Hate Crimes? Thought Crimes? Crimethink?

I would suggest that you are wrong, particularly when we are considering homicide. It would be an extremely strange circumstance to have a killing motivated by hatred of gays for example, that could not be considered first degree murder. Almost certainly the required degree of malice of forethought exists unless you want to suggest that the perp suddenly started hating gays in a fit of anger. In such a case. What hate crime statutes do in that instance is remove some of the discretion from the judge and jury. This is not completely correct. The difference between first degree murder and capital murder is not based on the amount of responsibility. It is instead based on society's view that certain classes of murder or more heinous than others. For example murders committed during commission of crime, or on a policeman, or by poisoning are examples of murders where we assign increased culpability without considering any additional elements of 'control over one's actions'. Terrorism charges are yet another example.In my opinion, the idea that hate crimes are thought crimes is pure BS. You can hate all you want, just don't go out looking for victims because you hate them, because such activity is rightly judged to be malicious and pre-mediated.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What do they say, Jon? There are already laws about premeditation, but that still does not prevent the law from declaring that certain types of murder, such as killing by poisioning or laying in wait are considered capital offenses.Let's consider the case in question in which the perp murdered nine people in a cold calculating manner. Is there some level of punishment that he is going to receive that is outside the range of punishment for which he is already eligible?In the case of homicide, there is simply no danger of hate crime laws being thought crime laws. And making bogus arguments about current law does not advance your point.The examples were given to point out that the explanation you gave about how we currently treat mental state in assigning punishment was not correct. You need to provide a different reason why hate crimes are unlike non hate crimes if you have one.Quite frankly, I don't see how the current case fails to qualify as terrorism. Dylann's stated intent was to start a civil war.

Do those countries have a first amendment? Apparently not. So far you don't seem to be have any evidence or argument for your position. We have such laws now. Do you have any discussion or references suggesting abuse? There are hate crime statutes in 45 of fifty states. Surely you have some track indicating a sliding along a slippery slope.

You can have a freedom of speech enshrined in your constitution and yet not have anything like the first amendment. Pure hate speech laws that do not involve incitement, fighting words or otherwise lead immediately to law breaking and violence would be unconstitutional in the US.First amendment jurisprudence is one reason why I do not think the risk of having hate speech laws passed and enforced is very high. Holocaust deniers and Nazi supporters in the US are ridiculed and but not arrested.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This thread has, IMO, finally jumped the shark. (Not your fault Larni)But more importantly, how is your rating a Bo Derek, perfect 10 Larni? What's the algorithm at work here? I'm going to give you an upvote and see what happens.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Well no. Even if the wording of the provision were identical, you don't necessarily get all of the jurisprudence and precedent that 'the' first amendment has with respect to free speech. In fact, our first amendment at the time it was enacted was a shell of its current self. You mention the World War I sedition act, but there was previous acts in 1798 that outlawed criticism of the government.None of those Sedition acts would be found constitutional under the current interpretation of the first amendment. Brandenberg v. Ohio being a case illustrating that principle on subject matter at issue in this thread. I wouldn't want to claim that such Acts could not happen again during war time. But I don't think that's the slippery slope at issue in this thread.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes, I remember now. Congrats again.I just checked with Ms NN. She says she is not going to bear another child just so I can get a boost to my rating. She suggests that I simply make some sensible, informative, and possibly witty posts. Well that's not going to happen.And to return to the topic. I hate to dignify this question with a response, but in those witch trials, people were generally alleged to have committed acts of witchcraft and were not simply accused of having thought about casting a spell on someone. I don't see an analogy with the kind of thought crimes under discussion here.

The relevance is that despite your denial, even absent hate crimes, we commonly use motive to determine culpability. Intent alone is not enough. When you kill in self defense, the fact that you meant and intended to kill is excusable because of your motive to save your life. If you shoot someone because a third party is holding your family hostage and will kill them if you do not, it is motivation rather than intent that determines your culpability.If we establish that a hate crime is based on racism, then I don't understand why we cannot apply the full weight of possible punishments based on that reason alone. We know that the motive is nefarious and inexcusable. In my view, punishing inexcusable offenses is consistent with how our penal system operates and I am just fine with that. And in the case of murder, the resulting punishment is never beyond that which we would apply anyway. Intent is an element of a crime and not a crime itself. I think it is you who is confused about the meaning of intent and not Dr. Adequate. First degree murder is murder with malice. Killing because of racism surely constitutes malice aforethought. So why shouldn't we punish racism motivated murders as first degree murder? What is problematic about a statute that requires that we do so? Are you really unable to come up with a logical basis for discouraging this kind of thinking? Because it is pretty clear to me that we should want to deter criminals from thinking in this way. That's why we enhance the punishment in felony murder cases.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

No I did not say that. I have no problem with each of those situations receiving enhanced punishment. And I gave an example of exactly contrary to your propositon. We punish murders committed to remove witnesses from a felony using enhanced felony murder punishment. In other words we take into account the motive when assigning punishment.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Exactly. Hate crime laws are not thought crimes.

I find your response completely bizarre. I describe a situation outside of hate crimes where we add extra punishment due to the mental state and motives of the criminal and then you respond as above. It's as if I never posted except that you responded.Under normal jurisprudence, your motive for killing matters. Mental state and depravity are elements of crimes that provide enhanced punishment for crimes that are not hate crimes.Another examples are terrorism enhanced punishments for crimes. And of course during sentencing judges take all kinds of accounts of motives when deciding jail time. Yet another example laws against possessing burglar tools for the purpose of breaking into a vehicle. Giving a candidate money is either a donation or a bribe depending entirely on the motive.Breaking and entering is illegal, but breaking and entering for the purpose of committing a felony is burglary which is a serious felony. Nothing other than the criminals purpose distinguishes the two situations.Degrees of murder are distinguished in part by motive. Killing a person for the purpose of preventing testimony in a trial is punished more severely because we want to deter that.We can identify under the law any number of situations were motive either enhances punishment or even where there is an exculpatory vs an incriminating effect. You summarily dismiss such examples, but that's wrong. In those cases motive serves as distinguishing punishment from no punishment at all.If you instead want to argue that we should not be enhancing punishments based on motive, then make that case. But stating that we don't do that or such things are not a part of a civilized society are empty rhetoric. The idea of enhancing punishments based on various mental states runs all through current jurisprudence. Sigh. Again you raise this false dichotomy. Both of those things are bad. Put the perp under the jail for life. There are lots of bad motives. Anti-Semite reasons are just one. Shooting someone in the face because he raped your brother might well be deserving of a lesser punishment.

These are still not thought crimes. Referring to a she as a 'he' has to be directed at the person. It does not seem to me that simply using it in conversation not involving the person is objectionable under the law. And of course there is still constitutional scrutiny to be applied.Yeah, I see the problematic part of such legislation too. But do such laws as this get their start from laws that are actually designed to protect minorities from physical violence? That's what the slippery slope argument is insisting. The second question is whether we should sand paper the slope (prevent sliding into free speech territory) or eliminate the peak (not protect minorities from xenophobic abuse using targeted punishment).Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Dem's fightin' words, stranger...

I think the statute in question does cross a bad line. It is akin to laws against cursing in public and probably crosses the line at being unconstitutional in at least some of its application if not facially. There is a difference between being a bigot and being a bully. Bigots are allowed their hate, but we can stop them from inflicting hurt, particularly in settings like the workplace. Couple the provocative speech with some actually crime such as creating a hostile work environment or threats and you've got a constitutional enhancer whose application would not bother me in the least.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I've indicated that I agree. On their face, at least as explained in the article, the guidelines impact free speech. Conservatives nuts are not the sole defenders of the First Amendment. I imagine that the ACLU might be interested in defending even an odious person who runs afoul of this law if it were applied too broadly.I'm not convinced that the origin of this law is "slippery slope". It just seems like a bad idea. Maybe the kind of bad idea that only liberals might come up with, but still bad. Kinda like banning big bottles of soda to keep citizens from getting fat. Well, no. I've seen plenty of outlandish paranoia here. Some people want to get rid of valid laws because they might slide into bad places. We can be vigilant without making unwarranted slippery slope arguments.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.