Hate crimes...

Post Reply New Topic

A hate crime is a violent crime directed towards an individual because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, disability, age, etc...

http://snopes.com/politics/sexuality/hatecrime.asp

And as that article shows, there are hate groups out there fighting legislation that would put sexual orientation, gender, and disability, onto the list of hate crimes protections.

Just take a look at this.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20238693/

That is a vicious hate crime. Religion is already on the list (Edit: I scanned through the bill which includes religion, but it seems that it already has been included in federal hate crime legislation. My bad)...

Pardon me, but wouldn't any crime be considered a 'hate' crime? Say if you pinch a loaf of bread from the milk-bar because you think the owner is a prat, would that be a hate crime because you hated the owner? Or if you raped a banker's wife because your cheque bounced, wouldn't that be a hate crime because you hated the banker? Calling things 'hate' crimes because of certain slants is saying that they are more important than any other crime. To me, a robbery is a robbery, and murder is murder; and I don't care where the people involved were black, white or brindle. If a black kills a white, or vice versa, or if a Muslim kills a Christian, why should they be treated any different because of some new age sensationalism? Typical Americans, blow everything out of proportion (you'd probably say THAT'S a hate crime, but since when is criticism a crime?).

There are crimes -violent even- that are caused by other means...

Serial killers are mentally deranged, as are serial rapists...

Many bank robbers and thieves are motivated by some form of drug addiction, or kleptomania. It could be argued that a lot of the gang violence we hear about in the cities is motivated by hatred, though...

But there are people that taunt, harass, and even murder people for who they are - and that is wrong.

There are people out there that would attack someone physically for being a war veteran.

There are people that would stab an old lady in the back because she's old.

The list goes on and on...

There's a whole south park episode with that exact mindset.

A certain relative of mine used to make a fair amount of cash with street robbery. He mostly targeted kosovan immigrants (or at least immigrants of a markedly different nationality). Categorically, this was not out of any particular dislike for them, but because he knew full well that the crime was a) less likely to be reported b) the reportee was less likely to have a firm grasp on english, and c) that the age old stereotype "they all look alike to us" applies to many races. Ergo, his description would be so generic as to be useless.
However, this logical, if callous procedure would not doubt have been classified as racially motivated, and a hate crime.

From a certain point of view, it IS racially motivated, but not out of any of the cited logics, such as dislike for a given race. He was just being coldly logical.

So, applying this logic myself: I see many black people in our area wearing a high proportion of gold jewellery, of quality (not elizabeth duke cheapshit argos bling.) Thus, if i were to target someone for robbery, i would choose a black victim, as there seems to be more financial gain. he same logic could also be applied to tourists, or men in suits as well. It has nothing to do with race, but would be a hate crime if made against the black person.

A second anecdote: An old partner of mine (white) and her contemporaries (also white) were the target of bullying at her school, instigated by a wholly asian group of males, predominantly over colour, and to a lesser degree by musical taste. This issue continued for more than a year, and any retaliation on the part of the victims, was immediately reported to school authorities as a "racist attack." So here we have people using anti-racism policy in a self-serving manner, whilst getting away with racist behaviour themselves. Thus the system is proved flawed.

(In the interests of completism, my relative no longer engages in crime, and the racist bullying ceased after it was "pointed out" to the bullies that My contemporaries and I were a) just a touch older and harder b) not under the school authority anyway and most importantly c) that the bullies could report us to whomever they cared to, but they would be doing it from an intensive care unit, or have to be able to transmit said report from beyond the grave. Suffice to say, they ceased their activities and became model students, and at no point was race ever an issue. )

This man was deranged. Can you imagine the mindset you would have to be in to say that you were going to shoot up a congregation. My stance is that their are crazy people out their that do crazy things. These people operate by a whole differant logic. A crime is a crime. Don't give one crimea higher priority than the other because it is classified as a hate crime. There are criminals that don't give a crap about anyone but themselves. Lock em all up! Throw in the slammer! I just watched a news program where a police chief in Harlem said that their are places in the states where rule of law does not exist. Now that is aproblem that need attention.

"Hate crime" is defined in Sweden as a crime committed by a member of a majority group(Swede or Christian) against a member of a minority group defined by its race, religion, ethnic origin or simply homosexuals. http://www.bra.se/extra/faq/?module_ins ... egory_id=0 for information in Swedish.

So, here in Sweden, these are hate crimes:

Swedes attacking foreigners
Christians attacking Jews
Swedes attacking homosexuals

while these aren't:

Jews attacking Christians
Foreigners attacking Swedes

You'd wish you got to enjoy freedom of speech in the 21th century without anyone sending you to prison for bringing up the problems with immigration or saying homosexuality is a sin, but no.. Here you can face up to four years in prison for doing that.

"Hate crime" = thought crime

That is essentially what the law in the US if for too. To protect everybody but white people. It was just a poor thought out knee-jerk reaction. And yes they are thought crimes.

I thought the first amendment was supposed to make those things impossible over there.. Broken bill of rights?

The 1st amendment doesnt cover threats, obscenities, etc.. I mean you can preach racism, but you cant call a black person a you know what.

In places in Europe, even questioning the holocaust is illegal. One professor was sent away for a while. Also, in England, a lady was visited by police after she politely suggested on TV that gays may not make the best adoptive parents.

Just a thought on questioning the holocaust.. you mean in the sense of denying it happened, as opposed to questioning the details? Or does this legislation actually preclude any debate over the nature of the beast?

(I'm aware that the daft hobby of denying the holocaust is illegal in many places.)

Here in Sweden, just about the full spectrum of thought crime is criminalized. You might remember the Christian minister Åke Green being sentenced to prison after describing homosexuality as a cancer in society and quoting the bible on the subject. In the first instance, he recieved a guilty verdict, but was freed in the two higher instances after the negative attention the matter had recieved internationally. They did however make sure to add some insults to the verdict, something like "he's a bigot, but unfortunately we can't prevent him from preaching this."

Reading the different verdicts, I found it hard to believe they were even interpreting the same law, the different verdicts seemed so arbitrary.

Roughly 50 people per year here are convicted of thought crimes, out of which 10 or so recieve prison sentences.

I guess it depends. It is a crime in Austria to minimise the atrocities of the Third Reich, for example. I think outlawing such ideas only gives them a sense of legitimacy. That people are scared of them, and any kind of debate on them. I mean I hate 911 CTs, but I dont want them outlawed. That would be the best best thing to happen to that movement.

oops. this was supposed to be in response to Macbeth

One or two isolated incidents and the Daily Mail pick up on it and turn it into the evil PC brigade trying to kill us all. If you want to claim that gays might not make the best adoptive parents, I doubt the police are gonna come knocking on your door. And anyone who denies the Holocaust is an idiot who deserves locking up IMO, so I don't care about that.

Try Hadron, I bet he would come up with BS trying to deny the holocaust, lol

I always thought it showed incredible ingenuity to deny the holocaust, especially in the face of eye-witness firsthand reports from: Jews, Poles, Romanians, British military units, American military units, Russian military units, even German soldiers and civilians.. the list goes on. (Barely need to mention the huge piles of bodies, the mass graves, the film footage, the photographic evidence, the skin lamps, the scientific data.. etc etc.) It shows a level of genius to get around all that. Sadly, genius directed in the wrong wayto and end that serves no real means other than to earn them the scorn of their peers and the dislike of the general public.

So you admit you want people locked up for thought crimes. Good.