I saw the headline in my local newspaper this morning. The FBI has revealed that hate crimes rose by almost 8% in 2006, with nearly 8000 bias motivated crimes occurring that year. In response the usual suspects whined their usual tune about America's poor, victimized minorities. But considering there are 300 million people of every race in this country, having less than 8000 bigotry based assaults on either people or property is shining proof of America's great progress toward equality for all. Don't expect the race hustlers to admit that, though.
I oppose the very notion of "hate crimes". Hate crime laws are an attempt to punish people for what they (alledgely) think, not for what they do. They're Orwellian to the core. How do you know what someone was thinking at the moment of the crime? If perp and victim are of different races you could assume racism. But the victim could've just been the easiest target at the moment. And even if a perp deliberately targets a particular group of people it doesn't automatically mean he's acting out of hate. The group might just pose less of a threat to him. He might target illegal aliens, for instance, because they're less likely to call the police and NOT because they're illegal aliens. He might target the elderly because they can offer less physical resistance, NOT because he's got it in for old folks. We need to be VERY careful when we start criminalizing people's thoughts.
Another big problem with hate crime laws is the tougher sentences mandated for hate crimes. I've never understood how being mugged, raped, or murdered is worse when the criminal is a different race, gender, or sexual orientation from the victim. Even if a perp acts out of hate the victim is traumatized by the crime itself, not the thoughts behind it. A rape victim isn't comforted by knowing that she wasn't attacked because she was Black. However, a rape victim might be further traumatized by knowing that her attacker received a lesser sentence because he was an "ordinary" rapist rather than a hate rapist. And then there's murder.
Proponents of hate crime laws and the tougher sentences mandated by them are often the same people who oppose the death penalty. This is highly problematic. How can they insist that hate crimes be punished more severly than "ordinary" crimes yet oppose the severest punishment possible for hate murders? After all, the only way to punish hate murders more severly than "ordinary" murders is to give the death penalty for one and life without parole for the other. Death penalty opponents, naturally, won't support that. The only alternative is to give hate murderers life without parole but "ordinary" murderers less than that. The families of "ordinary" murder victims would NEVER stand for such a diminishing of their loved ones' lives. Life without parole is the lightest sentence for murder, any murder, that most people will accept. So the end result will be that hate murderers and "ordinary" murderers receive the same sentence. How illogical is that?
But hate crimes laws are inherently illogical. I believe they were never meant to protect minorities. Rather, their purpose is to make guilt ridden, self-hating, left-wing Whites feel good about themselves. By championing these laws (and a lot of other things) such Whites seek to separate themselves from and atone for what they see as the entirely criminal nature of their race's interaction with non-Whites. They're trying to tell the non-White world, "Whites have horribly oppressed you but I'm a different kind of White person. I'm really good. Look at what I'm doing for you." If liberal Whites want to assuage their unearned guilt then they should do so, but not at the expense of justice and common sense. A criminal act should get the same punishment regardless of the motive for it. No victim is worth more than another. Isn't that what equality really means?
1 comment:
Absolutely!
There is not one thing you said I would disagree with.
Every murder is a hate crime! I wish I had a bumper sticker that said that. It would go on my car right now.
For the rest of my life I will never forgive the mother and father of that beautiful, totally harmless, gentle human being Matthew Sheppard for going into court and begging the judge to spare Matt’s killers the death penalty.
Lets put the word out that no conservative worth his or her salt is ever going to call a liberal to task for asking for the death penalty even if they previously opposed it when it come to their own flesh and blood.
They would unanimously get a free pass from us. It’s just plain un-natural to turn the other cheek when it comes to the killers of your child. Most parents would gladly give up their own lives for a tiny chance to save their offspring. Animals do it every day -- but not the Sheppards!
My parents would have asked the judge if they could throw the switch on the electric chair personally and that’s only if my sister didn’t shoot the pair going into court first! That’s because they love me. Matthew deserved better parents than those two assholes. I would tell them so to their face.
Do I still sound angry? Those two betrayed their boy and I will not hold back and be polite about it.
Had it not been for the Sheppards’ pleas for leniency those two murdering, closet-case, self loathing, bastards would have swung on ropes. A conservative Republican was trying the case and he had handed down the death penalty before. I think it was an act of cowardice on his part to give in to the Sheppards. He should have cast aside their request.
The bottom line with liberals and this hate-crimes crap is they believe some lives are more important than others. I just simply reject that premise as un-American. We are a nation of equals and you are 100 percent correct in your indignant statement:
“A rape victim might be further traumatized by knowing that her attacker received a lesser sentence because he was an "ordinary" rapist rather than a hate rapist”.
That you and I should be forced to publicly debate against the ludicrous notion that rape and murder victims should be treated un-equally with some of them inpermissively put in lesser categories whereby the criminals get lesser punishments as a result in abhorrent in America.
This ain’t Europe. We don’t have a class structure here.
I guess in the final analysis it really does not matter why he did it but that he did it at all.
If the crime is motivated by racism or is gay-bashing than that factor is an aggravating factor and THAT can add time to the sentence or tip the scales just enough to earn the scumbag a death sentence. That’s been done forever!
Its not like we have all these cases that are unprosecutable but for hate crimes laws.
Please please please people, do not enshrine class warfare/ envy in criminal statute law.
We got enough of that in the tax code!
Besides which I think these statutes might be unconstitutional and a person prosecuted under one of them that wins an appeal on constitutional grounds could theoretically walk out of the court a free man.
Free to kill again.
There is no reason for these laws other than politicians grandstanding.
Murder is illegal in all 50 states now a days. That’s enough.
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