What exactly are the reasons against hate crime legislation?

There’s the theory that the crimes being committed are already against the law, and that singling out “hate crimes” makes it seem like those crimes are worse than a crime that ISN’T committed because of hate. To the victim, the crime is certainly as bad whether it’s a hate crime or isn’t. Why does the motive make the act worse?

It’s legislating people’s thoughts.

it is considered an enhancement contrary to free speech. I happen to be in favor of hate crime laws, because it considers it a crime beyond speech to hateful action. but some hate crime laws do restrict speech.

@lynfromnm -I couldn’t agree with you more.;)
The Justinian Principle of equal protection under the law works both ways as stated.

@lynfromnm

“Why does the motive make the act worse?”

Motive/intent is what separates first and second degree murder. It’s the difference between negligent and reckless homicides.

@lucillelucillelucille

There is no hate crime law that is written in a discriminatory fashion. Realize “race” includes whites. “Sex” includes men. The fact that they were pushed through due to minority concerns means that minorities suffer a disproportionate amount of race/gender/etc. related crimes.

Ok, I have some time to kill, so lets make this one of those long posts, because I really do have a lot to talk about on this.

First of all, I am against hate crime legislation, but am open to the idea in extreme situations. e.g. to stop a genocide.

The concept of hate crimes, is at first glance a nice idea, but it’s poorly thought out in my opinion. We don’t live in an ideal world, and when you put such highly subjective laws out there, It all goes wrong. Highly subjective laws, interpreted by financially motivated lawyers, enforced by a cop who maybe is stupid, or maybe just does not care about anything, and decided uppon by a jury of 12 regular people.

Here is the main point. I think, everyone would agree, that… The more hate crime laws you have, the more you can expect to see them used. To me that would seem a fact. Think what that means, that means more talk in the context of “them and us”, both in the court room, the news, and politics. I would argue, the more hate crime laws you have, the more you can expect hate crimes to happen.

On top of that, you have some of the points that have already been made. Most notably to me the points given by @lynfromnm and @papayalily

But also, you have the fact, that hate crime laws are just a weird little overlord convenient rule. I’m against laws of convenience. Laws that give the government an easy solution to a problem. For example, assault vs assaulting a police officer. One is worse simply because the government want it to be worse. This applies to most hate crime laws in my opinion, they are there simply to give the government the power of making an example out of you.

Let punching someone in the face be called punching someone in the face, lets not have one term for white people and another for blacks and another for asians. You punched someone, you get X punishment.

@poisonedantidote

So killing someone is just killing someone….is that what you’re saying (I’m sure you see where I’m going with this…because I know that is not what you’re saying. ;-))

@poisonedantidote Killing someone is just killing someone yes.

Now, where i suspect you are going with. Is killing a little 4 year old girl the same as killing an old man who has cancer and 1 month to live. One is obviously worse. Because you can measure and estimate, how much more life the criminal robbed someone of. However, your race has nothing to do with how much life they steal from you. It may make your death sadder, or maybe even more all so pointless and tragic, but the crime is the same.

But yea, I’m an odd case with this kind of thing. I’m very anti-authority, I like blanket laws, but I’m all for exeptions too. Maybe I’m just wrong, or maybe my points of view only work for me.

I’ll say a little more to try and better explain my position on this.

Again, is killing someone killing someone? what if instead of age, we are talking about motive. and we ask, is killing someone for one reason worse than killing them for another reason? lets say, killing someone because they ruined your life, vs killing someone because you enjoy watching people suffer. Well, yes, one is worse. But it’s not really that the crime is worse, it is still just one death. What would be worse, would be the mental condition of the killer, and thus he would be a bigger threat if released, and so, you can punish him harder. But if we are talking race, is a person who kills someone because they are black, more dangerous that someone who kills someone for money, I would say no. Both have an equal chance of being tempted in the future to kill again.

As for some exceptions. I would be ok with hate crime laws for a temporary time to say, prevent genocide, stop or prevent gang activity, put an end to segregation, and so on. But i’m not in favor of it across the board.

I’m so stupid, thats the second time i have seen my self type ”@poisonedantidote”, I’v got to get a cat scan

@poisonedantidote

Here’s the problem I see with your perspective. The victim of the crime, from a criminal punishment perspective, is rarely an issue when we talk about crime types (minors being the general exception).

The killing of a human being is generally divided into degrees of fault based on the state of mind of the killer. In fact, this is one of the basic tenants of criminal law – there must be both an actus reus (the criminal act) and a mens rea (the intent of the actor). Where the mens rea is worse by the standards of the society in question, the act is punished to a greater degree.

This is why the planned killing of a human being is worse than a “heat of passion” killing, and the passion killing is worse than someone who shoots a gun into a crowd not caring if someone dies, which is worse than someone who gets into a car drunk but intending no damage but kills someone. Each of the states of the mind ends up determining what the maximum sentence generally is – the worse the state, the greater the sentence. This is all regardless of the victim.

Criminal law is prosecuted by the state on behalf of the people, not the victim. This is because the people have an interest in preventing that type of harm. So, the greater the harm to the state, in essence, the higher the punishment.

This is where the state of mind in terms of hate crimes comes in. First, the victim does not matter – it is the reason why the victim is killed that does. Second, if the victim is killed because of a protected category (race, which again includes white people, for instance), there is a greater harm to the state/people because the intent of the crime is not only to victimize the victim, but rather to send a message to others like the victim specifically that they are also a target. Third, the state has an interest in ensuring segments of the population are not subjected to this specific threat, and so the harm is greater. Therefore, there is increased sentencing for crimes motivated due to a specific characteristic of the person, just as there is an increased sentence if you intend to kill some specific person.

In terms of dangerousness, that’s not really a factor I think – but, someone who has a reduced concern for killing someone due to their race is, in fact, a greater danger than someone who has, for instance, already killed someone that they wanted to for a specific reason, in theory.

This is the main problem I see with the arguments against hate crime legislation – the perception is that the state is privileging one type of victim. In fact, the crime is committed against an entire segment of the population when it is characteristic based – it is, in essence, a form of domestic terrorism.

@iamthemob Motive IS NOT the difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder – it is planning the crime that distinguishes between 1st and 2nd degree.. In fact, prosecutors are not required to present or prove a motive.

@lynfromnm

Whatever happened to “motive, opportunity, means?”

@lynfromnm – I said motive/intent. In both cases it is different. I was more trying to get across the idea of mens rea there. But state to state, there’s a difference – in many, planning itself makes no difference, but rather the type of crime planned (e.g., first degree murder is the plan to kill the victim, second degree is the intent to commit a felony on the victim, which unintentionally or not as part of the plan results in death.

NY has circumstance specific separation of degrees – First involves special circumstances (it was a cop – a direct assault on the state) where Second is any other premeditated murder.

The above is all besides the point again, as the main focus is not the victim, but rather what the criminal planned/was trying to do/etc. – the mens rea for the most part (with exceptions, but specific ones).

@CaptainHarley

Motive, opportunity, means is the trifecta a prosecutor will try to gather to prove that the defendant was the person who committed the crime. But that is not anything to do with what crime the defendant is really charged with (except where motive tends to show intent).

Those are proof issues, not definitional ones.

Ok. Thanks! : )

@iamthemob I understand the distinction you are making and you certainly make a good point as to mens rea

Would any of you consider all rapes to be hate crimes? The victimology is a prime consideration of the perpetrator, and hatred of or need to control women seems pretty clear in most cases.

I guess I don’t see the point of hate crime legislation. I too am sickened by crimes motivated by hatred of a particular marginalized group, but as someone above points out, you can’t legislate morality—it won’t change anything. I remember in 1964, as a young kid, thinking how much better the world was going to be because of the Civil Rights Act. I honestly thought that people would wake up and love each other regardless of race.

@lynfromnm

I don’t much get the point of hate crimes either, except as deterrent who kinda might sorta wanna do one and actually possesses enough intellect to comprehend the laws, or as a sop to minority groups.

Surprisingly enough, civil rights law does tend to alter people’s behavior, which eventually alters their outlook, which eventually alters their feelings. The byword here is patience, but understandably a lot of minority groups are sick of hearing the majority keep saying “patience.”

So right, @captainharley

@lynfromnm

Thank you! : )

@lynfromnm

Of course I would not – rape is a crime already. It is not done with the intent to harm someone, by necessity, because of their sex or gender or some other characteristic. If that element is missing from the intent, there is no hate crime.

There is no necessity that the person rape a woman, or someone because of gender – it is sexual penetration (generally) without consent.

The attempt here is not to legislate hate away – and I think that’s the disconnect. People can hate each other for whatever reason. Hate crime legislation separates those crimes in which the intended victim is, in many ways, a symbol through which the criminal means to send a message to the other people in a group. For instance, burning down someone’s house is arson. However, if you burn down someone’s house because of their religion, and put a burning cross on the lawn to show that was the reason, it is sending a message to the rest of the members in the neighborhood “Move out, or you’re next.”

That’s the difference in the hate involved in a hate crime. It is a symbolic victimization of an entire group, and that’s why the enhancement.

I think that the assumption that many make is that hate crime legislation could be abused to suppress certain unpopular viewpoints. But I would like to know if there are instances where that appears to be the result of the legislation.

@iamthemob you have made it very clear now and I appreciate that you took the time and effort to spell this out for me.

@lynfromnm – I really hope that wasn’t to shut me up ;-) – I’m willing to admit that there are ways it could be manipulated…but I actually don’t hear that much about people being prosecuted for hate crimes in the news, which indicates that most of the legislation (to me, for now) is limited enough that it’s being utilized appropriately…

People object because they don’t want to confront systematic patterns of violence based on privilege, lest it make people confront their own.

@incendiary_dan

Confront their own what? Violence??

Privilege. Sorry, bad wording. Of course, one can make the argument that privilege is based on and enforced by systemic violence. But now I’m getting esoteric, and complex esoteric arguments about race, ethnicity, and gender tend to just make me explain a lot.

ninjacolin has been crafting a response for about four hours. Can someone go check on him/her? I’m worried that s/he may have stroked out…

I’m also pro-hate crime legislation. After talking to someone, I realized why some people aren’t.

The guy was running for Governor’s Council. (Basically an outdated office.) He explained that it was redundant, in the sense that if someone commits a hate crime, they should simply be charged to the fullest extent of the law. That in his opinion, there was no need to add legislation that would charge them for the same crime in a different way.

Made sense, even if I don’t agree.

Edit: Answered before I read the other answers. Seems you were already given this answer. My apologies!

@Taciturnu – I understand the argument regarding redundancy. However, a hate crime enhancement may be used in one manner that may not be appropriate but may be efficient in the criminal justice system – plea bargain leverage.

Of course, this is a double – edged sword. It requires a relatively ethical DA department so that an enhancement would not be threatened unless it was reasonably supported by the evidence.

Sorry, I can’t but think this is all a load of crap. The biggest effect hate crime legislation has is to provide another tool for prosecutors. If the victim is a protected class the prosecutor can threaten hate charges whether or not their is any evidence of such. They can turn a small crime into a large one and get a plea deal, which is another feather in their cap. Crimes should be prosecuted on the evidence not on the total weight of charges that could be brought. If an innocent person is facing some minor sentence they will possibly plead innocent. But if they are facing 10–20 years, they may take the plea deal (maybe probation or short jail time) and plead guilty. Prosecutors use this as revenge for those that won’t take the deal and plead not guilty.

Overall the crime is the crime. Killing me is no worse than killing you (OK killing me is worse but that’s my opinion). Same goes for a beating or any other crime. As for the severity argument that used to be covered in the sentencing phase. Now with mandatory minimums, we are losing that distinction as well.

Overall, if we all want to be treated as equals, we’ll never get there by tailoring the law depending on the race, religion, or sexual orientation of the victim. Either give us equal protection under the law or stop calling it that.

@lynfromnm I disagree that the victim of a crime will not see it as worse if it were a hate crime. I knew a guy who was mugged in college. “Happens to everyone at some point,” he thought. He obviously wasn’t happy about it, but he knew that muggers existed, that they sometimes worked the park he was crossing through, and that this was how a desperate population made its living.

Then they caught the guy and it turned out to be a fraternity brother who had no need for money. He did it because the victim was gay and therefore “deserved it.” Now the victim was much more upset. The crime became totally senseless to him because there was no motivation other than hatred.

We give harsher punishments to delimit levels of unacceptability. Unfounded hatred is unacceptable. Therefore, unfounded hatred constitutes a legitimate ground for increasing punishment. This isn’t to say we must do so, but only that it fits how we make laws.

Oh, @Jaxk, I knew what you were going to write before you had even hit “Answer!” First, the possibility of abuse by prosecutors is irrelevant to the legitimacy of the law taken in itself, though it is something to consider when deciding whether to actually pass hate crime legislation. But your major fallacy occurs in the last paragraph regarding equal protection. Interestingly, you’ve been pre-refuted on this thread. As has already been noted, hate crimes are equal protection. They apply to people who attack their victims because they are white, because they are male, or because they are heterosexual just as much as they apply to people who attack their victims because they are black, because they are female, or because they are homosexual.

@Jaxk

Ridiculous. On several levels.

First, you make profound accusations about the prosecutorial system that must, must be supported by data. I think that you’re right to an extent…but to claim that this is the “biggest” effect requires some supporting data – and you also need to show what increases are possible under currently enacted legislation that turns “small crimes” into “big ones” and what the sentencing differences are. Further on that point, any defendant can be charged with any enhancement for a small crime to create a threat even where no evidence exists – that’s the nature of having a progressive criminal system.

Second, and again, the focus on the victim is still misguided. That is not what the vast majority of enhancements are driven by. They’re driven by the type of act, the results of it, and the intent of the criminal.

I’ll leave the equal protection issue out as @SavoirFaire has covered how I covered it already fairly well.

@iamthemob – no intent to shut you up. I just appreciate rational arguments.

Well, there’s the thought-legislation, for starters, though that’s already been brought up.
Think, though, for the potential for abuse! ‘Hate crime’ is far too subjective a charge, if you ask me, and too easy to make.
Hearsay tells of churches in Canada who are facing or have faced charges for hate crimes because of their teachings. Has the Bible changed in the last hundred years? Has mainstream Christianity? No, but the culture has, and now saying that God doesn’t much like homosexuality – which has been on the books now for a long, long time and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody, is illegal.
My own church felt the need recently to modify its charter to protect itself in the event that someone were to sue them for not performing a same-sex marriage.

Ethics of legislation aside, I don’t think that we have a solid-enough grasp of what makes people tick to go around saying that this or that was caused by hatred.

@Nullo

(1) it’s not thought crime at all because it requires an intent that is additional to an already existing intent and a violent criminal act. Saying that adding a new intent requirement is a “thought legislation” would undermine the entire criminal justice system in that case.

(2) I would be flabbergasted to see “hate crime” in the legislation as just “hate crime.” There is always a subjective element to intent, but have you seen any hate crime legislation prior to making that comment?

(3) “Hate crime” is a euphamism. The legislation charges an additional intent that the victim was targeted to some extent (it would vary) because of their membership in a particular race, gender, etc. It’s not necessarily hatred in that sense, but terrorism.

@iamthemob They say that the slippery slope is a fallacy; I suppose that it technically is – things do not, after all, move on their own. But there are people who push things. This is one of them.

@Nullo

How does this qualify where other things do not?

@SavoirFaire

Nothing was refuted. Nor do your points gain any credibility by just saying so. Theory and practice are quite separate. If you expect any one to believe those statements you would have to back them up with some statistics. I’m afraid you’ll have some difficulty in that regard.

As for the possible misuse of legislation, that is (or should be a major consideration prior to passing anything, let alone legislation that puts people in prison.

Here’s an example of turning small crimes into big ones:

“The second bill would make it a felony, punishable with a five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine, to damage property if the vandal’s actions showed bias based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age or national origin.

Under existing law, the severity of vandalism charges depend on the extent of property damage caused. The proposed change would make any bias-related property damage a felony, even if it was minor.”

This is from arguments on the proposed N.Dakota hate crimes bill.

@SavoirFaire and @iamthemob

Sorry that example was in response to @iamthemob .

@Jaxk – That was proposed legislation. Legislative drafting is like any other negotiation – there’s posturing by either side, unreasonable demands, and eventually settlement on something hopefully close to reasonable.

Introducing radical legislation is nothing new in politics. If this were to pass as is, I would be surprised. And if it did, I would indeed agree with you that this would be taking it too far. But taking legislation too far doesn’t undermine a type of legislation itself.

Disturbing in your link is this argument, which is common among those who argue against hate crime legislation:

Christopher Dodson, director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, said religious speech can “communicate bias” and “frighten” others, conduct that could violate the proposed laws. The measures could be used against Roman Catholic teachings that disapprove of homosexual behavior and hold that the priesthood should be open only to men, Dodson said.

“Religions have used speech to frighten people for time immemorial. It’s not something that we always condone, but it happens, and it’s a religious right,” Dodson said. “I’m a convert to the Catholic Church, but I was raised in churches that said that you were going to hell if you were a Catholic. That’s their right. It was definitely biased against Catholicism, and it was definitely intended to frighten me. In the afterlife, I will find out whether they were right.”

On another thread recently I encountered this confusion of “hate speech” and “hate crime.” The above “concern” is clearly unfounded, as any legislation that would create criminal penalties for speech would have to be enhancing penalties for speech that already was unprotected by the First Amendment.

just saw your above post I got it…no need to apologize. As I’m sure you saw in my post before yours regarding the prosecutorial misconduct issue – that’s always a concern when we talk about sentence enhancements generally. But that doesn’t prevent hate crime legislation from serving a very important and beneficial state purpose.

A crime’s a crime.

Indeed, @bob_ – all crimes are a crime. And each of them is different from the other.

@iamthemob Okay, suppose I were in the U.S., and some white dude tries to shoot me because I’m Mexican. Then another white dude tries to shoot a third white dude, because he’s mad at him for some reason, say, an unpaid debt. Why should the crimes be treated any differently?

@iamthemob

The speech aspect you present is interesting. Most of the evidence of a hate crime is the speech of the perpetrator. For instance this guy in Washington. He called the taxi driver an Iraqi terrorist. Apparently, that was enough.

The problem boils down to how you determine ‘hate’ and why would you would want to treat the crime differently depending on the people involved. If some guy gets beat up at a football game does it matter if it was because he was wearing a Cheese hat or a turban. Does it matter if it was because he was wearing a Montana jersey or a Gay Rights jersey. I know you want to see a difference but I don’t. The crime is the same.

Further, when the guy is getting beat up there is a certain amount of hate regardless of the reason. And it is likely the person doing the beating would call him names (much like the example above). And most likely the most vile name they could think of associated with any easily identifiable characteristic. A person charged with a hate crime could be just because they used the wrong characteristic.

@Jaxk

Not really. He was found guilty of three crimes, and sentenced on that count – one of which was for the beating of the man who he also was verbally attacking:

A victim’s forgiveness and a defendant’s remorse led a King County Superior Court judge to be lenient Friday when she sentenced a construction worker who attacked a Sikh taxi driver last year.

Judge Monica Benton sentenced Luis Vázquez, 21, of Kent, to nine months in jail and 240 hours of community service for the hate crime. He will be eligible for work-release during his time in jail, the judge said.

Prosecutors had asked for a two-year sentence.

Benton said that while racism is pernicious and hate crimes undermine society, forgiveness and remorse play a role in justice as well.

Vázquez pleaded guilty last month to reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and malicious harassment, the state’s name for a hate crime, for the Nov. 24 attack on Sukhvir Singh, an Indian-born member of the Sikh religious community.

The above doesn’t seem like a drastic threat to speech. The speech was not at issue – but evidence of the extra intent element. If he had simply cussed the man out in a bigoted manner, it wouldn’t have been a separate criminal event it seems. Saying that the speech was all it took is kind of like saying someone bragging to an undercover cop that he found out his wife was cheating on him and that’s why he beat her would have a free speech argument if the evidence of that statement was admitted in court to show that the attack was premeditated.

The problem with your argument is that you’re separating the hate element from the crime element. There is no separation as there has to be a criminal act for hate crime enhancements to come into play. And yes…it very much does matter to the state when citizens are being attacked because of their race or gender or sexuality as it has a duty to protect all citizens equally. Treating targeted racial attacks the same as all others would most likely be remiss in that duty.

And please, please don’t say “there’s always hate.” Again, this is not about hate…this is about the state’s interest in equality. It is completely rational that the state should consider a targeted attack because of actual or perceived racial, sexual, etc. difference more harmful to its interest than random assaults because the guy was there. Indeed, again, that’s the essence of any sort of degree separation in violent crimes – the more specific and targeted the reason for the violence, the greater penalty for the violence.

But you know…as to your last argument…well, if you’re going to attack someone, beat them, and call them some racial slur just because it added to the violence you were doing and that was something you thought was okay, but you really don’t hate that race…if you’re complaining that you’re facing a hate crime enhancement…boo fuckin’ hoo I say.

Imagine having the person who beat you, and while they were doing it called you a nigger, try to explain in court that they really didn’t mean anything by it. Even if it was true, it’s more than reasonable to assume that the victim would still feel the additional harm, as well as the community around him, associated with the slur…

@bob_ For the same reason that another guy who shoots the mad guy because his gun accidentally went off should be treated differently – the intent behind the crime is different. We are punishing behavior and not results. Results factor in…but when we criminalize behavior we are sending a message that the behavior is wrong. And some is more wrong than others. Our criminal justice system is based on the fundamental idea that different criminal intent warrants different punishment. Full stop.

@iamthemob We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.

Intent is generally the crucial element in determining what to prosecute a person with. This was true prior to hate crime legislation. If you want to agree to disagree, that’s cool…but you haven’t really presented an argument as to why this type of intent should be provided a special dispensation when other intents end up enhancing or reducing the criminal charge.

What other intents? You didn’t say why “I hate you because you’re Mexican so I’m going to shoot you” is different from “I hate you because you owe me money so I’m going to shoot you”.

@bob_ – Did you read through the rest of the thread?

Summing up, regardless…it’s different because the intent is different. The mens rea is different. Further, the crime in for true hate crimes is symbolic – the victim is superfluous to the terrorist message that is being sent to the other members of the group.

The thing is, because criminal penalties track the mens rea of the criminal for most part, the argument is more properly “Why, when we use intent to increase penalties for a criminal when they specifically target an individual rather than recklessly end up causing death, is it not appropriate to sentence a criminal whose intent was to kill any member of this particular group because they are a member of the group?”

@iamthemob No. And I won’t be reading the rest.

* unfollows *

@iamthemob Oh, you see people pushing a lot of things down the slope. The model goes thusly: you compromise, make a small concession. Then the other guy, seeing that you can be hounded into concessions, does not content himself with his progress but instead steps up the lobbying. And so on.

My angle here – the part that I really worry about – is religious freedom. You may not have noticed, but the Church has begun to be marginalized in recent years, from things like comedian ridicule and bad press. There are plenty of people who want to see the Church driven off of the field altogether; the Internet (and even Fluther, though the proportions are different) has its share of vitriolic proponents.

@Nullo

Off of what field, though? Marginalized how? Religious freedom hasn’t come under any threat that I’ve seen…so I’m unclear how you think it’s being pushed off.

@Nullo Hate crimes are crimes that are committed for specific reasons. Which crimes do you believe are protected by religious freedoms? Is it okay to kill someone for religious reasons? To rape them? To torture them? Exactly what do you think is permissible so long as a religious person is doing it that isn’t permissible for non-religious people to do? And do your protections apply to Muslims doing these actions, or only to Christians?

@iamthemob Off of the field called “Mainstream Culture”. Marginalized by constant ridicule, anti-ecclesiastical propaganda, atheist/agnostic/humanist education, and before long, legislation.

@SavoirFaire I was thinking, particularly, of a recent issue in Canada where pastors are being… encouraged to be more PC. Crimes are crimes, and I do not condone them. However, I am wary of people trying to classify perfectly harmless – indeed, even beneficial – things that they don’t like as crimes so that their adherents may be penalized.

@Nullo People are free to encourage all they want, just so long as they are not encouraging anything illegal. But the issue is whether or not the pastors in question are committing crimes. Hate crime legislation does not invent new crimes. It modifies the punishment scheme for existing crimes on the basis of motivation. That is to say, in order to commit a hate crime, one must commit an act which is already a crime independently.

The putative reclassification of other acts that you are worrying about, then, is a separate issue. It would require the creation of entirely new laws or the broader application of old laws. Strictly speaking, however, hate crime legislation neither requires nor entails either of these. Thus you must be worried about something other than hate crime legislation.

@Nullo – What @SavoirFaire has stated is completely spot on. Your concerns are not about hate crimes legislation, but hate speech legislation – something that the U.S. has firmly and historically prevented from becoming the case.

Against? Freedom of speech…

@HungryGuy – Hate crime legislation has nothing to do with freedom of speech. They add an extra intent element to already criminal acts. Speech in a criminal act is never protected in that it can be used against you.

@iamthemob – I’m merely answering your question. The reason some people are against hate crime legislation (hate crime isn’t necessarily the same thing as making threats or plotting to commit a crime) is because they believe in free speech, even when that speech is totally abhorrent.

Of course, there are also people, sadly, who oppose hate crime legislation because they’re hateful racists.

@HungryGuy – But that’s incorrect then. Freedom of speech is the one of the things that I fervently protect – but hate crime legislation is not the same as hate speech legislation.

Therefore, what is it that makes you think that there is an infringement of free speech in any manner form hate crime legislation generally?

Well, I don’t want to be in the awkward position of defending hate speech, but okay…

Let’s say that a hairt-ist gets up on a soapbox and starts shouting things like, “Red-haired people are genetically inferior, red haired people should be paid less for the same work, etc., etc.” The hair-ist isn’t threatening anyone, but hate crime legislation (as I understand it, and maybe I’m wrong about the particular legislation you’re referring to) would make it a crime for him to express such opinions publicly.

And here’s a real world example. Years ago a friend of mine was walking down the street and was approached by a beggar (a black man). My friend declined to give him a handout so the beggar spat at him. My friend got furious and said, “You God damned n——r!” and walked away. I agree that was a horrible and terrible thing to say, but I defend his right to free speech. Further, a short while later further down the street, my friend was approached by a police officer who threatened to arrest my friend for “hate speech” even though my friend was the victim minding his own business and never threatened the beggar in any way. My friend was forced to apologize to the beggar or else be arrested. That’s why people who defend free speech oppose hate crime legislation.

@HungryGuy – Yeah – the problem is that you’re talking about hate speech, not hate crime.

The cop example – was this in Europe? There’s really no such thing as that kind of legislation in the U.S. – if he called it hate speech, that’s something wholly different.

Hate crime is the commission of an act that is already criminal, but choosing the victim of the crime (generally violent) due to their race, religion, etc. It’s a sentencing enhancement for individuals who commit a crime that allows for a more severe punishment because the intent has been judged as particularly harmful in the law.

@iamthemob – Oh, okay then. I see what you mean :-)

@HungryGuy – don’t you just love reasonable conversations? ;-)