Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
Intent is the desired result of an action, not the motivation behind commiting the action. This law deals with motivation, which is normally far less relevant than intent. I think making a distinction between hate crimes as opposed to just normal crimes is pretty assinine.
You're right about the definition of intent, I should have been more clear. I do not think that it changes the applicability here however. Hate crimes still deal with intent, the consequence merely being a more racially centered one. A good example (as used before) is the Jim Crow era south. Burning crosses on people's lawns was in itself until fairly recently a crime that would be punished as a fire hazard. The Supreme Court ruled however that when they did so to terrorize, that this was subject to criminalization.
Why do you think that making this distinction is asinine? The fundamental argument is that crimes that intend to intimidate/subjugate/terrify certain segments of the population are more damaging to society as a whole, and are direct affronts to the american way of life. Due to this reason, they should be more harshly punished. In the words of Chief Justice Rheinquest "this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm.... bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest" (taken from wiki) So, while you might not like them... the supreme court and it's hard right wing former chief justice seem to disagree. I would like to hear your reasoning for why they are bad.
I just can't see how people can be against hate crime laws. They treat everyone equally... and they are an attempt to redress a situation that existed in America that absolutely nobody can deny. There were several different periods of time in America where entire groups were terrorized and intimidated... based solely upon reasons of ethnic/religios/sexual discrimination. There are plenty of areas that exist as we speak where gays are attacked simply because of who they sleep with, and you want to treat this systematic targeting of people as just another average crime? That's sick. Something tells me if WASPs were being singled out and attacked, dragged behind cars until they died, set on fire, such that suddenly people might take a second and think about just what equality really means.