My local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, ran an Op-Ed piece yesterday condemning the “vigilante” volunteers. Their readers, self included, flooded them with letters refuting their use of the term “vigilante”.

I do believe that many crimes are motivated by unreasoned hatred. But.

My objection to the term ‘hate crime’ is based on the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of reading what is in another person’s heart and mind.

Who reads the minds? You? Me? A jury?

Why does someone’s mental state make a crime worse?

What public good is served by making these distinctions?

If someone unprovoked cracks me with a baseball bat, they should go to jail.

If it is thought that they did it because of my color, beliefs, religion, sexual orientation, height, weight, or taste in shoes really doesn’t signify, to me.

Gen 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
[SNIP]
Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. (Also see 1Jo 3:12 & Jud 1:11).

So did hate come into play? The motivation to kill was not hate, nevertheless hate sealed Abel’s fate. But then again, when one looks at any sin — which God labels as an act of vile rebellion and wickedness — it seems to me that “hate” is at work, whether a simple “white” lie or murder.

Looking at the original sin, Adam & Eve disobeyed God and His single simple commandment. Eventually, God wound up handing down 10 commandments, but leave it to Man to not leave well enough alone and begin parsing sin and expanding upon God’s laws until we end up with the ridiculous assertion that there is murder and then there’s “hate” murder.

After stripping the hysteria away from Matt Sheppard’s murder, the truth comes out that his murder, albeit gruesome, was simply a drug releated crime in which being homosexual was irrelevant.

I guess that’s what we’re left with when we take God and His laws out of the picture and have to classify “evil”.

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To J. Smallberries, congratulations on your work.

All the same, I’m left wondering as to what ever happened to the MS-13 punks that were swearing to come down/up/over from wherever and do whatever to break up your party. I guess siestas and/or committing mayhem in the urban jungles, where the hacienda is just minutes away is preferable to actually roughing it out in the hot desert miles from anywhere.

As deftly as Bush has handled WOT and other issues, this is the one area that he has botched, even tho I’m for increased immigration and guest worker programs.

Strange thing is, the MM apparently aren’t the ones setting off the alarms…it’s supposedly all the ACLU and media types who’re down there to “watch the watchers.” The MM are reportedly staying in designated positions and simply monitoring/reporting.

Of course, this begs a question. If this was one of the most widely penetrated sections of the border, how come the illegals weren’t setting off the alarms BEFORE the MM showed up? Is it possible nobody was bothering to check the alarms before the MM, media, and ACLU came?

HEKTOR

Blogs like this are a wonderful alternative to MSM reports. I almost wouldn’t recognize that the same event was being described.

Good point…wish I’d been bright enough to see it myself! Many of the people who accept the concept of “hate crime” as an especially evil subset of crime appear to be the ones who object to profiling on civil libertarian grounds. Defining terrorists and terrorism accordingly would certainly hoist them on their own petard. I’d like to see such a move gain momentum, if only for the entertainment value afforded by watching the verbal and mental gymnastics they’d play trying to have it both ways (i.e., keep hate crime statutes, while trying to avoid defining terrorists as such). I imagine those enamored with the illusion that hate-motivated crimes are somehow more punishment-worthy than “vanilla” crimes would choke on this particular application of the rule.

Actually, I was attempting to show the logic trap you fall into when you define crime by a subjective sliding scale. Logically, hate crimes can be considered logically consistent only if the following applies:

1. Hate crimes carry heavier punishment– longer sentences, larger fines, etc. [I exclude the death penalty, since last I checked, you can't make someone "deader"]

2. They’re defined as crimes against “groups” rather than crimes against individuals. If you try to dance around this by claiming a crime against an individual who is a member of a “protected” group is therefore a crime against the group, then everyone in the group can legitimately claim to be “victims” of the crime. In other words, every “hate” crime potentially becomes a class action suit. Madness, but the lawyers would love it.

I believe hate crime legislation is simply a scam some “legislators” and “leaders” have resorted to in election years so they can show action and activity, absent real progress in addressing issues. As long as they keep their constituents endlessly debating ethnically- and religiously-based imaginary “hate” crimes, keep passions engaged on things that contribute not one iota to real progress in intercultural harmony, then they can lead very comfortable (i.e., nonworking) lives.

Final point…the “subjective sliding scale.” WHO decides WHAT is a hate crime, and determines included groups? When does a group “graduate” and is no longer considered a hate target, and who makes that determination? Hate crime statutes eventually lead to everyone claiming to be part of a “hated” group, ultimately making every crime a hate crime. When every crime is a hate crime, it becomes a distinction without a difference…all you have is “crime.”

Joshua: If this is another semantics game, please accept my humble apologies. Just trying to be clear.

Cheers//HEKTOR

It’s much the same as renaming streets for Dr. King while utterly failing to fix the crumbling public school that fronts on that street; it sounds good and does nothing.

Feel-good legislation is worse than none, because it diverts attention from real problems.

Clearly the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. was a hate crime according to Liberals, but it was also murder.. The scum that perpetrated this ‘hate’ crime all got the Death Penalty. What could attaching a charge of HATE to the indictment have been worse than getting the death penalty ?(I know it sends a message that you liberals, CARE, but the guy is still dead)

Does a hate crime mean that the death of James Byrd was more heneous that the death of Polly Klass the 12 year old who was kidnapped , raped and then murdered, Was this a hate crime ? Is it not just as despicable as the James Byrd Murder.

Fact number one, James Byrd is still dead Murdered.

Fact number two, the low-life scum that Murdered James Byrd will soon be dead.( unless some bleeding heart liberal somehow get them out of jail)

How would a hate crime law have made a difference.

But going by the definition of Hate Crime, and it clearly says ‘mentally or physically disabled’ then their are a bunch of people guilty of a hate crime in Florida, especially in Pinnelas county. Where the murder of a person was ordered because she was Mentally impared she committed NO CRIME. If you want to push the Hate crime, start here.,

Why dont you liberals apply the law equally instead of making up ‘feel-good’ legislation and then pass it off as actually accomplishing something.

Again, Rush is Right, hate crime legislation is nothing more than, Symbolism over substance. As if to say that Liberals CARE more than the rest of us . Oh yeah, they have put a name on it.

To take it one step further, just the other day a school in Lousiana, a school board member is being charged with the most obscene charge, I mean the ACLU wants this guys head, he committed the most vile of offenses and should be jailed and fined according to the ACLU, HE had the audacity to, over the schools PA system to say a prayer before a high shool baseball game.

Again according to Hate Crime, he is being persecuted because of his religious belives. Shouldn’t the ACLU be charged with a hate crime ?

So you’re saying that, if we declare terrorism a hate crime and al-Qaida a hate group, *then* we can profile male Arabs between 17 and 35 years old?

Sounds like a plan!

Anomalocaris,

If the SPLC is a nonprofit organization, please explain to me where its millions (received in donations annually as well as settlements in law suits) are spent each year. The impression I get is that the vast amount of money is spent on printing costs and postage–so that they can send out donation requests to its patrons.

(seriously, point me to a webpage that shows the SPLC’s “good works” along with dollar amounts)