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Poseur Extraordinaire Beatification Candidate  |
Since I am accustomed to being right when everybody else is wrong I see no point in arguing.
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REPEAL THE 16th AMENDMENT! Beatification Candidate  |
There are occasions where you and I see eye to eye. 
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Techno-Stud Beatification Candidate  |
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law (
 ), I just have to wonder how differently Kristallnacht would have played out had Germany had hate crimes legislation on the books that were enforced.Most "hate crimes", in and of themselves, are not always of a grievous nature, e.g., assault isn't typically even a felony. But such crimes are committed to cause intimidation and fear among a persecuted group. The increased penalties when an action is considered a "hate crime" are designed to reinforce the ideal that deliberate intimidation and persecution of minority groups is not something we should ignore, much less condone. |
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Beatification Candidate |
I agree with that. However, there is such a thing as free speech, and, honestly, I'm not sure that hate crimes legislation is always compatible with the First Amendment. And, murder is murder. If I murder a heterosexual white male, is that better than murdering a homosexual black male? Do we really want to differentiate between types of victims that way? I just don't like it. |
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Techno-Stud Beatification Candidate |
I fail to see how battery, for example, is an example of free speech. |
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Beatification Candidate |
I don't have any problem with hate crimes laws whatsoever. I understand that some of you do but this is the law now. I would think that if one considered the original law, its purpose, and the perceived necessity for it in 1968 (when people were getting away with murder, so biased were the communities and judicial systems in certain communities) and extrapolated these to, for instance, as this law does, minority group status based on sexual orientation, and considered, again, that today certain groups are (still) targets and, finally, that these crimes are (still) not always prosecuted by local authorities the way they should be, one might be more accepting of the law. Matt makes an excellent point. There have been "hate" crimes in our generation, in our parents' generation, and in our grandparents' generation. As his example makes note of, it's wishful thinking to pretend otherwise.
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Beatification Candidate |
I fail to see how treating one battery as different from another, based solely on accompanying or preceding speech, is about anything other than speech. |
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Minor Deity |
I disagree. I think some crime is purely a function of greed; some driven by addiction. INTENT has always been an important component of criminal law. A pre-planned homicide is murder and may get a life sentence while a heat-of-the-moment homicide (the guy doing your wife) may get only seven years. I think it makes a lot of sense to differentiate racially (or other prohibited discrimination) motivated crimes as being worthy of a stronger punishment is very appropriate and helps deter other crimes like it. jf
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Techno-Stud Beatification Candidate |
Thus, by analogy, do you fail to see anything particularly noteworthy about Kristallnacht versus any other rash of vandalism? |
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Minor Deity |
Here's an example from Maine. I think it points out the value of targeting "hate" crimes because the underlying crime itself is quite insignificant.
During the last decade, some Maine communities have had an influx of Somali refugees. Lewiston, in particular, has seen a lot of Somali immigrants. Rumor has it word spread among Somali communities in the South that Maine was a very welcoming place, perhaps fueled in part that four of Maine's five largest cities have had black mayors despite the relative scarcity of people of color. Lewiston started to feel the effects of the immigration (or more accurately, migration if they were from our South) since it took some time for arrivals to find jobs. The mayor took it upon himself to publish a letter in the paper asking Somalis not to come--at least not now and not so quickly--because the City could not afford them. No doubt his intentions were not as malevolent as many of his critics posited, but the letter set off a firestorm and deeply polarized citizens as they took sides on what the mayor had done. One great irony is that Lewiston was a prosperous mill town in the nineteenth century and attracted a lot of poor French immigrants looking for work, the ancestors of many of the present citizens. The KKK or some like national "hate" group even came to Lewiston to hold a rally. I think only a few dozen attended and those were mostly from the media. All that is the background for the crime. One night, a resident took a severed pigs head and "bowled" it into the open door of a mosque (really, a Maine Street storefront) full of worshippers. The crime--apart from the motivation--probably ranks somewhere between toilet papering a yard (littering) and taking out a mailbox with a baseball bat (destruction of property). Not too serious. But add the "hate" dimension that this guy knew the effect that a pig head would have on devout, recently arrived Muslims, deliberately sought out their place of worship, and lobbed the bloody thing right into the middle of them. Do we really need to treat this crime as a step above littering? Is society well served by ignoring the obvious "hate" aspect of this crime? In the end, the feds decided not to prosecute the "bowler" for a hate crime, but the incident may have led to his untimely end.... jf http://www.hamzehmystiquefilms.com/theletter/ http://archive.seacoastonline....ial/7_07special1.htm http://www.sunjournal.com/node/239728/
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Beatification Candidate |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ture=player_embedded
"Cyndi Lauper strolls to the White House with Joe Solmonese from the Human Rights Campaign to meet President Obama and hear him talk about his signing of the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Lauper’s True Colors Fund was one of the advocacy groups lobbying for the passage of the act which is now the law of the land. Violent hate crimes against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community will now be recognized and prosecuted by the Federal government. The singer reminds us That if you rally, if you do the work, things can change, they really can. So don’t give up and don’t be afraid. Ever." http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/ |
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Beatification Candidate |
Scope. |
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Beatification Candidate |
Laws cannot change the way people feel or what they believe, Jack. The best we can hope for is to rein in the behavior. Yeah, the pig's head thing is horrific, but I'm glad they didn't prosecute it as a hate crime. I'd hate to think how hate crimes laws can be used when the worm turns in a different direction. Can you imagine an atheist being prosecuted for carrying a sign saying that Jesus Christ never lived? I can. |
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