Hate Crime Laws

[JimboUK]

 

 

Discrimination is never going to leave the party. Not until some distant time in the future, when the human race is pretty much all the same, due to interbreeding of the various races. (not considering religion here..... that is another problem that will never be solved.) In this day and age, discrimination is still quite alive, and well. If a crime ocurs, and the folks involved are NOT of the same race, you can bet your bottom dollar that one side or the other is going to be screaming "HATE CRIME!!!". Seems to be the fashion of late.

 

Personally, I think our society is going down the toilet BECAUSE OF government intervention in personal interactions. (be it social, economic, or work related.) You simply cannot legislate away behaviors.

 

This constant interference and nannying is leading to the infantilization of large numbers of people, this is happening at an alarming rate in the UK where people are actually calling the police if someone is rude to them on Twitter, comically a law from the 1980s compels police to investigate that complaint no matter how trivial, you actually get police knocking on a persons door because they called someone "ugly".

It's your duty as a citizen to report crimes if you witness them though right? Surely the line between grossly offensive and just plain old offensive has to be draw out before a judge to make that determination on a case by case basis, there could be severe emotional distress or it could be a persistent attack on an individual. Only a court hearing could decide these mitigating factors am I right? I mean if a person can be charged and found guilty for "All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! " on facebook, then any specifically targeted offensive communication has a shot at a guilty verdict.

 

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

 

 

I shall be busy reporting youtube and facebook comments to the police for the rest of the day.

 

 

Just because something is law it doesn't automatically follow that it's right, so no I wouldn't report it because I don't agree with the law, I won't assist with repressing peoples freedom of expression. On a practical level the police and courts have far better things to do, I'd rather they were dealing with actual crime rather than name calling, it's a waste of time and money.

[Harbringe]

 

 

Just because something is law it doesn't automatically follow that it's right, so no I wouldn't report it because I don't agree with the law, I won't assist with repressing peoples freedom of expression. On a practical level the police and courts have far better things to do, I'd rather they were dealing with actual crime rather than name calling, it's a waste of time and money.

 

 

 

Dunno bout that . Its like how we have laws against yelling fire in a crowded theater , same with hate laws , do you stand back and allow for people to incite hate with their speech and wait for the Mosque to be burned down or Church or Synagogue or Abortion clinic or as in the case of yelling fire in a theater wait to count the bodies after the stampede of people out of the theater. That's why we have such laws as this .

 

Now that said I can see the other side of this debate , where it can be said that these hate laws encompass too much , but ask yourself this, is hate gone from the world and obviously its not. The idea behind hate laws is that we as a society consider that sort of crime to be unduly heinous because it doesn't target just the victim individually but an entire spectrum of people and lets face it we still live in a world where we as human beings seem to find it awful easy just to blame this group or that group of people for whatever problems we believe we have. Btw many hate laws also include the physically challenge or mentally handicapped in our societies and don't try and tell me we are so tolerant that they go through life being treated as they should .

 

So to this idea of doing away with hate laws . Lets pretend there were none and ask yourself how are we doing when it comes to the regular ol heinous things we tend to do to each other , has it ended , nope don't think so.

 

So if you did remove them (hate laws) are you likely to move to a more tolerant or less tolerant society and the truth is you would be less tolerant .Because until hate is removed from the heart of every individual it will always be something that will confront us.

[JimboUK]

Incitement is a completely different thing, hate crimes are adjusting the law based on the race or sexual orientation of the victim. It's divisive, it underlines the "them and us" culture that causes a lot of the problems in the first place. People should be treated equally under the law, to do otherwise is to politicise the justice system and thus undermine it.

[HeyYou]

We have folks burning down various places they don't like NOW. What makes you think passing some law is going to stop, or even slightly reduce it?

 

Make ANY statement regarding sex, religion, government, or political ideals, and I can pretty much assure you someone is going to find it offensive.

[MajKrAzAm]

 

@MajKrAzAm These special interest groups are part of the problem, they set out to ensure people don't get along, they have a vested interest in keeping the hate going, if people suddenly started getting along they'd be out of a job. Look at the language used when they talk about minorities, they always paint them as the victim, weak and unable to defend themselves. If you want to keep a people down the best way do to it is to make them feel weak and powerless, these special interest groups do exactly that and then portray themselves as the protectors and saviours of these minorities. Hate speech crimes plays into this because they antagonise the majority, this is exactly what these special interest groups want, it keeps the hate going and thus themselves relevant. Kids from an early age should be taught tolerance, you don't need to promote race relations or homosexulaity because if people of an early age are taught to be tolerant and accepting of others then the rest will follow. The problem is this will never happen with "Progressives" running the show, it won't happen because "Progressives" are the least tolerant of all involved, they'll preach it to others but rarely practice it themselves.

 

 

I missed your point. Apologies.

 

A thousand variations of your argument have appeared over the years. This country will remain divided until!

 

Special interest groups did not cause this problem. Group division/racism once the progressive filter is removed, can be seen as a constant in human group interaction. But the progressive filter emboldens favored groups, to feel little or no responsibility for their own conditions, because all bad outcomes can be attributed to racism. It also disallows direct criticism of the favored group, which leads to a victim mentality by the minority. Special interest groups are merely a product of group conflict, a mere attempt by one group to organize against another until they can reach a more sophisticated form of organization and power where they can systematically oppress the former dominant oppressor group. Sure, they contribute to the ‘problem’ but they are not the cause of conflict, which can instead be placed in innate group conflict that has always been a constant in human existence.

 

As it is used today, a hate crime is essentially a political accusation. It places special moral disapproval on group conflicts that happen to match a specific filter, sometimes with the prerequisite that racism requires some kind of power structure--interaction between dominant and subordinate groups or cultures e.g. black/white. But this definition falls apart upon noticing conflicts between subordinate groups, such as blacks and Mexicans, that involve explicitly racist interaction, even down to territorial ethnic cleansing. The dominant/subordinate distinction is merely a rhetorical gambit used to justify the liberal filter.

[Beriallord]

Hate crimes laws aren't fairly enforced. Like for example, lets say you got a mob of Black people butthurt over George Zimmerman being acquitted, and they target a White person to lynch and say "This is for Treyvon". That SHOULD be a hate crime, right? Unfortunately most courts in the USA wouldn't seek hate crimes charges. If the racial tables were turned and it was a mob of White people lynching a Black person they would be screaming "Hate crime" all over the media.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Beriallord

[pheo3309]

Incitement is a completely thing, hate crimes are adjusting the law based on the race or sexual orientation of the victim. It's divisive, it underlines the "them and us" culture that causes a lot of the problems in the first place. People should be treated equally under the law, to do otherwise is to politicise the justice system and thus undermine it.

 

 

This entirely. I know I quote the game way too much, but Kreia from KoTOR II has an interesting way of putting it.

 

 

Surik: "Kreia, what are you- Are you a Jedi, or a Sith?"

Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole. Know that I am your teacher, and that is enough.

Surik: "Then what were you?"

Kreia: "What do you wish to hear? That I once believed in the code of the Jedi? That I felt the call of the Sith, that perhaps, once, I held the galaxy by it's throat? What for every good deed I did, I brought equal harm upon the galaxy? That perhaps what the greatest of the Sith Lords knew of evil, they learned from me? What would it matter now? There is only so much comfort in knowing such things, and it is not who I am now."

The reason why I bring this in is that she says something very important. That we struggle to define things that have no need of defining. Race, sex, color, good, bad. It all boils down to the same thing, that we are people. Human. We're the same, yet entirely different. There's no way of fully defining each and every difference that we all have, yet we feel the need to. Because some how it separates us from the others when there's no need in separation. As a gay man, if I was assaulted or murdered for being gay, I wouldn't want it being paraded around the catchphrase "Hate crime". I'd rather have the person tried for what he did. To parade it around as a political battleground would be doing a major injustice. It allows the differences of the accused to even be weighed in. That what the accused did was due to difference, their temper or emotion flared, lost their grip, and did the deed. People may disagree with me, they're very well free to. But if I were murdered due to my orientation, I wouldn't want my face and name plastered all over the television of the next "Hate Crime Tragedy" and be used as a political weapon.

Edited August 5, 2013 by pheo3309

[MajKrAzAm]

I cry a single tear for the systemic oppression of white, male, heterosexual skinheads.

 

If only criticism of whites could find purchase in society. Alas, the media will have none of it.

[Hardwaremaster]

While I'm in this area I figured I would post a quick passage here. Hate Crimes can be categorized as a form of Political Correctness and can be used to censor debately sensitive topics for anyone out with an agenda, as, previous posters have no doubt commented on in one form, style, fashion, or shape a person can mix these together to form an excuse for anything they want to be removed for whatever reason but it also has side effects as many others have accurately pointed out because as the quote below suggests its because no one really cares until they have a reason to. Anything can be classified as Hate Speech when cast in a certain lighting.

 

Hate crimes are just a sop to politically influential interest groups, it's the politicians saying "Hey, you're special, look what we're doing for you". It doesn't lessen hate, in fact it makes it worse as some groups are seen to be getting preferential treatment, something that causes resentment. There's no need for them anyway, motive can always be taken into consideration when sentencing.

 

Any law that considers the race or ethnicity of the victim or perpetrator of a crime as a determinant of the wrongness of the crime and the punishment given in response to the crime is an inherently racist law, and any racist law hinders social progress and human evolution. Such laws perpetuate the belief that humans are intrinsically separated by their racial background. A heavier sentence given for a crime motivated by racism is, in my opinion, just as bad as a lighter sentence given for the same reason. It is also ineffective as a deterrent, because a person who is sufficiently motivated by racism to commit a crime is obviously not sufficiently concerned about the possibility of prosecution to deter them from committing the crime in the first place, and is therefore unlikely to be deterred to any greater extent by the prospect of being charged with an additional hate crime.

 

I would like to point out however, has anyone ever wondered where the term "Hate Speech" came from, it did not exist ten years ago. Then all the sudden it shows up in society at large, along with other Interesting Terminology such as "Racial Discrimination, Sexism, Antisemitism, Homophobia." And the list goes on, as does its users because it is endless, and is nothing more then Buzzwords from a minority, who happen to be more vocal then the majority. That is because they themselves, have invented words to try and protect themselves, because they enact actions that are contrary to the definitions they hide behind. To put it another way Political Correctness, is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to clean up a mess without getting dirty yourself.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Hardwaremaster

[Aonghus]

A couple of random thoughts.

1. All Murder is Homicide, but not all Homicide is Murder. Generally, when acting in self-defense, or under the lawful direction of the State, one may kill without being guilty of the crime of Murder. (I’m speaking from an American perspective here; I understand laws differ around the world.) Furthermore, as was pointed out previously, the state of mind of the killer goes to the type of Murder committed. Plan to kill your ex-wife and then run over her with your car? You’ve committed Murder 1. Have your brakes fail and hit her? At best, you’re guilty of negligent homicide, depending on how well you cared for the vehicle.
2. Too often, Hate Crimes are simply a way for prosecutors to take another (illegal) bite at the apple. Take the recent Zimmerman/Martin case. Listen to the testimony from the trial, and it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than the jury did: this was self-defense. Yet, despite an exhaustive investigation by the FBI prior to the trial that found no evidence of racial animus; the Justice Department wants to try him for a hate crime. They didn’t get the result they wanted, so they’re going to find a way to get him, no matter what it takes.
3. Too much of the discussion about hate crimes centers on demonizing political opponents. I offer as example to 2000 Presidential Campaign, when Gore ran an ad criticizing Bush for not supporting Hate Crimes legislation in Texas, despite the fact that he had signed the death warrant for the case Gore was screaming about. (What more did they want? Don’t just kill the murderer; mount his head on a pike in front of the state capital?)

The problem with painting your political opponent as evil is that it removes all possibility of compromise. If your opponent simply of a differing opinion or is simply mistaken, then there is room for compromise. If your opponent is an evil, racist, bigot, then no compromise is morally possible. The caricature may be great for rallying the political base, but it is counterproductive for actually trying to work together to run the country.