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Do you also agree that providing bail funds and free legal counsel for left-leaning protestors also does so?
Just wondering.
Because a LOT more actual violence occurred across the country on some random day in 2020 than on January 6, 2021.
Everyone should have access to free legal counsel, regardless of political orientation or the nature of the crime. It is in the interest of justice that all individual defendants be defended by lawyers who are as capable as possible, because this decreases the gap in resourcefulness between the individual and the government-supported prosecution. If this isn't possible all the time, one can still be pleased when it is. Here, the harms of incentivization pale before the benefits to justice.
Providing bail funds is a different matter, as it provides a degree of immunity to punishment. This is still different to a presidential pardon insofar as bail circumvents part of a punishment whereas a pardon overrules the justice system. An organization providing bail must expend some of its resources to do so, and this provides a lower bound to the extent to which the organization is truly convinced that the punishment is unjust. Presidential pardons are issued without sacrifice, at least in the short term. Pardons overrule the justice system, sending a stronger message incentivizing the crime. They are issued with less sacrifice (so potentially less conviction and consideration) than bail, which merely circumvents punishment and therefore sends a weaker message of incentivization.
Aside: I think your comment is whataboutism, but I've never been convinced that whataboutism is a bad form of argument. Why shouldn't one side complain about being held to a different moral standard than the other?
It is a really simple test to see if the person is arguing because they support their team, or if they have an actual consistent stance that they will apply to any situation.
That informs the reset of the discussion, from my perspective.
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I'm really on board with your first paragraph but not your second. Despite being used like it, bail is not and should not be a form of punishment. It's a way to convincingly vouch that you'll show up to a trial.
I have very mixed feelings about bail funds. I lived in Seattle and watched them repeatedly bail out violent criminals who would go on to do entirely foreseeable violent crime. At the same time, these people haven't been convicted of anything. Knowing someone's guilty is enough to put them on trial, but not enough to keep them in jail.
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Bail and the cost of legal counsel are not intended to be punishments for crimes.
Yes but what is the INCENTIVE it creates, if people are aware they'll be 'cared for' if they get hauled to jail for political crimes?
Does it make such actions seem more appealing or less appealing on the margins?
It's incentive for people who have committed crimes to give their money to the justice system, which supports the justice system. That's the benefit it provides society as a whole.
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They also do not necessarily prevent punishment for crime.
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