- In New York State, a 16-year-old high school student
was jailed and faces felony charges for a note and prank phone call harassing
a fellow student, who is black. In NY state, felonies are crimes for which
imprisonment of a year or more can be given. Felonies are the worst crimes.
Compare: a fistfight is usually a misdemeanor. A speeding ticket, even
lesser, is an infraction. Why was this kid charged with a felony for a
stupid prank?
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- His arraignment wasn't really about the
note and prank call. He was arrested to make a statement about social intolerance
of certain viewpoints or attitudes against "targeted groups."
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- Under hate crime laws, certain groups including
racial minorities, Jews and homosexuals, enjoy heightened protection. The
teen's black victim is given special privilege not afforded the victim
of a race-neutral slam.
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- Hate laws exist to make political statements
against racial or religious bias. They say, "These groups have been
historically victimized. Bias against them is far worse than bias against
anybody else because it terrorizes a larger community. Bias against them
is far worse than bias against whites or Christians or straight men, or
an individual you just happen to hate for no good reason."
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- But the law doesn't exist to make political
or social statements. (Newspapers do.) Criminal law exists to protect inalienable
rights that belong to individuals not groups. Groups are inherently changeable.
They rise and fall in political and social power and favoritism. They fluctuate
as their members intermarry with other groups or move around. Individuals,
however, simply live and die. Rights belong to individuals. Crimes are
done to individuals. Centuries of experience has shown that laws can only
be practically and justly enforced against individuals, not groups.
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- The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith-a
powerful Jewish advocacy group-has been working for decades to pass hate
laws which shatter American standards of legal justice and individual rights.
ADL wants to change the balance of social power in the United States, elevate
certain groups and criminalize the Christian, conservative, patriotic ethos
of most Americans. For decades they have exaggerated the "threat"
of bias-motivated crimes and worked to demonize any attitudes that hint
of Christian fundamentalism, nationalism, or especially white (but not
black or Jewish) racism.
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- Hate laws-and especially a federal hate
law-are a hot ticket right now. Last month, the Civil Rights Officer of
the U.S. Coast Guard Kenneth B. Hunter hosted a forum on how to prevent
future hate crimes. Co-leaders of the event included reps from big shot
organizations and even the government-Ivy R. Williams of PEERS (Parents
Education for Eliminating Racism in Schools), Azekah Jennings of the U.S.
Department of Justice, and Robert Trestan of the Anti-Defamation League.
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- A local news source reported : "Jennings
said, first and foremost, [a hate crime is] a crime. Williams added that
it's a physical or verbal abuse causing others to think less of themselves.
She said it might not be done intentionally and that it may come from somewhere
within someone, a place they didn't even know existed. Trestan said every
state has its own definition of a hate crime. He said when discussed in
court, it can be hard to convict someone of a hate crime because it's a
process that involves getting into the perpetrator's thoughts and figuring
out why the crime was committed."
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- This is a little astonishing. Here an ADL
rep blatantly admits that hate crime prosecution involves invading someone's
personal beliefs and ideology, "getting into their thoughts"
and motivation. A member of his panel also said a hate crime perpetrator
might not even commit their crime intentionally! Both statements prove
the dangerously vague and unjust aim of this kind of law. They prosecute
beliefs. They also prosecute "speech" that might not have even
been intended to hurt! They allow victims to decide when crimes have been
committed, based on whether they feel "verbally abused."
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- This is bad, bad law.
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- Another example. ADL was on the scene in
Arizona to respond to teens' beating of two Mormon teenagers. "Police
said the suspects, with carved swastikas on their wrists, are accused of
attacking the Mormon teenagers with pellet guns and beating them. One of
the victims was sent to the hospital." Their crime, of course, is
wrong. It should be punished.
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- But it should be punished no more severely
than if the beaters had been Mormons attacking fellow LDS teens for revenge
or romantic rivalry or any other set of stupid reasons. US law should punish
actions and only actions. We can't say this enough.
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- Once the government involves itself in
prosecuting motives, thoughts, and beliefs-we are in big trouble. Those
in power can decide who to silence, censor, and imprison, based not on
criminal actions but on politically incorrect beliefs and biases.
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- In Holland, a cartoonist was recently imprisoned
for the night, and art was hauled from his home, because his work might
be "discriminatory" against Muslims! "He was arrested with
a great show of force, by around 10 policemen," said his spokeswoman.
The artist often mocks Muslims and also political leftists, and for that
"crime" he spent time in jail and his work was confiscated-in
a western country! This is only the beginning of what hate laws will do.
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- Mass media-led by ADL-shepherds Americans
into specious groupthink that is not morally or legally equitable. We have
now been taught for decades that hate is bad and tolerance good. This is
murky, shallow thinking about morality. This ill-thought-out mantra leaves
little room to hate evil, to be prejudiced against sexual deviance, to
be intolerant of social and moral evil, etc. It certainly shouldn't be
turned into law.
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- But it has been. ADL persuaded forty-five
states to legislate against "hate," telling its citizens how
they are allowed to feel and believe. This corruption of the law may soon
reach the federal level.
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- ADL was immediately present in Arizona
after the Mormons' assault, to hold a community forum and expound the terrifying
fact of multiplying hate crimes-the ADL rep said he was "scared to
death of what might happen in Arizona."
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- Scared to death? This hysterical language
characterizes ADL and media response to the "threat" of hate
crimes, which actually represent an infinitesimal percent of actual crimes
(1/20 of 1 percent at most).
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- Even if "hate crimes" were a
staggering threat, an unjust law will never help. We don't need any more
politically charged, unjust laws on the books. We need straightforward
laws and prosecution that apply equally to all criminals and all victims.
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- A week after the LDS beating, police still
couldn't decide if it was a hate crime. I guess it's kinda hard to
get inside someone else's head. It was none of their business in the first
place. Kids are entitled to hate. So are men. So are women. You aren't
entitled to act in violence on your strong emotions; that's what law and
police are for. Their threat of retribution helps us rein in strong human
passions, whether those passions incite us to act on ethnic resentment
or a grudge against an ex-lover. Both crimes equally violate the law. It
would be wrong to kill a black woman because she's your ex and you hate
her; it would be wrong to kill her because she's black and you hate blacks.
Both crimes are wrong. Good law is blind to the motives.
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- Bad ideologies and bad beliefs should only
be punished with public disapproval; they should be prosecuted in the courtroom
of public opinion. They should not be punished with jail time! The government
has no business inside our heads, legislating what we are allowed to believe
or to feel.
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- History is riddled with this abuse. For
millennia, people in power have made laws about what to believe; they have
imprisoned and executed those who violated their state orthodoxy. (Heard
of Galileo? Socrates? Jesus?) This is the course of human affairs; government
slides into tyranny. It will happen in the US unless enough people realize
that it doesn't matter how much the public agrees that racist or other
beliefs are bad-we must not criminalize beliefs.
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