Hate Crimes Bill signedFollow

As we've said already, "hate" and "hate crime" is like thinking "global warming" means "global temperatures are rising equivalently all over the world." Hate crimes encompass those that you listed. Things ARE being added to it; for example, sexual orientation and disability were JUST signed in with this act.

As for why the specified hate crimes are in there, here's one quote:


I think I see your point, trying to include more groups in, but you'd have to ask a legislator why domestic violence is less harmful to society than racially motivated violence. Perhaps one day it will be added in. Of course, then it wouldn't really be a "hate" crime; a woman isn't getting beaten (usually) BECAUSE she's a woman. Hate crimes attack the identity of the victims; domestic abuse doesn't necessarily do that. However, if a wife was beaten because her husband is a misogynist, and that's the reason, then it would fall under hate crime laws, IMO.

Wouldn't it just depend on the rape?

Not all rape is about hating women, just almost all of it.

And why do you exclude female --> male rape?

Yes you see I got that. I didn't get whether you were advocating that all rape would be hate crime, or that people would argue in the future, that all rape would be hate crime.

In either case, the notion that a rape necessitates a hate crime seems absurd.

Excluding unintentional or mutually regretful sex "rapes" you can still have date rapes, or stalker rapes, or even married couple rapes. It's just not difficult at all to imagine when a rape would be purely about the victim, personally, instead of the victim's class, and it's just as easy to imagine it when it is about the victim's class.

Okay, point taken.

Marital rape is a form of domestic abuse; and yet... all rape is about power, control, and rage. So yeah, I'm not sure they could be broken out as meaningful subsets.

Eh, whatever. Idle speculation, anyway.

Let me try

You're a horny 20 something male. You've been dating this lady for like 2 months and DAMN she just will NOT put out. You've bought her dinner and cleaned her shoes and go shopping with her, and she reciprocates; she takes you out to cool places and lets you use her car and you feel that it's just time for yall to have sex, dammit (and she wants it too you know, but doesn't know it yet), I mean why not? You're not just attractive but you get her: with the same interests and same goals, and vice versa: you "love" her. So one night, you slip some concoction in the ginger ale and take advantage of the situation.

I can't really see how that is a crime against the lady, insofar, or aggravated, by her being a lady. It is, however, an obsession over the lady in some exceedingly warped version of... well I'm not sure I could say, but it seems as if the obsession is about her person, and not her sex.

It's still about power, sure, but it's about having power over one other human being, while the abstraction to their class is certainly possible, necessary seems too strong.



It's better than trying to collect data!

Edited, Oct 30th 2009 10:00am by Pensive

Wow. I just don't even know where to begin.

So you know what? I'm not gonna. I already have the fUCking flu to deal with. That's enough of a disgusting plague for one human.

Anyone who thinks they deserve sex from a woman to the point where they take it by force (and yes, drugging her into submission is still using force) shows at the least a disrespect for the female gender and a feeling of superiority over that gender.

Sure, it's about power, but not just power over that particular woman. Power over all women, really. Because he's bought her dinner and a movie and she owes him something in return. It doesn't matter what woman it is, he would've done that to any woman.

ETA: By the way, I'm not entirely invested in this argument, just trying to be helpful and see things from a different angle. I could go either way on this, probably...

Edited, Oct 30th 2009 9:32am by Belkira

There's no such thing, you know. Date rape is like Hegel: without Marx, it's nothing.

♪♪Let me tell you 'bout a girl I know,
Had a drink about an hour ago,
Sitting in a corner by herself,
In a bar in downtown 'ell, well...♪♪

Well yeah, I know the angle, and I tried to make it more equitable in the description, but obviously, I failed to direct the focus of the readers in imagination, so I'll try again with boring prose.

There is at least a nominal difference between going on one date, buying dinner, and expecting sex as payment, and being -in dating- for two months, where it's not just one person buying dinner, but a mutual exchange of lots of things, ideal and physical. I'd suggest the difference is more than nominal, as well, because in the first case, you're more attempting to buy sex, and in the latter, sex would become part of the bond. We might could tell a story about the first date dinner currency exchange, but that's not precisely what I was trying. Regardless.

Now look, like you, I'm not imagining these things to diminish a rape... but rather to show the possibility of one person raping another person, instead of one person raping another class. Both seem to be possible to me, and you might even be able to do both at once, but they could be separated in theory. I think we lose some complexity if we totally eliminate various possibilities. I won't speculate on the actuality, but the possibility is clear as day to me.

Also, from where I'm sitting, if I were to be forcibly molested, sexually, physically, whatever, I'd feel kind of insulted if someone wanted to reduce it entirely to my class. It's not an abstract class that gets primarily assaulted (the abstract comes later, if at all); it's a breathing human, with emotions and thoughts, and I'm extremely leery of attempts to simplify those sorts of things. I don't know, maybe it could comfort someone, but if I think to the neither life-ruining nor particularly good parts of my life, I'd rather think about those events as happening to me, and not enabled purely because of what I represent.



Is a preposterously bad interpretation of the hypothetical...

Edited, Oct 30th 2009 10:57am by Pensive

This is what you're going with?



You're going with that? It's a preposterously bad hypothetical any way you interpret it.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. Discussing rape makes me slightly uneasy.

Probably the most well-known hate crimes were lynchings of African-Americans in the south. That is clearly different than random murders and the effect was different--it was a movement to terrorize all African Americans at that time. I think to ask why that's different than someone being killed for being an government employee ignores the pernicious nature of racism, for example and how it is reinforced in the culture despite the efforts of the government to enforce antidiscrimination legislation.

Just because women as a class aren't included, doesn't mean that it's not a valuable law. It just isn't far reaching enough. And I will say given the fact that this is the first major federal bill even addressing the rights of transgendered people, it's a major vicotry.

Edited, Oct 30th 2009 11:38am by Annabella