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Comment by Arodex | Hacker News Reader

>if you joined a protest group where the organizer shoots a policeman and you’ve all got weapons at home and then you tell people to move the material you have at home that indicates you’re part of the group then I think the convictions are pretty accurate.

Oh, tell that to the president of the United States and half of Congress and half of the Senate (and half of the country). Remind me what was their reaction and actions after the pardon of Jan 6 rioters?

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The Jan 6 rioters were convicted and given similarly long sentences. Certainly Trump doing something doesn’t make it valid.

They were given similarly long sentences, despite shooting zero people.

Honestly, I think both Jan 6 and these rioters deserve punishment, but not such long sentences. Prevention and deterrence - prevention by monitoring (at least to prevent them from going near “enemy territory”) and taking their guns, deterrence by at most a few years in prison, other penalties (like fines), and the social consequences. Anything more is unnecessarily harmful and wastes prison resources.

Well, if he did it and there was no opposition, it certainly makes it "valid". Where exactly has it been made invalid? Has anyone done anything to make it invalid? Aren't they free, and can they do it again?

And the slush fund for the Jan 6 rioters is just suspended, not canceled. It will come back.

Just because something happened doesn’t make it “valid”: it’s not moral, and your side doing it may not have the same effect (good people can’t use evil tools as effectively as evil people).

I don’t really care whether Jan 6 rioters are free, they’ve spent months-to-years in jail anyways. What’s important is preventing future crimes, which punishing deserved people broadly on your side helps.

> Can they do it again

In 2028 if a Dem wins? At best they’re looking at another few years. (Trump won’t successfully pardon a crime as egregious as this (before anyone serves time) unless the Dem is really ineffective, because of how similarly it can be used against his side.)

>Just because something happened doesn’t make it “valid”

If nothing happens to change it, it is valid just by being a fait accompli. Your words are just words, if they don't translate into a tangible reality. An hallucination.

>I don’t really care whether Jan 6 rioters are free, they’ve spent months-to-years in jail anyways. What’s important is preventing future crime

Enrique Tario has been harassing former capitol policemen. Any Jan 6 rioter is free to go after the police, or family or friends or anyone who denounced them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/22/enrique-tarr...

>In 2028 if a Dem wins?

No, in 2026. After the 2020 election, polling places and local state officials were threatened and attacked in dozen of places.

>Trump won’t successfully pardon a crime as egregious as this

It doesn't make sense, he's done far worse already, and he is preparing to do far, far worse. Hesgeth is more than ready to use the Army against the US population:

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5557232/hegseth-general...

VP Vance is ready to invoke the insurrection act:

https://archive.is/85Zmd

> similarly long sentences

Enrique Tarrio got 22 years for masterminding an attempt to violently overturn the results of a Presidential election.

Daniel Sanchez-Estrada got 30 years for moving some magazines.

The median Jan 6 sentence was 10 months. The shortest sentence for a protestor here was 30 years.

Ok, that guy’s sentence is egregious (they all are, as were the Jan 6 ones, but I think he shouldn’t even have jail time).

I have less sympathy towards those who vandalized and the one who shot at police. 100 years is insane, but those acts are blatantly illegal.

> as were the Jan 6 ones

30 years was the MINIMUM sentence given to this group. The MAXIMUM sentence given to J6 rioters was 22 years. Are you honestly still trying to conflate the two?

30 is way way too long

22 is still way too long

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