And so the ceiling being 5 years per count here seems rational to you because it's in the guidelines, and "no one is actually going to get that". Which is exactly my point.
The rationale here seems to be that if we give a large enough entity enough leeway with the lives of its constituents, then anything less than the extremes of punishment is necessarily morally righteous because they were not the subject of the minimum or maximum punishment - punishment that the large-enough-entity was indeed capable of giving them because of that leeway - but kind enough instead to apply "the law" which necessitates punishment somewhere between the extremes.
Which is exactly the point of "guidelines" being super high in the first place - so that you can be a subject of anything in-between the floor and the worst imaginable, and people can turn around and feel just about it, because they are not its subject.
My point is no one should be seeing even a year in prison as their punishment for essentially smuggling sheep, it has nothing to do with federal sentencing guidelines, the argument is from a moral perspective - it biases the punishment upwards and then allows the court to assert any fine or damages below that amount but vastly above what it would be if the maximum was not five years per count.
The rationale here seems to be that if we give a large enough entity enough leeway with the lives of its constituents, then anything less than the extremes of punishment is necessarily morally righteous because they were not the subject of the minimum or maximum punishment - punishment that the large-enough-entity was indeed capable of giving them because of that leeway - but kind enough instead to apply "the law" which necessitates punishment somewhere between the extremes.
Which is exactly the point of "guidelines" being super high in the first place - so that you can be a subject of anything in-between the floor and the worst imaginable, and people can turn around and feel just about it, because they are not its subject.
My point is no one should be seeing even a year in prison as their punishment for essentially smuggling sheep, it has nothing to do with federal sentencing guidelines, the argument is from a moral perspective - it biases the punishment upwards and then allows the court to assert any fine or damages below that amount but vastly above what it would be if the maximum was not five years per count.