i then went on to explain that we are penalizing the prosecuted differently because they are engaging in acts that violate our individualist ethos that people should be treated as individuals and not members of a group. when someone murders out of hatred of a group, their motivation is to act in a certain way because they are punishing one person for that perceived actions of an entire group. this seems wrong in a culture which rejects affirmative action if it appears that people are "rewarded" as members of a group. yadda.
he replied by noting that his offhand comment was prompted by the piece, below.
i replied explaining that the argument is a canard. the whole point of hate crimes legislation is to have a category through which to discern the mind set of the perpetrator of a crime and then, once prosecuted, penalize them accordingly.
anyway. i'm just shooting from the hip on this one, applying my understanding of retributive justice learned long ago to a topic i know little about, in its specifics.
wondering what folks thought of the piece and what kinds of rationales or arguments one would offer against the righting idiocy in the essay, below. not so much because i want to educate the uneducable or uninterested but, rather, because i am curious what others have to say.
kelley
>I agree snit, and I must asmit I was quite remiss in my brevity. It was
>more a topic on my mind that I used to bait the hook.
>
>To wit, I understand that punishments are metered out dependant upon
>circumstances. Rage, passion, vengenace, vehicular, involuntary, etc..
>
>The following from Neal Boortz sums up better than I can;
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>A big problem with hate crime laws is that they create different classes
>of victims. If someone attacks me because they want my car, and I’m
>murdered, the punishment may be less and the category of crime would be
>different than if someone attacks a gay man and murders him because they
>don’t like gay men. In both cases, murder committed, man dead. But my
>murder is somehow less egregious than the murder of the homosexual.
>Somehow, and I hope you'll excuse me for this insensitivity, but I just
>don’t see it that way.
>
>In a society where equal protection under the law is supposed to be the
>noble standard, there is no room to create different classes of victims.
>Hate crime legislation places a different government-assigned value on the
>life, liberty and property rights of people based on their color,
>religion, sexual orientation, national origin physical ability or whatever.
>
>Clinton says "All Americans deserve protection from hate."
>
>What? Do we suddenly have another right here? The right to be protected
>from hate? Let's add this to the right to a job, the right to a living
>wage, the right to a condo, the right to breast implants and the right to
>a satisfying sex life.
>
>It is so nice to know that I now have the right not to be hated, and that
>Bill Clinton is ready to bring the full force of the Imperial Federal
>Government of the United States to bear on anyone who dares to dislike me.
>After all, I "deserve" it. The next time someone says they hate me, what
>should I do? Should I swear out a warrant? Is it a federal crime, or just
>a local ordinance? How will the person be punished? Can I sue them? What
>if someone just says they hate my show? Do I deserve to be protected from that?
>
>Let's try to get just a bit serious here. Hating me is not a violation of
>my rights. I have no right to be loved. I have no right to be liked. I
>have not right not to be hated. It is not the role of the federal
>government to keep me from being hated
. Or to protect me from hate. It
>is the role of government to seek to apprehend and prosecute those who
>deprive me of life, liberty or property, whether it's out of hate or just
>a desire for my stuff. The offender should be prosecuted for the crime
>they have committed. (Followed by, in all probability, a slap on the wrist
>and a few minutes of community service.) What they happen to think about
>me is absolutely beside the point.
>
>(www.boortz.com/hate.htm)
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>If someone is murdered b/c of race/creed/orientation/gender, etc.. it is
>still a crime. Should be treated as any other premeditated murder, not an
>excuse to create additional rules under the guise of safety.
>
>As Boortz says, there is no constitutional guarantee against being hated!
>There is a protection of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but not
>for being liked/accepted!
>
>This is the ridiculous notion that you can legislate people into "being
>nice". It's not illegal (yet) to be a predjucdiced asshole. However, it
>is illegal to impede the aforementioned rights. "Hate crimes" make it
>appear that there is a reason to kill someone, and one reason is more
>wrong than the other.
>
>IMHO, what the .gov is attempting to do is more of the same, "big brother
>knows best". By sliding in on sensitive issues (such as predjudice and
>race relations) that elicit an emotional response the sheeple will gladly
>hand over their rights in the name of "safety". You start by defining
>murders as "hate crime" then move onto limitations of speech (as they are)
>by saying that certain speech is "hate speech" and draw up some imaginary
>figures correlating hate speech with hate crime. Soon we've made it
>illegal to flip someone off in traffic or to roll your eyes at a
>nuissance. It starts with race/gender/orientation and then carries over
>to the bullshit notion of "self-esteem" and the such. Hell, a 4th grader
>could end up in jail for making a "fat kid" joke!!
>
>Again, a crime is crime. If the punishment fit the crime -why does a
>college student get 10 yrs. mandatory for LSD possession, yet the only
>victim is himself?, why does the .gov keep drug trafficking/murder
>profitable with their convoluted drug laws?- there would be no reason to
>rank senselss acts of violence. They would all be punished for being just
>that, senseless acts of violence.
>
>********I feel I must reitterate, the post about the shitty principal
>being homosexual and this are WHOLLY UNRELATED. I was merely condensing
>posts, by bringing up the second topic after my reply to an earlier
>post. That reference was to illustrate the already thin ice he skates on
>in his environment. I wanted to stress a desire to NOT break that ice but
>merely capitalize on the scrutiny he is already under, should occasion
>prove necessary.******
>
>quoth tha Ranger
>
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