hate crimes weirdness

[Dace]

I'm with Grinker.  The principle that thoughts can be criminal is
potentially quite dangerous and should not apply except in those situations
where the presence of that thought makes the crime resulting from it more
despicable.  This would apply to the distinction made between first and
second degree murder.  But the difference between murdering someone with
deliberate forethought and doing so in the heat of the moment is not
equivalent to the difference between murdering someone because you hate the
group they belong to and doing it because you hate that particular
individual.  Either way, the hatred could be irrational, or it could be
justifiable.  If Iraqis hate Americans, or blacks hate whites, that hatred
certainly is justifiable.  Is killing on the basis of this hatred then more
heinous than killing someone for whom your personal hatred is wholly
irrational?  While hating a whole people seems worse than hating one person,
in fact, it's equally wrong.  In other words-- except to the extent that
it's justifiable-- *it's simply wrong*, and there's no possible gradation
within that wrongness.  Collective hatred does not warrant either an
escalation of punishment or an extension of the principle that thoughts can
be criminal.

Ted


>O dear - bad mistake to mix it with the legal fraternity.  I'm not a lawyer
>and I know precious little about the situation in the US.  I think however
>that my point about the growing tendency to criminalise opinions still
>stands - certainly in the UK.
>