“Quick, somebody get a rope!” could become a national hue and cry if our national leaders fail in their duty to assure that justice for the insurrectionists is swift, sure and, most of all, fair. Hard, but fair.
What’s to assure the coming manhunt won’t turn into a witch hunt? Once the feds begin putting blanket rewards on the heads of insurrectionists, there just might spring up a cottage industry of young internet sleuths seeking to cash in by identifying the wanted individuals. If that happens, more and more seditionists will eventually be brought to justice, while many of those still at-large are most likely somewhere shitting bricks. Big ones.
Since, during my entire writing career, I’ve often railed against the gross injustice of the majority of all of the prisons sentences handed out, both at the state and federal levels, now that we’re faced with determining what kinds of sentences should be meted out to the insurrectionists (and yes, public sentiment will play a big role), I’m not going to change my position and start calling for overly punitive sentences for the traitors upon their conviction. And I certainly don’t want this to turn into the aforementioned witch hunt, where outspoken people with far-right views become suspect merely for speaking their minds. Unless, of course, they’re calling for violence — then that’s another matter entirely.
In fact, I believe most of the bit players who simply trespassed on federal property should only have to serve one day in prison. That’s so they can be assigned a federal prisoner number and then be placed on 20 years (strict reporting) parole. I guarantee you a sentence like that will work in 99 percent of the cases, since they will be fearful of that 20 years of parole hanging like the Sword of Damocles over their heads. Most of them, after conviction, will no doubt spend the rest of their lives attempting to live down the guilt of being known — branded — as an “insurrectionist.” Shame.
However, the punishment should escalate in severity the closer to the front of the pack of jackals an individual is caught on camera inside the Capitol Building, with the average sentence imposed no more than 18 months, unless they did major damage. Again, with 20 years of parole afterwards, and yes, the Shame, always the Shame.
But for the leaders of the attempted coup — and especially the plotters both inside and outside government — sentences have to be of sufficient length and severity as to act as a real deterrent to other would-be homegrown terrorists, some of whom are still attempting to parade around as patriots.
And all sentences, even the lightest, should include a hefty fine, so every month when they have to send that check in (or take it in when they visit their parole officer) they’ll feel it in the wallet. That’s where it always hurts the worse, or is it the most?
We know from the aftermath of the Civil War how sore losers soon turn to victimhood for solace, and this current crop of traitors will do the same, that is, if they haven’t already created a narrative that hails them as Freedom Fighters, not the craven mob they actually were. But some of these rednecks defecated in the Halls of Congress, so we know who and what they are, and not what they pretend to be.
As for their Fuhrer, he has to be made an example of for the good of the country — so that we may begin to heal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is absolutely right when she states that Donald Trump should face accessory to murdering an officer of the law, and if convicted in a fair and impartial manner — just as the others that could be convicted right along with him — is sentenced to the appropriate number of years behind bars, commensurate with the crimes he committed.
This cancer on the body politic must be removed so we can move toward that brighter future we all so deserve. But we won’t be able to do so until this dark cloud of criminality is blown away by justice. “Justice” — not “malice” — is what’s required … even before and above unity.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsIn