Earlier this month a disgusting apparent hate crime occurred in Everett:
"They wrote stuff like fag, whore, KKK, swastikas," Crissy explained. She's Caucasian and Washington is African American. "Maybe they didn't like the black and white together."The perpetrators were caught on Monday: "Son, pals arrested after house trashed in Everett"
A 16-year-old boy's alleged plan to make a burglary at his mother's house appear to be a hate crime backfired, according to police.But some in the community are still calling it a "hate crime".
"We still very much consider this a hate crime," said Janet Pope, executive director of the Interfaith Association of Snohomish County. "The person acted out of hate and anger and used the symbols of a hate crime."I agree with the Interfaith Association on this one. Of course it was a hate crime. Every crime is a hate crime. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 20, 2005 10:37 AM | Email This
All crime is hate crime in that a crime can only be committed by a hateful person. That is what you mean, right? And that is a nice sentiment.
However, in reality, hate-crime laws are on the books. Hate crime is thought crime. Or at least, hate crime is "bonus points" tacked on to actual crime by the thought police.
Hate crime should be eliminated from the lawbooks. There is no need to consider inter-racial crime as more egregious (I taught myself how to spell it!) than same-race crime. Same goes for inter-gender crime.
I don't know if you agree with me or not, but I wanted to be clear on the subject.
Posted by: Huckleberry on April 20, 2005 10:56 AMQ: You have a different view of that.
BUSH: No I don’t, really. We’ve got a hate crime law in Texas and guess what? The three men who murdered James Byrd, they’re going to be put to death. A jury found them guilty. It’s going to be hard to punish them any worse after they get put to death.
GORE: I guess I had misunderstood the governor’s previous position. I had thought that there was a controversy at the end of the legislative session where the Byrd family among others asked you to support a hate crimes law, Governor. Am I wrong about that?
BUSH: What the Vice President must not understand is we’ve got a hate crimes bill in Texas and secondly the people that murdered Mr. Byrd got the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. When you murder somebody, it’s hate. I’m not exactly sure how you enhance the penalty any more than the death penalty.
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Amen to that, W....Amen. Perhaps the dems think we should torture people convicted of so-called "hate-crimes" before putting them to death? With all their whining and moaning about Abu Ghraib, I doubt that that's the case....as usual, they need to make up their minds.
The fact that it was most certainly NOT a hate crime is immaterial.
Don't confuse them with facts!
Posted by: ShannK on April 20, 2005 11:29 AMTake that enhanced penalty and apply it to something that already has the maximum penalty, and it becomes hyperbole.
The problem is that the pc crowd does take it seriously.
If logic and consistency were an issue, they wouldn’t be libs.
And what’s up with a domestic robbery being disguised as a hate crime, and when the real nature is revealed, Pope insists on still treating it as a hate crime? Did she think that bombing an aspirin factory really did do something appropriate? Reality means less to her than her feelings about the use of symbols.
She’d be fun to play hold 'em with, if she had a big stash.
That’s not to say that it’s inappropriate for the Council to help the couple as victims of a garden variety robbery and vandalism.
It will soon get to where no one will take it serious anymore. The "boy cries wolf" scenario.
Posted by: Scott in Carnation on April 20, 2005 11:59 AMhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153969,00.html
Is another example of PC crowd crying wolf and getting caught. As the story says, it only hurts the true victims. The only upside to it is that it shows this PC crowd's true colors to the world.
Posted by: Fred on April 20, 2005 12:11 PManyone else even notice that the original incident was headlined, leading story, etc, but the sudden truth is dumped way below the cutline, an "oh, by the way" on the local news, and certainly not on page 1???
BTW, anyone want to define a "love crime?"
We are periously close to thought crimes.
I didn't mean to kill him, I just pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Oh! That's okay as long as you didn't mean to kill him.
On the other hand. Say anything disparging, about any of the the protected classes and... off with your head.
How 'bout we judge actions and results.
Posted by: JCM on April 20, 2005 12:15 PMWe don't need hate crime laws. We already have laws that punish crime. It's particularly insidious to be lured by the false sense that it's good to punish people for hate. As much as we all might find this punk to be a disgusting racist, there's nothing inherently wrong with hatred as long as it is not acted upon. There are all sorts of people who hate homosexuals, but that in an of itself is not a reason to jail or punish them, nor is it a reason to add to their sentence if they commit a crime.
Hate crime legislation is one more step along the road to a Statist, Orwellian world in which Marxists can punish those whose ideas they do not like. We've already seen hints of this kind of thinking in Gregoire's statements about right wing talk radio and blogs, and it's also been in the news lately regarding the regulation of blogs as we see with blogs in our more statist, Orwellian neighbor to the North.
Resist the temptation to say to yourself, yeah, their ought to be a law against hate crimes. They are two different things, hate and crime and they do not belong together.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 20, 2005 12:17 PMHate crime law is a joke. Commit a crime, do the time.
Posted by: Jeffro on April 20, 2005 12:22 PMI might add that it is important to regulate bloggers, as they are so inciduous. But internet porn/child porn/NAMBLA, hey that is free speech! Amazing, isn't it?
Posted by: Fred on April 20, 2005 12:25 PMLike it or not, criminal law is FULL of determinations of intent or "mind reading." Really, that's the key to criminal law and punishments.....
*Premeditated* first-degree murder as opposed to manslaughter? Unless the perp confesses, "I planned the murder for a month beforehand" (not gonna happen), you've got to prove whether he thought about it in advance -- that's "mind reading" and the juries do it every day.
Same for proving attempted murder vs. assault in a case where someone is severely beaten. The question is whether one person *intended* (but failed) to kill the other. Gotta prove what the suspect intended to do -- kill or just hurt -- and the courts do this every single day.
When someone drives a car intentionally into another person, they can be charged with a crime (vehicular assault or even murder or attempted murder) but otherwise it's not a crime, just a case for damages. The key is whether the act was intentional -- purely a question of what was in the person's head.
When you come down to it, it's the mental element that separates crimes from ordinary "bad stuff" that happens. Let's say I pick up your cell phone off the table in a restaurant and take it with me. The whole question of whether I'm guilty of theft is whether I meant to do it, or did it by accident (say, thinking it was mine, etc.). It's *exactly* the same physical act. The thing that makes it a crime or not is what was in my head.
The only thing that distinguishes the two is that mental component. Every crime has some sort of mental state requirement that makes the act a crime rather than just something that the person has to pay damages for.
So, while it's fair to debate the pros and cons of hate crime legislation, it's not right to say that hate crimes are unlike regular crimes because they involve "what was in someone's mind" -- state of mind is the key element in EVERY crime.
Posted by: Richard on April 20, 2005 12:33 PMI agree with you that determining intent is a part of criminial investigation and prosecution. Of course. But notice in each of your examples, you describe determining the intent of "a person" in causing harm to "another person." You did not say determining the intent of a "man" in beating up a "woman", or the intent of a "black man" in killing a "white man." When you attach special significance to the victim class, you have lost me.
Would you agree that hate crimes as currently constructed should be eliminated?
You make a very good point. I think the distinction here is that we go away from equal justice. Anyone that picks up the cell phone has the same system. If someone murders someone the punishment should be the same, it should not depend on the color/sexual orientation/religion of the two parties.
As you said, if it is an 'accidental' killing it is manslaughter. It can be shown that the intent to murder was there because of the various differences of the two parties. The harsher penalty is then doled out. But intent is shown, independent of color/....
Posted by: Fred on April 20, 2005 12:44 PMAssualt vs. murder, punk beats victim with baseball bat. A reasonable person would know that beating some one with a bat could result in the death of the victim. Not in WA it's just assualt.
I have yet to hear a rational answer to this question:
Victim A is dead, beating to death.
Victim B is dead, beating to death.
Why should the perp in the murder of Victim B get a greater sentence?
It doesn't depend on the Intent of the perp but the status of the victim. If the vic is a protect class it is assumed to be a hate crime.
I disagree with hate crime sentencing, but it is an issue both sides can get right or wrong.
While fact checking, I did find this quote you all will find humerous in today's context.
"These folks are judicial activists," Biden said of Rehnquist's majority. "They are saying the federal courts are going to make these judgments, not Congress."
Posted by: CandrewB on April 20, 2005 02:03 PMWhy is it so much better for (well, for me, for example) to be killed 'cause someone wants to steal my wallet, than for me to be killed 'cause someone is really irritated with me. Hate, or any emotion for that matter, can give impetus to actions, but it is the actions that are the signifiers.
The only reason, I can think of for the existance of hate crime legistation is to embody in law permanent victim classification for various groups to allow them greater leverage than they might have otherwise. Fairness would make that an argument against such legislation.
Many districts also have more severe penalties for crimes against police on duty.
I can't agree with this either, but only because I think the severity of punishment should be the same for all criminals regardless of the type of people they victimize.
alaric
Posted by: alaric on April 20, 2005 02:07 PMDo you see where it could lead? Will the dems, in coming election losses, start on this path of accusing Republicans’ mere existence a hate crime? Everything conservatives say and do is in essence a hate crime in the demented eyes of a liberal.
I think Canada is leading the way in this regard. It is a little bit frightening.
Posted by: Huckleberry on April 20, 2005 03:33 PMQuite right.
Someone said (Paraphrase):
"Don't bother attempting to reason a person out of that which they were never reasoned into."
Hate crime statutes first appeared in Germany. The were used to control the rabid anti-social instigators of the destruction of civilization. The were used by the Nazis against the Jews.
Yes, today's thought police walk in the fog of idiocy that they so loudly claim to detest. Alas,...sic semper stultus.
Posted by: Jericho on April 22, 2005 12:22 AM