Hate-crime = Thought crime?

Precisely... Well articulated.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Then why are you using the typical partisan talking points? More fear mongering. The laws do not say that you can punish people for what they think. You have to first commit a "crime" for it to even begin to be considered a "hate-crime". I still think that the name itself is part of the problem. It is the same thing as terrorism and we have been convicting people of terrorism for quite some time. Stop calling it hate-crime and start calling it terrorism-lite and see if your arguments still sound as convincing. Which this does not change at all. The only thing hate crimes allow for is a "case" in between murder/assault and full on terrorism. Otherwise the legal system is not empowered to do anything more for a case when a sub-group is targetted. That is not the laws intent so I don't get your point at all. Still more FUD. SO your shifting from a criticism of the law to a criticism of our justice system? I mean sure, I'll join you in that. Too many laws about too many things and too hard to defend yourself. There is a little (l)ibertarian in ever liberal. But what does that have to do with the law? Should we not pass laws that we think make sense just because we don't trust our justice system to uphold them properly? I think that is MORE dangerous and THAT is the wrong direction.You should take some perspective too. The recent law that was passed did not establish hate crimes. All it did was expand the definition to protect gender and sexual orientation.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You're conflating (deliberately I wonder?) motive with intent. The distinction between murder one, two and manslaughter is made on the existence and degree of intent and planning involved, NOT, I repeat NOT, the feelings or thoughts of the perpetrator towards the victim. "Reckless disregard for human life" and "malice aforethought" are descriptors demonstrating the absence (or not) of intent. Killing someone by showing disregard for human life means that you didn't intend to kill that person specifically. The inverse is true of "malice aforethought". I mean, come on....we know you're not dumb so stop playing it. Where did I say or even remotely suggest this?! Post number and paragraph please! I've said that terrorists shouldn't be punished for their thoughts but only for their actions. How the hell did you deduce the above from that? so.....because I suggested that people should be punished for their actions and not their thoughts or feelings you've infered that I don't believe in terrorism or different degrees of murder?!?I've nothing to say to this other that your reasoning ability doesn't appear to be very cogent. ...Huh??....How does the existence of white supremacy groups invalidate my argument that hate crimes punish the motive/thought instead of just the crime?!You're just not making any sense. Because you're a self-righteous, conceited so and so who thinks that anyone who disagrees with the 'right-on' causes you support is a racist, sexist bigot. Really?! and here I was thinking that it was the fact that he set off two tons of explosives under a populated building that made it murder. Silly me! As I've explained above the distinction is made based on intent. Which is surmised by the perpetrator's actions. So, for instance, we can safely deduce that
McVeigh intended to kill those people by the fact that he went to the trouble of packing a van with explosives, parking it under a populated building and then setting it off. That's why it was murder one. Surely, even you can make the distinction between motive, intent and the significance of each.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

If using "typical partisan talking points" protects then Constitution, then so be it. Just know that I don't take cues from party lines. I either agree or don't agree. I am curious though as to how it could be considered partisan when Reps and Dems both were in favor and opposed to the bill. Yes, I am aware that a crime must be committed in conjunction with the belief. Belief being the keyword. I think the principle has more to do with it. I don't believe in charging people with "terrorism" either. People involved in 9/11 were either murders, were in conspiracy to commit murder, or aided and abetted murders. Based upon those crimes, you punish accordingly. There are acts of terrorism and acts of hate-crimes. No one disputes their existence, but the act of assaulting or murdering is the only real criminal question here.If it's not illegal to be a Neo-Nazi, but is illegal to kill, then why is it extra bad if a Neo-Nazi kills? It doesn't make any sense, unless of course they are being punished doubly for their beliefs. We already have an Equal Protection clause in place. So the only logical conclusion is that people are being punished for having ill-favorable beliefs. In fact, another issue is that not everyone in the bill falls in to a protected status. Why not just expand it to include everyone, equally, or do away with the bill because it gives priorities to some people and not to others? "A crime is a crime, regardless of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin or sexual orientation. A murdered white heterosexual male is no less dead than an Hispanic, gay Christian. Suppose three murders occur: one for money, another out of jealousy, and a third because the victim is a black, gay Wiccan. If the first two murderers are sentenced to 20 years in prison and the third is sentenced to 30 years, would the families of the victims in the first two cases feel they had received equal justice under the law?" - Herb Silverman, founder of Secular Coalition for America No, I'm saying the end doesn't justify the means. If you want stricter penalties for people who kill minorities, then per the Equal Protection Clause you have to give harsher sentences to every murderer. If you don't trust the judicial system you don't gut the Constitution to fix the problem. What sense does that make? Not only would it not solve the problem, but it makes it worse. I know it did not establish hate-crimes. The last 3 presidents all have a hand in that. My question is why can't everyone have equal protection from the law the way the 14th Amendment declares? Why do we have to be part of a special class of people to have our murderers justly tried?A murder is a murder.Why must the 1st Amendment be jeopardized when you could just punish people according to their actions, not according to their actions and beliefs. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

I'm guessing that's a rhetorical question, since you proceed to give your explanation of it. Cool ... and? Then we call Gene Hackman (like in Mississippi Burning), or, we get back in our time machine and head back to 2009. Cool ... and? Perhaps you missed my point.All laws do something, I'm not arguing that. I simply feel the "hate" crime laws are more superficial - like the taxes on tobacco, and causes more tension between groups than anything else. Its also a grey area, and left up to prosecutors to decide on, or the arresting office to determine. This leaves a lot of room for error.Lets say I'm at a club and a couple of gay guys insult me (for whatever reason). However, me and my friends out number them and kick the shit out of them. When an officer arrives, he sees a couple of gay guys with their ass kicked and me and my heterosexual friends are responsible.Was this a hate crime? No. Could it be confussed for one? Sure.I found this quote to sum up my point:

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More complexity in law and government does not guarantee more justice take the convoluted race laws of the old south for example. The basics of law, justice and civil rights are what the criminal justice system should cover, and group dynamics should be left up to citizens to figure out on their own. Enhancing grievances, which is exactly what hate crime laws do, will not promote tolerance so much as it will promote mutual suspicion and nurse a sense of group victimization.

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The only thing law does do for sure, is make minorities feel the government is doing something about racism, and gives them a sense of value. This works as a great tool to motivate people during election time.- Oni

I'm going to ignore most of this discussion because it's completely irrelevant.There is only one issue here: You claim that the 1st Amendment is jeopardized by hate crime legislation. Every other subject in this thread rests upon the acceptance of that single assertion.To put it bluntly, I call bullshit.Let's look at the actual hate crime laws, shall we? Let's see if they actually encroach in any way upon 1st Amendment rights. I'm just pulling this stuff from Wiki.

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The 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law, 18 U.S.C. 245(b)(2), permits federal prosecution of anyone who "willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin" [4] because of the victim's attempt to engage in one of six types of federally protected activities, such as attending school, patronizing a public place/facility, applying for employment, acting as a juror in a state court or voting.

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So, if you try to prevent black people from voting, or intimidate asians from attending school (exclusively targeting protected groups, as opposed to trying to prevent everyone from participating in those activities) then you are guilty of a hate crime.Nothing about speech in there. Nothing at all. The law applies to those who target individuals of a protected minority as a compensation for their continued lack of equal protection under normal laws.Yes, this could mean that a person's web posts about how " shouldn't be allowed to be in the same school with good white Christians" could be used as evidence at that person's trial to establish that the person was targeting a specific protected class. So can web postings about wanting to kill a person who was then killed, establishing premeditation.Neither is a violation of the 1st Amendment. In no way is the actual web posting (be it of racial epithets or ranting about wanting to kill someone) illegal under hate crime legislation. Speech is used after the commission of an actual crime to establish the motive for that crime. This basic practice has been part of US jurisprudence since before we classified murder into multiple degrees based on, among other factors, motive.If you think hate crime legislation is a violation of teh 1st Amendment, you'll have to overturn every other law where a person's motivation, planning, or other expressions of speech are used. That's an awful lot of the US legal code, including (as has been mentioned) basically every terrorism law on the books, murder, conspiracy, and more.

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The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, enacted in 28 U.S.C. 994 note Sec. 280003, requires the United States Sentencing Commission to increase the penalties for hate crimes committed on the basis of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or gender of any person. In 1995, the Sentencing Commission implemented these guidelines, which only apply to federal crimes.

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This law doesn;t even make an additional charge for a hate criminal - it simply increases sentencing if the crime can be determined to have been motivated by the victim's membershipin a protected class. In other words, if you punch a guy, you're charged with assault. If you punch a guy because he's a racial minority (and this motivation can be supported in court beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury), you get a larger sentence.Still nothing specific about speech. Let's make a hypothetical scenario here. We'll take the DC Sniper - I'm sure we all remember him and his brief reign of terror in the greater DC area. Obviously, he was a murderer. But let's say he targeted specific people instead of just firing on good targets. In fact, let's go a step farther and say that the sniper targeted only women, and made various writings (on web sites, in journals, etc) about how modern, Western women are all whores and need to be executed for offending Allah.This hate law would give him additional sentencing for specifically targeting women, a protected class. The records of his free expression can be used in court to support the accusation that he was targeting a specific group - the speech itself is not illegal, but is used to establish motive. Just like in other murder investigations where expressions of free speech in the form of journals, recorded conversations, etc can be used to establish premeditation or motive.This is not a threat to the 1st Amendment in any way. It doesn't criminalize speech at all. The sniper inour scenario could continue to post his nonsense on the web as much as he wants, so long as he doesn't actually commit the crime. The only "slippery slope" here is in the form of the logical fallacy - your claims rest on the idea that these laws will somhow slide far beyond their scope and threaten a Constitutional Amendment, which is by definition the highest law in the land and would completely override any attempts to do so anyway.The new law was this one:

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On October 28, 2009 President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010), which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, and which dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity.

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This changes things slightly, but doesn;t in any way affect the 1st Amendment. This law simply modifies the other Federal hate crime laws to cover gender and perceived gender (ie, it now covers transgender individuals), homosexuals, and disabled persons. It also dropped the previous requirements of the 1969 law that the victims be attempting to engage in a Federally protected act. In other words, this:

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"willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin" [4] because of the victim's attempt to engage in one of six types of federally protected activities, such as attending school, patronizing a public place/facility, applying for employment, acting as a juror in a state court or voting.

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becomes this:

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"willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin"

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You don't have to be just trying to vote or attend school any more. Now, if a person harasses a person with force at a bus stop, that person has committed a hate crime (for example, trying to force blacks to move to the back of teh bus would be a hate crime now, where it wouldn't have been before).It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of speech. Speech is still protected. The KKK, neo-nazis, anti-gay evangelicals, woman haters, anti-transgender bigots, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, and every other bigot out there can continue to express their cosnciences however they want, no matter how misguided they are ethically. Fred Phelps can continue to say "God hates fags" and parade around with his family and their offensive signs in peaceful protest all they want. Hate crime laws will only apply to them if they beat a gay or transgender person (and the motive for the beating can be established in court as having been the victim's membership in a protected class, not just a bar fight or self defense or anything else), or if they try to physically bar gays from attending a funeral, etc.So, Hyro - you're in a bit of a pickle. Your argument rests compeltely on the idea that hate crime legislation threatens the First Amendment, which states:

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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These laws do not in any way limit free expression. Everyone is still legally allowed to say anything they want, regardless of how vile the rest of us think it is. In fact, I think you and I would agree wholeheartedly that it is "vile" speech that needs to be protected most, or else the freedom of speech is nothing but an illusion. But hate crime laws do not in any way threaten free speech, any more than using a recorded conversation or journal entry to prove premeditation in a First Degree Murder case threatens the First Amendment.Your basic premise is false, Hyro. The rest of your argument falls like an irrelevant house of cards. Immediately show exactly, specifically, and legaly how any hate crime law (particularly the one the Obama adminsitration just pushed through) abridges the freedom of speech, or concede.

So do you feel terroism laws are contrary to the Consitution? Which I think, frankly, diminishes them drastically. The 911 attackers, Tim McVeigh, are rationally more than just murderers. You will have to explain how it give priorities to some people and not others. How is Equal Protection violated? A person being killed because their are white in order to scare white people will be treated exactly the same as a person being killed because they are black in order to scare black people. This quote is attacking a straw man of a very narrow interpretation of hate-crimes law. It is leaving out an entire victim class that is not represented without terror legislation which is the sub-group that the crime was intended to influence. If the motive for killing the black, gay, Wiccan was to terrorize all black, gay, Wiccans then the community of black, gay, Wiccans has not recieved equal justice without explicit terrorism/hate legislation.Are you seriously contending that the victim class of 911 only includes the people and families of the dead and injured, corporation in the WTC, and the city of New York? And you want to lecture about equal justice? That statement right there evidences exactly why you have a problem with this. You plainly are narrowing the purpose of the legislation in order to criticize it on those grounds. You must be replying to an entirely different statement than I made. Either we are having some mutual miscommunication here or you are going off on a tangent. You are still operating under your opinion that the Constitution is being violated which is precicely the point under dispute. It seemed to me that the original statement that I replied to was a criticism of the justice system itself. Please be more clear or ask me where I might be being obtuse so we are not talking about different thigns. Everyone does have equal protection. You have failed to demonstrate how this is an equal protection issue. The law is against messaging associated with a felony, it is a seperate offense which its OWN set of criteria for which it is the burden of the state to prove. You continue to conflate the issue to being just about the crime itself. You again are narrowing your scope in order to justify your criticism. Our laws that we have had for a very long time disagree with such a watering down of the legitimate distinctions. And yet again you want to be the one to lecture about equal justice? Explain to me what things you COULD do before that were protected by the 1st ammendment that you now CANNOT do now that we have terror/hate laws. Please. Pretty please.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

While my point is a not completely on topic, I think I need to point out something, higher taxes on tobacco are not there because leglislators thought that smoking was bad (in my country anyway) but to compensate for the higher cost to society that smoking induces in healthcare. The taxe is supposed to then be reversed to social security.I suppose the hate crime leglislation's purpose is more because criminals that are ideologicaly motivated are considered more dangerous than others since they will always be motivated to commit a crime again.

Thank you. But please note this in no way keeps hate-crime legislation from being proper and necessary.I understand your point and your analysis of the issue. I will not say you are wrong. We disagree on the point and society's analysis yields a different result.Hate crimes are crimes against humanity, against the society as a whole, and society has rightfully determined these crimes deserving of greater punishment than assessed for just the base crime itself.The First Amendment side-issue is just that - a side issue. One to be aware of and vigilant against, but is not sufficient, in these cases, to warrant a bar to legislation.

You have the effect of the legislation wrong. Though it may look for those who want like it sets up a special class of people it in fact sets up a special class of crime. Hate-crime laws separate out crimes against humanity from crimes against individuals, both of which society has the right to address. The stiffer penalties for crimes against humanity speaks to society's view that such crimes are more heinous. There are specific classes of people mentioned in the acts because these groups have been special targets of hate-induced crime based upon their humanity regardless of individual character.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Hi Son, That is partially the reason in my country too, but it doesn't get to the heart of the issue. If tabacco is such a risk and places such a burden on healthcare, then why not place the penalties on the Tobacco Ind. rather than on the people who are (sadly) addicted to the product?What the taxes do is increase revenue for the government and makes it seem as though something is being done about the risks tobacco causes. But it didn't reduce purchases on tobacco nor make the product any safer. The Tobacco Ind. never saw a decrease in sales and the government got more money from the taxes in the end. Obviously, the tobacco lobbyist did their job.Likewise, hate crime laws do nothing more than make the government seem as though they are taking action against racism. The media gets to use it to hype up a story, and candidates can say things like "I am tough on hate crimes." Which is a redundant euphamism because they should just be tough on crime, period.But it does have its use. It works well if you are trying to rally voters, say in the black community or the hispanic community ... or even in the gay community, which does become a relevant group if you're trying to run for office in the city of Miami Beach (or San Francisco). Nothing motivates crime more than oppression and poverty, lets not lose sight of that. But I do agree that ideological motives can cause someone to act out more aggressively, 911 is a perfect example. However, we have a word for that act, its called terrorism. And, while I'm not a fan of that word (because terrorism is relative), the laws that cover this act would cover racism too. But legislators, politicians, and DA's rather have the euphamism "hate crime" at their disposal to entice would-be voters - the media loves that euphamism because it sells stories and minorities feel warm and cozey because they are under the illusion that something directly for them is being done.- Oni

And who determines if a single act was motivated by "hate" or not?Isn't a person on trail for a hate crime before the jury has even had a chance to hear the details of the case? Is it not left to the arresting officer or prosecutors to say if in fact it was a "hate" crime?All this does it pin the two groups against each other, in society.Take my example. My friends and I get into a fight at a club with people who happen to be gay. We win. The arresting officers shows up and see a group of gay guys who just got their asses kicked by a group of straight men. The officers determine, on their own, due to the labels that each individual carries in our respective groups, that this was a hate crime.Now the media grabs a hold of the story and promotes it as a hate crime. Note that my group has yet to set foot in a court room, however, we are now defending ourselves against a "hate" crime, and thus have received hate mail, or perhaps threats, or whatever else can come from that label, from groups who defend gay rights.Again, we have yet to even step foot in a court room.What this then does, is pin my group -VS- the gay rights people and/or the entire gay community in my area. Causing increased tension between our groups, and in some cases leading to actual hate of the group.This is bullshit. If it had just been deemed a crime then it would not have had the repercussions that labelling it a "hate" crime had. It causes more harm than it does good, and it makes groups (minorities) look like oddities in our society that require special care.Speaking as a minority, I say this is worse than the actual bigots who hate us.The hate crime euphamism is a tool for politicians and the media, it helps in no other way.- Oni

...have actually read the laws in question, or at least the brief summaries I posted back in Message 36?Conversely, how many are effectively verbalizing from their rectums and arguing over laws writ for straw men?What is and is not a hate crime is as clearly written in the laws as in any other. Punching a member of a protected class is not a hate crime. Punching a member of a protected class because he is a member of that protected class is a hate crime, and that motivation must be supported in court beyond a reasonable doubt in order for a hate crime charge to stand - just like premeditation has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court to classify a murder as first degree.This isn't South Park, where any and every crime involving a minority as a victim is a hate crime and crimes against whites don't count. The laws as written, out here in the real world, cover any physical force used for harassment, injury, annoyance or blockage that is targeted against members of a specific race, (perceived) gender, (perceived) sexual orientation, religion, color, or national origin.That means that shooting a bunch of people because of their race, regardless of what the race is so long as the race is the motivator, is a hate crime whether the victims were all asian, black, hispanic, or even white - but the motivation has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom as having been to target a protected class, as opposed to a purely random mass murder.Yes, it even means that a group of militant homosexuals who attack heterosexuals simply because of the sexual orientation of their victims are also guilty of a hate crime.The law as it is written is not the same law that is being talked about in the majority of this thread. Neither is it what has been presented in popular media. Please, read the laws or at least their summaries before continuing. To do less is simply asinine.

And who determines whether or not someone should be charged with a hate crime? Right, but you are on trial for a hate crime regardless of whether or not it is the proven motive. If it is not the proven motive, you were still charged with it. So who decides that? Right, and who determines whether the act in question should be tried as a hate crime or not?Can't you see how this could get completely confussing and/or abused, or used for political reasons, etc.?Mexican gang beats up black kid - hate crime? Who determines wether the Mexican gang members where beating him up because he was black or for being in the wrong hood?Can you see how a motivated politician or DA could use this to motivate hate crime supporters?Can you also see how adding the word "hate" to it could cause both groups to actually build hate toward one another?- Oni

Amen! Although that was a damn funny episode.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson