Hate-crime = Thought crime?

I'm jumping in late to the game here, so I may have missed a post or two.Clearly there is a difference between writing "Onifre Rulz" on a stop sign and writing "Kill all Honkies" on a stop sign. (wanted to pick a racial slur that wouldn't be too offensive.)One of these is a statement of personal worth, the other is a call to action inciting violence.Now, the "kill" statement isn't really to be taken seriously. At least, I don't know of any cases where someone read a similar sign and then did it. However, technically it's still a call to violent action.Similarly there is a difference between writing "Onifre Rulz" on the side of a temple and writing "Finish what the Nazis started". One of these is simple vandalism with no more implied intent than any other tagger. The other has a specific target audience in mind which it is directly determined to offend.Now, if you wanted to march up and down the street in front of the temple carrying a Nazi sign - feel free. So long as you aren't trespassing or directly harassing people, that's free speech.However, vandalism is a crime. And the intent behind a crime is a factor in determining the punishment for that crime. A person who spray paints a temple with Nazi symbols deserves a harsher punishment than someone who spray paints a smiley face.

That may be, however a court sentencing a man for stealing $10 worth of bread to feed his children is likely to be less harsh than a court sentencing a man for stealing $10 worth of stereo parts.Intent is a factor in sentencing.Further, "hate crime" tends to refer to acts of physical violence more so than graffiti. It's typically used in cases where the subject of rape/assault/murder is selected on the basis of race/sexual orientation.Now, it is true that a murder is a murder. However, a person killing his wife's lover is unlikely to re-kill him. A person killing black people is likely to find more victims any time he likes.

Correct. However, in the case of the Texas man who was dragged behind a truck, simply prosecuting the people for murder is frankly insufficient.Yes, one man is dead. Yes, two men are held responsible for the death. However, unlike a robbery gone wrong, these two men are committing a heinous crime with the intent of terrorizing a community.If we can't prosecute them for their intentions, we can't prosecute terrorists for their intentions either.Along the same lines, we can't prosecute someone for conspiracy to commit murder, since it's only the murder which is illegal. Nor can we prosecute for any criminal conspiracy (fraud, coersion, etc) since those are all "crimes of thought" as well.It's not an invalid argument which you are posing, it's just that you are talking about taking away the ability for law enforcement (a group with is already seriously overwhelmed) to deal with a class of criminal.A typical kid who spray paints their name on a wall may get a $100 fine or 100 hours of community service. I have no problem with the same kid getting a $500 fine and 500 hours of community service for spray painting a swaztika on a temple. Just like that same kid would get a $500 fine for spray painting a statue of Washington instead of spray painting the side of a parking garage.

Not in the case I'm discussing. These two white men deliberately targeted a black man for being black and dragged him to death behind their truck as a means of ridding the world of a black man.In the case of the sniper, the only common characteristic between the victims was proximity to DC. Bundy and Gacy had serial killing targets which were (in one case at least) white women who had brunette hair. Was Bundy attempting to terrorize all white women with brunette hair? Maybe. I don't know.But I do know that white women with brunette hair have not been a group which has historically been targeted for violent crime with the frequency or cavalier attitude that the current protected groups have been targeted. Because of intent. Intent, as I said earlier, is a factor in accessing the punishment for crime. It's unclear whether a person spray painting "Broncos rule!" on a temple is doing so because it is a temple or simply because it is the nearest flat surface. There's nothing about the statement which relates to the location in any way.However, a swaztica on a temple is clearly meant to convey a more offensive message. The building and group are being deliberately targeted for that purpose and a crime is being committed in order to convey that message.Since there is no base crime to someone walking around outside, there is no punishment. Since there is a base crime in spray painting the wall, there is a punishment. Given that there is a range of punishment to be assessed for any crime, I see no problem to allowing intent to inform which end of the spectrum the criminal faces.Should someone be convicted for "hate crime" with no underlying offense? No.

My point is convicting someone for owning fertilizer and diesel fuel and a truck and having a blueprint of a federal building and having posted hateful messages to the internet is still convicting them of thought crime not actual action. At no step in the process have they actually taken an illegal action.Still, I doubt you would suggest that we have to wait until they have detonated the bomb before we take action.In the same way, we can treat hate crime as a different class of crime. Now you are talking about the concept of determent. That's a whole different discussion. I don't have any statistics on determent of hate crime as a result of legislation. I doubt you have any either. These laws have not been in place long enough to get a sufficient sampling to really determine effectiveness. Because the swastika in and of itself is not a uniquely Nazi symbol. A Hindu kid could be drawing one based on symbols from pre-WWII religious iconography.Context matters. 50 years earlier, gay men were being beaten and killed for petitioning to have a gay pride parade. Which is worse?She is, for all intents and purposes, defending the position which for decades, if not centuries, was behind brutal murders which went completely unpunished.Now the pendulum has swung back 1 percent over the line and people are having a fit about how unfair it is.Where was your outrage when the pendulum was 99% in your favor? Why are you so offended now that's it barely crossed back over?

No. It isn't. This woman's petition is in no way protected by the first amendment. Nothing that this woman did was protected by the first amendment in any way whatsoever.Further, being "investigated" by the police is not the same thing has being charged with a crime.If I call the police and say "Hyrog is keeping a pet panda in his basement" they may investigate you. That's _NOT_ punishment. It's their job to receive notifications and examine their validity.In this case, her speech was judged to be unsuitable. Neither you nor I have read the letter, so neither of us can say what was in it.What I can say, however, is that it was sufficiently hateful to warrant a police warning.

Actually, I would say that in the 2nd description there are two crimes:1) Murder.
2) Intent to defraud.Now, obviously crime #2 kinda takes a back seat to crime #1, however you have to admit that given two criminals:A) A murderer
and
B) A murderer who also commits fraudthe 2nd one is committing MORE crime than the first and can be punished accordingly.

Because there has never been a movement by a collection of people to target "alone" people.Yes, rapists target women and muggers target the rich. And, those crimes are punished according to how the society feels about both the crime and the targets.As unfair as it is, a rapist of prostitutes is a lot less likely to be convicted or if convicted will serve less time than a rapist of nuns. That's because we judge not only the action, but the target of the action, in determining if a punishment is assessed and how much of a punishment.We, as a society, have deemed that killing a person because of his race or sexual orientation, is a more severe crime than killing a person because of his brand of car or sneakers.Hate Crime legislation allows for those people who are committing crimes which we deem to be more serious to be subject to harsher punishment.Often these people are insulated by living in the South. We as a collective whole can not continue to allow a subset of the nation to continue to flaunt the law simply because they live in an area where it's deemed fun to be racist/homophobic.

Actually, no one's "aim" is "steal from the bank". Their "aim" is obtain money from the bank.Obtaining money from the bank is not illegal.Their METHOD of obtaining money from the bank could be either legal or illegal.It is the method which we prosecute.You are perfectly welcome to WANT to rid your city of the Irish. However, you will have to choose a method which in no way infringes on the rights of the Irish through which to do that.You could, for example, offer each Irish person $1,000,000 to move to San Diego. If you did, you would not be committing a hate crime in any way.However, if you choose a method such as "burn down every Irish person's house", you would be subject to arson charges. AND, because of the systematic targeting of that specific group, you would be subject to hate crime legislation as well.You keep falling back to this position of "I wanna get rid of the Irish and that's not illegal", but the fact of the matter is the position really should be: "I want to get rid of the Irish through illegal means" - which, obviously, is illegal.

Because that's not our legal system for one. And because there is an actual limit to how much you can punish a person for two.If murder in the 1st is "bad" and therefore deserves a punishment of X, then someone committing 100 murders deserves to get 100x.However if X is 50 years, or even just 10 years, the fact that you are giving something 1000 year sentence is a bit ineffectual.The fact of the matter is that each and every situation has variables involved in determining the outcome of sentencing.A man who robs a liquor store and shoots the owner has committed a serious crime.A man who hunts down and kills a black man for sport has also committed a serious crime.Which of these men set out to kill the person they killed? Which deserves a more severe punishment?

Except that no one is being punished for their beliefs, only for their actions.

Clearly you don't live in a major city. The punishment for graphiti absolutely is not strict enough. People do it constantly, are almost never caught, those who are aren't sufficiently deterred.I'm shooting for "lose a hand".

A death, whether intentional or unintentional, caused during a felony is 1st degree murder.They are both committing the same crime.Further, people who do one action are often subject to having violated MULTIPLE statutes.It's virtually impossible for you to commit attempted murder without also committing at least one other offense (illegal discharge of a fire arm, assault, battery, etc).So, a single crime can be subject to multiple prosecutions because the different elements of the crime each carry different sentences.The hate crime legislation is merely adding an additional element onto the crime for which the person can be prosecuted.And, before you pipe in that his intention is not a crime, let me remind you the merely planning a murder is in and of itself a prosecutable crime.

You are falsely applying a negative to the standard victim.
If you have a dime, it is worth $.10.
If I have a different dime from 1802, it's word $15.00That doesn't mean that I have devalued your dime. Your dime is still just as good as it was when it was made. It does, however, mean that certain circumstances my dime is treated differently than your dime. While in other circumstances (a gumball machine) they are completely the same.That's life. The point is, if you've committed two murders and you know you are going to get caught within a week, there is literally no reason for you not to go on a spree and commit a few thousand more murders since the WORST that can happen is that you'll be serving sentences you can't survive long enough to handle. If it's not federally mandated then we'll have two sets of standards. We'll have the North were it is illegal to kill black men and we'll have the South were defendants are rewarded for doing it. Here is the problem. You are assuming that everything is equal now. That a black man murdered in Georgia gets the same justice as a (let's pretend you have them) a black man murdered in New Hampshire.That's not the case.This is not about trying to pay back previous crimes. This is about trying to slow or stop criminals who act out against specific groups which are frequently targeted and rarely get justice. You and I both know that they aren't.In the deep South if a white woman shoots a black man on a street at night and claims she was afraid he was going to rape her, she has a much less chance of being arrested and prosecuted than if those races were reversed.That means that there ALREADY is a double standard. Turning a blind eye to that and saying that "everything is already equal" is the sort of thing that can only happen when you are on the "more equal" side of the fence.

No, the intent is to burn down the house _of an Irish person_.There motive could be to kill all Irish people, to terrorize Irish people, to get Irish people out the neighborhood, whatever.You can't keep truncating intent.Charles Whitman (Texas Clock tower) had the intent to commit murder and cause terror. He did not specifically go up to the top of the tower with a particularly person or group of people in mind. He took targets of opportunity.His intent is murder. His motive is (probably) to become famous.A KKK member who climbs to a church steeple and shots 6 black men with the exact same rifle has a different intent. His intent is to MURDER BLACK PEOPLE.His motive is racial supremacy.Intent is not limited to what the action will be.If I intent to murder my wife with the motive of collecting insurance money my intent is murder _my wife_. My motive is money.