When I look at the recent polling trends and see how Americans are growing increasingly skeptical about the Democratic Party and the growth of government, I become optimistic about the future of my party. But, then, when I hear some of our leaders try to articulate their opposition to a particular Democratic initiative, I begin to despair once again.
So it was when I read House Minority Leader John Boehner’s attempt to explain his opposition “to House passage of a bill that would expand hate crime laws and make it a federal crime to assault people on the basis of their sexual orientation.” You see, Boehner doesn’t oppose all hate crimes legislation, indeed, according to hi spokesman Kevin Smith, the Ohio Republican “supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics.”
Huh?
Sorry, that just doesn’t wash. Religion seems pretty “mutable” to me as evidenced by my evangelical cousin, a newly Jewish friend (and blog-reader) and my eldest sister-in-law (to name just three people who pop into my head).
Seems that instead of taking a principled stand, Boehner is trying not to upset certain interest groups which might be persuaded to vote for the GOP (while offending one which seems fully ensconced in the Democratic Party). He’s putting politics before principle.
Fortunately, there are Republicans, indeed on Boehner’s own leadership team, who do get and can articulate the principled opposition to this gratuitous and possibly unconstitutional legislation:
Rep. Tom Price, who heads the GOP conservative caucus, also complained last week that the expansion of hate crimes legislation amounted to “thought crimes,” and he labeled the bill’s passage – tied to a defense bill – an “absolute disgrace.”
But contacted about his position on hate crimes legislation overall, Price took a different position than Boehner. According to Price communications director Brendan Buck, the congressman opposes all hate crimes protections, including existing ones.
“We believe all hate crimes legislation is unconstitutional and places one class of people above others,” said Buck.
Emphasis added. Exactly. Such legislation punishes people for their thoughts in committing a crime, not for the severity of an attack (or other misdeed). This is a bad bill, not because of the additional classes to be covered under existing hate crimes law, but because such laws exists at all. We don’t need it, particularly not at the federal level. We do need tough laws punishing violent criminals, but that’s a job for the states, not the federal government.
It’s too bad the House Minority Leader refused to offer a principled and consistent argument opposing the current legislation, instead offering some mealy-mouthed excuse about immutability. Mr. Price has raised more responsible objections. Maybe he should run for Republican Leader.
If he did, we might not be in the minority for much longer.
Looks like a call to Mr. Boehner’s office is in order. He’s not my rep, but represents my state.
Looks like a call to Mr. Boehner’s office in in order; to thank him for his opposition.
John Hinderacker at Powerline explained it well.
I think it does violence to the Constitution if the government can tell me when I can have free speech and when I can’t. I would think a blogger who frequently expresses unpopular opinions would feel the same. Do we really want the government in charge of saying what opinions are acceptable, and which are “hate speech?”
I oppose hate crimes laws which seem to be Unconstitutional by creation of a ” Super Victim” based on race and other factors.
If we are going to have hate crime legislation then it should be expanded to every single person despite their color, religion or sexual identity. Don’t fall for it. The democrats are trying to separate us into groups in which they can prey upon. I don’t like hate crimes legislation because all crimes are crimes. It doesn’t matter your color or religion. All violent crime should be treated the same. It should be a federal crime to assault everyone. I thought we all wanted to be equal.
Thank you for this post, Dan. This is a position I can respect and if the GOP acted as strongly on principle for repealing ALL hate crimes laws, instead of just opposing this one because it involves teh gheys, I believe that would be much better for their party and a healthy debate for the nation. Yet as Boehner’s comments show, which by no means are the only ones that can be cited from GOP political leaders or activists, this IS all about an animus towards gays for them. Not every GOP politician or activist to be sure, but enough of them in positions of influence within the party and government. That is something I cannot and will not support.
John, I think you’re wrong on one point.
It’s not an anti-gay animus, it’s a perception of having to walk a line. It’s just as wrong as the Democrat party’s taking their black and gay voters for granted, attacking anyone who steps off the plantation. Boehner seems to have forgotten that we send our represenatives to Washington to LEAD not to take polls and do what’s expedient.
If Boehner took the correct stand, that all hate crimes need to be abolished, he’s afraid of being roasted on the left. He’s wrong and needs to stand for what he believes is right.
There’s a Captain America quote I try to live by: “Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world – “No, you move.” ”
Reagan did what he felt was right, despite all the hoards clamouring against him. History has showed he was right. For all the politicians claiming to be looking for ‘Reagan’s heir.’ too few have caught what is needed.
I need a lot of encouragement to warm up to Boehner. I would not list him among the few Republicans with strong conservative instincts.
On the other hand, I do not see his foot-in-mouth comments about this issue as being anti-gay.
Right now, he is among the best the Republicans have in place and I suspect that he will come back shortly and get his message right.
“we send our represenatives to Washington to LEAD not to take polls and do what’s expedient.”
Actually, no we don’t. We send our representatives to Washington to represent us. Thats why we call them representatives. Their job is to channel our interests and concerns – to make our voices heard at the seat of power.
‘Reagan did what he felt was right…”
Huh? He ended up quadrupuling the national debt. Did he do that because he felt it right? Or did he do that because he knew that budget cutting of the type necessary to balance the budget was unpopular, and would cost him reelection? He cut a deal – Dems can have their spending, I’ll get my tax cuts, and deficits just don’t matter. Do you really think this represents principle?
Reagan was the biggest sell-out of traditional Republican principle – that budgets needed to be balanced. He substituted “tax cuts” for “balanced budgets” as the primary GOP mantra – and thus ushered in the era of gross Republican irresponsibility. Hardly a prinicipled man.
It’s not a crime to hate someone.
How do we prove the difference between someone who truly hates the gay,woman,black,etc. whom he or she is beating and someone who is beating a person for some other reason and throws in a few loaded words for effect?
What a stupid distinction to try to make.
“Such legislation punishes people for their thoughts in committing a crime, not for the severity of an attack (or other misdeed). This is a bad bill, not because of the additional classes to be covered under existing hate crimes law, but because such laws exists at all.”
Geez. Nothing but a gay homophobe.
Oh, and a racist too.
How dare you make such reasoned arguments against hate crimes legislation.
Hater.
🙂
And again the admitted racist Tano goes on about his Reagan hate.
Reagan broke the Soviet Union while the Tanos of the world said to accept the status quo. Reagan brought America out of the Stagflation the Tano’s said was the new normal. Reagan led where Tano would have him follow the whims of the moment.
We elect people to represent our interests, Tano. Once there, they know more about the world than we do. In 1930’s America, we didn’t know all the Nazis, but the FBI did. We didn’t know about the recent terrorist attempts until they were arrested, but the government did. It falls to our elected represenatives to take that information that the public doesn’t know and act on it. Do they get it wrong? Yes, and people suffer, but that’s why we can vote them out.
Oh, wait. That would require Tano to read and understand the constitution.
6: I disagree, this is all about an anti-gay bias and it isn’t just coming from Republicans like Boehner. A principled rejection of ALL hate crimes laws I can respect. That isn’t the case here.
John,
We may have to agree to disagree on this. Neither of us know what’s in Boehner’s heart (to paraphrase Dhimmy Carter). You’re seeing animus, I’m seeing cowardice. So to modify a quote, “Do not blame on malice what can be explained by him being chicken-$#!%”
Actually, I don’t see this as anti-gay bias, but political calculation and a crass one at that. And pandering. He doesn’t want to offend certain interest groups, but also wants to please the social conservatives.
It’s just a twisted argument when a principled one could help better burnish the party’s tarnished image.
Uh, that would be the base of the Republican party.
“And again the admitted racist Tano goes on”
I thought that was spelled “raaaaaacist”…
Tano in #9 definitively answers the conundrum concerning the job of the “representative” unleashed on our representative democracy in 1789.
Universities can now dispense with the Federalist Papers and close the doors on political science courses. Tano has spoken.
Bill Clinton didn’t involve his seat of power with Monica Lewinsky. He used Mr. Happy. I am confident that Tano can over simplify how Clinton was channeling our interests and concerns onto a blue dress.
According to Tano’s complete and definitive definition, Barney Frank channels interests and concerns, but Republicans playing footsie in public bathroom stalls can not perform the same tasks.
I am beginning to think that Tano sucks wind.
“Once there, they know more about the world than we do.”
Hmmm. You want representatives to be leaders, i.e. you want to be a follower of them. You think they know more about the world than you do (on that score, you are probably right, at least about yourself). What a perfect little sheep you are. This is your conception of being a free person in a democracy? How do you justify complaining about what they do?
heliotrope,
Not quite sure what Clinton’s sex life has to do with the duties of a Representative, nor do I have any idea what your point is about Republicans in restrooms. Maybe you should just start over and dispense with trying to be snarky/humerous and just state your point clearly.
Poor Tano, you are by your own words a racist, plain and simple.
But hey, you want decisions to be made on lack of intelligence and information, then feel free to set up internment camps for people. After all part of the reason for the Japanese internment camps was we didn’t have any cells infiltrated as the Germans were on the east coast.
You want people to follow the polls? Then we scrap Healthcare now since the majority are happy with what they have?
I’m sure you oppose attempts to invalidate Prop 8, since the majority has spoken.
We elect people to Lead. If we don’t think they’e going in the right direction we elect others.
But then again, I’m explaining this to a guy who willfully lies about people who disagree with him, over and over again.
“Poor Tano, you are by your own words a racist, plain and simple”
21 –
Ha! Maybe he is a raaaaaacist I don’t know him from Adam, (no matter what GP says)
But to have a link with “by your own words” that goes to a comment cut ‘n pasted by you is rather amusing (with a touch of narcissism thrown in too!)
classic
#15 –
Yes he is pandering. He is pandering to the wing of the Republican party. The same wing that wants to quarantine you or cure you because you are gay.
“Poor Tano, you are by your own words a racist, plain and simple.”
Hmm. I see. Because I support affirmative action. OK fine. If that is your criterion, I prouldly stand with all other supporters of AA, and you can call us whatever you want.
“But hey, you want decisions to be made on lack of intelligence and information, then feel free to set up internment camps for people.”
Huh? What on earth are you talking about?
“part of the reason for the Japanese internment camps was we didn’t have any cells infiltrated as the Germans were on the east coast.’
Again. What on earth are you talking about? What is the relevance of this to the question of whether representatives should be representative or should be “leaders”?
“You want people to follow the polls?’
For the most part yes. And they do, for the most part, otherwise they lose their job. Thats how it works in a democracy. Thats not to say that a rep can never vote against the latest polls, but the burden then falls on him to persuade the electorate as to why he is right.
“a guy who willfully lies about people who disagree with him, over and over again”
Huh? Where was that? I even wasted my time and followed your link. What are you talking about?
(I guess that is a rhetorical quesiton, because I really dont care)
gillie,
I know using facts on you is like a heat lamp to an ice cube, you’re prone to melt away. Let me quote my link. well quote my words, not Tano’s.
“That’s just in this thread, I’ve not gone through to cull other statements from him to the same effect.”
So go to the thread, you want to read his original words? click on the little bar on the right of the screen, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse up. See that? See how all the pretty letters move down? That’s called scrolling. Now you can scroll up and read his original words. I posted my quote for brevity. You’re welcome for the help in using your comptuer. Next I’ll help you learn how to tie your shoes so you can get rid of the velcro fasteners.
Tano,
Yes, you discriminate based on race. Glad to see you don’t deny it. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to beating it.
You believe that somehow, the people we elect don’t have access to information that is not available. Apparently you never heard about the infiltration of Nazi groups on the East coast by the FBI. This is now public knowlege, some 50+ years after the fact. If you’re saying that our elected officials do not have additional information, you are either willfully ignorant or willfully obtuse. I neither know nor care which.
As to following the polls, you do want to see our elected officials support it then. Good we have that clear.
Since you wrote that you don’t want politicians to lead, I’m sure you’d always vote out the politician who wants to vote against the will of the people for the moment. So I can count on you to vote against Obama for 2012, based on his health care policies? Or are you going to turn on him as soon as his polls hit 49%?
arrgh ‘it’ in the next to last paragraph means Prop 8.
If you prick Tano, gillie squirts out. Whasupwidat?
Oh, I see the silly gillie is back and whining about Republicans.
Well, just to be sure we understand, let’s get gillie and Tano to state whether or not these statements are antigay.
“God don’t like men coming to men with lust in their hearts like you should go to a female. If you think that the kingdom of God is going to be filled up with that kind of degenerate crap, you’re out of your damn mind.”
And:
“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman”.
Now remember, gillie and Tano have stated that anyone who makes antigay statements indicates that the political party to which they belong is also antigay and wants to “quarantine and cure” gays.
By the way, this is the fourth time I have posted these statements, and gillie and Tano have each time adamantly refused to state whether or not they are antigay.
Tano,
When you speak of representative democracy, apparently you only mean members of the House of Representatives. Next year, when you are in the third grade, they will broaden your understanding, providing you stay awake and apply yourself.
But then, if you see the President as omnipotent dictator, any concept of him/her as a lead player in “representative” democracy would be confusing to you.
Hey! Look! Obama is on TV! Gee, it has been almost an hour since he was on. Running the country is so easy that he fills up his day campaigning for reelection and pretending his disapproval rate in shooting down. Now there is representative democracy in action. Whine, lie and attack and wear them down.
“Yes, you discriminate based on race”
Hmm. So your problem is that you simply do not understand what the word “racism” means, eh? Or you just throw it around irrespective of its meaning because it feels so good to hurl it at a liberal. How pathetic.
“Since you wrote that you don’t want politicians to lead,”
I said representatives. That is a subset of politician.
‘When you speak of representative democracy, apparently you only mean members of the House of Representatives”
Except I said nothing about “representative democracy”. I made a comment about representatives. If you take that to mean members of the House of Representatives, then you get a gold star. I even explained – that is why they are called representatives. So obviously, I was speaking about representatives, not about the entire system of democracy.
‘But then, if you see the President as omnipotent dictator,”
But I don’t. I am not a Republican.
And what the heck is with that last paragraph? Dude, you got a strange, and very private sense of humor, and it doesnt translate into English very well. Try again…
Hmm. So your problem is that you simply do not understand what the word “racism” means, eh?
Oh, we understand it very well.
It’s when a Latina woman says that Latina women will always come up with wiser conclusions than white male judges.
It’s when a black man says that a black woman should be “ashamed” to ride in a car with a white man and “should not be a part” of an investigation of crimes the black man committed.
But of course, you don’t understand that, because you worship Barack Obama and obediently do everything he says — and he endorsed and supported both individuals.
To you, Tano, racism is making decisions based on content of character and demonstrated qualifications rather than giving people preferential treatment based on skin color. What’s funny is that you like to scream about segregationists, but seem utterly clueless to how much the rhetoric that you spout mirrors theirs.
Oh damn, I should have known. Make any reference to race, and up from the sewer comes North Dallas 30.
Tano babbles
Oh.
Now I see.
No I don’t.
Clearly this can not be construed as being associated with representative democracy in any conceivable way. Clearly this is part of the instructions for using Shake ‘N’ Bake.
Oh, dumb me! Everyone knows that “representatives is (sic) a subset of politician.” Can anyone provide a translation of that arcane, clear as mud maxim from the moonbat world?
H-m-m-m-m. Representative with a capital “R” would seem to be a proper noun. But then Tano said
O-o-o-o-o-p-s! Representatives pops up with a small “r” and so we must have stumbled into a dual subject premise using an undistributed middle term. Bad business that.
I don’t rest my case so much as I seek respite from tracing the snail slime trail to try to find the purpose of the trip.
Helio,
Wow, buddy, you must really love the sound of your own voice, or the vision of your own words. Is this some private self-amusement? Do you possibly have a point – or something you might wish to share with the rest of us?
As I said “Thats why we call them representatives.”. Its a pretty clear indication that I was referring to representatives, or Representatives – y’know, people who represent. We don’t call presidents representatives, do we? Is this really such a challenge for you?
[Citation Needed]
But still, it beats the hell out Statists of telling seasoned citizens they’re going to die.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT7Y0TOBuG4&feature=player_embedded
Thanks, Tano, it is now entirely clear that you can not stand up to minimal cross examination. You are now free to pick your nose and call it brain surgery.
#23: “Hmm. I see. Because I support affirmative action. OK fine. If that is your criterion, I prouldly stand with all other supporters of AA, and you can call us whatever you want.”
How about a cab?
Wow, the more Tano talks, the less sense he makes. Must be hard to handle having his own words quoted showing how stupid he is.
Then again, he also holds up Dhimmy Carter as an examplle of being ‘fair and balanced’ on Israel, so we shouldn’t be surposed that he’ll be proud of the fact that he discriminates against white folks.
I thought an earlier post was about to correct Tano after he hit on one of my pet peeves. Our country was set up as a democratic republic, not a democracy. There is a difference and our founding fathers went to great lengths to avoid creating the latter.
BTW, did anyone else read that Tano was opposed to a president running up the national debt? I haven’t noticed him objecting to the current president taking it through the roof.
BTW, did anyone else read that Tano was opposed to a president running up the national debt? I haven’t noticed him objecting to the current president taking it through the roof.
That would be because that president spent it on tangible objects like military equipment that provided jobs to people who built it, that spun off technological achievements required for it, and that have a service life and usefulness that spans decades.
Tano prefers that deficits be run up cutting checks to people who have no jobs, pay no taxes, and who drop the money on liquor and cigarettes.
1. Anyone who supports hate crime legislation are saying that it is worse to murder someone due to bigotry than it would be to murder someone because you wanted their money or any other reason for that matter and that the victims of those crimes are of lesser value. That is just ridiculous.
2. If you are going to start punishing more based on motivation for the crime, then you would logically start with the other reasons like robbery, domestic, gang, drug, etc… as they most certainly represent a far greater # of murders than bigotry does, meaning, they represent a far greater problem and impact more lives and therefore have more potential to save more people.
3. In the end it would be just wrong to add a more severe penalty to the same crime if it was committed for a particular reason as by doing so you are saying that the other victims of the same crime that had other motivations behind them are somehow of less importance.
On the subject of John Boehner saying that he supports the other hate crime legislation and not expanding it to cover sexual orientation. One could very easily interpret that as that he does not place the same value on preventing those crimes from occurring when motivated by a victims sexual orientation as he does when their motivation is race, sex, etc…
Wow, I missed this! I must agree, Boehner pulled a boner.
(and no, thats not a good thing)