I may be missing the context of your post since I have to be in court this morning so am only responding to messages to me, not reading the whole thread since last night, which is up to about 90 new posts (the price of living on the West Coast where lots of posters have a three hour start on me).
As to hate crimes, assuming you are using the common usage of a hate crime as a crime with an addtional punitive element if the victim is chosen because of some particular characteristic -- race, gender, religion, etc -- I am opposed to the whole concept.
The definition of and punishment for a crime should depend on what one person does to another, not why. The why is irrelevant to the act. It's part of a person's thought, not deeds, and I don't believe thought should be punished. I see no reason why, if you have two crimes where one person beats another up under as nearly identical circumstances as is possible, one person should get a greater punishment because they chose a victim based on race, or gender, or whatever. Certain aspects of motivation certainly should be taken into consideration -- whether, for example, a person was acting in what they believed to be self-defense, which is of course a thought process in and of itself, or maybe if a man is beating up a guy who raped his daughter, those sorts of motivations, which are related to the facts or maybe to the specific individual who has or is about to do something are okay to take into account, IMO. But as to whether two people each of whom goes out to beat up another person "for fun," one picking a white man because he was convenient and looked vulnerable, one picking a black man because they hate blacks, I see no reason at all why the first should be punished less than the second. |
