Comments on: Hating Hate Crime Legislation

By: The Reverend

The Reverend — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:24:43 +0000

I realize that our minds are tuned to different frequencies, but as far as I can see, the hate-crime legislation is to punish the perpetrator. How does that really grant "special victim status", if, say, the person is dead? How the hell does that work?

Let me ask you this. If black criminals were specifically targeting white people in a city whose entirely black police force and black district attorney were turning their collective heads away from acknowledging what it was…..a kind of genocidal hate crime spree….charges get reduced, etc….should the feds have the power to step in to prevent the injustice from continuing?

By: Da King

Da King — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:16:16 +0000

Rev,
It's like you can't read. Either that or you can't comprehend what you're reading. Which is it ?

I'll talk real slow.

T-H-E Y-E-A-R I-S 2-0-0-9. L-Y-N-C-H-I-N-G B-L-A-C-K-S O-R G-A-Y-S I-S M-U-R-D-E-R. T-H-A-T I-S A H-E-I-N-O-U-S C-R-I-M-E, P-U-N-I-S-H-A-B-L-E B-Y L-I-F-E I-N P-R-I-S-O-N O-R T-H-E D-E-A-T-H P-E-N-A-L-T-Y.

W-E P-R-O-S-E-C-U-T-E-D T-H-E N-A-Z-I-S.

All you can see is that certain forms of bigotry exist. Yes, they do, and they probably always will. What you won't see, is that we already have laws against every crime that is classified as a hate crime, and therefore don't need hate crime legislation. Not at all. It's about politics, period. It's not about anyone's safety. It's not about anyone's fear. It's not about civil rights. It's about politics, and hate crime legislation is discriminatory in itself, because it assigns different levels of worth to different groups.

If a gay person is protected under hate crime legislation, and a straight person is not, or a veteran is not, or a Christian is not, or a Muslim is not, or a Boy Scout is not, or a teacher is not, etc, etc, etc, that assigns special victim status to the gay and makes a crime against a gay more severe than the same crime against someone else. That makes gays a protected class, worth more than others.

That's your last explanation. You can decide to comprehend or not.

By: The Reverend

The Reverend — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:21:09 +0000

So, when white crackers were letting other whites lynch blacks, those were not hate-crimes? And the feds have no right telling those white crackers how to prosecute crimes against blacks? Is that your position?

And, would someone answer me about the Nazi/Jews thing? Take the war part out for a moment…….Germans targeting Jews for extinction, was that a hate-crime, ya' think?

And, someone needs to explain to me how passing hate-crime legislation "grants special victim status". What the heck does that even mean?

By: Da King

Da King — Sat, 09 May 2009 08:06:31 +0000

joe, I wasn't being sarcastic to dd20. I meant what I said. That South Park clip did sum up the savage hypocrisy of hate crime legislation.

I'm a big South Park fan. And I'm pretty sure Trey Parker is a Libertarian.

http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/trey-parker.html

By: averagejoe5

averagejoe5 — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:57:47 +0000

King, no kidding if you don't watch it, start. Makes way more sense than olberdork and madcow. Sometimes it's political sometime it's not but it always has a message and the writers are brilliant.

By: Da King

Da King — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:10:48 +0000

Darn. Here I went and wrote all those words about hate crime legislation, when all I had to do was link to that South Park clip. I could have saved so much time.

Thanks dd.

By: averagejoe5

averagejoe5 — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:09:35 +0000

dd20 – Amazing the sense Southpark makes sometimes, isn't it. LOL I live that show.

By: dd20

dd20 — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:26:20 +0000

"it is time to stop splitting people into groups. All hate crimes do is support the idea that blacks are different from whites, that homosexuals need to be treated differently from non-homos, that we aren't the same." – Stan Marsh

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151849?videoId=151849

By: Da King

Da King — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:07:21 +0000

The OJ case is a good example of the stupidity and bigotry of hate crime laws. OJ hated his ex-wife. That was his motivation. Race had nothing to do with him killing her, but hate sure did. Without it, no way does he murder her. Yet, because Nicole and Ron Goldman weren't a "protected" class – no hate crime charge.

By: averagejoe5

averagejoe5 — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:55:48 +0000

I want that legislation to include fat people and bald people. Thin people with hair have no idea when they call these people names the damage it does to their self esteem. Also when fat people are limited to the number of times they can go up to the buffet and the extra money they have to pay for a plane ticket this is discrimiination. To me name calling names and discrimination are the same as hate crimes. Also Rev I hope you are white when throwing around that word "cracker". This is a white only word. That word alone is a hate word, it is not one of endearment.

King and Angry you are right on the money with these 2 statements.

"The real motivation for the hate crime bills is not to punish hate but rather to provide the Fed. Gov. another tool to engage in social enginerring advancing their prioities at the time and also to usurp more power from the local level."

"What hate crime legislation is really about is granting special victim status to certain favored groups of people so that Democrats can say 'look what good people we Democrats are. We care about you. You should vote for us.' There is NO other purpose."

Rev, sometimes it's better to just sit back and smile at what is written than to make comments like you did. This is 2009. Didn't you watch the OJ trial?

By: angry conserv

angry conserv — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:45:33 +0000

a Judge in New York found a man quilty of a hate crime when he contacted a gay man on line and arranged to go to that man's aprt. to have sex. Once there he beat the gay and robbed him. He was found quilty of a hate crime.
Who could argue that decision? The lawyer of the defendant objected. Why? Because the defendant was also gay. The only conclusion one can draw is that it is not the motivation behind the act that matters but rather certain groups are entitled to special rights under the law. The real motivation for the hate crime bills is not to punish hate but rather to provide the Fed. Gov. another tool to engage in social enginerring advancing their prioities at the time and also to usurp more power from the local level.

By: Roy

Roy — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:02:19 +0000

"Let's take a southern state as an example. You pick it…could be any red, hate-Obama state."

Could you be more ignorant and stereotypical? The south is no longer the south of the 1960's. Obama carried Virginia and North Carolina. So I pick those two states. Please provide examples.

By: larry d.

larry d. — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:30:38 +0000

Those new Mexican neighbors have got the Reverend hating everybody. I'm not sure if it's loud music or what.

By: Da King

Da King — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:08:55 +0000

Seems the Rev is living in 1940. The rest of us are here in 2009. I'm not following how the USA is like Nazi Germany either. Straw men arguments, one and all.

As I stated, the murderers of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. received the maximum penalties allowable under the law (and in the Byrd case, the death penalty was handed down in a southern state ! Must have been a miracle). No jury was about to let the perpetrators of those horrible acts go because they (according to you) hate gays and/or blacks.

And have you ever heard of double jeopardy ? It's supposed to be against the law. Federal hate crime legislation subverts that principle.

We prosecuted those Nazis too, and we somehow managed to do it WITHOUT hate crime legislation. Gee, I wonder how that happened ?

The only racist sentiment thus far has come from you, when you called all southerners "white crackers." Go wash your brain out with soap.

By: The Reverend

The Reverend — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:19:37 +0000

Kind of clueless.

Let's take a southern state as an example. You pick it…could be any red, hate-Obama state. White crackers in authority, with white juries and white judges can, and have, allowed race-based crimes by whites against blacks, to go by with minimal sentencing. Not in all cases, mind you, but in some.

Hate crime legislation allows for the feds to rectify these unjust race-based decisions.

The same could be said about hate crimes against gays. Especially, today, this is prescient. Communities who rally themselves around hate of the "other", can 'protect' anti-gay criminals, by reducing sentences, etc. The hate crimes legislation would prevent this from happening.

Were Nazi crimes against Jews and gypsies hate-crimes, do you think? Anything unusual about the crimes Nazis committed? Or were they simply detached-from-hate run of the mill crimes?