Posted on 04/17/2014 7:24:04 AM PDT by SJackson
- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com -
No Mere Hate Crime
Posted By Matthew Vadum On April 17, 2014 @ 12:49 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments
Former KKK leader Frazier Glenn Cross’s Sunday shooting spree that left three dead outside a Jewish retirement home and a Jewish community center in the Kansas City, Mo., suburbs was a heinous atrocity, and the reflexive “hate crime” label being applied to it diminishes the true scope of the evil at its core.
Calling Miller’s acts hate crimes trivializes anti-Semitism, the evil that was Nazism and the monstrosity that was the Holocaust. The “hate crime” designation is over-relied on nowadays and this overuse has diluted its meaning. Spray-painting graffiti on a church or defacing a statue can be considered hate crimes.
The bar has been set so low that refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple is a hate crime in the eyes of many left-wingers. Miller’s acts hardly belong in the same category.
Although all three apparently randomly selected victims were Christians, not Jews, the feds appear to be leaning in the direction of a hate crime prosecution. The attack “strikes at the core fundamental freedoms … of how our country was founded and what we live by every single day,” said FBI agent Michael Kaste. “We’ve now determined that the motivation behind this was a hate crime. The acts that this person committed were the result of beliefs … that he had.”
Interviewed in 2010, the now 73-year-old Miller was asked whether he hated Jews or African-Americans more. He replied, “Jews. A thousand times more. Compared to our Jewish problem, all other problems are mere distractions.”
Miller complained that Jews were running the U.S. government, mass media, and the Federal Reserve Bank. “And with those powers, they’re committing genocide against the white race,” he said. Miller also said he had “a great deal of respect for Muslim people” and referred to Adolf Hitler as “the greatest man who ever walked the earth.”
People like Miller “praise Hitler and they praise [Nation of Islam leader Louis] Farrakhan and of course Farrakhan was one of this guy’s heroes along with Hitler and David Duke,” said Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, reacting to the events of Sunday.
Dershowitz seemed to suggest that the very idea of a hate crime is constitutionally dubious. It’s an Orwellian concept wherein the ideological component of an ordinary crime is singled out for special punishment over and above the underlying crime itself.
In other words, even in America, with its extraordinary protection for free speech and freedom of conscience you can be prosecuted for your ideas and beliefs. No matter how odious or unpopular those ideas and beliefs may be, it is unjust for courts to pass judgment on them.
“When we were kids we learned sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never harm you,” Dershowitz told MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow. “That’s a lie. Names hurt. They are horrible, and we shouldn’t be tolerating them in society. But the law under our Constitution can’t move against people simply for expressing views.”
For his part, President Obama condemned the attacks, saying the right things as he pretended to be religious for the benefit of the assembled media.
“We have to keep coming together across faiths to combat the ignorance and intolerance, including anti-Semitism that can lead to hatred and to violence, because we’re all children of God.”
It was “all the more painful” because the attacks came as Jews were preparing to celebrate Passover and Christians were observing Palm Sunday. “Nobody should have to worry about their security when gathering with their fellow believers. No one should ever have to fear for their safety when they go to pray.”
Obama’s words may have comforted some people, but they ring hollow.
Some of the president’s best friends are terrorists and Jew-hating Islamists. It was just a few days ago that Obama attended a New York rally hosted by longtime anti-Semite Al Sharpton and his thug protest group, National Action Network, whose inflammatory motto is, “No justice, no peace.”
And it was President Obama who tried to steer aid to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria last year and who threw his support behind former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, leader of the genocidally anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood, who called Jews the “descendants of apes and pigs.”
Miller’s views aren’t markedly different from those held by Morsi, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Islamic scholars, Louis Farrakhan, or President Obama’s longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Their hatred is derived from a common, age-old bloodlust that, if not challenged, metastasizes in horrific ways. Unfortunately, the disease appears to be once again on the rise.
The KKK dis-avowed his actions and that should say a lot when they think you are too Extreme.
This one has gone into the memory hole with lightning speed.
Just like that schoolyard spraying incident in Pittsburgh a few months ago.
Any mention that this guy is a big Rat anywhere?
In other words, this creep acted just as many Muslims would do given the chance.
So, where’s the concern about the world’s most sleezy religion? You know, the religion of pieces. The religion of hate. The religion of “you’d better become one of us....and never leave...or.....silence, I kill you.”
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The concept of a "hate crime", particularly when enforced selectively, does diminish the evil involved. As do specious charges of bias. Motivation should certainly be an issue in sentencing since it illuminates the possibility of recidivism, and in parole hearings, but killing three people is the crime here. It is not enhanced by the perps hatred, nor is it a lesser crime absent the hatred.
Some minor crimes might be an exception. Burning a cross in someones yard isn't littering or building an illegal campfire any more than it's arson. Swastikas on a Synagogue isn't the same as spray painting (not tagging) a garage. But in most states the are laws relating to intimidation which should cover this type of incident.
A KKK shoots and kills only Christians in Jewish center attacks.
Why is this crime worse than any other?
Actually, in this case, I think it is important that his act be considered an act of hate. Not just because of his KKK roots, but because of his roots as a Democrat.
If the KKK is a “hate organization”, then so is the Democrat party.
Importantly, it is remarkably easy to *prove* that the Democrat party is a “hate organization”, just by citing quotes made by prominent Democrats since the Civil War.
That the veneer of legitimacy is kept by the Democrat party is invariably due to their perfidious mendacity in pretending they are not a “hate organization”. But their members inability to keep their mouth shut, and even their political platform, and certainly their actions when in power, all clearly and objectively demonstrate that they are a “hate organization”.
Hate flows from the Democrat party like crime flows from a Mafia or criminal syndicate.
So yes, he did commit a hate crime. A Democrat hate crime. Just like so many other Democrat hate crimes committed each and every year.
They are done because of hate, and their intent is to hurt, and even kill people.
Charging this murderer with a “hate crime” is offensive. It says that if he’d murdered a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian because he hates everyone equally, we should give him a lighter sentence. Insane.
And it is a dark twisted irony that this Jew hater ended up killing two Protestants and a Catholic (not one Jew).
“A heinous atrocity”?
It was an old screwball who shot 3 Christians, 2 at a Jewish Comunity Center and 1 at an old folks home.
No folkig different than knockout gamers who pick their victims randomly.
The only thing that makes it riveting was the location.
Excellent article. We need to get rid of “hate crimes” and recognize anti-Semitism as a form of sacrilege rather than simple ethnic bigotry.
Change the penalty for mass murder to being burned alive or crucified and watch these acts of exhibitionism decrease to almost zero.
Unfortunately, I don’t trust leftists with that kind of power...
The bar has been set so low that refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple is a hate crime in the eyes of many left-wingers. Miller’s acts hardly belong in the same category.Thanks SJackson.
> Miller’s views aren’t markedly different from those held by Morsi, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Islamic scholars, Louis Farrakhan, or President Obama’s longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright...
I presume you mean any other triple homicide, in which case it isn't. The hatred of the killer, particularly organized hatred, is a separate issue. Despicable, worth of condemnation, but as Dershowitz notes, in America, not an issue for prosecution. And hate crime laws make speech a crime. I do think it's a legitimate sentencing issue, but not formally.
In other words, even in America, with its extraordinary protection for free speech and freedom of conscience you can be prosecuted for your ideas and beliefs. No matter how odious or unpopular those ideas and beliefs may be, it is unjust for courts to pass judgment on them.
Interestingly demonstrating the absurdity of the selectivity of hate crime prosecutions, though antisemitism is down nationally as it has been for several years, violent antisemitic attacks tripled in New York city last year. They're not hate crimes because the Jews attacked are also whites, and the attackers are black. Or you might recall the murder and shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle a few years ago. No hate crime charges, and the jury hung on everything but the murder, he was acquitted, because the Muslim who planned the attack in detail had mental issues. Didn't plead insanity, but the jury was sympathetic. Convicted in the second trial cause the moron didn't know his conversations in prison were taped. Never brag to Mom about the honor to Allah of killing Jews when you're talking through a prison phone. Crime didn't change, but suddenly he was charged with a hate crime.
“Dershowitz seemed to suggest that the very idea of a hate crime is constitutionally dubious. It’s an Orwellian concept wherein the ideological component of an ordinary crime is singled out for special punishment over and above the underlying crime itself.”
Hate crimes lead to hate speech which, in turn, leads to offensive speech which, when prosecuted as it is in Canada and much of Europe, leads to the effective repeal of our First Amendment.
That answers my planned question of what kind of attention this is getting in the old media.
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