Hate Laws - a preview

May 28, 2001

As you know, I am going to wait a while longer before holding forth on Hate Speech laws, aka Hate Crime laws.  A preview, however, since the enclosed article from this morning's Washington Times is too good to pass up.  It illustrates a key portion of the normally-hidden machinations leading to the adoption of Hate laws.  This is one of the prime leftist conspiracies, by the way, because it seems to happen pretty much this way, time and again, from state to state to state, such that a majority of states have now adopted such legislation.  It is rare that we actually get to see the man behind the curtain, however, as we do in this case.

 

Seems Texas was having trouble getting its hate crime law passed.  Just then, coincidentally of course, it was loudly proclaimed that some nasty white supremacists went hog wild and painted swastikas on the side of a Dallas black church.  Not only that, but it was reported that those terrible white people did so in response to all the hate-crime legislation rhetoric then extant throughout Texas.  Suddenly, no problemo, and the legislation sailed through the Texas legislature a week later amidst the outcry and general indignation about racism and the "hurtful nature" of such "crimes."  Texas' governor signed the bill into law immediately, of course.

 

Teach them nasty white people a lesson, eh?  Problem is, eyewitnesses saw a black guy painting those swastikas on the church.  Of course, though this fact was reported to the police the day after the swastikas appeared, it was kept from the public until just now.

 

What do you want to bet they won't be rescinding the law that resulted from this bit of chicanery?

 

Having opened this particular can of worms a bit prematurely, a couple of points bear quick mention.

 

It is not just sloppy writing on my part that blurs the distinction between hate speech, hate crimes and hate law, since they are all really the same thing.  Currently, all these laws require some criminal act component.  Thus, the enhanced penalty for a hate crime murder is much stiffer than mere murder.  And, the penalty for painting swastikas on black churches is far greater than for mere "tagging," which now is actually considered art in parts of El Lay.

 

Remember, though, that what is being penalized is the perp's state of mind, or thoughts, while engaged in a criminal act.  Since there is already a penalty for the crime itself, what really results is a penalty for the thought.  Yep...a thought crime, pure and simple.  And leftists are openly champing at the bit for the day they can decouple the thought from the act and penalize it alone.  That was one of the things Clinton was desperately trying to get passed before he sank from view: a pure hate speech law, similar to those  now existing in Canada, Britain, France and Germany, to name a few Western nations a bit farther out on the slippery slope than we.  Just think of the boon to the  American  prison-construction industry alone!

 

Leftists argue that there is no real difference between a hate crime enhancement and a hate speech law and, of course, they are right.   Though leftists think that is why hate speech laws should be enacted, in reality it is why hate crime laws of every stripe should be rescinded.

 

And, of course, hate crime legislation works only in one direction, as we have seen countless times already.  Remember all the blacks rioting in Cincinnati recently, yet who was charged with a hate crime?  That's right, a white person. Talk about racial profiling!