It’s certainly not unprecedented. Leftist Maximilien Robespierre, the French Revolution’s main author, was a passionate capital punishment opponent who called the death penalty a “cowardly assassination” — he then went on to execute thousands during his Reign of Terror. Likewise did the liberals of decades ago frown upon punishment, sometimes saying it “doesn’t work” and is “morally wrong.” Boy, has that ever changed.
Now, Frenchie Max style, punishment’s effectiveness is not only a self-evident truth to leftists, but it can’t be harsh enough.
That is, when it’s the “right people” being punished.
A good example is the recent sentencing of “Proud Boy” January 6 defendants, one of the latest of whom got 17 years for an incident in which no “one was killed, no property was significantly damaged, nothing was set on fire, nobody whipped out a gun, nobody got taken hostage, [and] no mass casualties were strewn through the streets,” as commentator Monica Showalter put it Friday.
In contrast, Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters routinely get off with minor or no charges.
The Hill reports on the aforementioned J6er who had the book — and a few addenda — thrown at him, writing that Florida Army veteran and “Proud Boy Joe Biggs on Thursday was sentenced to 17 years in prison, the second-highest sentence handed down to anyone convicted in connection with the Capitol attack.”
“Biggs was convicted of sedition and other serious felonies earlier this year after being accused of leading members of the right-wing extremist group to the Capitol and talking with the first rioter to breach police barricades just minutes before he acted,” the site continues.
Also sentenced Thursday was Proud Boy Zachary Rehl, an ex-U.S. Marine; he got 15 years after a conviction for leading a mob toward the Capitol on J6.
This was followed Friday by the draconian sentencing of two other Proud Boys figures: One-time leader Ethan Nordean received 18 years’ incarceration for “seditious conspiracy.” And Dominic Pezzola was convicted for breaking a Capitol window, ushering rioters into the structure (much as some cops had done), and grabbing a shield from a policeman. He did “get off” relatively easy, however.
He’ll serve 10 years.
Also receiving 18 years, this past May, was Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. He was joined that month by Oath Keepers Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs, who got 12 years for “conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging duties and tampering with documents or proceedings,” as The Hill puts it.
Well, okay, they didn’t get 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread like Jean Valjean did. But suffice it to say that Nancy Pelosi’s line, “People will do what they do” — uttered to dismiss the actions of violent mobs tearing down statues — is not universally applicable. When leftists do what they do, they get a hand.
When conservatives do what they don’t usually do (aka, what liberals oft do), they get done.
Speaking of which, Showalter analyzes the Biggs’ case’s particulars. She first quotes The Hill again:
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ultimately applied a terrorism enhancement to Biggs’s sentencing guidelines, wherein a defendant must have committed an offense that “was calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.”
Kelly cited Biggs’s efforts to tear down a fence separating rioters from the Capitol and bringing them “one step closer” to their objective of halting the 2020 election certification as reason for applying the enhancement.
“I really don’t think this is a close call,” he said of the decision.
Of course not — not when the accused opposes the regime.
The post Injustice, American Style: BLM Rioters Walk — J6 Defendants Get Almost 20 Years appeared first on LewRockwell.
The daily news and opinion site LewRockwell.com was founded in 1999 by anarcho-capitalists Lew Rockwell and Burt Blumert to help carry on the anti-war, anti-state, pro-market work of Murray N. Rothbard. Visit https://www.lewrockwell.com