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Originally Posted by seregotis
This discussion all boils down to this simple question: Do you believe government should police the thoughts of others?
Thought-policing is what hate-crime legislation is. The crime itself is put aside and the focus is given to what nasty terrible thoughts they were thinking while they committed it. Now, I won't go so far as to whip out my annual income figure like will, but as a non-white non-heterosexual I will defend the right of the KKK to hate me purely for those reasons as much as I will defend the right of another to protest as KKK marches.
Thoughts are not crimes, even when they are ignorant and bigoted bullshit. I wish that people would realize the terrible implications of asking the government to intervene in this way. Ignorance and bigotry is a social issue, not a criminal one. It is something for society -- without government intervention -- to fix.
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Right, right. I'm with you. But a "thought crime" is no longer a simple idea in the mind of the person committing it, when they are in the process of committing it. I agree, the government doesn't have the right to stop the KKK, or Fred Philps, Black Panthers, etc. from voicing their opinions, no matter how ugly and disgusting they are. But if a white kills a black merely because of race, it isn't "thought crime" anymore. It's something else entirely. Its a hate crime, done because of contempt for what the person is, not what the person has done.
If you had another non-heterosexual friend, and someone kills them simply because they were non-heterosexual, and the murderer had never met your friend before, would you be willing to simply categorize it as first or second degree murder? Even though this person was a saint in your eyes, the nicest person you'll ever meet, it wouldn't bother you that they were targeted just for being non-heterosexual?
It's a play on emotions, I know, but the point is still valid.