> In an authoritarian government basic liberties we take for granted in the West are considered corruption

Could you list some of those basic liberties? Are they the sort of liberties whose exercise involves taking half a billion in bribes?

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Generally, basic liberties like showing up to a protest aren't considered corruption, they get called terrorism, or somesuch. A Texas judge just sentenced a dozen people to 30-70 years in prison for exercising them, by the way. Some of the people given 30 weren't even at the protest. Half this forum looked at that, and saw nothing wrong with it. I can only imagine that if they were born on the other side of the Pacific ocean, they would be card-carrying party members.

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Jblx2 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

>Some of the people given 30 weren't even at the protest.

That by itself isn't a convincing argument. You can't plan a bank heist and be waiting at your safe house and say, "I'm not guilty of anything, because I wasn't in the bank!". The mafia guy doesn't get to say, "I didn't actually whack the victim, I just nodded to Joey, and he did the whacking".

You might be interested in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_conspiracy

...maybe this is mostly a thing in common law jurisdictions? Maybe there is a lawyer here who can point us to a interesting history of conspiracy in common law vs civil law jurisdictions? Also of interest might be things like:

https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/homicide/felony-mur...

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guywithahat 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For anyone else curious as to what OP is talking about, I had to look this up:

> The protest was a late-night/noise demonstration (involving fireworks) against immigration detention policies. It turned violent when a shooting injured a police officer. Prosecutors described it as an "act of terrorism" linked to an alleged antifa cell; defendants and supporters denied organized antifa ties and framed it as protected protest activity

https://x.com/i/grok/share/87352ef0ac4b454aba924157c44f476f

It sounds like they arrived in tactical gear, started destroying property, and when cops arrived opened fire.

This seems like a bad example on your part, as the people opposing ICE are some of the most misaligned people in the country. That said, we have a right to protest in traditional public forms, you don't have a right to shoot up an ICE facility.

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copper-float an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Bringing guns to shoot people you disagree with, then shooting them and injuring them for doing their job is not a harmless demonstration. It's terrorism, and they deserve what they got.

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vkou 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Only one person opened fire. He got 100 years. (I agree that he shouldn't have gotten a slap on the wrist for what he did, but I'll happily point out that killers serve less, if at all.)

The rest got 70. None of them had guns.

The guy who got 30 years wasn't even at the protest.

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There is no universe where this is not completely batshit insane, but it's interesting to see you use the exact same logic[1] the CCP has in its crackdowns and pogroms to justify it.

The reason the sentences were so high, by the way, was because the judge took dozens of minor offenses and added the sentences for each. It's the equivalent of sentencing someone who stole a 12-pack for 12 counts of theft, or someone tagging 'FUCK ICE' for 8 counts[1] of destruction of federal property.

For some reason, the current regime does not hold its footsoldiers and other useful idiots to the same standard.

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[1] Someone in a protest/movement/group did something bad, brand them all terrorists, and make sure that everyone's going to a 're-education' camp for what will remain of their lives.

[2] One for each letter, and another one for the space.

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guywithahat 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think your confusion comes from the fact this wasn't a protest gone awry, it was an organized domestic terrorist attack. It was a small group of armed people in body armor who privately organized a domestic terrorist attack intending to cause damage and hurt/kill federal officers in an ambush. The only reason the officer lived was because Song's gun jammed before he could kill people and get away.

Certainly if this was a jihadist attack, a lifetime sentence would be appropriate. Why should it be different just because they're white?

	▲	anigbrowl 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This guy carried out an organized domestic terrorist attack with help from others, actually killed someone as well as badly injuring another, and got only 41 years. Why the disparity? The Federal Building where he murdered the security guard is just an administrative building; at least the people in Texas were motivated by the somewhat reasonable belief that they were attacking guards at a concentration camp. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/steven-carrillo-sentenc...
	▲	vkou 26 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> it was an organized domestic terrorist attack A guy deliberately drove his car through a street full of scattering protesters in my neighbourhood a few years ago, and when people tried to pull him out of it, he shot one of them, and then ran off, waving his gun (with a jungle-taped pair of mags inserted into it). Was he a (disorganized) political terrorist? If these guys got 70 years for being at the protest, how many hundreds of years in prison do you think were warranted for him?