Blacksheep Speaks

Hate Crime

What is hate crime? Are the wrong people defining it? And will YOU be the next to go to jail for what used to be considered your constitutional right of self-expression?

Helter Skelter. The Oklahoma Bombings. Lynchings. What is now being defined as "hate crime" has been around for a long, long time. Unfortunately, these days, you don't even have to actually commit a crime to be in trouble. You simply have to voice something that someone else interprets as criminal intent. And what is being defined as "criminal intent" is becoming more ludicrous by the day.

Let's get one thing straight. The phrase "hate crime" is a redundancy, not a new definition. Any violent crime is, by definition, a "hate crime". No one pulls a gun and shoots someone out of love. They generally don't do it out of indifference, either. There are still a plethora of rather depraved individuals in this world fully willing and ready to kill another individual because of something stupid. In fact, ALL murders tend to be over something stupid. At the time of this writing, no smart reason for depriving another human being of life has occurred to me. So, why are we redefining racial murders, beatings, etc. as "hate crime"? Murder is murder, no matter what the reason. In fact, ANY crime is a crime. It doesn't matter WHY someone committed a violent act; the fact that they did it is punishable by law. In states that carry the death penalty, there is no harder sentence. So....why all the talk about making things harder on "hate criminals"? How much harder does it get than the death penalty....?

Don't get me wrong....I don't condone racism in any form. I simply fail to see the difference between a man killing another man for being a different race and a man killing a store clerk as he robs it. They are both murder. Both were done out of something resembling hate. Neither victim did anything to deserve what happened. Our law system is screwed up enough without adding a new name to an offense that was always there anyhow.