Quote Originally Posted by thegodfather View Post
Hate crime legislation is a tradgedy to the 1st amendment. It penalizes people for their beliefs. I do not support ALOT of things, racism included. However, I support peoples rights to hold whatever viewpoints they like, even if it includes racist sentiment that I don't agree with. I do not believe its fair to punish a suspect convicted of assault more harshly for using a racial slur during the attack, than someone who just assaulted someone because they were having a bad day. You cannot attach stiffer punishment to "hurting someones feelings," or else we might as well start penalizing people harder for assaulting someone and calling them ugly or stupid as well. Both could be equally as offensive to one person, as a racial slur could be to another. Hate crime legislation is just another law that infringes on civil liberties and was propagated by the liberal interest groups to restrict freedom of thought and speech. The original INTENTIONS of the legislation were great, but when put in to practice they fail the litmus test of a free society... All of this, in my opinion of course.
You can't compare being called stupid or ugly to being called a ******. That's ridiculous! Hate crime legislation wasn't enacted to prevent people from having their feelings hurt, those laws were enacted to prevent a climate of fear and intimidation. The klan and other groups rally all the time around the country publicly using these terms.

Now should this kid be charged with a hate crime? NO. Obviously the kid was doing whatever he could to get back at the broad for dumping him. BUT, he knew using the most offensive term possible would hurt her to the core (never heard of stupid or ugly having that type of affect on people). Therein lies the problem, people have a habit of trying to oversimplify things to justify their ideals. Anyone who believes simplistic insults are tantamount to racial slurs is simply niave and detached from reality.

I do believe the real culprits are the oversensitive principle and law enforcement that charged this kid. Hate crimes only need to be applied carefully.

And as a 14yr old I never thought any hitler propoganda was cool, no one I associated with did. Everyone knew that history and those who thought it was cool harbored many racists beliefs and somewhat supported that ideology.

On a funny note, I served 30 days as a juvenile because my wife's (then girlfriend) ex-boyfriend decided to exercise his free speech by scratching ****** lover on her car so I deprived him of his ability to use his right hand for a little over 3 months. Moral of the story free speech can get you put in jail! LoL!