Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (24223)	8/23/2001 12:53:03 PM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"Your concern for free thought is not unique. But it must be remembered that the thought precedes the crime. It is the act that is being punished. But there is no possible way to justify a response to the act without determining the meaning, I.E., the thoughts and the motives as they are expressed in their situational and contextual framework." Your disregard for free thought is also not unique. Will you be the head of the new thought Police, or will you just act in an advisory role? Greg

To: Solon who wrote (24223)	8/24/2001 2:09:21 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

Appreciate the cite. Let me look at it: Any act of intimidation, harassment, physical force or threat of physical force directed against any person, or gamely, or their property or advocate, motivated either in whole or in part by hostility to their real or perceived race, ethnic background, religious belief, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation, with the intention of causing fear or intimidation,... Almost all street muggings involve the intent to intimidate. Particularly those using a gun or knife. What this definition says is that if a street robber targets older women and mugs them for their purses only because they're presumed to be more vulnerable than young males, that's not a hate crime, but if the criminal also happen to have a "thing" against old people, as many of the young in our society do, it becomes a hate crime. Sorry. I don't see why the first robber gets a lesser sentence than the second.

To: Solon who wrote (24223)	8/24/2001 2:13:25 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The motivation for hate crimes must be HATE--heartless and mindless HATE. Nope. Not what it says. ...motivated either in whole or in part by hostility... First, hate and hostility are different things. Second, it can be in part hostility. That doesn't have to be the motivation, or even the principal motiviation. If there's even a smidgen of hostility -- and if sociologists are right that many people have a latent bias toward people of other races, or if it's worse than that and it's true that, as some black leaders say, all whites are racists -- then virtually every crime against a person of a different race or sex could be pled as a hate crime. That's the real problem with trying to peer into the mind of the criminal and say "was any part of your motivation based on hostility toward the race, sex, etc. of your victim?" Not a world I want to live in.