[nanny]

The left is filled with hate for all things patriotic or American. Wheter that makes this a "hate crime" I don't know, but it is despicable beyond words IMO.

I do hope the Republicans or conservatives as we are supposed to be do not engage in the 'hate crime' lunacy.

It seems no one knows who, why, where, or whatever about this. It could just be silliness (people do that sort of thing), it could be out of anger (sadly they do that also). Unless and until we know who did it - it would behoove us to not jump on any bandwagon. If it was done out of anger, it was despicable and should be punished - if it was done out of silliness, it was despicable and should be punished. But before we began to scream 'hate crime' and lend credence to that ridiculous notion - we need to be careful. The term "hate crime" is just a buzz phrase for punishing you for your thoughts - which some people seem to be able to discern. This sort of thing needs not to be strengthen - rather we should do our best to get it totally out of our vocabulary and judicial system. It may come back to bite you in the future. There are some things you can't dabble in just because it suits your purpose at the moment.

[BenLurkin]

Well said.

It would be good to do away with the concept of hate crime altogether, if possible.

[B Knotts]

This whole hate crime thing started in the early 80s, for a cause most here would think just: to protect policemen. The legal basis for punishing crimes based upon the motivation of the attacker was laid with so-called "cop-killer" enhancements to murder laws. I knew it was a bad idea then, because under our system, all men are supposedly created equal, so the punishment for killing anyone must be the same. Alas, we are headed towards an unequal system where some people are more equal than others.

[JoJo Gunn]

It's vandalism.

I also refuse to accept "hate crimes". That's a Leftist term, and we don't need to give life to the distortions of the deeply disturbed.