|
|
Stories we should know more about.
|
Posts:
3,307
Registered:
6/29/09
|
|
(8520 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 4:58 PM
|
Hate crime laws is how we stopped lynching. It is far from perfect, but they have decades of statistics backing their effectiveness. People will do what they think they can get away with. Nothing magical to it.
This is so farfrom the McCarthyism infecting this country that any supposed slope is a joke.
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8519 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 4:53 PM
|
LOL
Magical solutions to the world's problems? Not me dude, I'm too damn old for that fairy tale.
But it sounds like this Hate Crime Proposal (or is it already law?) is exactly that--a (perceived) solution to whatever the problem is--crooked prosecutors in this case, or perhaps homophobia. Either way I'm completely sympathetic, but I know that laws on the books do NOT suddenly sanctify human wickedness.
Let's revisit this in 5 years Jared, and you can then judge if this is a down & dirty solution, or just more lip service meant to pacify the masses.
And I did note that you seem to prefer not to explain how such a statute is not a step down a slippery slope in which people can be charged for thinking or emoting in politically incorrect manners.
|
|
|
Posts:
3,012
Registered:
3/21/08
|
|
(8518 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 4:51 PM
|
I guess what I don't understand, JET, is, given the situation in cozy little cultures, as Jared says, (like Jim Crow laws, for example) and you can't find justice anywhere and you're being victimized, what would you suggest?
What if it were your son (as in the Kennedy case) who was so viciously attacked for being gay that his brain stem was disconnected from his brain, and he were left in a parking lot to die, and his attacker sentenced to a few hundred days in jail? How would you feel about that?
What about us, in the community and larger society, who are horrified by the injustice to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else?
|
|
|
Posts:
3,307
Registered:
6/29/09
|
|
(8517 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 4:30 PM
|
It gets the crime prosecuted and breaks up the cozy culture of hate.
If you want magical solutions to all the world's problems, go pray. Otherwise I'll stick to the down-and-dirty solutions that work. It may be a lesser evil, but without a clear "good" choice we should always push for the lesser evil until that good is found.
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8516 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 3:59 PM
|
OK, if such a crime was not prosecuted, is that the fault of the law, or the fault of the human prosecutor and/or investigators?
It is the fault of the humans--dereliction of duty that is criminal in nature.
Now explain to me how writing another law is going to remedy this dereliction of duty?
|
|
|
Posts:
3,307
Registered:
6/29/09
|
|
(8515 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 3:53 PM
|
|
No I am saying that because the beating victim was a gay man being beat for being gay, the crime wasn't being prosecuted. This offers another avenue to prosecute that crime.
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8514 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 3:48 PM
|
Jared
Considering that we have institutionalized torture, and that our newly elected Agent Of Change refuses to punish that, I'd say we never really left the Dark Ages.
That a person can be punished for crimes he commits is nothing new at all, and has been practiced here since the beginning. The exception is that those in the government hold themselves above such punishment.
What y'all are promoting as best I can understand is that certain victims of crimes will have more standing than other victims of the same crime.
For example, a gay victim of assault would have more standing than a straight victim of assault, as long as it can be demonstrated that the perpetrator of the crime did not like gays.
And PW will tell others that in the US system, all men are equal before the law, both victims and perps, except that under this proposal some will be more equal than others.
Yes, this sounds like a plausible argument, a politically correct argument, that is actually misleading or fallacious.
|
|
|
Posts:
9,645
Registered:
3/25/08
|
|
(8513 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 2:17 PM
|
> I'm looking for a convincing explanation as to how
> criminalizing one's thoughts and feelings is NOT
> descending a slope.
You can start by first understanding that the hate crime laws in no way criminalize thoughts or feelings. People are still free to feel that they hate gay people and think about how much they hate gay people, and think all the terrible thoughts about gay people that they want.
There has to be a "guilty act" (actus reus), or there can be no case. It is the act for which they are prosecuted.
|
|
|
Posts:
9,645
Registered:
3/25/08
|
|
(8512 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 2:08 PM
|
> Federalizing this crime, you would have me believe,
> will solve whatever problem that supposedly exists.
> I still don't understand the problem you try to
> o describe. Federalizing any crime in the past has
> not eliminated that crime, if that's your suggestion.
> If prosecution by state authorities does not "solve
> e the problem", how on earth does a federal
> prosecution make it any better?
If a crime is not charged, undercharged, or charged without aggravating circumstances because the victim is gay, the feds can take the case to see that the victim receives the justice he/she is being denied in his/her local jurisdiction.
> You're the one who posted a few back that these hate
> crimes would provide "safeguards in place for
> victims", not I.
The same thing I just typed above applies again here.
>
> No ma'am, my definition of sophistry is from Webster:
> a plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
Which is precisely any argument that isn't yours, lol.
> If the biggest part of what you have said here is
> true and accurate, then it seems quite easy to make
> the correction through the US Sentencing Commission,
> NOT through statutory law.
It needs to be a federal staute so that it can be applied federally, and federally defines gay people as a protected class.
|
|
|
Posts:
3,307
Registered:
6/29/09
|
|
(8511 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 1:36 PM
|
If you want to ignore motive and send prosecution back to the dark ages, I will respectfully disagree.
As for the Feds being above blame, bullshit. 
You know I wasn't saying that.
I pretty much consider any solution short of open season on fellows wearing bedsheets to be a case of picking the lesser evil.
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8510 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 1:23 PM
|
I'm not being a dope Jared, I'm just looking for a convincing explanation as to why this must be done through statute instead of rule making by the US Sentecing Commission.
I'm looking for a convincing explanation as to how criminalizing one's thoughts and feelings is NOT descending a slope.
That's all.
I understand your post, and you are certainly correct up to a point.
But remember, those who wear federal badges are only human too, and our federal guys have been torturing for quite a few years now. So, spare the horseshit about how they are above sin.
|
|
|
Posts:
3,307
Registered:
6/29/09
|
|
(8509 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 1:05 PM
|
Jet,
Don't be a dope. You and I both know the local cops in Podunk wherever couldn't care less about a little gay bashing or running a black boy out of town or whatever, and might even help.
Making it a federal crime doesn't magically solve a problem, but it goes a long way to help and has historically proven to do so.
We all get you don't trust the Feds. Local cops can be worse and you and I both know know it.
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8508 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 12:52 PM
|
Federalizing this crime, you would have me believe, will solve whatever problem that supposedly exists. I still don't understand the problem you try to describe. Federalizing any crime in the past has not eliminated that crime, if that's your suggestion. If prosecution by state authorities does not "solve the problem", how on earth does a federal prosecution make it any better?
So then, if we are talking about legal recognition of an aggravating condition such as homophobia, should not the sentencing guidelines be adjusted accordingly? Why does it require a statute?
You're the one who posted a few back that these hate crimes would provide "safeguards in place for victims", not I.
No ma'am, my definition of sophistry is from Webster: a plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
If the biggest part of what you have said here is true and accurate, then it seems quite easy to make the correction through the US Sentencing Commission, NOT through statutory law.
|
|
|
Posts:
9,645
Registered:
3/25/08
|
|
(8507 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 23, 2009 12:37 PM
|
> None of that was persuasive PW.
Nothing ever is if it doesn't agree with your way of thinking.
>
> Make it a federal crime? Holy Batshit! That should
> cure it, forthright, eh?
Ummm....what?
>
> Aggravating circumstances are already addressed and
> accomodated within the sentencing guidelines, and you
> know it.
Yes, I do. Targeting a victim for their sexual orientation was not one of them.
> That's rather the entire purpose of such
> guidelines.
You can't apply the guidelines for aggravating circumstances if there isn't a legally recognized aggravating circumstance.
>
> Discrimination in the legal system? Is there part of
> the law that previously said that gays or other
> groups were somehow exempt from the law, or not
> covered by the law?
No. What does that have to do with anything?
Take the case I mentioned before...where the straight guy beat a gay man to death for winking at him. Thanks to an intolerant prosecutor in an intolerant jurisdiction, the victim's family could do nothing when their son's murder was grossly undercharged as manslaughter for no other reason than that he was gay. If you can't see how this law could have remedied that, I don't know what else to tell ya.
> Borderline sophistry PW.
LOL! Your definition of sophistry is, "Anything said by anyone who doesn't agree with me."
You need to come up with a new line, mon ami.
> These hate crimes are an exercise in mental
> masturbation, as you have just demonstrated.
I just explained the simple legal concept of aggravating circumstances. No masturbation required, lol.
--
Edited by prettywitty at 11/23/2009 9:37 AM PST
|
|
|
Posts:
8,352
Registered:
8/24/06
|
|
(8506 of 8535)
Re: What's New in the News
Nov 22, 2009 3:51 PM
|
I hear ya, Info.
And I imagine that if the emails of certain other government employees could be hacked and analyzed, all sorts of shenanigans would become apparent.
|
|
|
|
|
