The government had already revealed he was lying, your choice was whether to believe the serial liar or actual people whose job was to deal with the stuff.
Point to the government official who, prior to the Intercept story, was telling the American people that the US had evidence that GRU officers had attempted and succeeded in hacking voter registration databases before the 2016 election. I don’t think anyone was.
So sentencing guidelines should have an extra wealth penalty? If you make X more than the average citizen you should get Y more punishment?
Is that what I wrote? It doesn’t look to me like what I wrote.
This seems rather troubling.
Then explain it. I say Petraeus should get as much punishment as a normal citizen, and that he didn’t is the injustice.
You seem to be saying that Reality Winner should’ve gotten no punishment for her crime. I disagree. I think five years is entirely fair for leaking secrets and violating her oath.
Where do I say that? I mean, I wrote this:
I think that’s pretty clear. Don’t you?
I’m saying that in practice, your desire for that outcome will have no effect whatsoever, and wealthy and powerful people will continue to get lighter treatment than ordinary people. I’m suggesting that we give ordinary people the same breaks we give the powerful people, until such time as the courts start treating the powerful people the way you’d like them to.
As a real-world example of this, I say that ordinary people should not go to prison for drug offenses until powerful people get that same treatment. I think that’s a better solution than just hoping that the courts will start sentencing the powerful to prison for their drug offenses.
Not when butted against what you’ve written otherwise. Let’s get down to basics. What is a fair punishment for Reality Winner in your opinion?
Point to what I’ve written that isn’t consistent with that.
The same slap on the wrist Petraeus got.
So we’re back to disagreeing and that’s that. Reality (as in life) isn’t fair. The fact that Reality (the person) paid more for here crime than a person higher up in the chain of command did is a tough break, but I’m unwilling to give her what’s essentially nothing as a punishment just because Petraeus had connections.
It seems you two are talking at cross purposes.
@Telefrog your point about justice isn’t wrong, but neither is @scottagibson about fairness wrong.
In a just world, Patraeus would have been punished in accordance with his crime. He was not, and people of his station almost never are. So in order to achieve fairness someone like Reality Winner should receive more lenience. Otherwise you serve merely to perpetuate social inequality.
So is it more likely that we see people of power punished appropriately? Because unless we can achieve that, then Winner’s punishment is neither just, nor fair.
And to be clear, I do not think her punishment is, in a vacuum, excessive. It is, however, when comparing to sentences of others and we see it is beyond what anyone else has received for a similar act.
Probably, though I think you ought to take another look at the things I actually wrote as opposed to the way you characterized them, but life’s not fair. Someone just told me that.
Yes, well said Craig.
So we should rewrite laws and let everyone off until dreams come true? That’s a radical and completely impractical solution.
I absolutely agree that Petraeus’ charges and punishment were out of whack with the crimes he committed. He should’ve been charged with more violations and he should’ve gone to jail for at least 5 years. It sucks that not only did he only pay a small fine and get probation, but that he continues to enjoy political favor. Despite that, I cannot in good conscience say that Reality Winner should get less of a punishment just because she’s a person of less political importance. She committed a crime and she should do the time.
Based on historical evidence, humans will always give preferential treatment to the rich, powerful, or the famous. Until you get robot judges and robot jurors, I don’t see that changing.
I know. Life’s rough, right?
It is, but we don’t have to make it harder than it needs to be, do we? If I accidentally mischaracterized your comments, I think I’d acknowledge the same. Isn’t that the civil way to go?
Since you’re continuing to post on this even though we seem to be at an impasse, sure.
You said:
But you also wrote:
Which seems to be a defense of Winner’s actions, correct? You also wrote this when I asked what an appropriate punishment would be:
I say that’s not enough punishment and I’m not influenced by the fact that Petraeus got what we all admit was too little for his crime. How have I mischaracterized what you wrote?
Here:
I did not advocate anything like that. I advocated the opposite, that average citizens should get the same treatment as their betters.
And here:
I did not advocate that. I advocated the opposite, that she should get the same sort of punishment that her betters did.
This is true, right? Your characterizations of my comments don’t reflect my actual comments. I said so at the time. If you can’t bring yourself to say ‘OK, you’re right about that, sorry’, that’s fine.
I apologize ahead of time for quoting you, as others have said the same.
The issue with this is the severity of the punishment in general then becomes inappropriate with the severity of the crime. This in turn could encourage people to act in similar manner, when doing so could cause significant damage to the country.
The obvious rejoinder is to enhance the penalty given to the higher-ups. Nobody here would argue against that, of course. But we’re stuck with the reality (no pun intended) of the world we live in. So we either have uneven punishment or too little punishment. I can certainly appreciate the sentiment behind preferring the latter, but the potential harm to the greater good is too high to risk it, imho.
Oh you’re doing that pedantic thing again. That’s cute. Here, I’ll give you what you want:
I’m sorry that you are unable to grasp the nuances of a normal discussion. The fact that humans discuss things with turns of phrase and hyperbole confuses you, and for that I’m deeply sorry. You’re correct that I did indeed post snark in an effort to get you to say exactly what you meant instead of trying to guide the conversation like a grand wizard of liberal thought. I’ll note that until I did that, you just kept posting nonsense in an effort to look smarter than your audience instead of just saying “Reality Winner deserved a slap on the wrist - a fine and 2yrs of probation.”
Let me clarify my position, since you missed it. Your suggestion that Reality Winner get the same punishment as Petraeus because life is unfair is silly to me. It’s fundamentally dumb. I’m sorry, but that’s my reaction.