Quote:
Originally Posted by guccilvr
will you're a smart guy think about it.
if you accidentally kill someone it was not your intent to do so, which is why the manslaughter charge exists. However, if you kill someone because they have blonde hair or they are black or just because you are a sick fucker.. then the intent was there to commit harm in the form of murder. That is a huge difference between the 2 laws. To associate a hate crime as a worse form of murder simply because of skin only leaves racism on the table.
So you can put out the slipping on floor/stabbing argument but that's obvious don't you think?? A murder can only be a murder if the intent was to murder. If the intent was to murder than no matter how the murder occurred or who the victim was, it was still an intent to murder and in fact a so called hate crime. If you kill a white man.. isn't there a case to say it is a hate crime even if you are white under this law? Does that make sense. Of course it doesn't. You murder someone and you are using some form of hatred.
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This is what I'm talking about, though. You're willing to allow intent to determine degrees of punishment in one case but not another. Manslaughter and first degree murder both end up with the exact same result: someone is dead. Killing someone because he slept with your wife or because he has sexual relations with another man both end up with the exact same result, too.
In order to address the main issue, let me apply my logic to the manslaughter/murder comparison. Why do we have lesser charges for instances where there wasn't intent and the death was an accident? We want people to know that making a mistake isn't as bad as doing it intentionally. We make it clear that, despite the same outcome, we value intent and are willing to take it into account as a part of the justice system. Moreover, if you accidentally kill someone, you're probably not a risk to do it again. You're not a danger to yourself or those around you. If you actively seek to murder someone, then you may very well do it again.
Now let's transfer that over to the difference between a crime of passion and a hate crime against a homosexual (just as examples). A man walks in on his wife having sex with another man, goes into a rage and murders the man. Elsewhere, a man sees two men walking down the street holding hands and locking lips, follows them home, and beats their heads in with a tire iron. Which is more likely to happen again, and how does motive and intent factor into that? It seems simple. The man who was cheated on could possibly get a temporary insanity verdict because of the extenuating circumstances and extreme emotional distress. In addition, he's not likely to be in that situation again. The man who hates gay people may very well be exposed to more gay people because they theoretically take up something like 8% of the US population (though not evenly distributed). Moreover, the fact that his motive was "I hate them" means that he could also hate women, black people, etc. If hatred is a motive, then he's more likely to strike again.
I hope this has clarified my point.