You CANNOT punish someone for what they think whether it's verbalised or not. What you are also pushing is that some victims have special status. Bunk. A victim is a victim.
Your leftist bilge is flawed thinking.
If people are TRULY equal, there are NO "special" classes of people. All are equal under the law. No one should have more protection than another.
> You CANNOT punish someone for what they think whether it's verbalised or not.
Agreed. As stated above, hate crimes do not. They punish actions.
> If people are TRULY equal, there are NO "special" classes of people. All are equal under the law. No one should have more protection than another.
Agreed again. All classes of people are protected equally with hate crimes legislation, as stated above.
Did you not read my post at all? Or are you just not paying attention?
> Your just claiming that motive matters.
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> In my previous example, while "motive" meaning "what did you intend" made the difference, "motive" meaning WHY you did it made no difference in itself.
We are very close to the same page here. I assert that in a correctly-defined "hate crime", two actual crimes are committed: the visible act, and the terrorism (there's no better word!) that is the message the perpetrator wants to pass.
> If your goal is to prevent intimidation, you should pass a law making "intimidation" a crime, separately chargeable. Then if someone commits a murder or arson, and you can prove the purpose was to deprive OTHER people of their rights through intimidation, you could get a separate conviction, rather than simply making the SAME act count as different crimes simply because of the minority status of the victim.
Many hate crime statutes are indeed structured this way. The jury must first find the defendant guilty of the physical crime committed. Then it must retire again to deliberate whether the crime constitutes a hate crime under some carefully controlled definitions. It requires two separate decisions.
Communist governments and other forms of MOB Rule have been doing it, are doing it now, and will continue to be doing it in the future.. Thought crimes are very logical to the so-called liberal mind.. But thought crimes are only the tip of the iceberg to errors the liberal mind can come up with..
Were you once a liberal?.. Well you probably still are in some ways.. Liberalism is a mental disease not an idealogical brain fart.. with envy at its base..
Sure you can. It's called "intent."