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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: d[-_-]b who wrote (111779)	5/24/2009 2:16:35 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541453

I don't feel that way at all. I think it's fair to elevate certain things society deems important. I think it's ok to elevate certain classes- who are more likely to be victimized, and I think it's ok to elevate certain behaviors which we would want to protect- like the exercise of constitutional rights. So for me, thinking about how that would work out, makes me proud of our system. It makes me proud of American that we protect even the most hateful individual- as long as he or she is peacefully exercising his or her constitutional rights. It's not like there'[s any challenge in protecting people's constitutional rights when we like them, or like what they have to say. What better symbolic situation do we have that exemplifies how free we are? And the flip side of that is that we penalize to a greater extent those who express their hate violently- thus making it very clear that while people can talk hateful talk, they can't be violent for hateful reasons. In a country as free as ours, where all sorts of hate is voiced, and where the hateful can march in the streets, it's probably good to have hate crime laws as a reminder about where the hate needs to end- at the threshold of violence. I'm for that reminder. Lots of people need that little reminder.