When Is a Hate Crime...

[Peace_by_superior _power]

I want to know how you can commit a crime against someone without hate? I would think that if I purposefully killed/beat/robbed someone, it would be because I had a genuine dislike for that individual. I am about as much of a fan of "hate crimes" as I am of affirmative action.


Affirmative action is discrimination no matter how you look at it and what you think it meens. it basicly tells blacks and hispanics that you arnt as good or as smart as us so we are going to make it easier for you to the jobs. Being that my ethnicity is part hispanic it would kill me to know that i only got a job because i am hispanic and not because i worked hard and earned my job just like everyone else.

[thumbelina]

Five Black Teens Are Charged In Racially Motivated Assault (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401130.html?nav=rss_nation)
BUFFALO, July 24 -- Five black teenagers are accused of roaming through a city neighborhood late Friday, shouting racially charged threats and, after an exchange of words, stabbing three young white men in a fight.

<NITF>The five were charged with second-degree gang assault.
</NITF>
<NITF>A week earlier, five white men in another neighborhood were charged with attacking a black man with a baseball bat and shouting racial epithets. They were charged with assault as a hate crime.</NITF>

<NITF>Police Lt. Margaret Sack told the Buffalo News that Friday's incident was "an argument over turf."</NITF>

<NITF>She said the wounded men apparently were unarmed. One, a 19-year-old recently discharged from the Marines, was hospitalized in serious condition.</NITF>

<NITF>Mayor Anthony M. Masiello said he is "sickened by this racial unrest," which he said "cannot be tolerated by either side." Emphasis added</NITF>

[HealthyCommie]

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but the idea of the government determining someone's motives behind a crime they commit makes me very uncomfortable. Y' know, about 60 years ago George Orwell wrote about something very similair to this in a little book called 1984. Maybe it's out of context, I don't know, but the concept of "hate crime" seems an awful lot like "thought crime" to me.

A crime is a crime, regardless of motive. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with hate crimes if all races were prosecuted fairly, but unfortunately it hasn't really been working that way. Proof: The article Thumbelina just posted.

[believer]

Hate is in and of itself a worse crime. If someone beats me silly because of something they reasonably expect I could change, I Imagine I could question my behavior and maybe change, so as not to offend. BUT, if they beat me silly for something I could in no way do anything about, I am the victim of the crime of the beating as well as a worse crime of unfair persecution. THAT is the difference. I, as a conservative am able at least to see this right from wrong. Society would like very much to eradicate this ignorance of hate. I am with them.

Worse than that ignorance is the racism perpetrated by our government when abusing this desperate law that tries to force "tolerance" on closed minded, hard headed people. They become only more so, and indignant; worse! This is only escalation. For same said government to selectively use MORE racism in this law's enforcement only assures a resentment for this government instead of addressing the issue at hand. It also has a negative effect on the favored; it assures them that they must be less, requiring such illegal special treatment and hypocracy from their government. This is the liberals at work. THEY are the ones with all the racism. And they've probably made themselves feel good, by doing this "good", too. Education should have been the law here, if any.

[Peace_by_superior _power]

Hate crimes are stupid. To put that out on the table and be like they did it because he was *insert color*. Thats bs and a cop out. People commit crimes because they want to get something and usualy dont think it over and just do whatever it takes to get something. I know if i was a criminal i wouldnt pass up robbing someone because of the color of their skin.

[rightwingxtremist]

A hate crime is commited when someone commits a violent crime against another based solely on the victims race, ehtnicity, sexual orientation or religion.

Usually, when prosecuting a hate crime the prosecutor will try and connect the defendant with certain hate groups or past bigoted behavior. It's pretty easy to prove a hate crime occured when a hate crime occurs. that's the reason for the legislation.

So, are you suggesting that the purpose for having hate crime laws on the books is to provide for a different motive? Why not include hate as a motive for existing crimes?

The effect I see as happening is that by having hate crime laws and prosecuting them as such with stiffer penalties, we are saying that the life of an armed robbery victim is worth less than that of a black being killed by a white.

- N

[ProtestWarrior]

Shouldn't people be punished based on the crime rather than the motive? Unless of course it was accidental.