Hacker News Reader

I do think we should prosecute people who break the law. Maybe not every single one of them, but a lot of them. I personally find the cause of BLM to be just and the cause of MAGA tremendously unjust, so if it were up to me I would show more leniency (within the bounds of the law) to the BLM group. Probably fortunately for all parties, though, it's not up to me.

View on HN

This seems tremendously unjust to me.

You're suggesting that an arsonist, for example, should be treated differently if they burned a building down based on their political ideology?

How do you think the victims of these crimes are going to feel about your notion of "justice"?

I do think sometimes the intent of a person matters when they've committed crime. This is codified in U.S. law. Killing someone in self defense, killing someone because you're angry with them, and killing someone because they're gay and you don't like gay people: each the same crime, but treated differently in U.S. law. I don't know about arson, but I do think that for example occupying a government building because you want the elected officials there to take action on supporting human rights should be treated differently than occupying a government building because you want your favorite candidate to be president despite losing the election.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com