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Comment by Daviey | Hacker News Reader

These people will likely end up going to prison, despite the painting being undamaged which is clearly excessive. Even if you dislike the cause or the method they adopt.

Let us remember that these paintings are behind protective glass, meaning the actual item is not affected. This is a shock tactic protest and to also send a message regarding the recent excessive custodial sentence (2 years!) for the previous protestors.

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Hope they get four years, personally.

You consider that punishment to be proportionate to the crime?

Their only crime was questioning the status quo.

Well, I'd say they committed petty vandalism. Somebody has to wipe that soup off the window and clean it off the floor.

And that's worthy of a 2 year custodial sentence?

I consider the disruption, stupidity, and clear intent to be a public nuisance to warrant a greater deterrent than the original two years, yes.

I'd be more inclined towards leniency if they were, say, actively putting soup in people's petrol tanks than this utterly irrelevant stupidity, as at least the property destruction would be tangentially related to the pursuit of an arguably noble goal.

That would result in actual property and financial damages. What they've done here is 20 minutes with a rag and detergent to clean up. As others have pointed out, the actual paintings are not affected.

You mean actually engaging in activism with consequences rather than inane disagree-and-commit passivism? I'd punatively jail them longer for their cowardice and stupidity than the actual cost to the museum and the general public.

Four years in prison is a lot of taxpayer money you'd spend over this, several magnitudes more than the property damage they inflicted. I understand that you're making that calculation rationally, with the theory that this extremely harsh punishment would act as a deterrent to similar crimes. A lot of people would consider that to be outrageously disproportionate, and outrage generates publicity. These people who threw soup in the museum, weren't they hoping to become martyrs? Is there nobody who would imitate them and purposefully go to prison for a moment in the news?

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