Well, since my writeup on Hate Crime got hammered, I'm led to believe I don't really understand Hate Crime legislation. So this node is my attempt to list the reasons for and against Hate Crime as I understand them, and hopefully encourage someone knowledgable (as opposed to Rush fanatics) to write up the correct reasons. Basically, I think the justification depends on what you view incarceration as.
Retribution - The view of incarceration as retribution for the crimes committed means that jails are penalty boxes for people who break the rules. Viewing hate crimes as different from any other crime doesn't make sense in this perspective, since all similar crimes should incur the same penalty regardless of motive. This is where most people support the death penalty from, as well, as the thought of killing the bastard who killed your loved ones appeals on a very basic level. Unfortunately, I think many supporters of hate crime come from this perspective, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Rehabilitation - The view of incarceration as a place to get counselling, or even an education. Trying to help people get back on their feet and become productive members of society. Hate crime legislation could make some sense here. Someone who commits a murder in a blind rage after being horribly betrayed conceivably would take less time to "fix" than someone who wants to kill every homosexual.
Protection of Innocents - The view of incarceration as a way to keep harmful people away from innocent people. Someone who murders their spouse out of anger is much less likely to be dangerous to the common man on the street than someone who arbitrarily murdered someone for an impersonal aspect. Face it, would you rather be in a room with someone who had killed someone else after a long string of events, encounters, and aggravations, or someone who had killed someone arbitrarily for the fun of it. I know I'd feel much safer in the former's company. This is also arguably justification for hate crimes.

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We all use the above justifications in varying amounts, and I've probably missed some other good arguments on the subject. As to my personal beliefs, I think retribution is the most appealing aspect of punishment, but also the one we should most try to suppress. So I use the later two arguments in my personal beliefs. And I can see strong arguments for hate crime legislation in both Rehabilitation and Protection of Innocents. So I support it.

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OK, let me say that the above statements were made with the assumption that the time one spends in the penal system is constructive time spent rebuilding your life. Obviously this is idealistic to a fault. I think rehabilitiation is the most important element. Of course, I can see how someone would feel that this is the state imposing a morality on people, but so the hell what. Granted, you have to watch that it doesn't go as far as saying "Don't eat pork on Shrove Tuesday", but some general moral guidelines like don't kill, don't oppress, don't steal, and the like are obviously important, because we jail people who don't follow them. I don't believe that intelligently judging the severity of a crime will lead to thought police.

In criminal justice class, I learned that motive does not have to be proven in a criminal justice case, nor is it the business of the government to judge on count of motive.

When you are convicted of murder, the official stance of the government is that it does not matter if you killed someone for drug money, for money to feed your kids, randomly, in a psychotic rage, because the victim was black, because the victim was gay, because you were in a hurry to get to work and wanted to drive on the sidewalk as a shortcut, because you saw murder on TV and thought it looked cool, or because the victim slept with your wife. The victim's rights were violated equally no matter what the reason was. It has nothing to do with morality -- the reason murder is illegal is not because it is "immoral" by some rich white guy's standards but rather because it severely violates the rights of the victim.

Passing hate crime legislation would allow the government to pass moral judgements on people. This is not the place of the government. Who decides what is moral and what is not? It certainly shouldn't be those in Washington - everything would be legal! I do think it's immoral to kill someone because of their race or sexual orientation. But do I want to have my government enforce my morals or rather protect my rights? Seeing as how everyone has a different set of morals, I'd like to stick to the Constitution and protecting our rights.

In the eyes of the government, every murderer is equally guilty. And unless you want the government to start forcing someone else's morality onto you, I suggest you fight to keep it that way. This is America. We condemn actions, not thoughts or speech.

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rgladwell: Intent != Motive. The different degrees of murder are based upon how calculated and cold-blooded the murder was and with what intent the crimes were committed. They are not based on why the person committed the crime. And I assure you that my stances on additonal punishment for paedophiles and the War on Some Drugs (stances which I have not expressed on here yet) are quite consistent with my argument here.

I've long been unsure of how to think of hate crime legislation. There are so many problems to make a clear belief at this point... So I'll talk about what I think for now...

First, one common opposition against hate crimes is that motive shouldn't affect the sentencing or anything like that. But motive has ALWAYS been taken into account. Killing someone in self-defense is still killing, it's just your motive for it that is different from just killing them for the fun of it. If motive is irrelevant than self-defense, mental defect, or anything else doesn't mean anything.

But it does seem like it would be wrong to treat the killers of Matthew Shepard, or the guys down in Texas who dragged the black guy with their truck worse than someone else who did the equivalent crime, just without the motive of bigotry. If three guys tied a while guy to their truck, and dragged him for miles, they should be treated the same, because of the cruel nature of the crime.

Maybe the laws shouldn't be against the motive as much as the method. That the penalty for a crime should definately take into account the method in which it was performed. And when a crime is just horribly cruel, torturous, and inhumane, the person should be looked at differently. And maybe this would cover most of what are currently hate crimes, because the rage and hatred of the person who committed the crime is often obvious in how they performed the crime.

I do worry about the poor treatment of minorities by various people in this country, and see the good intentions of wanting to protect them from all the bigotry. Perhaps not give more jail time for those committing hate crimes, but instead, try and get them into programs to encourage tolerance and empathy?

Passing hate crime legislation would allow the government to pass moral judgements on people. This is not the place of the government... In the eyes of the government, every murderer is equally guilty. And unless you want the government to start forcing someone else's morality onto you, I suggest you fight to keep it that way. This is America. We condemn actions, not thoughts or speech.

This is completely untrue: you have first-degree and second-degree murder to start with. This is a distinction based precisely on thoughts i.e. intent. What is more, law has never been an abstract set or moral codes that are somehow "fair". Fundamentally law is about the moral intervention into our personal lives despite what theConstitution might say.

That is why paedophilia is a more serious offence than a "normal" sexual crime and drugs are outlawed: these are all judgements based on morals. No one would argue that paedophilia is somehow "right" but, nevertheless, implementing additional punishments is a moral judgement. The point is that laws have to be passed to control our behaviour when that behaviours is deemed "wrong". If hate crime is becomming such a problem that these laws are required then that is just part of the natural evolution of law.

The problem everyone here is having is a basic issue of law not hate crime: law has always been about policing baheviour and, indirectly, thought. You are fooling yourselves thinking that hate crime is some sort of special exception.

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Response to Uberfetus: Perhaps intent is not equal to motive but you argument that hate crime legislation is some how "thought crime" is invalidated. By your own admission law already polices thought.

And you say that your "stances on additional punishment for paedophiles and the War on Some Drugs" are consistent with your arguments but offer no reasoning or evidence. If you despise hate crime legislation then you should despise all forms of law that create "special circumstances" for certain subdivisions of a crime or make judgements on certain lifestyles.

In the opinion of this humble man, hate crime laws do much more harm than good.

The Libertarian Partys position (which is right here) on this has a little something to do with the statistical fact that if you are a black man you are twice as likely to be charged with a hate crime against whites then a white man is to be charged with a hate crime against blacks! (While there are more actual cases of white on black violence, since African-Americans only account for 13 percent of the population, a larger percentage of blacks are charged with black on white violence.)

Clearly, since determining whether something is a hate crime or not is subjective, the only message hate crime laws send is that if you are going to commit a crime, you had damn well better do it on someone who is the same color as you are.

As for rehabilitating convicts, it is not the job of the Justice System to take the broken and maimed soul of a killer and re-construct it into what it may have once been, it is merely the task of the Justice System to toss it into the trash.

Legislating that everyone should be happy and live peacefully will never work. It's purely a dream that such magic legal papers will ensure peaceful co-existance. There is something called The Social Contract as written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:


"If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: "As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away." But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions."

Every one of us gives up the right to hate, to enjoy a life where we ourselves are not hated. The punishment on hate crimes should sit squarely on the fact that certain individuals have broken this contract and should be punished for allowing the possibility for each of us to be hated or murdered also.

To enjoy our relative freedom, we need to respect each other. The motive of a crime does not stand alone as it determines exactly what part of our freedom has been attacked. If we allow hatred to exist, then we also allow ourselves to be hated. No matter how nice our fishbowl lives seem, the illusion is broken when we realize that every single one of us are in the same water.

If you hate someone, that energy will rebound.. not only from the object of hatred but by society as a whole. The only way to deal with hate crimes is with compassion, however if someone has already been programmed with a life of hatred... there is little chance they will change or come to a cathartic realization of coming to terms with those which they hate.

Freedom of speech and the muting of hate proliferators, I personally agree with only when they are in a situation of power over those they are demeaning. The Social Contract pretty much requires that we keep our own hatred quiet to avoid hearing the hatred of others. This does not solve the problem of the hate, if we as a whole race of humans want to come to terms.. then we have to throw everything on the table and eradicate every irrational emotional despisement. Until that happens, I cannot imagine any time soon, there will be hate crimes, which lead from ignorance.

Since I believe there is no excuse for ignorance, i have no problem with eliminating that part of society that refuses to open its eyes to all possible realities. Be it against Black, White, Asian, geek, punk rocker, Preppie, Jock, Acid or pot-heads...
Embrace difference, and live this wonderful mortal existance of human beings without legislated happiness. Be pro-active and think about whats being processed in your own head. Choose peaceful existence and it will be so, and punish those who are purposely hurtful.

Another thought is to put the person responsible for the hate crime in a predominant community of those hated. He or she will either come to terms, tolerance or be terminated. Pax