Hate-crime = Thought crime?

I first have to say that this thread has completely changed my view on hate crime legislation. While I have always supported it, I took a middle of the road approach (i.e. I supported it as a necessary wrong. I more or less agreed with those against it in principle, but believed it to be better than nothing as long as there were bigots in society). Now I see why such laws have to be in place and am in wholehearted support.The key to my change of view was that I had not considered the act of violence as going beyond the immediate victim. As my brain works by analogy, let me explain it the way I am thinking...Let us say that I decide to murder the Jones family. I succeed in killing Mr. Jones, and immediately afterwards send a text message to his wife and two kids telling them what I had done and that they were next. I am, however, arrested soon after. I would be charged with the murder of Mr. Jones and the assaults (death threats) on the other family members. I do not believe the assault charge would be dropped in one count if say one of the kids didn't get the message until after I was apprehended (and therefore the threat was invalid).Analogously a hate crime then becomes the original crime (murder, battery, assault) PLUS the added threat to members of the targeted community. In just about every unequivocal hate crime that I have heard of there was an attempt to send a message. I suppose it is possible that someone would commit a hate crime in total secrecy as to prevent anyone from ever knowing such a crime occurred, but I have to believe this would be insignificant.Hate crimes are really designed to change the behavior of the target group. The perpetrators want immigrants out of their neighborhood or want patrons of gay bars to stay home. It is an attempt to alter the protected behavior of a group by instilling fear. There are bigots out there that justify hate crimes by the target group not conforming to the behaviors the bigots wish to see. Has anyone else heard people say "If they didn't act gay in public they wouldn't get their asses kicked" or "if they just stayed in their own neighborhoods this wouldn't be an issue"?And on the issue of the laws making it worse - the flaw I see with that is that the same arguments have been used before to protect perpetrators of many crimes. For lots of crime the victim is made to feel powerless, and even more so when they in a minority. The problem is the bigots, not the behavior of victims. To say we cannot pass hate crime laws because they would further divide society is little different, imho, than the days when well-meaning prosecutors would recommend that black victims of violence just drop the issue because to push it would just make their lives worse (the fact that this often may have been true in no way affects the morality of choosing to fight injustice).

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

First of all - Holy shmokes, what's with the nastiness? I am sorry, I must have misspoken when I said that hate crimes are the only crimes in existence that have any effect beyond the single victim. But seriously - did you really get that from what I said? I know that pretty much all crime affects those outside of the victim(s) and perpetrators, and we tend in society to weigh penalties in some fashion upon this. I was saying that I had not really put a lot of thought into how a defined hate crime may victimize others of the target group. And I think you raised a good point here and it is one I would love to hear discussed by people smarter than I. How do we (or can we) separate a crime that makes people in general stop going out because of fear different than a crime that stops people of color from going out because of fear? This is the second time in this post you went out of your way to exaggerate something I said to make fun of me. When I first wrote this I had written "Hate crimes are really designed to change the Constitutionally protected behavior of the target group." To make it more global I deleted "Constitutionally protected" and wrote "legally protected". Then in looking it over I didn't think that was needed either as in the context of "hate crime" it seemed obvious that I was referring to an illegal act design to prevent others from engaging in legal behavior through violence and fear. Didn't cross my mind that anyone would think that I believed that anyone attempting to modify anyone's behavior in any context was committing a hate crime. But you knew that wasn't what I meant - didn't you? Rather than re-emphasize your earlier point about all violent crime terrorizing people or questions of intent versus motive it was more fun to give a fucking prick answer. WTF??!! When did the Nazis come into this? I was referring to the fact that there have been cases where wrongs have been allowed because people believed that 'stirring the pot' would only make things worse. The argument against hate crime legislation (if the viewpoint is correct) should rely on better arguments than 'it could make the situation worse'. I am sure why you accuse me of argumentum ad Hitlerum when I did no such thing and was in fact countering an appeal to consequence.

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

And after that first sentence I explained my point. I am not rejecting anything on this - I am saying that the perceived consequences are not a necessarily a valid argument against hate crime legislation. It is NOT argumentum ad Hitlerum as I am not saying "arguments against hate crime laws are invalid because similar arguments have been used in a negative fashion in the past."I am saying that whatever arguments there are for or against hate crime legislation an appeal to consequence is not a good one. Fear of backlash or racially motivated consequences slowed down the Civil Rights movement here in the US. The argument for or against say desegregation should have been (and ultimately was) based on legal and ethical issues and not on the fact that there could be (and in fact was) some backlash from a very bigoted society. And for the same reason we cannot use consequence when deciding the justice of hate crime laws.

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

Thanks Oni, some very good points! As I mentioned in my first post (however 'irrelevant', 'vague', 'absurd' and 'naive' and worthy of mockery it might have been) these questions are from a viewpoint I had not really considered much until recently. I see your point. I think (if this makes sense) the answer is in the definition of hate crime. It is not (or should not) be any crime committed against a person or persons of an ethnic group by a member of another ethnic group. It should be a crime where the obvious and clear intent of the crime was to bend the will of one ethnicity to that of another through fear and intimidation. Something is NOT a hate crime (imho) just because some people say it is, it would be cases where there was a clear and obvious intent.As an example, let's say that one morning in NYC the police find a Muslim man dead in the street, killed execution style and left where he died. Later it was shown that the killer was Jewish and tied to a strongly Zionist group. I would be reasonably sure that lots of people would be going ballistic and calling it a hate crime. Without any other evidence I would not be in agreement of the legislation applying in this case. No matter how much public or media appeal there was, I would be opposed to a definition of hate crime that applied to this case (again, provided the only evidence of this was association with a group that might support such actions). Even if the perpetrator was an admitted racist, I do not believe one could adequately show that the crime was not personal but a statement to a community.If, however, the same situation occurred and there was evidence that this crime was deliberately intended as a message to the Muslim community then I would define this as a hate crime. If there was anti-Muslim graffiti, or a manifesto, or something about the murder was deliberately done as to send a clear message to the target ethnic group then I believe that a hate crime occurred and the penalties should be increased.And to restate, if the legislation is so vague as to allow for cases of individual violence (as in inter-ethnic violence with other motivation) to be blanketed under the term, then I completely agree that it should be redone.Thanks again for your questions. It is very useful for me to hear pointed questions that force me to really examine an issue, especially if it is an issue I have not spent a great deal of time studying.

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"