Hate Crimes? Thought Crimes? Crimethink?

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.

And we are both in agreement with everything that you've stated. Where we part ways is that I think Hate Crime laws lead to a slippery slope argument and that aggravating circumstances can be reviewed in court.

No, I don't agree with that either. I don't understand why it magically becomes Capital Murder to kill a cop but not generally the general public. Rape is not just rape. There are aggravating or mitigating factors too. Touching someone's breasts while they're asleep is not quite the same as a violent rape. The same goes with rape of a minor. All of those deal with Intent in combination with actions, whereas the critical difference with Hate Crimes is that it deals with intent, actions, and motive.

How is that different from any other crime?

I've stated in this topic that motive helps to establish either guilt or innocence. I'm referring to sentencing, however, because motive and culpability has already been determined. At this juncture, the actions of the guilty party is what will condemn them. So then are you saying that it is more reprehensible to kill someone because they are a Jew more than it is to kill someone just to watch them die? I'm saying if we're trying to be objective here, murdering someone should always be applied with the full weight of their actions, without regard to their motive.

What slippery slope argument? They are reviewd in court.

That it potentially criminalizes the Freedom of Expression, Thought, and Speech. What I mean to say is that they should be reviewed in court only, not made in to a national law. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

Only if you think punching a homosexual/black/disabled/vulnerable person in the mouth is a thought crime. In the UK it's called an aggravating factor which IS reveiwed in court. If it is found that the prime offence - punching someone in the mouth - was wholly or partially motivated by racial motives, then the punishment is made proportionally higher.But when you're talking of extreemly serious crimes like murder - which you seem to be most interested in - you've probably reached the maximum anyway. In your country you can only execute someone once, regardless of how much many would like to try.The criminal laws about discrimination are mostly applied to low level crimes of assault and public order - adding an uplift there generally is rather minor but does send a message.I think where it has a greater effect is in how likely a crime is to be prosecuted. A punch up outside a pub involving a racial element is more likely to be prosecuted than one between two drunk 'friends'. That's because our society has decided to deal with racism, homophobia and - as it happens, domestic violence - as social priorities.

If the perpetrators go out of their way to make it clear that they are committing a hate crime then there are two differences, one subtle, one obvious.The subtle one is that it has been argued that it takes much longer to recover psychologically from a hate crime than, say, a mugging that involved an equivalent amount of force. I haven't yet looked at the data behind this, but it seems extremely plausible.The obvious one is that in that case it's approaching terrorism. The fact that there are people in the neighborhood who are (for example) going around killing Jews for being Jews will naturally generally intimidate the Jews in the neighborhood, and is probably intended to do so. It inflicts death on an individual and fear on a group. (Whereas if you kill your wealthy uncle for the inheritance, then this will not intimidate uncles, or even wealthy uncles, in general.)Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, that only puts us an inch further down the slippery slope, doesn't it? Before there was legislation, courts could and sometimes did consider these things as aggravating factors. Well, either they are or they aren't, it can't be aggravating if you're being sentenced by Judge Smith but not by Judge Jones. So why not introduce some uniformity into the system?

I'm not sure I agree with terrorism laws either, again, not that I'm an advocate for either terrorism or hate crimes.Terrorism laws seem nebulous and rather undefined. I mean, is it even necessary when the act of blowing up a building (for instance) isn't bad enough all on its own? Again, the reason I'm cautious is because of how easily a charge of terrorism could be used inappropriately.And actually, if we look at radicalized Muslims as an example, could we charge them with either hate speech or terrorism based on their insistence for Jihad? Should holding up a sign stating "Death to Infidels" be protected speech or should that be a hate crime since it targets a specific demographic of people? Or should we charge them with terrorism because it could be construed as terroristic speech?

Because it is unnecessary and there is a case by case basis for everything. I support the notion that in terms of actions, if they are identical then they should be charged identically. Shooting someone in the face for racist ideology or for greed still leaves two people shot in the face that did nothing to deserve the execution. Why they did it seems like a postscript to the act itself. THAT they did it at all seems of more relevance to me.And if there is no other take home from what I'm saying, the main thrust of my argument is that I would rather see both murders of identical crimes tried the same versus having the one who murdered for racism charged more severely than the one who murdered for greed when both their premeditated acts are identical. Anything less is punishing the taboo of racism in higher regard than for some other motive.My ancillary argument is that it seems like a slippery slope that could be manipulated in the future.

Hi, Tangle. This is an interesting comment, because I think it highlights the source of the 'slippery slope' paranoia. You're kind of suggesting here that, although it isn't likely that the legal system could ever be used to directly punish 'thought crimes,' there is an underlying process of social engineering in which harboring certain thoughts or opinions can increase one's likelihood of legal scrutiny and punishment.I can see how that could be a 'slippery slope' toward an overall socio-politico-legal system that feels like it effectively operates on a system of 'thought crimes,' even though it doesn't technically do so. However, is there evidence of such a process? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if I learned that there was.

It's not a hate crime because it's not a crime. A Muslim shooting people while holding up a sign stating "Death to Infidels" would be committing a hate crime. If he just holds up the sign, then he's just a jerk.

But as I point out, if we know that they had different motives, then they did not in fact act identically, nor will their crimes have identical consequences.