An insurrection is only a crime if you lose. Otherwise, it's a thing to be proud of for generations.
Now, there doesn't seem to have been any path to victory for them, and that casts doubt on the rest of their judgment. But at least in the moment, they believed they were heroes.
Plenty of the rioters streamed themselves live on Youtube, Twitch, and Facebook, while shouting their own names on camera.
Some of them even had their work-badges and IDs displayed during the riots, and bragged about their "accomplishments" on Facebook publicly under their own name.
Perhaps they saw the take over of the Hart Senate building during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings? Or AOC leading a take over of Pelosi's office? There were some minor arrests, but not much more than slap on the hand stuff, as I recall.
I don't think -- for even a single microsecond -- that anyone anywhere close to those hearings feared for the lives. It's absolutely absurd to compare the two situations.
This standard ("does anyone feel unsafe") should always be used as a check against ones haywire common sense.
I think that's a terrible standard. Actually, it's not even a standard at all as it can't be known until after an act, such as these, has begun taking place in which case it is too late. Unless something is known to everyone in advance to be "protest theater", so to speak, it is the act not an unknowable reaction that must be held to account.
- Kavanaugh confirmation hearings: did people feel unsafe? No.
- AOC leading a take over of Pelosi's office: No, probably the opposite. People were likely laughing about it and mildly annoyed.
- Mobs of people ransacking the capitol? Yeah, people felt _terrified_, and multiple people died.
See the difference? There's non-violent peaceful protest, and there's threats of violence, or actual violence, that one can feel in their bones, and which color the situation and subsequent charges should events fall out of line with our tradition of protest. Though events can't be known ahead of time, it's fairly easy in retrospect to judge intent -- i.e, AOC didn't enter Pelosi's office dressed in tactical gear and holding zip ties, with a mob of angry "Squad" members calling for the Senate minority leader's death.
It's offensive to common sense and morally dubious to compare these things, or to even bring them up in this context.
Was there a poll taken of the feelings inside prior and during these events which was then proclaimed to the protesting parties and the public at large? Is there any indication that the vast majority had any idea of the intentions and the contents of the pockets of those who sought to do harm? Does the moral quality of an action change depending upon the style of pants? The ethics of actions of others does not at all depend upon your feelings.
> > Does the moral quality of an action change depending upon the style of pants
No, maybe not, but perhaps there's something to be said when you look at the shirts people were wearing ("Camp Auschwitz") or the flags people were holding (Confederate, many), or the words people were speaking ("Hang Mike Pence!")?
> Is there any indication that the vast majority had any idea of the intentions and the contents of the pockets of those who sought to do harm
There's an enormous amount of testimony everywhere, in every major publication, on every news channel, about the feelings of those on the inside experiencing the mob enter from the outside. Your attempts to defend this are disingenuous.
> Policy enforcement based on feelings is inherently arbitrary and contrary to the rule of law
This is entirely not true in the real world. When a prosecutor brings a charge against someone, all sorts of factors are taken into account, based on prior law. The charge of "menacing" is a great example. How about "making threatening statements"? Or any number of other obvious examples that rely on subjective interpretation within a context.
Come on now, if the other events you mention had caused major fear you should be able to find some news stories or personal testimonies documenting that. Are we to believe that the incidents you mention were actually deeply traumatic but nobody bothered to say so?
Are we to believe that a poll was taken of how people felt after an event which then traveled backwards in time to before the event and was then communicated to the group which will cause the event in the future? This is actually what is required to argue with what I wrote.
The topic is "what were these people thinking in taking these actions?" My reply was "there were similar actions in the past which resulted in trivial punishments." Would amending my reply to "there were similar actions in the past which resulted in trivial punishments and no one took seriously anyway" somehow have made the group that entered the Capitol less likely to have done so? If so, please explain.
I am not interested in your red herring. You are claiming an equivalence between recent and previous incidents which is not apparent to anyone else,a nd seem unable to support your claim.
The topic at hand is a red herring? Unable to support a claim which was not made? I'm assuming you're referring to the final end results rather than "what could they be thinking?" which was, as stated, the actual topic.
