Isn't a hate crime?

[thegodfather]

Name three, along with the reasons why you beleive this is true.

I'm not talking about representatives. I was referring to many professors in university's who are members of the Democratic party, and who use their tenured professorships to spew this kind of ideological dogma at their students. If you read David Horowitz's book, you will see that there several professors who have stated just that, some of them even in their syllabi.


Tock, how can you really defend this kind of legislation? It is essentially THOUGHT CRIMES legislation. How do you justify the fact that someone who might attack you only because you are gay, is given a stiffer penalty, than someone who might attack me simply because they didn't like the shirt I was wearing? Do you believe the law should believe your rights are more important than mine, and that you should be protected more than me? These laws make absolutely no sense, and you know it. You are only supporting this because you have a vested interest in it. I support some things which are no beneficial to me, because I am principled, and do not bend my ideals to things which may or may not directly benefit me.

If oppressed groups TRUELY want to be equal, they would never support initiatives like this one which create inequities in the law.

[Tock]

I'm not talking about representatives. I was referring to many professors in university's who are members of the Democratic party, and who use their tenured professorships to spew this kind of ideological dogma at their students.

Many professors? Well, if there's a lot of 'em, you should be able to name at least three.

If you read David Horowitz's book, you will see that there several professors who have stated just that, some of them even in their syllabi.

Any fool can make any sort of unproven allegation in a book. And herds of fools can parrot any unproven allegations made in a slick media effort. That's how Hitler took over Germany. Had the German people been more inclined to ask for specifics about the behavioral lapses of members of minority groups, we probably wouldn't have had WW2.

Tock, how can you really defend this kind of legislation?

I'm not particularly comfortable with it, actually. But
I can see a limited place for hate crimes laws, mostly to allow criminal prosecution for assaults in situations where state or local governments won't enforce laws to protect minorities. I posted recently about a 20 year old gay fellow in South Carolina who was killed by an 18 year old right after he called him a faggot. The murderer was freed from jail after less than one year in jail because of some technical BS in the state law. With a federal hate crime law, the killer would serve a considerably longer time in prison (not that that would necessarily solve anything, but it would be better than allowing a legal system continue that customarily provided lighter sentences for perpetrators of heterosexual against homosexual crime).

In the best of all possible worlds, such uneven enforcement of law wouldn't happen. But given the antipathy felt towards members of certain groups over the past hundred years or so, and given the uneven protections given to some minority groups and the reluctance of some state and local governments to ensure fair treatment and equal protection under the law, I can see why there's room for the feds to step in and take up the slack.

For the past 100 years or so, there have been organized groups in the US which have attacked blacks, gays, Jews, Catholics, Hispanics, Arabs, Irish, Asians, etc. Some states and local governments have passed laws which unfairly put certain groups of people at disadvantages. Poll taxes, for instance. Poor black farmers in the south couldn't afford to pay $$$ for the luxury of voting. White folks could, and the net effect of taxing a person's right to vote was to ensure that most black people wouldn't vote, thus keeping white folks in power.
Poll taxes were not invented because of a desire for an equitable tax system; it came about because white folks in the south didn't like black folks and didn't want them to vote. So, there's a historical precedent of widespread misuse of government authority to keep one ethnic group at a disadvantage. I've seen plenty of evidence that the same animosity toward blacks exists in the white parts of east Texas. So, when I read news stories of a couple of white fellows who dragged a black fellow through Vidor, Texas, through town from the back of their pickup truck, I'm inclined to think that the crime was at least somewhat motivated by a residual element of the historical antipathy felt by whites toward blacks in that part of Texas.
I've attended virulent anti-gay rallies sponsored by TV preachers for the same sort of crowds who cheered the antics of Judge Jack Hampton (the judge who admitted he gave a killer of 2 gay men a light prison sentence because the killer was heterosexual and the victims were gay). During the height of the passionate anti-gay sermons, I'm certain that I would have been torn limb from limb had anyone else in the auditorium known I'm gay.
As I mentioned before, 20 years ago, Dallas police were decidedly anti-gay, and were more inclined to harrass patrons of gay nightclubs than they'd be to investigate crimes of violence perpetrated on them (us). I saw firsthand how white Dallas cops bad-mouthed black people when I worked for the City of Dallas. A lot of my friends and acquaintances here in Dallas were racist, including some of my gay friends. All that is to say that I have seen how entrenched and institutionalized white against black racism has been here in Texas. I have seen the attitudes of some law enforcement officers and I wouldn't be at all surprised for some to overlook white-on-black crimes, and to overzealously enforce black-on-white crimes. This attitude extends to the people who write the laws in this state. Here in Texas, gay sex is still illegal. The legislature won't delete the law because that'll get them voted out of office. Atheists still cannot hold office in this state because the State Constutitution says, "No religious test will be made of any office holder, except that he agree in the existance of a Supreme Being." (Ya, the fundamentalists here hate atheists more than gays).

etc etc etc etc . . .

My point is that sometimes state and local governments won't make or enforce laws intended to protect the safety of minorities, and that's when it would come in handy for the feds to investigate to see if someone (like me) got wasted by a bunch of fundamentalists (like that www.godhatesfags.com guy) and the local law enforcement folks were not investigating the crime.
Or if a bunch of hooded creeps from the KKK set fire to an apartment complex full of black folks for fun, and half the KKK creeps were local police and politicians.

When motivation isn't obvious, I agree, that's when a hatecrime law sucks.
For instance . . . In Arkansas, they have a law that prohibits anyone from criticizing the Bible in public. If you haven't heard my opinions regarding the Bible, you need to, and I'd like to invite you to a hearty discussion on the topic in downtown Hot Springs. While my verbal examination of the "holy scriptures" would be focus mostly on their inconsistancies, impossibilities, and other shortcomings easily proven with standard library texts, and while I'd do so with a cool head and happy disposition, the average fundamentalist passerby overhearing my conversation would probably assume that I hate God, the Bible, and all Christians, which isn't true. There is no god to hate, the Bible is just another of many horrible books, and despite their claims to moral superiority through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, Christians are no better or worse than anyone else. So, a fundamentalist might call for a constable to arrest me for violating the Arkansas law against bad-mouthing the Bible in public. In Texas, a fundamentalist might want to see me arrested for an anti-Christian hate crime since Texas has not yet descended to the depths of routine abridgement of civil rights in which Arkansas so happily wallows.

There's a difference between being merely offended and being harmed, and it's not always obvious, and the general public does not always want to know the real story behind the story. But, for crimes where the motivation is obvious and where state or local government won't do anything about it, I'm all for letting the feds take over, to bring in some semblance of justice.

It is essentially THOUGHT CRIMES legislation. How do you justify the fact that someone who might attack you only because you are gay, is given a stiffer penalty, than someone who might attack me simply because they didn't like the shirt I was wearing?

I don't.
If someone attacks me becauce I'm gay they should be punished for attacking me. No extra penalty for my orientation. But if the state gov't or the local police won't do anything about it, then I'm all for letting the feds investigate it as a hate crime.

Do you believe the law should believe your rights are more important than mine, and that you should be protected more than me?

Of course not.

These laws make absolutely no sense, and you know it.

Now you're the one who's mindreading.

You are only supporting this because you have a vested interest in it. I support some things which are no beneficial to me, because I am principled, and do not bend my ideals to things which may or may not directly benefit me.

Of course, I could say you're only supporting your point of view because you have a vested interest in it, as well.

We're all principled, and none of us ever bend our ideals contrary to those principles. More or less, anyway.

If oppressed groups TRUELY want to be equal, they would never support initiatives like this one which create inequities in the law.

Sometimes, it's more fun to be protected from creeps than to be equal.
Ever hear of Maslow's pyramid of needs? Check it out. If a person doesn't have security, then loftier stuff like the finer points of philosophical consistancy don't really matter.

What's driving this whole mess is the unhappy fact that some groups of people just don't like other groups of people. Extremists of one group sometimes attack innocent individuals of other groups to express their frustration with life, and the attacked group takes things personally and want revenge, which only fans the flames of frustration, and things never really get any better. At this stage of civilization, probably the best we can actually expect is for global warming to fry the bast**ds in the south and for the heat to melt the polar ice caps and drown the idiots in the north, and for me and you to live in different countries.
Ya, that ought to take care of everything . . .

[thegodfather]

Many professors? Well, if there's a lot of 'em, you should be able to name at least three.

Lewis Gordon, PhD - Temple University
Mary Frances Berry,PhD- University of Pennsylvania
Leonard Jeffries,PhD- CUNY (Look this one up yourself, he's a reallll gem...Definately the kind of person I'd want indoctrinating my kids at college.)




Any fool can make any sort of unproven allegation in a book. And herds of fools can parrot any unproven allegations made in a slick media effort. That's how Hitler took over Germany. Had the German people been more inclined to ask for specifics about the behavioral lapses of members of minority groups, we probably wouldn't have had WW2.










I'm not particularly comfortable with it, actually. But
I can see a limited place for hate crimes laws, mostly to allow criminal prosecution for assaults in situations where state or local governments won't enforce laws to protect minorities. I posted recently about a 20 year old gay fellow in South Carolina who was killed by an 18 year old right after he called him a faggot. The murderer was freed from jail after less than one year in jail because of some technical BS in the state law. With a federal hate crime law, the killer would serve a considerably longer time in prison (not that that would necessarily solve anything, but it would be better than allowing a legal system continue that customarily provided lighter sentences for perpetrators of heterosexual against homosexual crime).

It is not the Federal governments place, as layed out in the Constitution, to interfear with the internal goings on of State government. Certainly, states may enforce their laws however they please. I'm speaking ideally of course, because the Federal government has become ever more intrusive into State affairs, regrettably. If the decision in a case like you mentioned is rendered, it can be appealed to a higher court, as is done in many other cases where the Prosecutor doesn't think the sentence was enough. It's not a nice situation, but it is the path down the slippery slope, one intrusion leads to many others.




In the best of all possible worlds, such uneven enforcement of law wouldn't happen. But given the antipathy felt towards members of certain groups over the past hundred years or so, and given the uneven protections given to some minority groups and the reluctance of some state and local governments to ensure fair treatment and equal protection under the law, I can see why there's room for the feds to step in and take up the slack.

For the past 100 years or so, there have been organized groups in the US which have attacked blacks, gays, Jews, Catholics, Hispanics, Arabs, Irish, Asians, etc. Some states and local governments have passed laws which unfairly put certain groups of people at disadvantages. Poll taxes, for instance. Poor black farmers in the south couldn't afford to pay $$$ for the luxury of voting. White folks could, and the net effect of taxing a person's right to vote was to ensure that most black people wouldn't vote, thus keeping white folks in power.
Poll taxes were not invented because of a desire for an equitable tax system; it came about because white folks in the south didn't like black folks and didn't want them to vote. So, there's a historical precedent of widespread misuse of government authority to keep one ethnic group at a disadvantage. I've seen plenty of evidence that the same animosity toward blacks exists in the white parts of east Texas. So, when I read news stories of a couple of white fellows who dragged a black fellow through Vidor, Texas, through town from the back of their pickup truck, I'm inclined to think that the crime was at least somewhat motivated by a residual element of the historical antipathy felt by whites toward blacks in that part of Texas.
I've attended virulent anti-gay rallies sponsored by TV preachers for the same sort of crowds who cheered the antics of Judge Jack Hampton (the judge who admitted he gave a killer of 2 gay men a light prison sentence because the killer was heterosexual and the victims were gay). During the height of the passionate anti-gay sermons, I'm certain that I would have been torn limb from limb had anyone else in the auditorium known I'm gay.
As I mentioned before, 20 years ago, Dallas police were decidedly anti-gay, and were more inclined to harrass patrons of gay nightclubs than they'd be to investigate crimes of violence perpetrated on them (us). I saw firsthand how white Dallas cops bad-mouthed black people when I worked for the City of Dallas. A lot of my friends and acquaintances here in Dallas were racist, including some of my gay friends. All that is to say that I have seen how entrenched and institutionalized white against black racism has been here in Texas. I have seen the attitudes of some law enforcement officers and I wouldn't be at all surprised for some to overlook white-on-black crimes, and to overzealously enforce black-on-white crimes. This attitude extends to the people who write the laws in this state. Here in Texas, gay sex is still illegal. The legislature won't delete the law because that'll get them voted out of office. Atheists still cannot hold office in this state because the State Constutitution says, "No religious test will be made of any office holder, except that he agree in the existance of a Supreme Being." (Ya, the fundamentalists here hate atheists more than gays).

etc etc etc etc . . .

My point is that sometimes state and local governments won't make or enforce laws intended to protect the safety of minorities, and that's when it would come in handy for the feds to investigate to see if someone (like me) got wasted by a bunch of fundamentalists (like that www.godhatesfags.com guy) and the local law enforcement folks were not investigating the crime.
Or if a bunch of hooded creeps from the KKK set fire to an apartment complex full of black folks for fun, and half the KKK creeps were local police and politicians.

When motivation isn't obvious, I agree, that's when a hatecrime law sucks.
For instance . . . In Arkansas, they have a law that prohibits anyone from criticizing the Bible in public. If you haven't heard my opinions regarding the Bible, you need to, and I'd like to invite you to a hearty discussion on the topic in downtown Hot Springs. While my verbal examination of the "holy scriptures" would be focus mostly on their inconsistancies, impossibilities, and other shortcomings easily proven with standard library texts, and while I'd do so with a cool head and happy disposition, the average fundamentalist passerby overhearing my conversation would probably assume that I hate God, the Bible, and all Christians, which isn't true. There is no god to hate, the Bible is just another of many horrible books, and despite their claims to moral superiority through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, Christians are no better or worse than anyone else. So, a fundamentalist might call for a constable to arrest me for violating the Arkansas law against bad-mouthing the Bible in public. In Texas, a fundamentalist might want to see me arrested for an anti-Christian hate crime since Texas has not yet descended to the depths of routine abridgement of civil rights in which Arkansas so happily wallows.

There's a difference between being merely offended and being harmed, and it's not always obvious, and the general public does not always want to know the real story behind the story. But, for crimes where the motivation is obvious and where state or local government won't do anything about it, I'm all for letting the feds take over, to bring in some semblance of justice.












I don't.
If someone attacks me becauce I'm gay they should be punished for attacking me. No extra penalty for my orientation. But if the state gov't or the local police won't do anything about it, then I'm all for letting the feds investigate it as a hate crime.


That is what this legislation does though. It will cause people who are identified with a 'motive' of hate to be sentenced to longer prison sentences for assaults than a person who didnt have these 'hateful motivations.' That is hardly fair to the victims of non-hate crimes. It is also not fair to the criminal committing the crime, because they are being punished for political thought, and not just based on the crime they committed. People should not be penalized for holding unpopular viewpoints, even if those viewpoints cause them to act on them and harm others. If that becomes the case, then the actions should be dealt with according to law, and with no consideration to what that persons political viewpoints are.



Of course not.





Now you're the one who's mindreading.








Of course, I could say you're only supporting your point of view because you have a vested interest in it, as well.

We're all principled, and none of us ever bend our ideals contrary to those principles. More or less, anyway.










Sometimes, it's more fun to be protected from creeps than to be equal.
Ever hear of Maslow's pyramid of needs? Check it out. If a person doesn't have security, then loftier stuff like the finer points of philosophical consistancy don't really matter.

What's driving this whole mess is the unhappy fact that some groups of people just don't like other groups of people. Extremists of one group sometimes attack innocent individuals of other groups to express their frustration with life, and the attacked group takes things personally and want revenge, which only fans the flames of frustration, and things never really get any better. At this stage of civilization, probably the best we can actually expect is for global warming to fry the bast**ds in the south and for the heat to melt the polar ice caps and drown the idiots in the north, and for me and you to live in different countries.
Ya, that ought to take care of everything . . .

I replied in bold. By the way, we have discussed the bible, and we agree on every single point.