WHY DO WE HAVE HATE CRIMES?

Wednesday, November 230^h, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

WHY DO WE HAVE HATE CRIMES?

 

There has been a wave of mass shootings in recent weeks.  At a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, a shooter killed five people and injured 17 others that has been called a hate crime. In Chesapeake, Virginia, a Walmart supervisor shot and killed six coworkers in a mass murder that is not being called a hate crime. What’s the difference?

 

Well, what’s a hate crime you ask?  If someone is premeditatedly shot and killed, that’s commonly murder.  When you’re dead, you are dead, and there is a strong penalty for that; generally, life or the death penalty.  But hate crime supporters want more than justice. They want vengeance.

Under federal law, one can be charged with a hate crime if the criminality was motivated by hatred involving race, religion, national origin, color, or sexual preference.  Penalties for crimes against these groups already exist, but under the law such crimes are enhanced by what is in the perpetrator’s mind.  What ever happened to double jeopardy?  Simply put, a prosecutor can bring charges not only for an accused’s conduct, but they also can go after him for his thoughts.  In the Four Lads song, Standing on the Corner, Watching all the Girls Go By, there is the lyric, “Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinking.” Well, in the case of hate laws, apparently you can.

Having deeply troubling concerns over a thought police is nothing new.  George Orwell’s novel, 1984 paints a disturbing and chilling scenario where one can be accused of a crime, arrested and prosecuted merely for thoughts in your mind.  “The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed… the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime they called it… Sooner or later they were bound to get you.”

Have you ever gotten so mad and pent up that you went into a rage and said things you really didn’t mean?   “That sorry, no count blank, blank, blank, blank!  I’ll get even with him!” Have you ever used a racial slur? Oh, no, you say.  But then, upon reflection, maybe you did once or twice.  Does that make you a racist?

If there is supposed to be equal justice under the law, shouldn’t the punishment be based on the crime, and not on who the victim is?  If a deranged killer opens fire in a shopping mall, is this less of a crime than a maniac opening fire in a club filled with African Americans or gays?  Otherwise, when a life is taken, aren’t we making a determination that that the lives of one particular group have greater value than the lives of another group? Isn’t it a fundamental principle of a democracy that the punishment fits the crime, not the victim?

Ayn Rand wrote about the divisiveness that takes place when preferences are given under the law.  “There is no sure way to infect mankind with hatred – brute, blind, virulent hatred – than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes.”

Freedom in America means the freedom to have bad thoughts.  I may not like what you are thinking, but ideas alone should not be a crime.  A criminal should be punished for bad acts, not bad thoughts.  James Madison said it well: “We have extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making the laws for the human mind.”

When it comes to crime, yes there should be a protected class that gets full protection from the criminal justice system. That protected class should be all Americans.  And all Americans should be treated equally.

 

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the South and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.