It depends. Consider the inputs and outputs of this judgement:

Inputs:

• How bad was the act itself?
• What were the intentions behind the act? A mistake? A crime of passion? Or a deliberate act of greed or malice?
• Was this just a one time thing you don’t think is indicative of their future behavior or is it a part of a pattern of behavior?

Outputs:

• What are the stakes of this judgement? Are we trying to punish this person or at least prevent them from doing the thing again? Or is this just for our own moral or social understanding?
• Can the person be rehabilitated or is it a waste of time trying to give them the benefit of the doubt?

Just as an example I think about sometimes: Sometimes you will get some older politician running for office. They have done and said some horrific things in the past. You point to that as a reason they shouldn’t be elected again. Someone comes out of the woodwork (I’m sure entirely organically /s) and says something like “can’t people change? Don’t they deserve a second chance?” And sure. People can change. And if that politician wants to go work at a McDonalds or something I’m not going to go out of my way to cancel them, but when we have millions of people who could be elected, most of whom, didn’t, idk, support segregation, why does this guy in particular deserve another chance to be in a position of power when he’s already used it in a bad way? In terms of your example, maybe if the sex offender is remorseful and goes to therapy for the issue, they could go reintegrate into society… just maybe not in a job that involves directly working with children right? That sounds reasonable? We can acknowledge the steps they took to reform themselves but also recognize that they lost the right to be trusted at certain kinds of things?

There are some crimes though that are so bad that they can never be forgiven. I don’t think the oil execs who deliberately lobbied to effectively cause the end of the world so they could keep profiting off of it for decades should be forgiven. I don’t think there is a punishment severe enough to serve justice for such a crime. No amount of work they could do to try to fix the problem could undo the damage which they have already caused. There is no actual means of redemption.

So in the world where spooky Russians didn’t interfere with our politicians, the parties representing the capitalist class would… not do that? This isn’t new. We’ve seen how capitalism led to the rise of fascism as a direct consequence of the needs of the system wayyyyy before Russia got involved in anything.

If you have a good analysis of how systems work, you don’t need to imagine or uncover conspiracy theories to explain that which can already be explained simply through incentives. Whether or not Russia has been meddling is missing the point.

EDIT: Just to explain my frustration a bit better: When people focus on this over the core class issue, at best it’s running cover for capitalists, but at worst it’s playing into the kind of fearmongering that the government uses to manufacture consent for the military industrial complex. The more they can convince us that there are scary enemies out there who want to destroy us, the easier it is for them to justify giving even more money to defense contractors and expanding the scope and authority of the military, intelligence agencies, etc. It’s giving more and more power to the people actually responsible for oppressing us.

This is what has been most depressing/distressing about watching all of this unfold. People online (and I’m not immune to this either) have this impulse to think “Surely not right? Surely these people will come to their senses and not just blindly follow transparently evil orders right? We’ve been told these people are heroes who stand up for freedom and democracy and our safety right? Surely at least some of them will do the right thing right?” It’s so ingrained into us through support our troops propaganda and various TV/Movies showing them and cops as principled heroes saving the day. We’ve also seen this with corporations. “Wow I can’t believe this company turned away from DEI so quickly. I can’t believe this company is going to keep selling surveillance tech to the government. Surely someone will see how wrong that is.”

And then I snap back to my senses and remember history. We’ve seen what horrors these people are willing to commit, whether they want to or are “just following orders.” Maybe you at least believe that they won’t do it to US, as cynical as that is… and then you remember Kent State, segregation, the violent crackdown on unions, the police rallying around protecting cops who execute people in the streets, etc.

Nobody is going to come to their senses. None of them are coming to save us from themselves. If we don’t stand up for ourselves this is just going to happen and be another chapter in a long history of cruelty.

How often are those military coups AGAINST the fascists? Hell a lot of those military coups were backed by our military/intelligence agencies. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the US military to be the bastion against tyranny.

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