Making progress

It seemed like a long time in coming, but when Stewart Rhodes, the leader and Cycloptic founder of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday for his seditious conspiracy role in the Jan. 6 (2021) insurrection at the Capitol, it felt like progress.

It felt like progress even though the sentence didn't seem long enough. But I guess we'll take what we can get at this point.

It felt like progress because even two years hence, this odious person has compared himself as a political prisoner in the mold of South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.

Sweet Jesus.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy. He'll be 76 years old when he completes his full sentence if he isn't pardoned by some right-wing fascist president first.

Presiding U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta certainly wasn't impressed with Rhodes' "political prisoner" claim, explaining that seditious conspiracy "is an offense against the government (and) the people of the country. You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes."

Mehta then went on: "...You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy."

Slowly, but inexorably, it seems, far right conspiracies, violence, and ideology are unraveling and revealing themselves for what they are. Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and several other Not-So-Proud Boys are awaiting sentencing for their part on Jan. 6 to block the congressional confirmation of Joe Biden as President. Hundreds of other Jan. 6 rioters have been charged and convicted, already serving well-deserved jail terms.

The whole concept of overthrowing the American experiment in democratic government seems ridiculous, since we change the government every four years with elections anyway. It's our baked-in revolution. Given that, doesn't a democratically elected government have the right to defend itself from insurrection and sedition? It's kind of what the Civil War was about, right? We've already been down this road once.

The charge of seditious conspiracy, interestingly enough, dates back to the post-Civil War era in an attempt to arrest Confederates who might still keep fighting the U.S. government. It's a difficult charge to prove because it requires evidence that can convict two or more people who conspired to "overthrow, put down or destroy by force" the U.S. government, or that they plotted to use force against the authority of the government.

Sentencing Rhodes to 18 years in prison is making progress. So far, so good. Only a few hundred more convictions and sentences to go, ranging from a former ex-president found liable for sexual assault to rioters pummeling Capitol police with the poles of American flags.