alt Hacker NewsHm. I am not sure if a lynchmob and more blood would have helped the transition. The main important thing to the people was, that the wall was down and Stasi (secret police) out of power.
There has been prison time and the careers of anyone important connected to the Stasi ended.
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You need "a little bit" of politician/judge/enforcer lynching to keep the government in line the same way they make a big show of "a little bit" of kicking in people's doors at 4am to keep the peasants in line.
I didn't say a lynchmob, why do people always assume a bad implementation?
Obviously, if you intend to abduct ("imprison") or kill ("execute") somebody as punishment, then you should have very high certainty they deserve that punishment. One of the methods of achieving that is giving them a chance to defend themselves ("court process").
I don't see any difference between individuals and monopolies on violence ("states") doing this, as long as they both have sufficient levels of certainty.
It's a hard one. I can tell you something which doesn't work because the Americans have tried it twice so far. It won't work to say "Well, that was naughty, please don't do it again".
That silliness is how you get Jim Crow, it's how you got Trump 2.0
In a civilized country I can believe jail time would be good enough, but the US still uses capital punishment, so seems to me that if you want to be taken seriously some of those responsible have to be executed
In practice I remain doubtful that such an orderly transfer is likely. If there's chaos, for even a few days, that's how you get France's "Wild Purge" in the period when German withdrawal and Allied liberation are happening one town at a time. The accused are punished, sometimes even executed, without anything resembling due process.