with your expectation. A serial offender that helped organize and incited violence would generally get years in prison. Someone who just walked with the crowd as others actually did the initial breaking in, who did not seem to commit violence themselves, who did not steal or vandalize anything, for whom this is a first offense, that seemed genuinely sorry or at least afraid of what they had done, that is the sort of person that got probation. As much as folks might find their cause unjust and their actions unreasonable, I think if we calm down and take a breath that we can agree that the circumstances just make sense for probation for some of those folks.
I’ll generally agree with your stance, but here I’d say there’s also value in not going too hard on the traitors. There’s a balance.
You go too hard (“fullest extent of the law”) and you may inspire some people to say “hmm, that seemed overboard, maybe they have a point about the government oppressing them after all”.
From what I’ve seen, almost half of the cases got real prison time, and the rest got probation or house arrest. Cherry picking a few cases and I think it’s consistent with your expectation. A serial offender that helped organize and incited violence would generally get years in prison. Someone who just walked with the crowd as others actually did the initial breaking in, who did not seem to commit violence themselves, who did not steal or vandalize anything, for whom this is a first offense, that seemed genuinely sorry or at least afraid of what they had done, that is the sort of person that got probation. As much as folks might find their cause unjust and their actions unreasonable, I think if we calm down and take a breath that we can agree that the circumstances just make sense for probation for some of those folks.