No, the 1968 vandalism with the scrawled words “Hey Jude” wasn’t a hate crime, even though ANY reasonable person in Britain would have interpreted it as a reference to Jews and the Holocaust, the Beatles song having not come out yet. Why? Because the words were scrawled – that is, the act of vandalism was committed – by none other than Paul McCartney. He knew about the song, he knew it was coming out soon, and he wrote the words on the Apple building to promote the upcoming release. The anti-Semetic words involved simply had a different meaning for him. (And now today, for us.)

Great to see your comments in here. Your buddies in TG would be proud of your support of them and NDT.

Well, for those unfit parents who do so, that’s probably the ideal future they expect for their little charges. After all, there’s only so far down you can go.

And since they are also probably pro-choice, I wonder why they didn’t make “that choice” and therefore spare those little kids the embarrassment and shame. Some people have no right to be parents.

Right as always, NDT.

Regards,
Peter H.

Other points.

While ABC is generally mainstream, their 20/20 program is right of center. John Stossel is a conservative. And it shows in his reporting. 20/20′s assertions about the lynching of Matt Shepard have been completely debunked.

To those of y’all who are so committed to ‘libertarian principles’ when it comes to keeping existing hate crimes protections for other groups but keeping Gays excluded, I ask you this: Has any Republican opponent of adding Gays to existing federal hate crimes laws introduced legislation to remove religion from existing federal hate crimes laws? Just curious.

Hate Crimes protections are important, especially in my native state of Alabama, where straight man shooting Gay man in the back of the head (murder) = 5 years in prison.

If someone goes out to rob anyone, thats a crime. If someone goes out with the purpose of attacking someone because they are Gay, then all Gays are potentially targets. It happens, you know that.

Given what gay liberals fully support and endorse, I think we can safely say that hate-crimes laws protect child molestors.

Oh, that’s right, dressing up children as sex slaves and taking them to sex fairs to “show off” for adults is an “educational experience”, and anyone who opposes it is “close-minded” and homophobic.

Indeed I will, JR, because you serve the extremely useful purpose of illustrating the sort of behavior that the gay community fully endorses and supports.

Would the Dirkhising case be considered a hate crime since it was perpetuated on a minor by two gay men?

Though hate had to be involved, on some level.

Speaking in a very general way, a huge problem with “hate crimes” is (again) that hate is often in the eye of the beholder. Here is another story and question.

Most people know about the Holocaust, and that the German word for Jews is “Juden” (pronounced yoo-den). The singular is “Jude” (pronounced yoo-duh) When an anti-Semitic bigot wants to make a Jew feel bad, he’ll call him that, meaning the Jewish person should have been killed in the Holocaust. In the summer of 1968, British police investigated as what we today would call a hate crime, a graffiti vandalism incident where someone spray-painted “Hey Jude” on a wall in London. The Beatles song had *NOT* come out yet, so nobody in the general public had that in mind. Was it a hate crime?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29026

Regards,
Peter H.

Anyone?

Let me elaborate.

Dirkhising was a 13-year-old boy in Arkansas who died after a horrific sexual crime that much of the national media ignored. Why? Because the boy’s accused killers were gay.

Dirkhising was bound, drugged, sodomized and raped for five hours before he died in 1999. In 2001, a jury convicted both Joshua Brown, then 23, and his lover, Davis Carpenter, then 39, of rape and first-degree murder and sentenced the pair to life in prison. Although both cases were appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, the high court upheld the original convictions in 2003. The pair is still behind bars.

Yet the case received little attention in the national media. Critics said that is evidence of pro-gay bias, noting that news organizations gave extensive coverage to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was hung on a fence post by two straight men and left to die.

According to Wikipedia, in the month after Shepard’s murder, LexisNexis recorded 3,007 stories about his death compared to only 46 in the month after the Dirkhising murder.

(Bias? What liberal media bias? But I digress.)

Now, think carefully. Especially our TITs here.

Would the Dirkhising case be considered a hate crime since it was perpetuated on a minor by two gay men?

Think VERY carefully before you answer.

Regards,
Peter H.

CLD terrorism is a crime. It is codified…

No, it is an act of war. I don’t doubt that it is codified as a crime, also, and that U.S. domestic terrorists are prosecuted in the criminal system. But terrorism is not an ordinary crime; it is an act of warfare by the terrorist against the whole society, as well as the State, and foreign terrorists captured in foreign countries have previously been (and morally ought to be) considered enemy combatants – albeit unlawful combatants.

As to terrorism, i.e., crimes motivated by political objectives, he stammers:

“Terrorism — violence committed for political motives — is an act of war. When it is treated as such of course it is handled differently.”

CLD terrorism is a crime. It is codified in the US Code and in many state criminal codes. It is regularly prosecuted as a crime and the motivation is an element of the crime. With the rise of Al Qaeda, a foreign army comprising thousands of foot soldiers, we wisely chose to treat some terrorists as armed combatants and to treat 9/11 as an act of war. But virtually all other terrorist acts (e.g., the Weather Underground, FALN, Oklahoma City, the Fort Dix plot, the Lackawanna Six, etc.) have been handled under the criminal code. In each case motive was part of the crime and the potential or resulting punishment was greater than would have been the case had the identical crimes been committed with other motives.

Murder is murderm with varying degrees already taken into consideration (1st degree, 2nd degree, manslaughter etc.) based upon that state’s laws.

It is quite disgusting how the left is using a murder for cheap political gain. But then again, what else is new?

Regards,
Peter H.

How about the murder of Sean Kennedy, a 20 year old gay man who died in 2007 after a night at the bar. The guy who murdered him only got 3 years sentence. THAT IS WHY we need hate crime laws.

No it ain’t, Matt. Even taking your description of the case exactly as given, it would still only be an example of why we need better murder laws, prosecutors, juries and judges.

Considerations of motive, however, are not the same as singling out certain motives as criminal offenses in and of themselves.

CLD, exactly.

Notice the very name of the thing we’re discussing – “hate crimes”. The “hate”, real or imagined (i.e., subjectively perceived), becomes a crime in itself, to receive extra punishments from the law. A subjective emotion, in and of itself, is now a crime alongside the real (or objective) crime.

That has nothing to do with analysis of motive in determining the level of criminal intent (and hence the nature of the crime). It criminalizes an emotion… or to say it another way, it criminalizes social and political views (real or imagined). Since thoughts are involved in both of those things, it’s what people mean when they say that hate crimes law criminalize thought. But I’ve learned something from your explanation: it’s the subjective aspect (the criminalizing of a subjectively felt/perceived emotion, namely “hate”) that make these laws ghastly and wrong.

livewire: when you want to have an adult conversation, you let us know.

We do everyday, which is precisely why nobody asks you.

Funny how bob, who a few weeks ago was boasting of his great intellectual superiority and being a published author,

He’s also bragged about being in the top 1% of income earners, but doesn’t seem to be able to afford a clue. Nor does he seem inclined to share his wealth with those less fortunate wishing to improve themselves.

Still waiting on a new truck.

NP. We all make mistakes (see above). I figured something got crossed since you’re good about providing facts and citing articles.

Unlike most (non-classical) libs, we have to keep each other honest

In the spirit of civility, I wanted to thank you for your concession to ILC and CLD on the bill we’re discussing. I’ve had to make a retraction or two in the past of misattributing quotes, and it’s always humbling. It’s the mark of a man to admit a mistake in a public forum.

We may not agree on some issues, but I thank you for being civil.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446927,00.html

Mea culpa.

However, the fact remains that my argument is still valid – the border agents were doing their job, and it cannot be compared to the alleged murder of a gay man. It is still an apples-to-oranges issue.

Thanks for the correction.

Regards,
Peter H.

Um, Peter?

Unless I’m way off (admittedly a possibility) Ramos and Compean didn’t kill the guy. He got shot in the running gun battle.

Unless Johnny Sutton whipped up a high level cleric to cast speak with dead to have him testify at trial, he’s very much alive. More’s the pity.

Other than that, you’re in the black with Matt’s statements