The new hate crimes bill makes a mockery of the rule of law.
Since I wrote about the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 earlier this week, I've had an opportunity to help write a press release on the issue for the Republican Liberty Caucus, and made it the subject of my latest Poolside Chat video (see below). In the process I spent a lot more time looking over the legislation and found even more to be worried about. The original complaint remains the same. Hate crimes laws like this destroy the idea that everyone is equal under the law. The first truth held to be self-evident in our Declaration of Independence is that "all men are created equal," but when you start dividing them into groups and giving those groups special legal protections you are making some more equal than others. That's not equality at all. It's the tyranny of privilege in the service of political correctness.…
Article comments
76 - El Bicho
"Zing, all murder/assault is based on hateful motives."
That's false. Go rent "The Godfather." Michael Corleone: It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.
"It'd sure's hell make life easier for everyone."
If you were both interested in that, you wouldn't act the way you do around here.
77 - Jordan Richardson
"all murder/assault is based on hateful motives"
Or mental illness. Or cultural distinctions. Or what EB referred to. And so on. This debate hinges on the inability of some individuals to see a larger picture and discern that there are, indeed, different types and motives to commit crimes.
Any society, especially a society with intentions of moralizing to the rest of the world, needs to address those various motives with a comprehensive ideology that serves justice first and sends a message second.
78 - Jordan Richardson
Also, I love that Ruvy continues to subtly and not-so-subtly advocate violent overthrow of the government. Brilliant stuff and hilarious, too, were he not being 100% serious.
79 - roger nowosielski
Good comment, Jordan, but it won't make a dent and you know it.
80 - roger nowosielski
Well, there are ulterior motives involved - the apparent disagreement over Israel policy,
81 - roger nowosielski
Yet, they all keep on saying that motives aren't important.
82 - Doug Hunter
That'a interesting Jordan. It's not an inability to see, it's I don't care. Take the mental illness thing for instance, it's arbitrary and unfair how it is applied. It's set up on completely faulty premises to start with, then applied horribly separating 'good' mental illnesses (like ones that make you drown your own children) from 'bad' ones (like those that make you rape, murder, and dismember little boys).
The good mental illnesses get you off, the bad ones you just hope the defense doesn't have a good enough lawyer. It's really silly and discriminatory and needs to be dropped.
I believe in treating people fairly and trying to hold to some objective standards of behavior.
83 - Dave Nalle
Zing, FDR did fireplace chats. A home witha working fireplace is far more likely to signify wealth in modern Texas than a pool is. But once it opens up in 2 weeks I'll make sure to do some chats from the YMCA pool. Then maybe I'll do the pool at the county park down the road. Happy?
As for the bill singling out groups, have you read it? It gives a list of specific groups it considers protected. It's not nearly as broad as you seem to think that it is.
And the point is that we already have laws on the books against making terroristic threats against groups or inciting a riot. The hate criminal can be charged under those if his crime is accompanied by a threat or incitement.
And you lose any argument that there's racism in my concern here, because one of the largest groups of prosecutions under state hate crimes laws is for black on white crime, so the racist argument doesn't work.
Dave
84 - Ruvy
Also, I love that Ruvy continues to subtly and not-so-subtly advocate violent overthrow of the government. Brilliant stuff and hilarious, too, were he not being 100% serious.
Hey boys! I'm just talkin' 'bout takin' out the trash. Me? Advocate the violet what? Who? I don't understand such thinking!
But - unlike most of you, I do know what a fascist is and isn't. That is something I understand very well, having talked to real fascists, Italian soldiers in Mussolini's army, as well as having studied the concepts the fascists advocate.
Now as to blowing Obama away, that's the last thing I want to see. Obama is the target marker. All the assholes in the Israeli government who bow to Obama are the ones we in Israel need to get rid of, in one way or another - the sooner the better. You blow Obama away, you take away my whole reason for backing the scumbag.
But you guys need to think of what it says in your declaration of independence - when a government pursues the imposition of tyranny, etc., (I know that isn't the exact quote - they were awful long-winded in those days) it's your sacred duty to institute a government that will protect your rights. It's your declaration of freedom, boys. If you are unwilling to stand by it, then you deserve to lose that freedom.
As for rights lost, let's start with something simple - like habeus corpus - and work our way out from there.
85 - Clavos
I believe in treating people fairly and trying to hold to some objective standards of behavior.
"objective standards of behavior?"
That is so last century, Doug!
You're never gonna get the "progressives" to agree to that foolishness!
Sheesh.
86 - Ruvy
By the way, Jordan, I thought I'd remind you. The American declaration of independence is the bedrock of the concepts that make America what it is. Its first paragraph is the closest thing Americans have to a civil creed defining what America means.
When Americans walk away from that creed, they walk away from their own destiny and the freedom the boys in blue fought for when they tried to drive out the British from 1776 to 1781. Having been an American once, this is something I understand very well - better than any Canadian could.
Remember, you Canadians stayed under British rule.
87 - zingzing
ruvy: "As for rights lost, let's start with something simple - like habeus corpus - and work our way out from there."
say what? bush did that... and obama is shutting gitmo down. so where do you see obama taking away habeas corpus? concrete evidence, please, not just your usual empty platitudes.
"But - unlike most of you, I do know what a fascist is and isn't."
and how would obama qualify then? i want concrete evidence, again, not ruvy-tudes.
"Having been an American once, this is something I understand very well - better than any Canadian could."
ruvy, with the amount of things you've been (burger flipper, homeless, alcoholic, american, jewish, fascist-interviewer, israeli, torah-expert, fish juggler, time traveler, repressed masturbator, father, brother, sister, lover), you could claim you understand the world better than god himself and actually believe it.
88 - zingzing
but everyone else sees how warped, violent, politicized and dangerous your worldview is.
89 - Ruvy
Just got back from a neighbor who is hosting a bunch of families from the northern Twin Cities - places like Coon Rapids and Champlin, for those of you with some familiarity of the state.
What I found was a remarkable resemblance to my world view in these folks. Reading zing's remarks reminds me of how varied America truly is.
Some big pointers I got from these Americans. Kids are being cheated out of a decent education in schools in Minnesota. The economy and the layoffs are the worst anyone remembers. I gotta emphasize, this is not what I told them - this is what they told me.
What I did tell them was that I viewed Americans far differently from the way I viewed their government, that their government did harmful things here, but that they were a super bunch - and this was something they all understood. Funny how many of you can't figure that concept out....
90 - Ruvy
Maybe my neighbor should host you all for a barbecue out in the Samarian mountains. You actually might learn something....
91 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
1 - Jet asked a good question. That's why I've been avoiding posting again on Universal Health Care.
2 - It was brought up before that any accusation of an 'attempted' crime is based on evidence of the INTENT of what was attempted...and so it goes with hate crimes. If there is solid EVIDENCE that the crime was committed not because of a personal conflict but because that person belonged to a certain group, then you have a strong likelihood of a hate crime.
It's really not that complicated.
And as I've stated before, I've been on the wrong side of this proposed law. If this law had been in place - and if I'd been caught - let's just say my life would have been much different...but I've thought long and hard about what I did (and while there was no lasting physical harm, I will not describe it further), and I should have faced justice and publicly pilloried for what I did.
And if this law had been in place and I knew it, then perhaps I wouldn't have committed the crime to begin with.
92 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
"Reading zing's remarks reminds me of how varied America truly is."
But can't you see that that's just the beauty of it all - that we can have the assholes and the saints, and the upright persons and the perverts, the morons and the intellectuals, you name it, walking hand-in-hand and loving it. It's a miracle and I love every minute of it.
Only in America!