The Republicans, lead by Trent Lott, claim that all crimes are crimes of hate. That’s why, adding hate crime legislation to a military spending bill is senseless, inappropriate and simply wrong, and they will do their best to preserve the expected Presidential veto of the legislation later this week.
The Democrats, headed up by Ted Kennedy, claim that, if anything, this is MOST appropriate, citing that a bill to fund our military against terrorism should be no less supportive of domestic terrorism – and hate crimes are exactly that.
Interestingly, the bill is only an addition to existing legislation. Currently, the federal hate crime legislation says that you will be charged differently and quite harshly for crimes against another with proven racial, religious or gender-based motivation. The new bill adds gender identity ie., homosexuals, transsexuals, transvestites etc.
So why are the Republicans so up in arms? First off, during the Rubber Stamp days of the Bush administration, they added all kinds of riders and supplemental legislation to bills that had nothing at all to do with the original intent of the law. This is done all the time by the way – it’s a method to get something through Congress without having to go through the entire process of getting a bill to the floor. Don’t let the Repubs fool you – they’ve been doing this for just as long and as effectively as Democrats.
The point here, is GAY. Republicans cannot allow themselves to be seen as surrendering to gay issues in ANY WAY because of the religious right that now so thoroughly dominates the discussion on the “Family Values” side of the aisle.
Republicans say that “Any legislation that singles people out for better treatment than others is wrong.” That’s simply a cop out. The law does not give any one person a significant advantage over another. You might as well have them admit that they perceive this legislation to put the needs of black people, women and gays above the rights of Clean Livin’ God aFearin White Folk. That is a lie: The bill specifically states that you cannot perform crimes based on race… not on being an African American. On gender… not if you are a woman. On Sexual orientation… not if you are gay. This means that if a black man beats up a white man in a fit of prejudice he is just as liable to get spanked by the law. If a woman kills a man because she despises his testicles, she is fair game by the Attorneys General. And if a group of gay men round up some breeders and force then to listen to Barbara Streisand albums they may be eligible for the death penalty.
But all of that is not very likely, is it? Really, the people that do the beating, terrorism and murder is men – particularly white men (at least when it comes to hate crimes). Republicans simply don’t want their buddies’ to get bagged for their behavior Back In The Holler.
What with the likes of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, David Drier, Ken Mehlman, Ted Haggard, Bob Allen, Glenn Murphy and so many others, Republicans are simply proving themselves to be the Hypocrisy Party. And when it comes to protecting people because of their race, religeon or sexual orientation, Republicans are trying hard to rewrite “Hate” into a family value.
A crime is a crime. It doesn’t really matter why you hurt somone or destroyed their property. By giving control to the government you are asking for one team to pick on its enemies and help its friends. This is the way of government. When the red team is in power they hate fags, when the blue team is in power they hate somone else (who do democrats hate besides republicans?, oh rich people!!) –insert rich people here–.
Why not just take the government completely out of it and let individuals choose?
I agree with you Lupus, mostly.
But here is something important that I think you’re overlooking here. The noose, for example, is a symbol of terrorism. It has been a way for white cowards to keep black people down for a long time. These symbols are used in a way that almost no other symbol in America is used today… even the swastika does not carry as much weight here, because although the actions of the 3rd Reich were horrific, they were not *here to our own people* and done in the cover of night. We as a country tackled that one together… but the noose particularly is used to silence speech, to silence those damn uppidy Neeegros back where the belong. Terrorism is not free speach, and although I completely get your point, I think this falls outside of that domain.
“A crime is a crime.”
My car was just vandalized last week at a party where I and a bunch of other gay people were hanging out. They burned my car with a flare gun all over – and they wrote a homophobic slur on the hood, and they did the same to another friend of mine’s car. This wasn’t just a crime of vandalizing our cars – our cars were chosen because they were across the street from a party where a bunch of gay people were at and these vandals wanted to say that gay people don’t belong in their neighborhood. So it’s two crimes – vandalism, AND an act to push people like me out of their community.
You have to understand that some crimes are targetted towards whole groups of people. They are not just a crime against the individual, but are done to silence or humiliate whole groups of people. That’s why hate crime legislation is neccessary – it recognizes that some crimes are against a specific community, not just the actual crime itself.
Oh that’s just frigging horrible Nate. First off, I’m sorry to hear about that vandalism, but second – I think you are spot on regarding the issue – there is a difference between your “Garden Variety Vandalism” and this – clearly, the insinuation is “I’d be willing to use this torch on you if I can get you in a dark enough place and get away with it – so you’d better leave my neighborhood.”
Terrorism, plain and clear. And I think that it needs to carry a very different kind of weight than just “tagging” or burglary.
Again, I’m sorry about your car
you know, my car is insured so it’s no big deal. It will get fixed. But this brings up the issue of what was the real crime. For me, I felt really violated that I’m just going along my day and then find that someone damaged my property to make a point that I don’t belong in that neighborhood. And everyone in the party came out and saw what happened, and it was like a crime against all of us.
My car will be fixed and no one got hurt or anything, but the worst thing about that whole experience was feeling like people were telling us to get out of their community, even threatening us by doing this. That to me was the bigger crime than anything that happened to my property.
Sometimes I fell like it would be a great community service for some of me and the rest at our dojo to come have a little party in your neighborhood…
perhaps whitebread breaders ( roflmao: – am I allowed to say that, being one and all?) just need a little lesson in fear themselves.
OK, foolishness over – I think your attitude is great but the fact that you have to be the bigger one against a world that seems to be a long line of anger followed by a parade of stupid (Apologies to Queen Latifa & Hairspray) is just plain wrong.
But as crime is concerned, justice must be blind.
I think it’s absolutely disgusting and repulsive to hate anyone for things he cannot control such as the color of his skin or the gender of person to which he is attracted, but that does not mean it should be illegal to do so.
Motive is useful in establishing guilt, but in my opinion it should never influence the outcome of verdict. That’s just my opinion though. I want to be free to think whatever I want. We can’t make it illegal to think a certain way, no matter how horribly wrong that way of thinking may be.
Here is an interesting gray line.
If I talk about killing the president, I will be arrested by the NSA or FBI or SS or somebody because my words are something different than free speach. Why is this so? Because there are places where the interpretation of speach would lead us to believe that there is malicious intent or even intent to harm another person.
The notion of Free Speach was defined in a political context, not necessarily where I can spout something that infers that I’d be willing to kill you because I don’t like you. Note: Hatred is one thing and should be protected. Terrorism by way of harmful intent language should be reevaluated IMO because it is a different animal.
And wrapping myself in a flag while I “make sure them niggers know their place” is NOT RIGHT imo.