Hate Crime Legislation

quinn · #1 07-06-2005, 03:46 PM

If you support hate crime legislation, please give your case here.

My points:

1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

2. How is it feasible to determine what is a hate crime and not? Shall we just assume that when a straight white person commits a crime against anyone who isn't straight and white, it's a hate crime?

3. Doesn't it just make sense to punish people for their actions which abridge other peoples' rights, instead of punishing them for their emotions?

4. It seems like hate crime legislation is a roundabout way of giving gay people more rights than straight people, and non-white people more rights than white people. Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

LaggyLou · #2 07-06-2005, 06:50 PM

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Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

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hahahahahahahahaha.

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WHITE PLAINS — The Westchester County District Attorney's Office is considering a hate-crime charge against a 43-year-old rapist accused of stabbing a legal secretary to death Wednesday, because he told police he had planned to kill a white woman, sources familiar with the case said yesterday.

Law-enforcement officials would not comment, but the sources said the District Attorney's Office would seek a grand jury indictment charging Phillip Grant, 43, with second-degree murder as a hate crime, based on his statements to investigators.

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link

Sorry to burst your bubble.

BonJoviJones · #3 07-06-2005, 10:42 PM

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1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

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I'm not really for hate-crime laws, but surely motive can be taken in to account. A particularly heinous crime should come with a harsher punishment.

If you discard that argument, it's still possible that the reason the crime was commited in the first place might affect the likelyhood of ultimate rehabilitation.

In fact, if an insane person commits murder it is treated differently than a robbery-homicide, so it's not totally illogical to consider other motives that might warrent seperate attention.

tylerdurden · #4 07-07-2005, 01:25 AM

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In fact, if an insane person commits murder it is treated differently than a robbery-homicide, so it's not totally illogical to consider other motives that might warrent seperate attention.

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Insanity is a factor in intent, not motive.

BCPVP · #5 07-07-2005, 02:07 AM

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I'm not really for hate-crime laws, but surely motive can be taken in to account. A particularly heinous crime should come with a harsher punishment.

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Aggravating and mitigating circumstances. We already have these, so why the legislation? Could it be because politicans want another arrow in their quiver come election time?

shadow29 · #6 07-07-2005, 02:09 AM

I don't support this stuff.

I'm just not sure that you can legislate against how someone thinks.

Cyrus · #7 07-07-2005, 03:50 AM

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1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

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Beats me.

(Excuse the pun.)

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2. How is it feasible to determine what is a hate crime and not?

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I can't think of a way. The legislation leaves the door open for serious abuse by the judiciary, or the law enforcement agencies.

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3. Doesn't it just make sense to punish people for their actions which abridge other peoples' rights, instead of punishing them for their emotions?

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Absolutely. Anything else is the think end of the wedge that brings in totalitarianism.

Passing judgement on thought should be absolutely forbidden. In fact, we should be taking extreme pains to avoid it, even if that means losing on something else in civil rights.

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4. Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

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Whites/Caucasians are the master race, in many ways -- and I'm referring strictly to economic and political powers (or is this a redundancy?) and I trust we do not need to debate this too much!

The minorities will always need special protection to protect themselves against the potential for abuse by the majority, just as the weak against the strong, and this redressing of balance necesserily limits certain privileges or intrudes in certain rights of those that hold the high ground. (To tax more money out of a "richer person" is to operate under that very principle.)

But legislating against thought should NEVER be one such measure !

BonJoviJones · #8 07-07-2005, 07:34 AM

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Aggravating and mitigating circumstances. We already have these, so why the legislation? Could it be because politicans want another arrow in their quiver come election time?

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It seems like you're for the enforcement of an anti-hate judicial system - but against it being codified in to law?

ACPlayer · #9 07-07-2005, 10:09 AM

Should a terroist murderer be treated the same as a murder in the course of a burglary?

tylerdurden · #10 07-07-2005, 10:17 AM

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Should a terroist murderer be treated the same as a murder in the course of a burglary?

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Did the terrorist only murder one person? Did he do it in a manner that threatened many other people (i.e. fired a RPG into a crowd but only killed one person)?