To: Solon who wrote (23947 ) 8/22/2001 12:19:36 PM From: The Philosopher Read Replies (2) | Respond to I wish I had the time to engage in this discussion further, but it will take a lot more discussion, and I just don't have that kind of time this week, with a trial coming up. It's an area I have thought a lot about, as lawyer who does some criminal representation. Your views are not new to me, though you do express them better than many I have discussed this with. situationally based, even where their impact may be to benefit members of one race or sex more than another (as long as they aren't pretextual), I have always and adamantly opposed any programs which give benefits or detriments to persons because of their skin color or sex. IMO, you don't create a color blind society by having the government focus on color as a basis for special rights or detriments.situational . They don't depend on race, sex, etc. universal standard of punishment enhancement, so that if a wife killed her husband she would get a higher sentence if she hated him than if she did it for greed, to collect his life insurance say, then I might look afresh at this. But as long as the definition of hate crime depends on the race, sex, or other characteristics of the victim and not solely on the acts and motives of the perpetrator, I'm against it because it is another move away from the society of true equality toward which I have striven my entire life.
