Hate Crime Laws are Stupid

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Personally, I think the penalty for first degree murder should be death regardless of the motive of the killer. I'm not sure how you can make that penalty more severe.

Those people should be put to death. Do you suggest a harsher sentence than that? Not because they're racists, but because they commited premeditated murder. If someone decides to go out and kill a nigger (to use your term) or a homosexual, that's premeditated murder and deserves death. Their racism serves as the motive for the crime, but I don't see the need to create a whole new category of crime to take that into account.

 

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I don't understand the whole uproar here. As many have already pointed out, punishment often differs depending on circumstances. The killing of another human being comes immediately to mind, we have about 6 different degrees: Murder 1 (premeditated, no mitigating circumstances, etc. - often resulting in the DP or life imprisonment), down through manslaughter and self-defense. In all cases, the actions of one resulted in the death of another human being. Should these differences in culpability and levels of punishment be chucked out the window?

How about assault? Beat someone up, and it could be simple assault. Beat someone up, and if you are highly trained in martial arts, then the crime can be raised to assault with a deadly weapon, tripling the possible sentence. This is regardless of the actual physical harm inflicted on the victim.

Then, back to murder, if you are anywhere near a homicide that occurs during commission of a felony, up you go for "felony-murder", even if you were not actually involved in the killing!"

How about possession of drugs? You can be caught with the exact same amount of a particular controlled substance, but if you happen to have it broke up into several smaller bags - possession with intent is assumed, which can get you a hell of a lot more years. This is solely based on "intent".

Why should it be different with "hate related" crimes? If your motive was to (kill, maim, beat, etc) someone because of the color of their skin or the particular "God" they follow, society deems this worse than beating someone up in a plain old bar fight. So what?

Motive is part and parcel of the crime, and many people believe that certain motives are deserving of harsher punishment. To be logically consistent when campaigning against this particular idiosyncrasy of the law, than be fair and ask for all discrimination to be removed. Murder is murder, theft is theft, assault is assault, etc. Do you really feel this way?

I think that some motivations indicate a higher likelihood for recidivism and should carry harsher sentences. Furthermore, if your particular brand of justice includes punishment, a more heinous crime calls for a more severe punishment (sentence).

Any mixture of the above reasoning involves illogical premises and should be declared unfair prima facie...

 

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Before hate crime laws these people were guilty of the same crime they are guilty of now. I don't see what your point is.

 

So many misunderstandings.
1) a black person can be found guilty of a hate crime against a white
2) the idea of a hate crime is not to punish your emotions. Many people hate the person they beat up. the idea is that the victim pool is spread out over a whole group. If a black person in a small town is dragged behind a pickup truck because he is black, other blacks are also, to some degree victims. If the guy is dragged behind the car because he was a jerk or because someone didn't like losing to him in pool, the other blacks do not have to be afraid in the same ways they might in the first situation.

 

Nope. Any person can be the victim of a hate crime, regardless of their race, etc.

And again. The idea is that the physical victim in a hate crime is not the only victim. Whereas a crime based on other issues does not have the same effect.

 

It just seems ridiculous that they mention the fact that it wasn't a hate crime as though that's some sort of mitigating factor. They even make a point of mentioning that he was beaten by a rainbow coalition of thugs rather than thugs whose racial background was uniformly different from that of the victim's. Cold comfort.

 

Sure if everyone who murders gets the death penalty than hate crime murder is a silly concept. But with other crimes it can be more logical. The idea with hate crimes is that when one person in a community is attacked for being in some category, then other people in that category are victimized also. When a black was lynched in the South, other blacks were affected in ways other people were not. If someone kills a homosexual for being a homosexual, this is going to affect homosexuals in a way that they will not be affected if a homosexual is mugged and killed and there is no reason to believe his sexuality was an issue.

It makes sense to raise the stakes because the effects are more widespread. And a gay killer of a straight for being straight falls into the same reasoning. It would be a hate crime.

 

This seems rather factual to me....

I think the problem is the label 'hate crime'. It is not the emotion that is the issue. I mean, most assaults have hate involved. I don't want to get into arguments over what the right name should be, but I think the article, which does not say it was mitigating, would have sounded neutral if hate crimes had a nother name.

Category violence

for example.

I don't want to put this forward as the right name, just trying to give you an idea of how that sentence might have read otherwise.

But again, these are facts - if they are - and relevent. If I am a Hispanic kid living in that area it makes a big difference to me if 13 people beat up someone because they were hispanic. That information is information I would want to know and, possibly, I would take precautions I would not take if I knew it was about a girl or over football starting line ups or whatever.

 

But here is what bothers me Bells, Hate Crime Laws do not deter hate nor bigotry nor does it prevent violent crimes against minorities, it just gives longer sentences for said crimes. The same crime without bigotry receives a longer sentence, my point is that if crime is crime it doesn't really matter if the motivation was motivated by bigotry. If there is legislation against violent crimes against persons then why have a special law? Unless we consider set groups as somehow 'special'. What's wrong with simply prosecuting violent crimes?

If a man throws acid in a woman's face because she has spurned him would it make it that much worse if he had done so because she was of a different color or religion? (I use acid attacks as an example only because there have been a dozen here this past month used against women all under the age of 25 and I find it the most cruel violence you can met out)

Hate crimes suggest that the penalties we have for assault, murder, harassment etc are not good enough. Maybe we should just have a higher penalty for ALL crimes regardless.

 

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed. And obviously "The Law" agrees, too. "The Law" deems discrimination because of race, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation (and a whole bunch of other things!) illegal and in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. See? Even "The Law" is against hate crimes legislation!!

And yet, here, and in the hate crimes laws that have been passed, we have pure, clear, obvious evidence of discrimination because of race, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation (and a whole bunch of other things!). Why can't y'all see that?

Baron Max

 

Wow, this thread is making me feel uncomfortable. I find myself agreeing with WillNever!

Hate crimes need to be punished as such. I don't think anybody would stretch freedom of speech to accomodate inciting violence against any group, and that is the basis of hate crime legislation, in the UK at least.

 

Er, OK, but if he had been beaten up by a group of white boys shouting 'kill the <insert favourire relevant racial slur>' and the fact that race was their sole motive, what would you think then?

 

Yep! Absolutely! And perhaps that's exactly what "hate crimes legislation" is all about ...wanting harsher penalties, but unwilling to go the extra step to making them all harsher.

Maybe the next step will be adding more "things" so as to make the penalties harsher. Maybe this is just a way to get around all the mamby-pamby, liberal doo-gooder affection for criminals?

Baron Max

 

So you agree that discrimination should be used by the law and the courts so as to make one group different to another group under the law?

Baron Max

 

No, Bells. I think if I should murder a nigger or a queer, then I should be convicted of murder and serve the required term in prison or be executed according to the law. But I don't think, however, that that punishment should be different if I'd killed a white guy or a heterosexual man.

Ooops, oh, wait, Bells. Are you saying or implying that blacks or queers are somehow different or more important than white guys or heterosexuals????

But regular ol' crimes SHOULD be tolerated by the justice system and society?

And, Bells, how can one write a law against thinking something? Hatred and bigotry are simply thoughts about different people, that's all. You might not like it, but what the hell, people have thoughts about other people all the time. Some of it is good, some of it is neutral, some of it is bad.

And, Bells, if you hate bigots so much, aren't you doing the very same thing that you claim to hate ....being a bigot?

Baron Max

 

Do you know what the word 'any' means, Baron?

Or are you pulling your usual straw man schtick, arguing something different to what I have actually said. Oh yes, you are.

Debate honestly or don't reply to me.

 

Ditto.