When all this happened, I started out very angry, ready for anyone and everyone who set foot on Capitol grounds to face dire sanctions.
Since then, I’ve had a chance to mellow a little bit, and I’ve become aware of the situation with BLM protests, where for instance the Seattle DA is not prosecuting folks for simple tresspassing or failure to obey an officer when that charge was just being present past curfew.
That got me thinking a little, and I guess I’m coming around to the idea of a little parity. I’m willing to give slack to protestors who came on the grounds late, maybe stepping over damaged barricades, but not engaging in any violence or entering the building. However, anyone damaging property or chanting “Hang Mike Pence” or trashing news equipment or taking about going back to their hometown and continuing the pressure or whatever, all of them need to face consequences. Anyone wearing tac gear is highly suspect in my mind. Anyone inside the building should be charged.
It’s reasonable but not something I’d agree with completely. Being on the streets is different from being on federal property. The only defense I can see is if you were physically swept into the Capitol building by a rush of people, or can plead for clemency because you were documenting it as a journalist.
If you reverse the scenario, people on the streets outside the Capitol while it was being broken into, versus someone who was inside a building being looted but not proven to taking part in it themselves, I’d feel the same: go easier on the person who wasn’t inside the building.
I of course agree; someone who figuratively crosses a line by, well, literally crossing that line shouldn’t avoid consequences just because nothing extra can be proven; I don’t see why we need anything extra to be proven; absent that physically-swept-along defense or the like, I’d be fine with sentencing them to hard labor, possibly on barriers to keep out future would-be invaders.
For those who enjoy reading legal documents, here’s the complaint against Capitol invader Christian Secor. Most of it is fairly unsurprising, although this paragraph was unexpectedly entertaining:
I think we’re prematurely pronouncing the coup dead. There are reports that another insurrection is planned for March 4 (the original date for inauguration), whence the True Believers that Donald will return to the presidency in glory to judge the living and the dead and his rule will never end.
The Qberts think something is going to happen:
" The Trump International Hotel near the White House is eyeing a big payday on March 4, the date that some believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory will herald ex-President Donald Trump’s triumphant return to power, Forbes first reported.
This unfounded belief, shared by the sovereign citizen movement, is based on a conspiracy theory that a law enacted in 1871 turned the U.S. into a corporation and that every president since Ulysses S. Grant has been illegal.
Prior to 1937, U.S. presidents were sworn into office in early March, hence the date’s significance to QAnon and the sovereign citizen movement."
Here’s an interesting Politico article about the rift Trump is causing in a portion of the evangelical community.
One problem in discussing Trump and evangelicals is that the evangelical community is not monolithic, and the various factions did not have the same motivations and rationalizations in their support for Trump.
This article is about the Pentecostal/Charismatic evangelicals, whose assorted leaders claim to receive prophecies directly from God.
And those prophecies have become a total clusterfuck post-Trump, with some leaders taking the “this was God’s will, he works in mysterious ways” angle regarding Trump’s historic loss, with others still claiming the fight isn’t over and Trump will be restored to the Presidency any minute now.
And other leaders have been concerned about how the clusterfuck of conflicting prophecies will affect the highly profitable prophecy industry long term, and are even discussing forming a prophecy clearinghouse of sorts, a way to put a heavenly “seal of approval” on the prophecies they make up receive directly from God. A quality control committee, as it were, to make sure they can all continue to work together with consistency to fleece their flocks.
Need to closely watch the ones outside who may have provided tactical support without having stepped inside. Commanders don’t charge the frontlines. And I’m not talking just Trump. Anyone there is suspect but not everyone may have commited crimes.
God could make His prophecies a lot more credible if He would deliver them with secure 128-bit public key encryption technology, that only His select prophets could decrypt.
Oh, certainly. Those responsible should be caught, even if they didn’t go themselves. I’m only taking about leniency for simple trespass, only of the grounds not the building. Everything else is culpable.