Knockout Game - A hate crime

[Flagg]

Urban legends aside, the very concept of a "hate-crime" really only exists because of the existence of historically downtrodden racial underclasses. It's meant to protect minorities from majorities. If there's some black guy targeting white people, it's pretty useless to call it a "hate crime", because white people still dominate everything in terms of economic power and social status in the United States, and there's no history of institutionalized racism against Caucasians. I mean, I'm white and it's seriously pretty awesome. I can even go out at night in a hoodie and nobody will shoot me. I really don't need hate crime laws to protect me.

They do protect you. If a black guy goes and commits a crime expressly targeting a white person and there is evidence of the motive, you bet your ass they'll be charged with a hate crime.

If a black guy goes and commits a crime expressly targeting white people, the entire weight of the US legal system is likely to come down on him hard. Whereas if a white person commits a crime against a black person, in say, Mississippi Florida, we probably need some extra provisions to make sure justice is adequately served. Because black people are scary, you know.

Dude, it has happened. Blacks have been successfully prosecuted and incarcerated using hate crime provisions.

[Ralin]

Channel72, I'm not sure what your point here is. Is there any particular reason why hate crime laws shouldn't equally protect white people and everyone else? In the unlikely event that I'm lynched by a mob of black gay trans people who want whitey to go back to Europe, how is it not right that they be charged under the same laws?

[Channel72]

Because the only reason hate crime laws exist is to protect minorities. Most of our judicial system is ad hoc anyway, and nobody really believes that white people are in any danger of systematic persecution anytime soon. Laws like hate crime provisions and affirmative action are really a legislative admission that we are NOT all equal. Black people tend to, on average, be worse off, economically speaking, with less financial opportunities due to a lingering widespread racial bias and systemic poverty.

In cases where black people specifically commit violence against white people with an explicit anti-white motivation (e.g. the Black Panthers, the LA riots, Newark riots, etc.) it's usually not prosecuted as a hate-crime, but rather just run-of-the-mill murder/terrorism/assault, etc.

Really, if a "hate crime" is to mean anything at all, it really should apply only to minorities targeted via a majority (or perhaps minorities targeted via another minority.) When a minority targets a majority, there's very little point in having any kind of special legislative provisions, giving that the legal system itself (i.e. all the judges, prosecutors, jury members, law enforcement personnel etc.) is, by definition, composed mainly of members of the majority race/ethnicity.

Fortunately, this whole issue will become much less significant in the next few decades, at least in the US, as the population starts to become increasingly diverse.

[Ralin]

Really, if a "hate crime" is to mean anything at all, it really should apply only to minorities targeted via a majority (or perhaps minorities targeted via another minority.) When a minority targets a majority, there's very little point in having any kind of special legislative provisions, giving that the legal system itself (i.e. all the judges, prosecutors, jury members, law enforcement personnel etc.) is, by definition, composed mainly of members of the majority race/ethnicity.

I don't see how this follows at all. Using violence to intimidate a community is wrong regardless, and if it works out in a given area that blacks or Hispanics or whatever are in a position to terrorize white people into submission the same standards should come into play. Odds are that's not going to happen outside of weird fringe cases, but it costs minorities nothing to apply the law equally and it sets a very nasty precedent to say that violence against one race or religion or whatever is worse than violence against another.

[TheHammer]

The main problem with the notion of a "hate crime" is that it seems to imply that the reason behind an unprovoked attack is actually an important mitigating circumstance to the penalty for that crime.

If some guy wants to beat the crap out of me for talking to his girlfriend, I don't think the penalty should be any less than if he wants to beat the crap out of someone because it was a black guy for talking to his girlfriend. Likewise, if I'm jumped and beaten for wearing a 49ers jersey at the Seahawk's stadium, I don't feel the penalty should be any less than if I was jumped for being a black man at a white supremacist rally.

If the baseline penalty for an unprovoked attack, which essentially covers any sort of "hate" based attack, isn't harsh enough then you should raise the baseline penalty for the crime. We should not need to add some arbitrary additional punishment because you can label it a "hate" crime. Chances are, adding such penalties won't act as a deterrent to the sorts of people who would commit such crimes anyway.

[Akhlut]

The main problem with the notion of a "hate crime" is that it seems to imply that the reason behind an unprovoked attack is actually an important mitigating circumstance to the penalty for that crime.

If some guy wants to beat the crap out of me for talking to his girlfriend, I don't think the penalty should be any less than if he wants to beat the crap out of someone because it was a black guy for talking to his girlfriend. Likewise, if I'm jumped and beaten for wearing a 49ers jersey at the Seahawk's stadium, I don't feel the penalty should be any less than if I was jumped for being a black man at a white supremacist rally.

If the baseline penalty for an unprovoked attack, which essentially covers any sort of "hate" based attack, isn't harsh enough then you should raise the baseline penalty for the crime. We should not need to add some arbitrary additional punishment because you can label it a "hate" crime. Chances are, adding such penalties won't act as a deterrent to the sorts of people who would commit such crimes anyway.

Hate crimes are especially more heinous than regular crimes because they almost always come about as a means of control and oppression of minorities; violence against racial and ethnic minorities, against homosexuals, against transgender people, and so on, generally as a message to other members of that group that they had best be submissive and subservient to the oppressive superstructure they live within.

[TheHammer]

The main problem with the notion of a "hate crime" is that it seems to imply that the reason behind an unprovoked attack is actually an important mitigating circumstance to the penalty for that crime.

If some guy wants to beat the crap out of me for talking to his girlfriend, I don't think the penalty should be any less than if he wants to beat the crap out of someone because it was a black guy for talking to his girlfriend. Likewise, if I'm jumped and beaten for wearing a 49ers jersey at the Seahawk's stadium, I don't feel the penalty should be any less than if I was jumped for being a black man at a white supremacist rally.

If the baseline penalty for an unprovoked attack, which essentially covers any sort of "hate" based attack, isn't harsh enough then you should raise the baseline penalty for the crime. We should not need to add some arbitrary additional punishment because you can label it a "hate" crime. Chances are, adding such penalties won't act as a deterrent to the sorts of people who would commit such crimes anyway.

Hate crimes are especially more heinous than regular crimes because they almost always come about as a means of control and oppression of minorities; violence against racial and ethnic minorities, against homosexuals, against transgender people, and so on, generally as a message to other members of that group that they had best be submissive and subservient to the oppressive superstructure they live within.

I've heard that argument before. And it sounds like bullshit to me every time. Can you give me a good rationale as to why we shouldn't simply raise the baseline penalty for a crime to be the same as it would be for an equivalent "hate" crime? Should someone be punished less severely for punching a random person while attempting to mimic the "knock-out-game" they heard about than they would if they simply punched a random person because of their race?

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

[Maraxus]

I've heard that argument before. And it sounds like bullshit to me every time. Can you give me a good rationale as to why we shouldn't simply raise the baseline penalty for a crime to be the same as it would be for an equivalent "hate" crime? Should someone be punished less severely for punching a random person while attempting to mimic the "knock-out-game" they heard about than they would if they simply punched a random person because of their race?

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

Because hate crimes are an assault on the target community. They're meant to intimidate people who look like the victim and to make people feel unsafe being themselves. Even if the proportion of hate crimes is fairly small compared with other crimes, I think they're an obviously good idea. They make specific communities feel safer whether they're actually effective or not. This is why the HRC pushed so hard for the Matthew Shephard Act and why the NAACP would be very unhappy if anyone tried to repeal the 1968 Civil Rights Act. There's a pretty broad political consensus that hate crime laws are a net positive for Justice and the communities concerned, and that counts for something. Hate crime laws, like the Civil Rights Act, are also useful for prosecuting people for crimes they committed against minorities and had been acquitted. A whole bunch of southern white supremacists have been convicted under such laws, and there's really no reason why prosecutors shouldn't have them if they're needed in the future.

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone wouldn't support anti-hate crime legislation in the US. There's no politically organized opposition to it and any attempts to repeal and replace hate crime laws with something else would fail spectacularly.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Didn't you hear? Racism is over. We don't need hate crime laws anymore.

ETA: This is sarcasm.

[TheHammer]

I've heard that argument before. And it sounds like bullshit to me every time. Can you give me a good rationale as to why we shouldn't simply raise the baseline penalty for a crime to be the same as it would be for an equivalent "hate" crime? Should someone be punished less severely for punching a random person while attempting to mimic the "knock-out-game" they heard about than they would if they simply punched a random person because of their race?

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

Because hate crimes are an assault on the target community. They're meant to intimidate people who look like the victim and to make people feel unsafe being themselves. Even if the proportion of hate crimes is fairly small compared with other crimes, I think they're an obviously good idea. They make specific communities feel safer whether they're actually effective or not. This is why the HRC pushed so hard for the Matthew Shephard Act and why the NAACP would be very unhappy if anyone tried to repeal the 1968 Civil Rights Act. There's a pretty broad political consensus that hate crime laws are a net positive for Justice and the communities concerned, and that counts for something. Hate crime laws, like the Civil Rights Act, are also useful for prosecuting people for crimes they committed against minorities and had been acquitted. A whole bunch of southern white supremacists have been convicted under such laws, and there's really no reason why prosecutors shouldn't have them if they're needed in the future.

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone wouldn't support anti-hate crime legislation in the US. There's no politically organized opposition to it and any attempts to repeal and replace hate crime laws with something else would fail spectacularly.

The problem is you essentially toss the 14th amendment out the window in regards to equal protection before the law. That's probably not the intent, but certainly is the effect. I take specific issue with the idea that a crime against a person should be punished more severely simply because it is considered a "hate" crime. Someone who goes around and beats up fat people because he finds them disgusting shouldn't be let off the hook easier than someone who does the same thing to asians because he doesn't like asians.

I wouldn't say there is no organized opposition to it, but it simply doesn't rank very highly on the agenda of most organizations. I oppose it on principle because I believe it sets a bad precedent when you start designating special protections for certain groups.

[Simon_Jester]

Except that the protection doesn't apply to the group- it applies to the category of crime.

There's no special punishment for a Group A person punching a Group B person, or vice versa. There is a special punishment if the crime is committed in a way that suggests that it was an act of terrorism against the victim's group.

Lord knows you're willing to sanction enough other breaches of basic civil rights when it comes to terrorism charges; hate crime laws should be the least of your worries.

[Ralin]

I've thought for awhile now that it might be better to have a separate crime called terrorism or something for violence aimed at intimidating a community instead of adding it as a rider to other crimes. I don't have any problems with the logic behind hate crime laws, but it would avoid the appearance of favoring one group over another, and it would also let them be applied to crimes that wouldn't fit otherwise. Like, say, a white drug dealer killing a white community watch leader to frighten his neighborhood into not talking to the police.

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

That said, I am skeptical of the "Piling on more penalties will discourage people from doing it even more" line of reasoning. Last time I checked murder was pretty illegal, gotta doubt that anyone willing to commit a lynching is going to be fazed by adding another twenty years or whatever onto his theoretical sentence.

[Maraxus]

The problem is you essentially toss the 14th amendment out the window in regards to equal protection before the law. That's probably not the intent, but certainly is the effect. I take specific issue with the idea that a crime against a person should be punished more severely simply because it is considered a "hate" crime. Someone who goes around and beats up fat people because he finds them disgusting shouldn't be let off the hook easier than someone who does the same thing to asians because he doesn't like asians.

I wouldn't say there is no organized opposition to it, but it simply doesn't rank very highly on the agenda of most organizations. I oppose it on principle because I believe it sets a bad precedent when you start designating special protections for certain groups.

I don't think you actually believe that. Protected Class status is a pretty important aspect of American law, particularly when it comes to civil rights. The whole point of protected class status is that people with different characteristics could not get legal protection without such protections. Look at the '64 Civil Rights Act. The entire law created a series of protections specifically because treating everyone "equally" did not provide any real legal relief. If you don't support hate crimes because it's bad precident to designate special protections for certain groups, do you support allowing employers to fire active-duty reservists? Veterans are a special group that enjoy certain special legal protections. Do you support redlining? Race, color, and national origin are special groups specifically protected from redlining. Are you in favor of businesses opting out of the Americans with Disabilities Acts? The disabled are a specifically protected category who can now actually enjoy life because of the ADA's specific protections. If you're in favor of eliminating protected class status entirely, that's fine. I suspect you're not, though.

And as for the whole "sentence everyone equally across the board" thing, maybe I was a bit unclear in my last post. Simple aggravated assault and a hate crime are, and should be, two totally different things. I'm not sure how someone who goes around beating up fat people is going to get "let off the hook easier" when he'd still likely be charged with aggravated assault and battery. That's a charge that can still get you up to 25 years in prison. And then there are a whole slew of sentencing enhancements that can get you even more time depending on the case.

I think the most confusing thing about your position is that I see absolutely no harm in hate crime laws. I sort of wrap my head around your "principle," I'm just not seeing any particularly compelling reason why anyone should care about some vague notion of "equal protection" getting tossed out the window.

[Flagg]

Last time I'm going to say this but hate crime statutes work both ways. If a black man commits a crime against a white man with race as the motive and the prosecution can prove motive, the black guy will be charged with a hate crime. And it has happened.

[Simon_Jester]

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

That said, I am skeptical of the "Piling on more penalties will discourage people from doing it even more" line of reasoning. Last time I checked murder was pretty illegal, gotta doubt that anyone willing to commit a lynching is going to be fazed by adding another twenty years or whatever onto his theoretical sentence.

Maybe so, but given the... sometimes borderline fascist, sometimes not so borderline... approach TheHammer takes to civil rights on most other issues, it's coming across as a bad joke for him to advance that argument.

...Look at the '64 Civil Rights Act. The entire law created a series of protections specifically because treating everyone "equally" did not provide any real legal relief.

This is the crux of the matter. If you care about providing legal relief to minorities that are often beaten and victimized, and who are not adequately or reliably protected by the legal system without special laws in place, hate crime laws make sense.

If providing legal relief to victimized minorities is unimportant, while having a very 'elegant' legal system that ignores all the details of the case at hand is important, hate crime laws look ugly.

It all comes down to whether you measure 'justice' in terms of outcomes. If you don't, then basically you tend to measure things in terms of a hypothetical Martian who is totally ignorant of how society actually works. Then saying that if this Martian read the legal code and thought it was fair, it must be fair.

Of course, this is a very screwy way to look at law, but then again no one ever said that TheHammer's position on this issue had to make sense.

[TheHammer]

I guess what I'm saying is this: If the penalties for the baseline crime aren't severe enough to deter someone from committing a "hate" crime, then your baseline penalties aren't harsh enough to begin with.

That said, I am skeptical of the "Piling on more penalties will discourage people from doing it even more" line of reasoning. Last time I checked murder was pretty illegal, gotta doubt that anyone willing to commit a lynching is going to be fazed by adding another twenty years or whatever onto his theoretical sentence.

Maybe so, but given the... sometimes borderline fascist, sometimes not so borderline... approach TheHammer takes to civil rights on most other issues, it's coming across as a bad joke for him to advance that argument.

My political view do not fit so neatly into a box Mr Jester. Fascism isn't anywhere close to any of those views. A more nuanced reading of most of my posts would actually reflect that.

...Look at the '64 Civil Rights Act. The entire law created a series of protections specifically because treating everyone "equally" did not provide any real legal relief.

This is the crux of the matter. If you care about providing legal relief to minorities that are often beaten and victimized, and who are not adequately or reliably protected by the legal system without special laws in place, hate crime laws make sense.

If providing legal relief to victimized minorities is unimportant, while having a very 'elegant' legal system that ignores all the details of the case at hand is important, hate crime laws look ugly.

It all comes down to whether you measure 'justice' in terms of outcomes. If you don't, then basically you tend to measure things in terms of a hypothetical Martian who is totally ignorant of how society actually works. Then saying that if this Martian read the legal code and thought it was fair, it must be fair.

Of course, this is a very screwy way to look at law, but then again no one ever said that TheHammer's position on this issue had to make sense.

I'm not saying make it legal to discriminate against people of a certain race. In fact, its just the opposite. Lack of such laws would in fact allow subjective discrimination which is essentially the main issue I have with hate-crime legislation as written. It allows subjective discriminatory prosecution.

Why add additional penalties to laws already on the books because you deem it to have been committed as a "hate crime" versus a "regular crime"? If a white man shoots a black man for acting "uppity" its suddenly a potential hate crime. If a black man shoots another black man for "dissing" him, then it wouldn't be a potential hate crime. The victim is injured or dead for very similar reasons. Is it justice that the perpetrator in the first instance would face a steeper penalty? Does the victim in the second crime not deserve the same amount of justice dished out to his attacker?

When you say its "Especially bad to terrorize someone because of their race or religion", you are essentially saying its "not as bad" to do it for other reasons. Of course you shouldn't be allowed to terrorize someone based on their ethnic background, or sexual orientation. You also shouldn't be allowed to terrorize them because you don't like the color of their shirt. So make it illegal to terrorize people and apply the standard across the board, with a punishment to fit the crime. I understand the intent of hate-crime legislation, I just think its a shitty way to try and solve the problem.

[Ralin]

[When you say its "Especially bad to terrorize someone because of their race or religion", you are essentially saying its "not as bad" to do it for other reasons. Of course you shouldn't be allowed to terrorize someone based on their ethnic background, or sexual orientation. You also shouldn't be allowed to terrorize them because you don't like the color of their shirt. So make it illegal to terrorize people and apply the standard across the board, with a punishment to fit the crime. I understand the intent of hate-crime legislation, I just think its a shitty way to try and solve the problem.

For fuck's sake, it is worse to terrorize someone because of their race or religion than because of other reasons. Shooting someone because you don't like their shirt or because they owe you money is bad, but you're only aiming at the one person. Lynching someone is worse, because it's aimed at hurting them AND terrorizing a bunch of other people like them. We punish it more harshly because more harm is done

[TheHammer]

[When you say its "Especially bad to terrorize someone because of their race or religion", you are essentially saying its "not as bad" to do it for other reasons. Of course you shouldn't be allowed to terrorize someone based on their ethnic background, or sexual orientation. You also shouldn't be allowed to terrorize them because you don't like the color of their shirt. So make it illegal to terrorize people and apply the standard across the board, with a punishment to fit the crime. I understand the intent of hate-crime legislation, I just think its a shitty way to try and solve the problem.

For fuck's sake, it is worse to terrorize someone because of their race or religion than because of other reasons. Shooting someone because you don't like their shirt or because they owe you money is bad, but you're only aiming at the one person. Lynching someone is worse, because it's aimed at hurting them AND terrorizing a bunch of other people like them. We punish it more harshly because more harm is done

I disagree. If you are going to start arguing about psychological harm, such as being "terrorized", then you're headed down a slippery slope. If a murder victim comes from a large loving family, should the perpetrator be punished more harshly than if he'd killed some random drifter with no family to miss him? After all, the "harm" is greater by the standards you just set.

Besides, I feel as though you could (and should) prosecute a lynching, and conspiracy to intimidate as two separate crimes. A Lynching could just as easily be targeted at an individual, without any greater intent to intimidate.

[Ralin]

I disagree. If you are going to start arguing about psychological harm, such as being "terrorized", then you're headed down a slippery slope. If a murder victim comes from a large loving family, should the perpetrator be punished more harshly than if he'd killed some random drifter with no family to miss him? After all, the "harm" is greater by the standards you just set.

When someone kills your brother your immediate reaction isn't to automatically think "Damn, I'd better know my place/get out of town." This isn't something theoretical; we know that lynchings have that effect.

Besides, I feel as though you could (and should) prosecute a lynching, and conspiracy to intimidate as two separate crimes. A Lynching could just as easily be targeted at an individual, without any greater intent to intimidate.

Eh, I've said already that I think it would make more sense to have a separate crime for that sort of thing, but in practice it doesn't make that much of a difference.

I suppose you could have a bigot who just flips out and kills a black or trans person because he's suddenly overwhelmed by how much he hates them and has no thought or intention off sending a message to others, but that's a hair that doesn't really need to be split. Worst case scenario, a bigot gets extra years piled on for a murder he was going to prison for anyway. Cry me a river.

[Channel72]

Our legal system is obviously based on the collective subjective whims of where our legislative bodies and their constituents tend to place any given crime on the spectrum of "meh..." to "oh shit we need to kill this guy".

It's certainly not algorithmic or scientific; it's based on a combination of ad hoc case law, emotion, circumstantial context, historical context, and perhaps a bit of theory/legislative elegance. In general, due to a very powerful historical context, most people are inclined to view racially motivated crimes as somehow "worse" than arbitrary violence or vandalism. Kids who spray-paint profanity all over their school principal's new SUV are probably just being hilarious/stupid. But if their school principal is black, and they spray-paint racial slurs against black people on his new SUV... well, now it's suddenly not so funny anymore, but rather it evokes a deep feeling of visceral disgust and anger. Plus, it's inherently an attack on an entire group of people, rather than a single individual.

And whether we like it or not, the reality is if their principal was like, Italian or something, and they spray-painted anti-Italian slurs on his SUV, people in general would probably be less outraged than if he was black, because the historical context regarding racial discrimination against blacks is simply an order-of-magnitude more powerful than anything Italian Americans (or other Caucasian groups) may have suffered in the last 200 years in the US.

The law is far from perfect. It's mostly heuristic, and hate crimes are simply an ad hoc reaction to the historical persecution of (mostly) visible minorities. In theory, the law should be algorithmic and treat everyone equally, but the problem is that the law is not enforced or interpreted by an impartial, perfect computer. It's interpreted and enforced by a biased group of human legislators, judges, law enforcement personnel and juries. Hate crimes basically make special provisions to (at least try to) make the system tend to err on the side of harshness when racial motivation is involved, in order to account for the widespread cultural and institutional sins of the last couple of centuries.

[Channel72]

As a follow up, it's also worth noting that there's an extremely difficult-to-quantify spectrum of psychological harm that any particular "hate crime" might induce. A black family who finds a burning cross outside their home in the middle of the night along with racial slurs painted all over their house is probably going to be scared shitless/and or provoked to extreme anger. Other black people in the community will also likely be scared and/or angry.

However, as a Caucasian, if I wake up in the morning to find my apartment complex spray-painted with anti-Caucasion slurs (whatever the fuck those even are... "cracker" I guess? Is anyone seriously going to pretend to be offended by an anti-Caucasian slur?), I'd probably just like, roll my eyes. It literally means nothing to me, because I have never experienced racial persecution, and my skin color ensures that I have more financial and economic opportunity than most visible minorities. I really can't imagine what it's like to be a visible minority, so racial slurs are seriously meaningless to me and do me zero psychological harm. Despite the fact that this sentiment is extremely subjective, and extremely difficult to quantify, the law does (and should) try to take this sort of thing into account.

[Simon_Jester]

My political view do not fit so neatly into a box Mr Jester. Fascism isn't anywhere close to any of those views. A more nuanced reading of most of my posts would actually reflect that.

Well, I've seen you come down on the side of "the state is always right and history will vindicate that the leaders were doing this for the good of the people whether we bother to exercise checks on their authority or not" something like half a dozen times or more... which is basically a diluted version of Führerprinzip. You kind of open yourself to the charge.

But more generally, I simply perceive this as hypocritical. In this case you are valuing an abstract principle of civil rights* over outcomes**. But routinely, over and over through a period of years, on other issues you have valued a purely anticipated outcome*** over numerous other civil rights, some of them very direct and simple ones****.

Why is this case different from that case, to such an extent that only now do you become a principled defender of the most rarefied concepts of human rights?
______________

*(total equality under the law, to the point of making the law willfully blind to the circumstances of a crime)
**(deterring terrorism against minorities)
***(the expected end of the War on Terror)
****(such as the right to not be judged guilty of crimes and executed without trial)

I'm not saying make it legal to discriminate against people of a certain race. In fact, its just the opposite. Lack of such laws would in fact allow subjective discrimination which is essentially the main issue I have with hate-crime legislation as written. It allows subjective discriminatory prosecution.

Again, this argument makes sense to the hypothetical Martian, but makes no sense in terms of the facts on the ground.

Hate crime legislation exists, quite simply, to prosecute acts of terrorism, to treat them as being inherently worse than other crimes. If I burn down someone's house because of a grudge that is bad and I deserve to go to jail for a long time. If I burn down their house to intimidate the entire group they belong to into staying out of my neighborhood that is worse, because that kind of domestic terrorism is incompatible with our having a civil society where minorities can operate on equal terms.

Since hate crime laws are routinely enforced both ways, as Flagg repeatedly mentions, there is nothing about this which leads naturally to discriminatory prosecution. Only actual criminal acts are being prosecuted, and only those acts which can reasonably be identified as terrorism against a particular race/sex/whatever are being prosecuted as hate crimes.

The word 'terrorism' isn't actually used here only because in the post-9/11 world we like to reserve 'terrorist' for Muslims, and the idea of "domestic terrorism" isn't really on our radar anymore except when talking about 1960s radicals.

Why add additional penalties to laws already on the books because you deem it to have been committed as a "hate crime" versus a "regular crime"? If a white man shoots a black man for acting "uppity" its suddenly a potential hate crime. If a black man shoots another black man for "dissing" him, then it wouldn't be a potential hate crime. The victim is injured or dead for very similar reasons. Is it justice that the perpetrator in the first instance would face a steeper penalty? Does the victim in the second crime not deserve the same amount of justice dished out to his attacker?

Shooting someone for being uppity is not the same as shooting them for insulting you personally. It is an attempt to enforce a social order in which all members of group X have to defer and submit to members of group Y at all times.

Now, if the killing that occurs over "dissing" were in fact an attempt by, say, a member of a criminal organization to intimidate people into respecting and obeying the criminals... that would be a bit different. We might reasonably want a set of statutes related to hate crime laws to cover that.

But there is a difference between killing someone over a purely personal insult, and killing them both because of an insult and to terrorize all of Group A into submitting to Group B by never taking the risk of saying something that would insult them.

I understand the intent of hate-crime legislation, I just think its a shitty way to try and solve the problem.

The reason the problem is addressed in this way is that racially motivated crimes like this are a huge problem, one that was even huger back in the 1950s and '60s when these laws were first contemplated. Basically, we've got a whole category of crime that is being punished with exceptional severity because it happens and we've got to deter it somehow.

It's sort of like how we have whole categories of arcane laws governing what banks can and cannot do, because in the past banks actually did that, with disastrous results.

A hypothetical Martian might walk in and say "why do you even bother having such detailed regulations, why not just have a broader law against 'being a corrupt bank?'" And a human who actually knows how economies work would reply:

"Because the broad law will fail to address the highly specific crime that gets committed over and over, so we invent a specific law targeting/protecting specific groups to get rid of a specific crime."

As a follow up, it's also worth noting that there's an extremely difficult-to-quantify spectrum of psychological harm that any particular "hate crime" might induce. A black family who finds a burning cross outside their home in the middle of the night along with racial slurs painted all over their house is probably going to be scared shitless/and or provoked to extreme anger. Other black people in the community will also likely be scared and/or angry.

However, as a Caucasian, if I wake up in the morning to find my apartment complex spray-painted with anti-Caucasion slurs (whatever the fuck those even are... "cracker" I guess? Is anyone seriously going to pretend to be offended by an anti-Caucasian slur?), I'd probably just like, roll my eyes. It literally means nothing to me, because I have never experienced racial persecution, and my skin color ensures that I have more financial and economic opportunity than most visible minorities. I really can't imagine what it's like to be a visible minority, so racial slurs are seriously meaningless to me and do me zero psychological harm...

Yes. This.

And there's a good reason for that.

There is no history of concentrated, violent oppression of Italian-Americans as Italian-Americans in the 20th century. There's been bigotry, there's been "but do you want your daughter to marry one," there's been a lot of prejudice with real consequences. But there is no equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan that murdered or tortured or robbed Italian-Americans.

In contrast, well within living memory black churches were getting blown up and burned down, killing black children, specifically to prevent blacks from organizing politically just to seek equality with everyone else in society. Italian-Americans have not had to face a mortal enemy seeking to terrorize them. Blacks have.

So reactions on the part of a black community to perceived anti-black slurs can range from terrified efforts to leave the neighborhood... all the way to people going apeshit and trying to attack and intimidate the person they think is slurring them right back. Because as soon as they hear [anti-black slur], that entire history of brutal violence and grinding oppression pops into their heads, and they perceive the presence of a deadly serious enemy.

As a gesture of good faith to black communities, the legal system now says "we will take this deadly serious enemy of yours, and deal with them in a deadly serious manner."

Seems fair to me.

[Maraxus]

Simon and Channel have said pretty much everything I wanted to say on this issue. Hammer, I'd just like to point out that American law can and does mete out different sentences depending on the motivation or action involved. It's never simply a matter of prosecuting someone for, say, murder or robbery. If someone commits a crime with a handgun, a lot of jurisdictions will automatically tack an extra five or ten years onto the sentence. Likewise, differentiating first and second degree murder is a matter of establishing motivation before the crime; a victim will still be dead one way or the other, but someone who planned the murder in advance will receive a far stiffer sentence.

We don't treat people convicted of "equal" crimes as "equal" because not all crimes are equal. They can be very complex and it doesn't make much sense to me to take options away from prosecutors or judges in the name of "equality." That's why we have hate crime laws and that's why I don't understand your position.