This still goes on?Follow

Wait is that the same Alma that I noticed all over the Prop 8 thread?

Get out of my thread!

You guys sure know how to **** up a mediocre thread.

Here straight from the FBI! Xsarus is right, Alma is a *********

Motivation and intent matter when investigating and determining penalties for crimes. Apparently you don't like this, but that's still the way it is. In your "twist" of my example if it was a coincidence that he was killing only people from one group then it wouldn't be a hate crime. Again, you use an example of something that clearly isn't a hate crime in order to try and establish that there can't be a hate crime. Doesn't work, sorry.

But you haven't shown this at all. All you've done is show a few examples of things that are clearly not hate crimes. You went out of your way to show that they weren't hate crimes, and no one was ever saying they were. It's like we're talking about stealing and you keep yelling that someone buying a car is an example of not stealing, and so clearly no one can steal.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2010 8:52pm by Xsarus

I have frankly yet to see the point of Alma's argument. It doesn't matter what the crime is, murder, premeditated, manslaughter, if there is a hatred or prejudice against the other person, that can be proven then it can or could be considered a hate crime.

I don't know why Alma keeps bringing up **** like killing someone because they don't like the color red. That's assuming everyone is a complete dumbass when it comes to interpreting the law. Everyone knows that it's an injustice against another ethnicity, sexual preference, and religion at least those are probably the main three.

So please...wtf are you trying to get at?

One word: obtuse.

I think I actually get the point that he's trying to make. I don't think it's far off from the one that I put forward before, which everyone pretty much ignored.

I highly doubt that he's trying to literally say that examples of "hating people who like the color red" are hate crimes under the current definition of the law. Rather, he's probably arguing that objectively, there is no reason that the categories that fall under hate crime legislation (race, sexuality, etc.) should be considered any different than any other quality about a victim.

If it is a hate crime to kill somebody because you hate their race, it should be a hate crime to kill somebody because you don't like the cut of his jib. Because if it is not, the law itself is ethically wrong. It arbitrarily sets a hierarchy of victims...hate against one type is worse than hate against another type.

@ Xsarus: You argue that motivation and intent dictate punishment. They do, but only insofar as they separate things like manslaughter from murder, 2nd degree murder from 1st degree murder, etc. etc. Key factors being things like premeditation, level of violence, and things like that. I believe that those separations are legitimate ones. I do not believe that those defining what is and isn't a hate crime are legitimate.

I'll bring up the example that I used before:



It is an analogous situation, with one key difference: one victim is homosexual. I am asking: why can we provide extra protection under the law for one victim, and not the other? It violates the 14th amendment.


Edited, Oct 4th 2010 1:24pm by Eske

Here is the US version, via wikipedia:

You can sit there and claim there is no reason to. Some people might believe you, other people won't. The simple fact of the matter is that is it against the law no matter how you want to look at. In a society where slavery was once allowed they are trying to get the point across that hatred and prejudice against other races and such will not be tolerated.

And as some people have stated there is probably a higher chance of a repeat offender when it comes to hate crimes. If they have a more severe punishment it will put them away longer, preventing some needless killing to a certain group.

I don't think you realize how an hate crime affects an community, wither it be racial, sexual, gender or disable the problem with saying it just the same, is not seeing why we might need a separate law against hate crimes.

Hate crimes are meant to create fear in a group, because they are more likely to find themselves a victim due to something they can't change about themselves.

If Matthew Shepard had just been another Heterosexual guy at the bar, he may have died to any normal reason someone becomes a victim of murder. What rises his murder to a hate crime is that his murders wanted to make sure guy men got a message, that they were not welcome at the same place the murders go for drinks and picking up women.

It's the same when a black made is dragged behind a pickup truck or lynched. The act is to cause fear to any black person who stands up for themselves.

I have a personal stake in this too though for one of my close friends was murder walking home from a bar were they had gone for years after work for a drink. Their killer had gone on a crime spree that day starting with 2 random car jackings and beating a man with a 2 by 4 during a robbery, this was getting reported before the evening news, when on came breaking news that 4 young adults that by now the police were looking, for had shot someone who was transgender.

Why robbery could be shown as the motive for the other 3 crimes, they had not rob Tracy, haven driven off in the car they stole leaving Tracy to die just a block from their home, The same home were my girls would stay while visiting their father, for a few months while she live with Tracy.

In court it was proven to be a hate crime, by the statements the 4 gave, when caught later that evening in the hotel room they holed up in.

I wasn't sure who was killed, when it was first reported that evening, but my daughters and I watch in fear, knowing that it was most likely someone we knew. Back then we knew just about every out transgender person in the area, and it could have been their father. That's the fear the murders wanted to create and got that day. It's a fear my family has to live with, since my ex is more likely to become a victim of random violent crime due to hate of anyone being different from the "Norm."

I was using the singular, if this was indeed what you're referring to. I'm specifically using an example where all factors are the same other than the victim, including amount of people killed. Of course, if we're comparing someone who killed multiple homeless people to someone who killed multiple homosexual people, it'd be the same thing again. The latter would have a larger sentence, on account of being guilty of multiple hate crimes.

Not that it would really matter in practicality in that case...they'd both be in for life either way.

Edited, Oct 4th 2010 6:20pm by Eske

I'm sorry to hear about the story.

Apologies for going right back after you after hearing it, but that doesn't legitimize hate crime laws. Kavekk brought up the idea that hate crime laws were in place "because hate crime is designed to spread fear among the targeted group" already. But turns out that isn't actually part of hate crime legislation: you don't have to prove that the crime was "designed to spread fear" at all. In a given case, that might not even be a driving motivation of the criminal; it wouldn't matter, because it's a hate crime either way.

If your anecdote was about a homeless person that you knew instead of a transgender, then it wouldn't be a hate crime. Why is that fair?

As I see it, if people want larger sentences for crimes against a particular type of person, then that's fine, but they'd have to apply across the board.

There should not be a hierarchy based on type of victim. It violates "equal protection under the law."

Edited, Oct 4th 2010 6:36pm by Eske