• Wrench@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes, it matters why. Because if it’s arbitrary, they can arrest anyone they feel like at any time.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sorry, let me be more clear: does it matter which crime he’s arrested for, as long as he’s put in jail for at least one of them?

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes. It matters. That’s my point.

        You don’t want law enforcement having access to arbitrary laws that they selectively enforce to achieve imprisonment, because they can selectively enforce them for their own agenda, which may not be to fight Nazis in the future.

        We need laws to imprison hate speech specifically.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re arguing against a point I didn’t make.

          I didn’t say that laws should be selectively enforced (even though they already are, due to prosecutorial discretion) nor did I say that this guy should not be tried for every crime he may have committed that we have evidence for. I said that the net effect of going to prison as punishment for breaking the law will be the same, regardless of which conviction put him there.

          If, hypothetically, Trump went to jail over tax fraud, I wouldn’t cry because it wasn’t over the documents case, or the attempted coup, or interfering in Georgia’s elections.

          • Wrench@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Wat.

            You accuse me of making an argument against something you didn’t say (I didn’t), and now you bring up Trump out of no where.

            The fuck?

            I guess to pay your very silly argument some attention, I’ll bite. Tax evasion is a serious crime and should be prosecuted. Hanging a sign on an overpass isn’t.

            In Al Capones case, tax evasion was the least of what he was suspected of, but it’s what they could prove. It doesn’t mean tax evasion shouldn’t be a crime, and the cops were abusing a nothing law.

            • Djtecha@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              This is very much a purest vs ends debate. Ideally we enforce what’s on the books regardless of who you are, but shy of that it’s better to have these morons off the street for one of the offenses they commited.

            • Billiam@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Whoops, that’s on me. I edited and changed my reply to you a few times and lost the plot. Hopefully it makes more sense now.