We can’t always know what someone else’s motive was for committing a horrible act. We can enable other people to keep such an act from being committed against them.

Comment by Lori Heine — May 23, 2013 @ 2:13 pm – May 23, 2013

Perfectly put.

But the reason liberals push “hate crimes” has nothing to do with preventing such acts from being committed; it’s merely using such acts to impose speech codes.

Such as the screaming fit after the Giffords shooting about “civility” and how words were “causing” people to act violently.

Which of course magically vanished as a cause-effect relationship when the words of the LGBT community, Dan Savage, Joe Jervis, and the SPLC caused Floyd Corker to go on a shooting rampage.

Whenever liberals start ranting about “hate crimes”, ask them to affirm the following:

1) I am a bigot who can only be restrained from attacking or killing people I don’t like by stricter sentencing laws.

2) Certain words and statements must be banned because I am incapable of hearing them without flying into a violent murderous rage that will result in the death of people around me.

What you’ll find is that the “hate crimes” supporter, like all gun-grabbers and Obama DOJ/IRS supporters, does not believe the rationale for such laws applies to them — which demonstrates that their demands for “hate crimes” laws have nothing to do with society’s benefit and everything to do with their selfish fascist desire to use the force of law to criminalize and punish the behavior of others.

In follow-up to last week’s tragedy in Manhattan, I did find the time today to visit the site. It’s New York, so the scene is pretty much back to normal with no physical evidence in sight. Still, some of the locals have built a small shrine on the corner — mostly candles, a few poems and photos (interestingly, many spelled the victim’s name “Mark” rather than “Marc” as in most of the news stories). More than a few people were stopping to view or pay their respects.

Good on them, I say.

Islam is different from the other religions. It relies, fundamentally, on the Sword in a way that the others don’t. It took Christianity hundreds of years to do anything like what Islam was doing from day one. The Bible urges Christians to spread the word by their teaching, faith and good example; but the Koran commands Muslims to literally conquer the world. Not to absolutely convert everybody in the world (which is why they do usually allow Christian or Jewish minorities in their midst); but to use physical (military) force to gain universal political hegemony for Islam.

The perpetrators will be subject to the worst imaginable penalty for a Federal bureaucrat: Paid administrative leave.

Comment by V the K — May 10, 2013 @ 1:07 pm – May 10, 2013

Because there is no reason a gay scout cannot be “morally straight”

I agree with that in principle, but as many conservative homos have pointed out, the American gay-rights movement was deeply rooted in the free-love, hedonistic ethos of the 1960s, and the influence of those counterculture roots continue to linger on in the 21st-century gay “demimonde.”

So I can understand the BSA’s skepticism that gay men are willing and able to inculcate traditional norms in teenage males, because the public face of the gay demographic has so often been associated with overt disdain for anything traditional.

Whether or not the BSA allows openly gay members should be left up to the BSA, but I think anyone who, like B. Daniel, claims to be libertarian should support the BSA keeping it’s gay ban as a way of supporting freedom of association and opposing the Left’s totalitarianism and lust for cultural conquest.

Hmmm. A lot of libertarians would argue that there’s no contradiction at all in supporting Larry Flynt’s constitutional right to publish a (faked) photo of a woman going through a giant meat grinder, while simultaneously wishing that Flynt would VOLUNTARILY STOP publishing such photos.

And the notoriously prudish Ayn Rand, for one, placed great emphasis on the right to boycott, ostracize, and criticize private organizations that you disagree with — you just have no right to stop their private behavior at gunpoint, nor ask the government/police to use guns on your behalf.

So there’s nothing inherently sneaky about a self-described libertarian personally deploring the BSA policy and wishing that the BSA would voluntarily change its policy. Just because the left has fascist tendencies doesn’t mean a libertarian is obliged to do the exact opposite of what the left wants.

Comment by Duke of URL — May 23, 2013 @ 6:08 pm – May 23, 2013

Wow. I think Daniel just found something that pisses the libs off more than Limbaugh, Breitbart, the Pope and Ayn Rand put together.

Must mean they’re doing something right.

At one time, the Muslim world was perhaps the most advanced part of the world, and Muslims were very tolerant of other religions. Meanwhile, Christian Europe was stuck in the dark ages. What happened centuries ago has no inherent relevance to today.

…because as should be obvious to an objective observer, Muslims are the ones who are intolerant and stuck in the dark ages today (not all of them, mind you. But if there is any major group of people who fits that description more than others, it is Mulsims). On the other hand, Christians are generally friendly and well integrated into modern society.

Jeff @ 14:

Meanwhile, about one toddler per day has been killed by an unsecured firearm over the past few weeks. But hey, guns are awesome! And if you want to look to an example of before-and-after gun control statistics, check Australia. Inevitably, ewer guns = fewer suicides, fewer murders, far fewer accidental deaths. The odds of actually stopping someone who aims to kill you from doing so by carrying a firearm are infinitismal, and far, far, far, FAR lower than the odds of an innocent child using that same firearm to kill or maim him or herself, or a third party. If you play the odds, and care about your family’s welfare, you are far more likely to protect your family from harm, statistically speaking, by refusing to purchase a firearm. That’s not an opinion. That is a fact.

That is why you should put your guns in a safe. And if people want to kill themselves, that is my concern why? And you mentioned Australia, but how about Switzerland or Brazil?

Cinesnatch @ 50:

Calling someone a jerk to calling someone a n!gger or f@ggot.

It isn’t illegal to call someone either of those things, because of something called free speech. Therefore, it is incredibly immoral to add to the punishment based on something that was said, because it would be a violation of the protection of free speech.

Cinesnatch @ 58:

Come on EVERYBODY … join in … let’s pretend The Crusades NEVER happened!!!!!!!!

At one time, the Muslim world was perhaps the most advanced part of the world, and Muslims were very tolerant of other religions. Meanwhile, Christian Europe was stuck in the dark ages. What happened centuries ago has no inherent relevance to today.

It’s that “alas not all” that worries me. If the Catholic Church, with its rigorous years-long formation process for priests, couldn’t screen out those kind of guys, I don’t have a lot of confidence in the Scouts’ ability to do it with much less time and resources. And unlike the Church, Boy Scouts is entirely dependent on boys’ participation. It seems to me that one major scandal could cause enough parents to pull their kids out that the BSA might never recover.