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Increments of Hate
The progressive zeal for the implementation of Hate Crimes
statutes is exactly
the sort of issue that is designed to send right thinking folks
over the edge.
As tempted as I was to rant and rave about it, I thought it
better to spend a
little time looking at it carefully, watching Congressional
hearings on C-Span,
reading and thinking and generally making sure I understand what
it is all
about. I have done so to my satisfaction and now feel free
to rant and rave.
What a dangerous and stupid idea! There are many powerful
and legitimate
objections to it (that hate crimes are a miniscule fraction
of all crimes, that
the potential for prosecutorial abuse is vast, that "hate"
has to be defined by
somebody, and those somebodies will define it in only the most
exquisite
poitically correct terms, that "hate" is a
character trait rather than a
behavioral characteristic, etc.) but these objections pale
in importance when
viewed beside the notion of hate crimes as thought control.
Let us look at an example. A vicious assault has occurred.
In the course of
investigating the crime the police determine that racial animus
was a motivating
factor. Disregarding for now that fact that such a
conclusion must be
completely subjective, let us accept it for the sake of
argument. This sort of
crime in a non-hate crimes world might fetch the perpetrator 3-5
years in the
state pen. With hate factored into the mix this sentence might
easily jump to
5-8 or even 10 years.
There is only one way to explain the differential between the two
sentences. The
extra time is the incremental cost of "Hate". We are
punishing the criminal for
two things: 5 years for assault, and another 5 for hate.
There is no logical
way around this fact. We are not punishing the crime of assault
more seriously
in one case over the other. We are incrementally punishing
the hate, to the
tune of five years. As one of the distinguished panelists
in a Congressional
hearing put it, the victim is just as victimized in one case as
the other. The
extra sentence is to punish the criminal for the anguish he has
caused the
"victim group".
Imagine what a short distance it is from punishing hate made
explicit in the
commission of a crime, to punishing "hate" as a crime
on its own terms. Surely
hate made explicit in the absence of a crime is just a dangerous
and injurious
to society and the "victim groups". Indeed, the
entire notion of "hate crimes"
presumes that the crime itself is secondary, a natural and
logical outgrowth of
the hate. That hate is the predecessor and thus the most
dangerous factor.
It is the most important thing to punish
When we say we wish to punish "hate", we mean that we
will punish people for
what they believe. That is easy to miss when it becomes
tangled with the
commission of a crime, but that is precisely what it is. We have
two assailants,
who committed similar crimes, and are punishing them differently
for no other
reason than because we find the beliefs of one of them obnoxious.
If you
support hate crimes legislation, please mull that fact over for
awhile and make
sure you are really comfortable with it. While you are at it you
may also wish
to mull over how easy it becomes to define hate as anything with
which you
disagree.
This is made clear by the scope of proposed federal legislation.
It isn't any
old sort of "hate" that is covered. It is very
specifically hate against a
certain number of "protected classes": Blacks, Women,
Homosexuals, Jews, Asians,
etc. It specifically does not include white heterosexual guys.
Thus we come down
to the unpleasant realization that the fundamental purpose of
current hate
crimes legislation is to punish white guys for having bad
thoughts.
Already we have seen legitimate pro-life organizations punished
under the RICO
statutes, for no other reason than advocating resistance to
abortion on demand.
These organizations didn't bomb anyone or harm anybody, or
directly
incite others to do so. But because their point of view was
seen as "hateful"
and inspiring to violence, the politically correct stormtroopers
decided to
punish them. Imagine the ease with which "Hate crimes"
could be defined as
organizing and acting on behalf of unfashionable causes. How long
before
opposition to affirmative action is so defined? We have already
seen the Clinton
HUD attempt to stifle the free speech of those who dare to
protest the
suburbanization of low income housing. Imagine if the
Justice Department had a
hate crimes statute at hand with enough latitude go after
whomever they disagree
with.
It looks like Congress still has enough of a spine to squelch
hate crimes
legislation. I hope so. Otherwise we can look forward to a
country which
resembles nothing so much as a trendy college campus, in which
bad speech and bad
thought are effectively controlled by the left. That's not a
place I want to be.
