If I love to hate someone does the counterbalance mean a shorter sentence?

You know, in this obvious application of double standards, my defense would be this:

"So I was walking down the hallway and I noticed a Koran laying on the floor. Not wanting this holiest of books to be stepped on accidentally, I picked it up. Unfortunately, I am a dirty infidel and the book burst immediately into flames. Only my quick thinking prevented this icon of love, this scripture of peace, from being consumed entirely. Despite the righteous and holy fire burning my hands, I gently submerged the book in water, thereby quenching Allah's wrath."

"The book was saved, but in my haste, I failed to realize that the calming blue waters that had originally attracted me to this oasis wrought of tile and steel, was nothing more than the toilet in the mens bathroom. Upon realizing my grievous error, I tried to take my own life, alas I was intercepted by the "National Thought Crimes Unit" before I could do so."

1. Hate crime is unenforceable. No one can look inside anyone else's heart. The only way to genuinely enforce would be to catch a perpetrator screaming the following during the commission of a crime: "I hate this class of victim more than other classes of victims! Yeaarrrgh!" Even if a perp hated a class of victims in the morning, he might not hate that class of victims after lunch. Genuine, actual enforcement of hate crime is a fantasy. It is unenforceable.

1A. Trying to counter this reality, via creating special victim classes, according to race, gender, et al, goes against the very fabric of America. Americans have died to prevent/end such discrimination, and also to preserve America and it's Constitution. Hate crime legislation dishonors them.

2. An intentionally horrifying scenario - stay with me: If a person kills a Muslim as a protest, were they a] protesting the individual human being, or were they b] protesting the ideas contained inside the religion? Technically, legally, they were protesting the ideas contained inside the religion. They can be prosecuted for murder. They can be put to death, in Texas, at least. Yet protesting ideas is a constitutional right. I don't see how, in this scenario, a person can be additionally, specifically, hate-crime prosecuted for directing their ire at a Muslim, since protesting ideas is legal.

This is the Hirsi Ali argument: there is no Islamophobia which is analogous to racial or gender phobia. Islam is not a race or a gender, but a conglomeration of ideas. While it is logical to prosecute murder, and to penalize the murderer with all legal tools available; it is illogical to prosecute a protest against religious ideas, assuming the perp admitted to such a protest, which is the only way one could know for sure such a protest was happening - as opposed to mere murder, which can obviously happen for any variety of reasons.

Rachel,

One minor nitpick: I think that if you filmed yourself doing what you suggest to a bible, post it to u-tube, and then go to a chat area with a lot of christians in it, you very well may be accused of hate. I think you likely would be, and perhaps rightfully so. The difference, and it is important, is that you would not be prosecuted for it. And it is rather unlikely that you would be threatened with violence for it.

Christianity has not always been so tame in America, and perhaps it has not been so tame even recently in places like, oh say, Ireland, but on the whole it has become more or less entirely reconciled to the primacy of secular governments and no longer (the no longer is important) seeks to impose itself through coersion.

I too think that the prosecution of this fellow for abusing the Koran is an outrage. Many, particularly on the left to not view radical Islam as an existential threat. However, even ruling out the acquisition of nuclear weapons (which will change the game utterly) anything can be an existential threat if you lie down and bare your throat for the sword. It seems that much of western civiliztion is prepared to do exactly that.

I need a drink...

doug

Okay. Under that logic, we can arrest nearly anyone. How's this:

Banning books in the classroom? Hate crime.

Banning pot? Hate crime.

Talking on your cell phone in a grocery store while you're checking out? Hate crime.

I think people need to learn that we DON'T have the right to not be offended. You don't have the right to make someone stop doing something if it doesn't hurt you directly. People who practice violent Islam need to grow a pair.

While I generally oppose hate crime legislation, the instinct to do it is not, perhaps, trivially dismissed.

If one paints a swastika on the door of a Jew or burns a cross on the lawn of a black person, it the only crime misdemenor property damage? Well, yes, in one sense it is. And as a matter of principle, not wanting to punish mere thought, it ought to stay that way.

But those activities are often associated with people and groups who seek to intimidate through the implication of violence, and should they get the opportunity, through violence itself. It is the urge to stem this that leads to the perhaps misguided urge for hate crime legislation.

Even if you are completely opposed to hate crime legislation it is still difficult to know what to do in an attempt to more proactively limit violence against groups that are marginalized and traditionally hated.

Interesting logic these liberals have.

Burning the American flag? Protected speech.

Putting a Koran in the toilet? A felony count of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment.

I'd like to see them try this crap anywhere other than New York, California, or the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

And I agree with you that the very concept of "hate crime legislation" is complete bunk. Indeed, the very principle behind it is repugnant and unAmerican. Why? Several reasons.

First, charging someone with a "hate crime" is essentially punishing them for their private thoughts. The key here is understanding the distinction between the "intent" and the "motive" of the criminal. The intent is what you are planning to do, but the motive is the reason why you do it in the first place. If a man kills his wife, his intent was to murder her, but his motive was that she was cheating on him or she had a lucrative life insurance policy. A "hate crime" is basically the criminalization of the motive of the crime, in addition to the intent. And since the motive only exists within the mind of the criminal, criminalizing the motive is the same as criminalizing private thoughts.

Second, "hate crimes" are inevitably subject to double standards. There have been countless black-on-white crimes throughout the years that could be considered "hate crimes", but how many black criminals have ever been charged with a hate crime? I know of only one off hand. Since the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution demands that all laws be equally applied to all American citizens, a double standard in the law would be blatantly unconstitutional.

Third, there is a serious danger that "hate crimes" could one day be expanded to include anything that even offends another person. We can see this already in Canada. Section 14 of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code says the following:

"14(1) No person shall publish or display, or cause or permit to be published or displayed, on any lands or premises or in a newspaper, through a television or radio broadcasting station or any other broadcasting device, or in any printed matter or publication or by means of any other medium that he owns, controls, distributes or sells, any representation, including without restricting the generality of the foregoing, any notice, sign, symbol, emblem, article, statement or other representation:

...

(b) which exposes, or tends to expose, to hatred, ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person, any class of persons or a group of persons; because of his or their race, creed, religion, colour, sex, sexual orientation, family status, marital status, disability, age, nationality, ancestry, place of origin or receipt of public assistance.

In short, you may not display, publish, or broadcast anything "hateful", even if you personally own and/or control the medium by which you do so.

For the first time in my life, I wish I was in New York. I would walk up to the front door of the closest mosque and shit on the front step. It's not a hate crime. It's a shit. On your doorstep. Have fun cleaning it up. I just had corn.

Sounds like a good case for the ACLU

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I think that allowing a dog to crap on something shows, at best, disdain for the object in question. If I saw you allowing your pet to crap on some religion's holy text or relic or what have you, I would believe that you hated the object and/or religion in question. I would think it showed very poor taste and a lack of character. I would not, however, think you should be arrested and imprisoned for it.

I tend to agree with the general consensus emerging, that a "hate crime" is essentially punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions. It pre-supposes we know why someone acted in a particular fashion and punishes them for what we believe they were thinking at the time. Orwellian much?

There is also the blatant double-standard previously mentioned. And the flag-burning analogy. And the equal protection under the law. All things I thought of and was gonna write such an AWESOME post about before I saw it'd already been done by earlier commenters.

As has been said many times (but I'll say it again for the same reason that I joined the NRA), hate crime is semantically indistinguishable from thought crime.

The essential thing in my op is to sustain a low simmering rage over each new invasion of privacy (hate think); each new infringement of Constitutional rights (e.g., to crap on a book, to purchase 500 guns if one desires, to call someone an ass); and regulations requiring yet another sticker, stamp, test, assessment, fee, or fine administered by all the petty agents of the state---pretentious schmucks with cheesey badges.

Accepting these as normal, put-up-with-able, inconveniences, something merely to whine about, or something we can't do anything about----in other words, either hopelessness, unconcern, or cooptation ("Well," says the supine libtard, "then don't say hateful things."---THAT is the death of our liberty.

Let the rage simmer until it explodes---preferably in mass expressions of displeasure.

Consider the Boston Tea Party.

Consider hanging in effigy certain politicians and representatives of pc groups, and our muzzie enemies and their supporters/enables.

Rhymes with HAIR.

Let them wonder what we will do next.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure." [Jefferson]

We don't need blood.

We need balls.

Sorry for the long quotation, but Americans should memorize it.

It's our future.

If we let it be so.

It would seem that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days,
it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade
men without tormenting them. (p. 335)

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes
upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate.
The power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like
the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men
for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual
childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they
think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government
willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter
of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their
necessities,facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns,
directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides
their inheritance: what remains but to spare them all the care of thinking
and all the trouble of living. Thus it every day renders the exercise of the
free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will
within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.
The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to
endure them and often to look on them as benefits... Such a power does not destroy,
but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes,
and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. (pp. 336-337)
[Alexis de Tocqueville. From Democracy in America, Volume II. 1840]

What Lance said...

if I took a Bible, got Sunny and Digger to take a dump on it, and then set it afire. Would you want me charged with felonies for desecrating something you hold sacred, for my act of personal expression?

Air pollution, maybe.

I never have figured out the value of 'hate crime' legislation. Punish the criminal for the injury; the motivation is not usually relevant.

Lance,

It is unfortunate that works such as Tocqueville's
Democracy in America are no longer required reading in the majority of gummint indoctrination centers schools.
This is considered the unholy canon of Western Civ -- y'knowm DWM [Dead White Males].

Hate crime legislation is completely unconstitutional. Suppose Sunny and Digger pooped on a copy of Das Kapital. Hate crime indictment?

"Air pollution, maybe."

Some local KKK retards, here in Kaliforniastan were cited for air polution violations at a cross burning on private property. Now I don't sympathise with these cretins, but why not flag burners and soldier effigy burners? This is a rhetorical question.

If the KKK can be prosecuted for violating clean air laws if they burn a cross on private property, then anybody who has ever hosted a backyard barbecue can also be prosecuted.

The koran is a great book, for ME TO POOP ON!! /Triumph the Insult Comic Dog

"what would my Christian readers think if I took a Bible, got Sunny and Digger to take a dump on it, and then set it afire"

More curious.. what if you let the dogs eat the Koran, then shit it out?

Still a hate crime?

You know, if I ever wanted to have guest bloggers on here, I would have a truly awesome pool of commenters to pick from. Lance, sometimes you're funny and other times you simply knock my socks off. Mightysamurai, too. And a bunch of the rest of you, seriously, I'm surprised more of you don't have your own blogs because frankly, you're smarter than me and make my points ten times better.

It's like...oh hell. I'm just going to write a post about this.

Flushing the Koran is a hate crime, but burning the American flag is protected political speech, eh? Does anyone else sense something wrong here? If you feel like I do, pop over to YouTube and have a look at "fuck america" by whopeedinthedarkroom. Punks who think burning a flag and putting it on YT is a laugh are waiting to hear from you. Maybe Rachel can rig a hot link.

You might say I'm disrespectful, a sinner, wrong in every way, but I'd be willing to bet a thousand bucks that not one reasonable Christian would accuse me of "hate".

I certainly would.

Of course, that follows the fact that I don't think hate is a fucking crime. It's actually one of the three primary colors that create the entire spectrum of the human psyche. Putting someone in prison for hate is like- simile fails- putting them in prison for having bad thoughts.

What always amazes me about these cases is the slopeheaded dimwittitude of the protesting parties. They could have easily prosecuted for vandalism or public health violations or whatever else if they just wanted to shut him up while sending a message to the rest of us wiseass infidels.

But no, they just have to get their jihad on, much like the drama queens who arrest flag-burners for "desecration" instead of just charging them for starting a fire in the middle of the fucking street.

"Talking on your cell phone in a grocery store while you're checking out?" I thought that was grounds for justifiable homicide...

Historically, hate crimes legislation seems to have been an effort by the federal government to ensure crimes were prosecuted the same for everyone (if a white prosecutor in the South wouldn't charge a white man for a crime against a black, hate crimes laws could ensure some measure of justice could be done). Now, it's an attempt to make some hate more important than another. That way lies madness.

If you really want to conduct an experiment (and I'm not truly suggesting this, just making a point, as I presume you are), have one dog crap on a bible and the other crap on a koran. We can then judge people by how they respond.

I'm guessing that the average Christian would feel more offense from seeing the defaced bible, but argue that both acts were wrong, or at least disrespectful. I'm sure at least some Muslims would agree, but the average Muslim? That question is left as an exercise for the reader.

What scares me more than the muzzies is my own countrymen ("men" includes women).

We are allowing political hacks, lawyers, opinion makers, race baiters, sex and gender narcissists (like I give a shit whether you cut it off, reshape it so it looks like a banana split, or simply wear it on your hat. Just go away and shut the fuck up about your damn dick, wouldja?), wannabe dictators with visions of a just world (that they'll shove down our throats, or any orifice they can get aholt of)---to wear us down with one after another assault on commonsense (shackles and prison for bopping a few willing butts?), liberty ("Say whatever you want, except what we tell you not to say."), and even sanity (persecuting upstanding citizens but protecting our mortal enemies).

They attack us one by one, so it's hard to stand up to them in a mass.

Think of the reaction if that ass lawyer in Oregon jailed 15 boys, not just two. The prosecutor would be eating from a straw after 10 parents broke his face in 12 places.

Instead of rage, the other parents go "Tsk Tsk. Glad that wasn't our Jeffrey. Now Jeffrey, don't you do what those boys did. Look what happened to them."

And little Jeff gets a lesson in the virtue of chickenshit.

Somehow we need to keep score, to stay mad.

We need a website that does nothing but document assaults on our liberty.

That names names and provides addresses.

We got google maps.

"Watch your back, pal. We're coming."

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
(Hamlet, in Hamlet, III: II)

Those of youse with little kids, teach 'em to read with "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons." (14.95).

Or "funnix." funnix.com

Don't let the schools make them illiterate.

http://educationation.org/page2.html

Sorry for the preaching.

"I wonder, what would my Christian readers think if I took a Bible, got Sunny and Digger to take a dump on it, and then set it afire. Would you want me charged with felonies for desecrating something you hold sacred, for my act of personal expression? I don't think you would."

I would just comfort myself with the knowledge that God will smite you with eternal damnation in Hell and let bygones be bygones in the meantime.

You can burn my flag but I have to treat your book with kid gloves? I don't think so.

I'm planning on contacting the Scott Paper company and seeing if they can print up some copies of the Koran on nice soft two ply. I figure I can piss off the islamonazis and Cheryl Crow at the same time.

"I think people need to learn that we DON'T have the right to not be offended." - Bonnie B.

Ah but Political Correctness gives 'em the right( at least according to them ), which is why I hate it so violently ( does that make me guilty of a hate crime? :P ). PC is in my opinion a deliberate attempt to change our very language and way of thinking to something more to the liking of elitists who believe they know how to run our lives better than we do. PC at it's very heart says that we must not offend anyone - therefore most insidiously it makes it a crime to state truth.

I'm a lurker..I agree with most posts and love the dog pictures..don't put clothes on your dog.

I love comments too and most people are smarter than me, yet my posts are usually rants and raves and mindless things..my last post was about being overjoyed at a new Lion's Choice..no real depth there.

How about replacing that Koran with a special edition? An illustrated copy bound in pigskin and autographed by Joseph Lieberman.

Here is the NY State law on hate crimes.

Law File Changes - Hate Crimes Act of 2000
The Hate Crimes Act of 2000 (Chapter 107 of the laws of 2000) was signed into law on July 10, 2000
and took effect on October 8, 2000. This law added a new Article 485 to the Penal Law entitled
“Hate Crimes” and provided that a person commits a hate crime when he or she commits a “specified
offense” (as defined in the law) and either:
(a) intentionally selects the person against whom the offense is committed or intended to be
committed in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race,
color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual
orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct, or
(b) intentionally commits the act or acts constituting the offense in whole or in substantial part
because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender,
religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of
whether the belief or perception is correct.
When a person is convicted of a hate crime pursuant to Article 485, the law provides for the level of a
hate crime to be deemed one category higher than the specified offense, when that specified offense is a
misdemeanor or a class C, D or E felony. When the specified offense is a class B or A-1 felony, the
term of sentence is enhanced.

While I'm not a lawyer, but reading this, you need to commit a crime, in this case vandalism, against an individual, Pace U.?, said crime based on belief or perception...

So if an action is based on a belief related to race, color creed blah blah blah, directed at an individual it's a hate crime, directed at an institution (government, university, religious group in general) is not a hate crime,it's a statement, ie burning the US flag.

So...If I take an individual's book and desicrate it because I think he is an ass, no crime. If I take an individual's book and desicrate it because I think his religon, skin color ect. is wrong then it's a hate crime.

So when somebody asks why did you take a dump a dude's koran, all you got to say is "I did it because he is a pig's ass, it's got nothing to do with his race, color creed, blah blah blah.

Lawyers what say you?
Hurry, I got a load ready to go.

They attack us one by one, so it's hard to stand up to them in a mass.

A poem comes to mind...

First they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables,
and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't mentally ill.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and I shouted, "Help! Help!"

But there was no one left to hear me.

I read this story yesterday and my jaw just dropped. It's so absurd! I truly cannot comprehend how this can be happening. How can any American not understand the danger in this?

And Rachel, if you did do that to a bible I'd be very sad. :( But I can assure you that I would never wish death upon you or want you arrested. :)

Where does all this insanity end?!?!?!

MorrisAO -

I make it a point to say exactly what I think. Fuck being politically correct. If someone's offended by what I say, I'll shrug and tell them that everyone's entitled to their opinion. I don't go out of my way to offend people with words, but if I have a point or opinion to add to a conversation, I won't hold back simply because I think I'm going to hurt someone's feelings by disagreeing with them.

In other words, I agree with you. Being PC is for pussies. There's "polite" and there's "pushover". We're sacrificing our own rights as Americans to cater to asshats, some of whom gladly burn our flag and tell us that they want us to die? And they're able to post those horrible videos on YouTube while Rachel's squirrel video is taken off for being "too violent"?

The U.S. to immigrants and foreigners: "Hey, gimme a second to pull down my pants and bend over...no, that's okay, I don't need lube...yeah, you can smack me around, too. Just leave the money on the dresser when you're done...I trust you..."

And let's not forget:

Koran in the crapper? Hate crime.

Crucifix submerged in urine? Art (with grants).

Actually SDN, it's not "art" it's "your tax dollars at work." Of course, there's also the Virgin Mary with dung flicked at her that represents "your tax dollars at work." Then there's Robert Mapplethorpe and his "art" pictures of men with fists in their rectum (...damn near killed 'em!).

Makes me wonder what kind of "art" we could come up with if we had a Swedish tax rate of 50%+???

Gotta go. I gotta take a dump and I lost my Talmud...er...Watchtower...Book of Mormon...er...Baghvad Gita...

> what would my Christian readers think if I took a Bible, got Sunny and Digger to take a dump on it, and then set it afire.

We'd think you were out to get a public assistance grant for the arts, of course.

... Performance Arts, in this case.