Thread: Hate crime legislation

Here is my take on it, The entire concept of Hate legislation is a dangerous notion. When we begin categorizing crimes based on the category of the victim, as opposed to the nature of the crime, we make criminal activity relative, and not absolute.
Justice is supposed to be blind: color blind, genderblind, and cerainly blind to the lifestyle habits of the perpetrator and the victim. To say otherwise is to forever warp the meaning of justice, and sets a dangerous prededent that is anathema to the rule of law.
Basically crimes should be classified on the basis of the crime being commited not on gender, race, or lifestyle.
Murder is still murder reguardless of the victim or the perp.
Theft is still theft, Assault is still assault, the punishment should not change it is all relative to the crime being commited

Originally Posted by Chad750

Here is my take on it, The entire concept of Hate legislation is a dangerous notion. When we begin categorizing crimes based on the category of the victim, as opposed to the nature of the crime, we make criminal activity relative, and not absolute.
Justice is supposed to be blind: color blind, genderblind, and cerainly blind to the lifestyle habits of the perpetrator and the victim. To say otherwise is to forever warp the meaning of justice, and sets a dangerous prededent that is anathema to the rule of law.
Basically crimes should be classified on the basis of the crime being commited not on gender, race, or lifestyle.
Murder is still murder reguardless of the victim or the perp.
Theft is still theft, Assault is still assault, the punishment should not change it is all relative to the crime being commited

As with most critics you fail to understand this key concept:

Those covered by hate crimes face INCREASED threat over others in society. As such they deserve extra protection from society's laws.

It is about PREVENTION of extra crime that is directed at these group. It is about DETERRENCE of crime.

Those who do not commit crimes will not face any punishment at all.

They are needed. I'm damn glad we have them.

Originally Posted by Distressed American

As with most critics you fail to understand this key concept:

Those covered by hate crimes face INCREASED threat over others in society. As such they deserve extra protection from society's laws.

It is about PREVENTION of extra crime that is directed at these group. It is about DETERRENCE of crime.

Those who do not commit crimes will not face any punishment at all.

They are needed. I'm damn glad we have them.

Gays, Blacks and Jews need extra protection, I agree. Oh wait and the Mexicans too.

How could I forget our Asian Americans...sorry about that protect them too

Then again there are also the disabled, we should watch out for those nasty fuckers hurting kids in wheelchairs.

Shit! I forgot about the Arabs and Indians that have taken over every Quickie Mart and Gas stations, they will need this EXTRA protection as well.

God Damn, I also forgot the Christians, Muslims, Women and Children, Mormons, Aethists, and everyone else who has a different opinion than a White Guy.

Originally Posted by Distressed American

As with most critics you fail to understand this key concept:

Those covered by hate crimes face INCREASED threat over others in society. As such they deserve extra protection from society's laws.

It is about PREVENTION of extra crime that is directed at these group. It is about DETERRENCE of crime.

Those who do not commit crimes will not face any punishment at all.

They are needed. I'm damn glad we have them.

This is the problem that I see with "hate crimes". Let's say DA gets into a bar fight some evening with someone he has never met, never spoken to, or had any interaction with. Things just happen to go wrong on this particular evening, and DA and this guy end up throwing a couple of blows. Now, the the bartender calls the cops, attourneys get involved, and it turns out this this guy is gay (just as an example). In the police report, it is written up like DA is responsible for the fight, so he becomes the defendant. The plaintiff has it in his head that DA started this fight because he doesn't like gay people so of course the attouney is going to start digging in DA's past. He finds out thar DA has posted a couple of gay jokes on a website here and there, and that he may have said "faggot" once or twice in his life. It turns out that is uncovered enough stuff to sway a jury in favor of the plaintiff. Now, instead of paying a fine on a misdemeanor and possibly getting a little bit of parole, DA is looking at doing 2 to 5 years of jail time because a bunch of random folks decided that they knew what was in DA's head at the time of the incident.

Hate crime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Justifications for harsher punishments for hate crimes focus on the notion that hate crimes cause greater individual and societal harm. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously found that "bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest.... The State's desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above mere disagreement with offenders' beliefs or biases. As Blackstone said long ago, 'it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.'"[15] It is said that, when the core of a person’s identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people. Furthermore, it is asserted that the chances for retaliatory crimes are greater when a hate crime has been committed. The riots in Los Angeles, California, that followed the beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist, by a group of White police officers are cited as support for this argument.[16]

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that penalty-enhancement hate crime statutes do not conflict with free speech rights because they do not punish an individual for exercising freedom of expression; rather, they allow courts to consider motive when sentencing a criminal for conduct which is not protected by the First Amendment.[15]

When it enacted the Hate Crimes Act of 2000, the New York State Legislature found that:

Hate crimes do more than threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society. Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups not only harm individual victims but send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. Hate crimes can and do intimidate and disrupt entire communities and vitiate the civility that is essential to healthy democratic processes. In a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others, but must never commit criminal acts on account of them. Current law does not adequately recognize the harm to public order and individual safety that hate crimes cause. Therefore, our laws must be strengthened to provide clear recognition of the gravity of hate crimes and the compelling importance of preventing their recurrence. Accordingly, the legislature finds and declares that hate crimes should be prosecuted and punished with appropriate severity." [17]

Originally Posted by Babylon

Gays, Blacks and Jews need extra protection, I agree. Oh wait and the Mexicans too.

How could I forget our Asian Americans...sorry about that protect them too

Then again there are also the disabled, we should watch out for those nasty fuckers hurting kids in wheelchairs.

Shit! I forgot about the Arabs and Indians that have taken over every Quickie Mart and Gas stations, they will need this EXTRA protection as well.

God Damn, I also forgot the Christians, Muslims, Women and Children, Mormons, Aethists, and everyone else who has a different opinion than a White Guy.

Don't forget fat people. I hate fat people.

This is nothing more than a classic case of Classification, I will re-post this here.

Classification is simply labeling. Republican and Democrat are two classifications to help manage political views and separate the masses, but then again so are Jews ******s Spics Honkeys White trash and Chinks. So the problem is the same as always; Where do we draw the line? I am now exactly sure when it was, but the first time I heard the phrase "Hate Crime" used, I smelled bullshit coming our way. This "Plastic" phrase was just dripping with Political Correctness (America's future demise). I have a friend "Jack" who went joy riding as a teenager with a fully loaded Paintball gun. He proceeded to shoot up evrystore on one particular shopping strip in a juvenile vandalising spree. He was wrong and was punished as he should have been. The only injustice to the story, is that not only was he charged with at least 5 citations of vandalism, added to his list of charges was committing a hate crime. Why? One of the seven stores on this strip was an African-American hair Salon. One of Seven. His lawyer was not able to drop this charge that would still be on his record if was an adult at the time. It is a bad story because what "Jack" did do was wrong, but it is a small sampling of how powerless even us Americans are against the government. This leaves the door WIDE open for Political Correctness to dictate Law.

Originally Posted by Babylon

Gays, Blacks and Jews need extra protection, I agree. Oh wait and the Mexicans too.

How could I forget our Asian Americans...sorry about that protect them too

Then again there are also the disabled, we should watch out for those nasty fuckers hurting kids in wheelchairs.

Shit! I forgot about the Arabs and Indians that have taken over every Quickie Mart and Gas stations, they will need this EXTRA protection as well.

God Damn, I also forgot the Christians, Muslims, Women and Children, Mormons, Aethists, and everyone else who has a different opinion than a White Guy.

Extra threat of being victimized is a fact. Such crimes are very common. You can try to mock that fact. But it does not change the fact:

Hate crime laws in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prevalence of hate crimes

The DOJ and the FBI have kept statistics on hate crimes since 1992 in accordance with the Hate Crime Statistics Act. According to these reports, of the over 113,000 hate crimes since 1991, 55% were motivated by racial bias, 17% by religious bias, 14% sexual orientation bias, 14% ethnicity bias, and 1% disability bias.[11]

For example, in 2004,[12] there were 7,649 criminal hate crime incidents, out of 1,367,009 violent crimes.[13] In perspective, in 2003 there were 4,500 accidental workplace fatalities and 13,900 fatalities due to accidental poisoning.[14]


These laws protect minority groups of all sorts so all of that listing of groups you did is kind of bogus since basically all of the folks you list are already covered (in other words your mockery is not based on any fact and is therefore kind of pointless bullshit):

Hate crime laws in the United States (also known as bias crimes) protect against crimes motivated by feelings of enmity or animus against a protected class. Although state and federal laws vary, typical protected characteristics are race, religion, ethnicity, and national origin. Sometimes gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability are included as well.

Originally Posted by mdmx96

This is the problem that I see with "hate crimes". Let's say DA gets into a bar fight some evening with someone he has never met, never spoken to, or had any interaction with. Things just happen to go wrong on this particular evening, and DA and this guy end up throwing a couple of blows. Now, the the bartender calls the cops, attourneys get involved, and it turns out this this guy is gay (just as an example). In the police report, it is written up like DA is responsible for the fight, so he becomes the defendant. The plaintiff has it in his head that DA started this fight because he doesn't like gay people so of course the attouney is going to start digging in DA's past. He finds out thar DA has posted a couple of gay jokes on a website here and there, and that he may have said "faggot" once or twice in his life. It turns out that is uncovered enough stuff to sway a jury in favor of the plaintiff. Now, instead of paying a fine on a misdemeanor and possibly getting a little bit of parole, DA is looking at doing 2 to 5 years of jail time because a bunch of random folks decided that they knew what was in DA's head at the time of the incident.

Motive is ALWAYS a factor in sentencing decisions. Motive is extablished in a court of law through the trial process.

Is there a chance that false motive can ben assigned? Yes.

But there is also chances that the innocent will be convicted. Does that keep you from trying to prosecute crimes?

Mistakes happen. But, I believe the jury system makes those mistakes relatively uncommon. We rely on the jury system to establish gulit and motive all the time. I see no difference here.

Originally Posted by Distressed American

These laws protect minority groups of all sorts so all of that listing of groups you did is kind of bogus since basically all of the folks you list are already covered (in other words your mockery is not based on any fact and is therefore kind of pointless bullshit):
.

Those groups are all covered? Then who is left to Protect is the point of my Mockery. People need to get over themselves and stop classifying people ADDING to the problem. Once I am Forced to respect DA because you constantly Bold your words, I will 100% hate everything about you and your Bold words. That my friend is a Fact of human nature.