Posted on 02/15/2006 2:14:08 AM PST by Arnold Zephel
Baptists are a minority by any standard.
Then in scenario #2, the same man is killed just because he has money, and the killer could care less about human life, he just kills and steals money.
Do we give the killer in scenario #1, who has no regard for blacks, a harsher sentence than the killer in #2 who has no regard for any life?
What worries me most is the concept of thought crimes, as is now playing out in England. If you so much as express an opinion against a protected minority, you are going to jail. However if you are a member of a protected minority, you can threaten everyone else with death, and mean it, and the police will protect you.
No. They don't. They punish for hate which is a THOUGHT.
All classes of people are protected equally with hate crimes legislation, as stated above.
No. They don't. And you're naive to believe otherwise.
Did you not read my post at all? Or are you just not paying attention?
Yeah I read it. Leftist bilge that it is.
You believe that a crime committed against an individual who is a member of a state protected collective group is more serious than a crime committed against an individual who is not in a state approved collective group.
That's classic Marxist thought that values collectives more than an individual. Try DU. Try Daily kos. Try the socialist democrat party. The honking collectivists there will welcome you.
Aren't Baptists a minority?
"We can dispose of the offhand "what other people believe are the perps thoughts" quickly: If I were to wave a baseball bat in your face and scream "You faggot you deserve to die", you don't exactly have to guess what I'm thinking. 'Kay? If the statement about the motivation is not made as part of the crime, though, there's no chilling effect, hence it's not a hate crime."
Nope. Could have been just an insult prior to a pummeling. Here you are having to prove your thoughts. If a homosexual EVER got into a fight with a heterosexual, the hetero would be placed in a position of PROOVING he was fighting with the homo for a legetimate reason and not for just being homosexual. Hate crime legislation forms protected classes of victims exclusive to other people. This would not be 'equal justice under the law."
I wonder if these are the same profilers who profiled Richard Jewel? Or the sniper twosome?
What a load of BS! This is nothing more than sophistry, impossible of proving and intended to provide a touchy feely excuse to impose thought crime. You could apply this rational to any crime. Crime committed by minority street gangs is just as intimidating to people outside the minority as so called "hate crimes" are, as are a million other examples. If a criminal tells a fat guy to "get against the wall fatass" - is that a hate crime against overweight people? If the criminal calls a woman victim a b*tch is it a hate crime against women? Hash epitaphs made by criminals are generally to insult and intimidate the immediate victim, whether bigoted or just vulgar. There is no way one can extrapolate an intent just from a racial epitath uttered during a crime.
The bottom line is that the whole concept of hate crimes stands for the proposition that some victims are more important than others.
I think the concept is used to distinguish from "love crimes." You know, the rapes, murders, and arsons commited because you love someone. ; )
Excellent article!!!
But "hate crimes" as generally understood deal with a person's motive for attacking an individual being HATE for that individual, not based on the "motive" being to intimidate others for being the same as that individual.
If someone kills a man because he is black, is he trying to "intimidate" other people to NOT be black? That doesn't make any sense.
If a person burns down Baptist Churches in the hopes that it discourages people from joining the Baptist church, that would be more like what I was talking about (intimidation) then killing a homosexual because you hate homosexuals.
Remembering that I am NOT ENDORSING "intimidation crime" legislation either -- under my definition, you wouldn't get a harsher sentence for killing a gay man just because it could be proven that you don't like gay people.
You would have to prove that a person killed a gay man in order to intimidate other gay people into NOT being gay.
In the classic "hate crimes" case, Matt Shepard was killed. Wikopedea says: "The case is often considered a hate crime because Matthew Shepard was targeted on the basis of his sexual orientation; ".
As you see, nothing to do with an "intimidating effect" on other Gay people. Simply that it was an extra crime since they decided to pick him because he was gay.
There are cases where intimidation is clearly a crime, for example witness intimidation. There are others that have widespread support, like laws preventing the intimidation of minorities who want to freely choose housing, or go into stores.
This is far different from what the "hate crimes" movement is advocating.
Probably just some Katrina refugees trying to keep warm.They're entitled you know.
OK, once more 'round the park:
> No. They don't. They punish for hate which is a THOUGHT.
OK, you really *weren't* listening, or at least it didn't sink in. Therefore let me repeat what I said before: "If the statement about the motivation is not made as part of the crime, though, there's no chilling effect, hence it's not a hate crime." And I also said, "They can commit the same crime with the same thoughts in their head and it can *not* be a hate crime if they leave out the threats to the rest of the threatened class."
Let me be clearer: the PURPOSE of a hate crime is to spread fear (aka "commit terrorism") within a specific group. This is done with *actions* which are ancillary to the crime, actions such as writing graffiti, burning a cross, or otherwise spreading an explicit message, which are not necessary if the terrorism is *not* part of your goal. Without this auxillary *action* there is no hate crime, regardless of motivation or "thought."
> You believe that a crime committed against an individual who is a member of a state protected collective group is more serious than a crime committed against an individual who is not in a state approved collective group.
There you have a legitimate point, IF AND ONLY IF the hate crime identifies specific groups against which such crimes can take place. Such a law is indeed unconstitutional and wrong.
If on the other hand such laws apply equally to all groups, then your objection goes away. Most laws are in fact written to refer to dividing lines, not which side of the dividing line the victim is on (e.g. "hostility toward the victim's race, creed, gender," etc etc.) Ergo, no limitation exists for what groups the victim may belong to... ergo, not unconstitutional.
> That's classic Marxist thought that values collectives more than an individual.
I would ignore this since the argument that led to it is already wrong, but this statement is a perfect example of thoughtless and factually-incorrect fear-mongering.
It's true that *not* having hate crimes legislation would demonstrate a *lack* of consideration of the "collective" (oooo, let's go all Marxist-scary on us now -- give it a rest, OK? It's not the 1950's anymore, and you know, I'm not all that worried about Castro these days.)
But having the legislation does not value a group *more* than the individual. According to your argument, having a crime be declared a hate crime would be expected to more-than-double the penalty. It does not (and should not. Even aside from the fears of Mr. Let's Invoke Commies, the crime committed against the group, although the group is larger, is indeed much lesser than that committed against the person; the group doesn't need to pay hospital bills [or funeral homes.])
They just don't build trolls like they used to.
> But "hate crimes" as generally understood deal with a person's motive for attacking an individual being HATE for that individual, not based on the "motive" being to intimidate others for being the same as that individual.
I agree -- and by that I mean that the "generally understood deal" is wrong. And that's why I said right up top that it's been framed incorrectly. The proper criterion for declaring something to be a "hate crime" is the terrorism aspect.
> If someone kills a man because he is black, is he trying to "intimidate" other people to NOT be black? That doesn't make any sense.
No, he's trying to intimidate other blacks to move out of the area, or stay "in their place" and not "get all uppity", or some such. The spraypaint doesn't read "BLACKS GET WHITER", it reads "BLACKS GO HOME" or "BLACKS WILL DIE" -- except of course it doesn't usually use the word "blacks". :)
> Remembering that I am NOT ENDORSING "intimidation crime" legislation either
So noted.
> under my definition, you wouldn't get a harsher sentence for killing a gay man just because it could be proven that you don't like gay people.
> You would have to prove that a person killed a gay man in order to intimidate other gay people into NOT being gay.
Completely agreed. That is the purpose. Or perhaps to intimidate other gay people to leave, or stay in the closet, or otherwise stop them from asserting the rights any person should have, gay or not. (Note: "Life" is one of those rights. Asserting that the killer will continue to kill gays also counts.)
> In the classic "hate crimes" case, Matt Shepard was killed. Wikopedea says: "The case is often considered a hate crime because Matthew Shepard was targeted on the basis of his sexual orientation; ".
> As you see, nothing to do with an "intimidating effect" on other Gay people. Simply that it was an extra crime since they decided to pick him because he was gay.
I don't know enough about the case to talk about this. However, according to Wiki, the perpetrators actively and repeatedly publicized how they chose their target; I think a reasonable gay person would assume that was a threat that they might be next.
You are giving special status to a group. All men are equal under the law. What part of that can't you grasp?
Some animals are more equal than others is NOT a conservative position. You have the wrong forum. Try DU
Let me be clearer: the PURPOSE of a hate crime is to spread fear (aka "commit terrorism") within a specific group.
Again. You are trying to make certain groups more protected and give them special status. This forum is not the place for Marxist spew.
Voila! And so does yours. All men are equal under the law. Enforce the laws we have and drop "hate crime" status. Stop giving special protections to certain groups. There is NO crime that is more heinous than another just because of special group status. A black man being beaten by another black doesn't suffer any less than if it were a white man. As to your ascertion about epithets, give me a break. Name-calling makes it more heinous? How old are you? 10?
Check out FearlessEddie.LOL
"Minority" has nothing to do with it.
"Identifiable group" would be a better definition.
It doesn't matter if the victim is part of a majority or a minority group, what is relevant is the the crime is adjudged to have been commited BECAUSE the victim was a member of that identifiable group, and was made a victim for that reason.
I must disagree. If anything, those that would commit "hate crimes" (crime motivated by some particular status of the victim) are easier to deal with. Once you identify who they are after, then you can narrow down your suspect list by eliminating a large portion of the population.
And as far as being "more significant" to the victim, If a person identifies themselves as needing "special status" because of what they believe/who they sleep with/their skin color, well they are already victims every day of their life; victims of the left. They are the victims of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, victims of Mullah's and Rabbi's, victims of Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer, victims of anyone who tells them that they can't live the life that they dream of because some ethereal "man" is keeping them down. But mostly they are just victims of themselves, because they don't have the strength of will, clarity of thought, and sense of purpose to just live their lives, and to do what it takes to make of that life what they want.
Jacoby's closing paragraph sums it up nicely. "But real progress will come only when we abandon the whole misguided notion of "hate crimes," which deems certain crimes more deserving of outrage and punishment not because of what the criminal did, but because of the group to which the victim belonged."
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