<< 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.
Sure, but that does not address itself to the question of when that is and whether hate crimes fall in that class.
> 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.
No, but no defender of hate crimes laws thinks that hate crimes, even hate murders, are the equivalent of intentional murder because they involve hate. The claim is only that whatever the other level of culpability of the crime, that is, whether it is, e.g., intentional, it is worse than an otherwise similar crime if it is a hate crime. That is, if I kill a black person intentionally because he, as an individual, dissed me, that is less bad than if I kill a black person intentionally because I hate blacks. That, at least, us the idea behind making group hate an element of a crime.
> 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?
Well, there is a general problem with equal application of laws to persons in dissimilar situations, one that the good guys have decisively lost for the present round of American jurusprudence. You have the same problem with the S.Ct's idea that affirmative action is disfavored "reverse discrimination: against whites,suspect because all races should be treated equally. Of course this ignores the fact taht whiteshave oppressed blacks, but not vice versa. However, the fact that the courts are being obtuse about this does not mean that we should say, let's stop treating race as a matter of special concern in our law because the courts are applying the principle that racial discrimination should not be tolerated too broadly.
This is an analogy. Black-on-white hate crimes are arguably less henious than white-on-black hate crimes because the latter reflect and perpetuate a real oppression, but the former only reflect frustration and understandable anger in an unacceptable way. Still. we might think--it would be not crazy to think--that the gain we get in deterring and punishing white oppression of blacks by punishing all hate crimes is worth sweeping the the less frequent and less serious black-on-white hate crimes that are not the real target of the legislation. All legislation is an imperfect fit,a fter all. If there were only such crimes, if there were rarely white-on-black hate crimes that were part of the pattern of racist oppression, we might think that there was no special point in having hate crimes laws. But that is not our situation.
> 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.
Why is that? I disagree for the reason suggested above. When Blacks hate whites, it may well me understandable if mistaken resentment of oppressioon. When whites hate blacks, it's part of a pattern of oppressio. That is worse than resenting oppression.
> Collective hatred does not warrant either an
escalation of punishment or an extension of the principle that thoughts can
be criminal. >>
Collective hatred may well warrant an escalation of punishment if we can fight oppression that way. Of course the hatred has to be tied to a hateful act, but in the US, this is a constitutional requirement for a crime.
As to the principle that thought should not be punished. this is inapplicable since we are, by definition, talking about thought that is tied to an act. As explained several times, no thought, no crime. Intentional murder, for example, requires intention--a thought. We think the intent to kill is bad enough that we execute people for it or lock them up forever--if they act on it. But it is not just the act we punish, it is the act plus the thought. If I kill someone wholly accidentally, with no intention and not even any negligence (another blameworthy mental state), I will not be punished at all.
--jks