What is the point of hate laws?

[joyful]

In the UK, 7000 citizens signed their name to a petition to expand hate crime laws. They want the laws to punish anyone who commits violence because someone looks different. The petition responds to the murder of a young Goth-dressing woman and her boyfriend in a park.

The assailants didn’t know the girl. Presumably they attacked her because she was wearing black lipstick. That’s how the argument goes. The thuggish kids who attacked her should get tripled penalties because their violence was motivated by her weird looks.

So, it would have been less heinous had she been an upper class, pearls-wearing babe attacked because she looked rich? What if she’d been a gorgeous blonde cheerleader and they attacked her because they weren’t getting any? What about robbing someone of an Ipod or scratching a Porsche because “They can afford it”. The list goes on forever.

It is hideously unjust to label the value of various victims, stiffening penalties for some murders and not others, for some assaults and not others, etc. Every violent crime is a tragedy to be redressed. Endlessly add to the list of special “hate crime” victims, and someday everybody will be on it. Then we’ll be right back where we started: equal law.

But unjust penalties for violent crimes aren’t the greatest danger of hate crime laws. Their greatest danger is that they criminalize free speech. They criminalize certain beliefs and animosities—emotions with which the government has no business meddling. The government has no more right to say you can’t be biased against homosexuals than to say you can’t be biased against professional athletes or workaholics or overbearing mothers-in-law.

Hate crime laws were created by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish organization committed to demonizing—and yes, defaming —beliefs and values it opposes. Specifically, the ADL opposes anti- Israel and anti-homosexual activism and Christian evangelism. Hate crime laws were not created primarily to respond to violent crime (which is, obviously, already illegal). They were created to marginalize and then criminalize certain kinds of speech and “bias” – primarily Christian.

http://www.rense.com/general81/sud.htm

[mynameis]

In the UK, 7000 citizens signed their name to a petition to expand hate crime laws. They want the laws to punish anyone who commits violence because someone looks different. The petition responds to the murder of a young Goth-dressing woman and her boyfriend in a park.

The assailants didn’t know the girl. Presumably they attacked her because she was wearing black lipstick. That’s how the argument goes. The thuggish kids who attacked her should get tripled penalties because their violence was motivated by her weird looks.

So, it would have been less heinous had she been an upper class, pearls-wearing babe attacked because she looked rich? What if she’d been a gorgeous blonde cheerleader and they attacked her because they weren’t getting any? What about robbing someone of an Ipod or scratching a Porsche because “They can afford it”. The list goes on forever.

It is hideously unjust to label the value of various victims, stiffening penalties for some murders and not others, for some assaults and not others, etc. Every violent crime is a tragedy to be redressed. Endlessly add to the list of special “hate crime” victims, and someday everybody will be on it. Then we’ll be right back where we started: equal law.

But unjust penalties for violent crimes aren’t the greatest danger of hate crime laws. Their greatest danger is that they criminalize free speech. They criminalize certain beliefs and animosities—emotions with which the government has no business meddling. The government has no more right to say you can’t be biased against homosexuals than to say you can’t be biased against professional athletes or workaholics or overbearing mothers-in-law.

Hate crime laws were created by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish organization committed to demonizing—and yes, defaming —beliefs and values it opposes. Specifically, the ADL opposes anti- Israel and anti-homosexual activism and Christian evangelism. Hate crime laws were not created primarily to respond to violent crime (which is, obviously, already illegal). They were created to marginalize and then criminalize certain kinds of speech and “bias” – primarily Christian.

http://www.rense.com/general81/sud.htm

Once you attack someone based on their being them you've lost all your rights to defend yourself as a non-hate criminal. Hate speech is very different than Hate Law. UK has different sets of rules for speech in public, private, and actions associated with assault by individuals using hate speech in the physical attack. The law does not recognize what that person did justify, only that the person attacked an individual violating their civil right to life and peace for no other reason. Never attack someone unless you're attacked and the law doesn't apply to you as a piecemeal of law.