hate crimes weirdness

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Mar 3 08:42:40 PST 2000


At 10:33 PM 3/1/00 -0500, Justin wrote:
>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.

Justin, it sounds like casuistry to me, or at least imposing an expert opinion on the motives of people who commit the dead. But it can be argued either way, for example that hate motivated killing is more "humane" than cold blooded killing, beacuse the former is motivated by a human emotion toward the victim, whereas the latter is motivated by the total disregard of the victim as a person. If kill someone to rob him or her of a few bucks shows total deisregard for human life - it is treating other people as objects that can be disposed of at will to attain one's goals, no matter how mediocre. That is far more scary and despicable than a killing motivated by negative emotions, such as rage or fear.

Methinks that this whoe "hate crime" business is the abuse of the criminal justice system - specifically, using as as a ritualistic response to social problems, instead of solving them. Th eUS society is literally falling apart into haphazardly formed groups separated by income, status, age, geography, cultural identity etc. Thos groups have less and less in comon, falling into a caricature of tribal mentality - "if they screw us - bad; if we screw them - good." It is not white/black anymore but everyone hating evryone outside one's identity group: balcks, whites, gays, lesbians, bis, liberals, conservatives, christians, jews, immigrants, upperclassmen, underclassmen, liberals, conservatives, dummiecrats, repugs, yuppies, bohemians, city folks, suburban folks, country folks and so on and so forth.

And what is the response to that war of all against all? Ritualistic legislation - banning a problem in the futile hope it will go away. The precise same thing as the criminalization of drugs, unconventional sexual preferences or fire arms. A symbolic action -similar to magic rituals of "primitive" societies - to control something that for this or another reason is beyond control. The tribesmen could not control their environment because they di dnot have necessary technology - modern socities do not control their social environemnt because there is no political will to solve social problem. In both cases, legal rituals, curses, and divinations substitute real action.

wojtek
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