Let me call your attention to some interesting responses to the fake hate discussion here. First, in the first Comment to my last post (Real Hate Crimes?), I believe Fenster Moop makes some excellent points (they are also posted here). He succinctly states a strong argument for hate crime laws, namely that “it makes no sense” to say that “a cold-blooded murder is a cold-blooded murder, whether accomplished with a racial aim in mind” or not. I myself am not sure that that makes no sense, but I do regard his argument as a good one. We do, as Fenster points out, with good reason regard the assasination of political leaders, murders of policemen, and terrorist acts as more than mere crimes of violence.
Still, in the real world some of these lines can become so thin as to call the line-drawing into question. Does a violent assault against a woman in which the assailant shouts “bitch!” deserve more punishment as a hate crime than the same assault without the epithet? I don’t think so. But I do think reasonable people can disagree about this, and Fenster’s comment is eminently reasonable.
Kaimi Wenger’s comment on my Claremont fake hate post, which he also posted on his blog, is also quite reasonable, although I find that I disagree with it a bit more. Kaimi finds “implicit” in my discussion of the Claremont fraud “the idea that the existence of hate-crimes hoaxes should itself be viewed as evidence that the underlying laws governing hate crimes are generally ineffective or misguided, and perhaps should be modified or repealed.”
I do tend to think that hate crime laws are generally ineffective or misguided, and that the hate crime frauds that they may encourage are serious, but I would agree that those frauds alone don’t convincingly demonstrate that the underlying laws should be repealed. As I wrote separately to Kaimi (whose views I always respect even when I disagree, which is most of the time), it is true that I am deeply skeptical of hate crime laws, but I have not thought through the questions sufficiently to conclude that I am unalterably opposed to them. For example, I think Fenster Moop made some excellent points in his Comment on my Real Hate Crimes? post. If I were to conclude that the hate crime laws simply can’t be justified, it would not be because of the fraudulent reports. As Kaimi correctly point out, there are frauds involving all sorts of laws that we nevertheless do not wish to repeal. My general sense remains, however, that such laws do more harm than good. Kaimi is worried lest the frauds and hoaxes “be seen as a reason to roll back any positive changes that were made when the crime was believed to have been real,” but I tend to think that what generally results from campuses working themselves into a frenzy of self-flagellation over the racism that is thought to afflict them is not positive at all.
And then there is the comment from someone who identifies himself as La Voz de Aztlan, also posted here and with pictures. La Voz sees the fraud as just another example of the “modus operandi by Jews, converted or born into Judaism.”
Thank you for semi-agreeing with my post. That gives me the freedom now to reverse course and semi-disagree with myself.
I made a theoretical case for hate crimes. I do think you can distinguish between two identical acts based on how culture values their relative effects: a president shot in a drive-by shooting versus a president shot for political gain, or as an act of war.
But let’s be serious: support for hate crime legislation does not grow from a balanced view of an actual situation. Rather, it is premised on the same overwrought worldview that, when put into practice, can breed near hysteria, produce hypocrisy as a natural by-product and invite false reports in the name of a greater good.
People used to differentiate between socialism in theory and actually-existing-socialism–at least until it became clear that the former seemed pretty darn unlikely and the latter was going to be about as good as it was gonna get. If actually-existing-hate crimes is all there is, it ain’t much.
but I have not thought through the questions sufficiently to conclude that I am unalterably opposed to them
Well then let me do it for you. The underlying premise of having hate crimes is that we are punishing someone for what they think, not what they do. The purpose of passing a law that criminalizes a particular action is to dissuade someone from committing that act. By imposing a penalty of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, we are dissuading someone from committing an act of premeditated murder. Whether or not they committed the crime for money or for hate should not matter to society. Otherwise, if you really believe that society must show a greater abhorrence for why a crime was committed, then you should favor torture as a means of punishment.
Why do we punish attempted murder less severely that actual murder? Clearly in both cases the intention was the same. The only difference is in one case the person survived and in the other they did not. However, since the intent was the same, shouldn’t the punishment be the same? The answer, of course, is no because we are punishing the act not the thought.
Also, it is not possible to discern someone’s state of mind when the criminal act was committed. Do you really believe that if someone has made negative remarks about a particular race or religion then any assault on a person of that race or religion is prima fascia evidence that it was a hate crime? Maybe that person may just an SOB?
Once we start criminalizing thought then we are on the way to a police state. That is what hate crime legislation leads to. First you punish actual hate crimes more harshly. Then you punish the person who thinks evil thoughts whether or not a crime was committed.
You do notice that when a gang of blacks attack a white person that is called a robbery. When a gang of whites attack a black person that is called a hate crime because only whites can be racists and bigots. In other words, hate crimes will not be applied fairly. Thus, such legislation is just another way of punishing whites for being white.
Richard:
Do you consider a lynching, or a suicide bombing killing an innocent child, to be the “same thing” as a killing committed in a robbery? Turned around the other way, do you consider a killing committed in a robbery to be the same thing as an accidental hit-and-run? Dead person either way.
You may see them all the same. I do not. Indeed, we make “discriminations” all the time. The criminal law is already full of them.
Your premise is that hate crimes are premised only on thoughts. If and when that is the case, I agree that a distinction is probably not in order. But society is perfectly free to differentiate between similar actions on the basis of their different consequences according to its values–a hit and run treated less severely than a botched robbery, and a botched robbery treated less severely than a terrorist act.
Thus I would agree with you that if the law turns formally on the intent of the perp, it’s a shoddy law. But I cannot agree there is no principled argument for distinctions based on consequences, and society’s valuation of those consequences.
fenster, the “Real Hate Crimes” comment section has been subsumed by a discussion of crime statistics, so I’ll repost the gist of my comment here.
If, as you say, vandalism commited as a hate crime is different from just vandalism, then shouldn’t the false report of a hate crime be treated differently than the false report of simple vandalism? Shouldn’t there be extra charges against Prof. Dunn?
Fenster,
But society is perfectly free to differentiate between similar actions on the basis of their different consequences according to its values–a hit and run treated less severely than a botched robbery, and a botched robbery treated less severely than a terrorist act.
It would help if you actual read my comments before disagreeing with them.
By imposing a penalty of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, we are dissuading someone from committing an act of premeditated murder.
Here I am indicating that it is premeditated murder that society is punishing, not just any murder. Yes, we first make the distinction about the severity of the crime and then we punish all people equally who commit that type of crime. In that way we don’t have to do something that is impossible to do, that is determine what the person’s intent was at the instant of the crime.
Do you consider a lynching, or a suicide bombing killing an innocent child, to be the “same thing” as a killing committed in a robbery?
For your first and third examples, see my comments about premeditated. However, I will make a distinction about your second case. Terrorism should NOT be treated as a criminal matter. Terrorists are attempting to destroy a society and as such their crimes should be considered as acts of war and treated accordingly.
By the way do you consider a suicide bombing killings of a “guilty” child okay? :)
Richard,
Lynching is terrorism. It’s taking a random member of a group and making him an example of what might just as easily happen to any other member of the group. I see no distinction between the fate of James Byrd and the fate of Leon Klinghoffer, except that the former died a far more painful death.
If I may ask: Do you see no difference in kind between a kid “tagging” the wall of a synagogue with spray paint and someone else elaborately decorating it with swastikas? Are they really both the same crime of spray-painting-someone-else’s-property? Ought they to be punished equally?
Michelle,
The answer to your question is yes. Hate crime legislation is a way of silencing people for having incorrect political views. Remember it has no real effect when someone has committed a capital murder. You can’t kill the individual more than once. However, once in place, it will be used to punish anyone that says something politically incorrect. In fact, all of us who have presented our views on diversity are fair game for the hate crime police. We will be hunted down and send to those re-education camps.
When people commit crimes they should be punished for those crimes, not for there thoughts. Is that concept really that hard to understand? If a lynching takes place then those individuals should be put to death. Don’t you think that would be an effective way of discouraging such a horrendous crime? Do you think only if we call it a hate crime then the individuals would be discouraged from doing it?
What is quite ironic is that the same people who want to punish individuals for their thoughts, don’t want to give them the ultimate punishment for their crimes. Since the Left doesn’t believe in capital punishment, how are they going to show society’s extreme disapproval of crimes such as a lynching? By lecturing them at sentencing time?
I appreciate everyone’s comments, but I believe that Fenster (commenting above at 7:29AM this morning) and Michelle (this afternoon at 2:19PM) have zeroed in on the nub of the issue here.
Fenster opposes additional punishment based on the intent of the perp, but he supports additional punishment for an act whose consequences are deemed more serious than those of an identical act. Thus to Michelle’s question (I’m distorting it a bit for effect) of whether there is a difference between a kid spray-painting “Jack loves Jill” on the side of a synagogue and a skinhead (who may also be a kid) spray-painting “Death to the Jews!” I assume Fenster (and Michelle) would answer yes, there is a difference, and the latter deserves greater punishment.
Whether or not Fenster and Michelle believe this, many people do. But I have a hard time understanding why the only relevant difference between these two similar acts of vandalism isn’t the thought expressed by the grafitti. The anti-semitic spray-painting certainly has more serious “consequences,” but if we mete out more severe punishment for it we are, it seems to me, punishing the thought — the intent, if you will — not the act of putting paint where it doesn’t belong.
John, thanks for the comment. I would not say that “the only relevant difference is the thought expressed by the graffiti,” except in the sense that “I want to be an engineer when I grow up” and “Give me that wallet or I’ll blow your head off” “express different thoughts.” The point is that one of those “expressions” is a threat and one isn’t.
“Death to the Jews” means that Jews should be killed. It’s a threat, just as “Die, you Fascist” written on a Republican professor’s office door would be a threat. Or ought we to class the latter with the doodle a student does on the door with a ballpoint pen while waiting for the professor to get to his office hour? I mean, they’re both defacement-of-university-property.
I don’t like the hate-crime concept, but I do think the law ought to take cognizance of what might be reasonably perceived as a threat, and treat it differently from ordinary speech.
Michelle, in the examples you gave, I don’t see why the defacement of property and the threat to commit harm, along with the severity of the threat (i.e., treating “I’m going to beat you up” and “I’m going to kill you” differently), can’t both be charged against a person, while not having to examine the beliefs which constitute the threat. The problem with hate-crime laws is that, unless they are extended to include every conceivable group into which people can be categorized, a person who wrote “Die, you Jew” would be charged with defacement of property, the threat, and the violation of a hate-crime law, as religion is a recognized category, while the person who wrote “Die, you Fascist” would only face charges on defacement and the threat, as political persuasion is not a recognized category for hate-crime laws.
Nels,
I agree with you completely. But evidently we both disagree with John, because in his paraphrase of me, he doesn’t read “Death to the Jews” as a threat — or rather, he suggests that treating it differently from an ordinary “tag” involves “punishing thought.”
As I wrote, I don’t like the hate-crime concept. At the same time, I don’t see how the law can avoid recognizing that some kinds of facially minor crimes (trespass, vandalism, and the like) may reasonably be understood as threats and ought to be punished accordingly.
“Death to the Jews!” could be a threat, but I don’t think that’s what the punishment of the grafitti would be for. That is, if someone put that on a sign in his window I doubt that he’d be arrested for making a threat, or if he printed up flyers and stuck them on windshields at the mall. For the latter he might be arrested for littering. But to take away the ambiguity, what if the grafitti said simply “Jews Stink!”?
John, if it were just “Jews Stink!”, I’m with you. That’s just generic nastiness, and no one could plausibly read it as a threat, any more than one could read “Libertarians Stink!” spray-painted on the local offices of the Libertarian Party as a threat.
But it gets rather more complicated if you turn it around. “Death to the Jews” on a synagogue (or “Die, you n___s” on the Black Students’ Union building, or whatever) look like threats and would be read as such. “Death to the Libertarians!” reads like a joke. (If anyone ever did “tag” a Libertarian Party office thus, I’m sure it was a joke. And now that I’ve suggested it, someone might just go out and do it. So sue me. On second thought, don’t.)
The problem with “hate-crimes” laws, campus “hate-crimes” rules, &c., it seems to me, is that they see this difficulty and try to meet it by protecting specific groups. Whereas what we ought to be looking at is whether the conduct complained of legitimately looks like a threat to the group in question. If you showed the members of a synagogue the “Death to the Jews!” graffito, they would be worried. If you showed the Libertarians the “Death to the Libertarians!” graffito, they’d probably laugh their heads off, and as likely as not leave it up because it was so amusing.
John, here’s a quick list of various phrases and actions. At what point would you consider me to have committed a crime, or to at least warrant an investigation by law enforcement?
1. “I disagree with you.”
2. “I don’t like you.”
3. “I hate your kind.”
4. “I hate you.”
5. “The world would be a better place if you were dead.”
6. “I wish somebody would exterminate everyone like you.”
7. “I’m going to kill your kind.”
8. “John, I’m going to kill you.”
9. “One day soon, I’m going to get a gun and shoot you dead, John.”
10. I look in the Yellow Pages and locate a gun shop.
11. I legally purchase a rifle.
12. I take target practice at a range.
13. I keep watch out my window and notice that you always walk past my building at around 3:00 p.m.
14. One day I point my gun out the window, in your general direction, as you walk by. You continue on, unaware of my presence or actions.
15. I line you up in my gunsight.
16. I fire at you but miss, again unbeknown to you.
17. I shoot and kill you.
My opinion is that somewhere around 7-9 warrants at least an investigation. If not, law enforcement’s ability to prevent crimes is seriously hobbled. Perhaps some would argue that no crime has occured until I actually aimed or fired my gun at you, or that even firing doesn’t constitute a crime unless I hit you and thereby cause harm.
The problem here is the difference between theory and practice. In theory, a “hate crime” is more serious than a regular crime because it contains with it the element of a threat against a larger community. But as libertarians (since Michelle brought them up) know, what the government does with power once you grant it is different than what was intended.
In practice, the James Byrd lynching is the atypical case. In practice, a hate crime isn’t when people select a random person because he’s black and attack him. Rather, it turns out that a hate crime is when a bunch of people get into a dispute with a *specific* member of a different group and make the tactical error of using a racial slur when attacking him. It then becomes just another weapon in the prosecutor’s arsenal: plead guilty to assault or we’ll charge you with a hate crime, and potentially double your punishment.
David, in reference to what you wrote as to the practice of hate crimes, I just want to point out that while those considered to be based on race receive much of the attention, and do comprise a majority of the hate crimes, rather significant portions are classified as motivated by religion (overwhelmingly anti-Semitic) and sexual orientation (primarily directed against gay men). Also, destruction of property and vandalism actually account for more hate crimes than do physical attacks on persons.
Laura:
I don’t know if anyone is still posting here, but I see you seemed to have asked me above to once again consider the question that John initially posed concerning whether fake hate crimes ought to be treated more seriously than garden variety false testimony. I won’t take up space here, esp. since the trail on this thread may have gone cold, but I have posted a few more thoughts on the matter at fenstermoop.blogspot.com.
Education found where you least expect it
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