Welcome to the Cellar, Demalo:D Always room for another Mainiac.

But the results of your reason doesn't jibe with the results of mine. So I guess that murders reason, as something to hide our bias behind.:eyebrow:

How bout if you put a burning cross on someone's lawn?

The term 'hate crime' may or may not be overused, but it's important to remember why it was invented: what it was invented to cover. Yes, if someone puts a bullet in my head, it makes no difference to me if they do it because they hate my race, hate me personally, despise my sex, or accidentally pulled the trigger....But it matters to society. It matters to the rest of society if a person kills out of racist hate, because of what it says about us as a people and what it says about our world. It matters because of the spectrum of possible thoughts and actions on which that murder sits.

In one country hate crime may mean a man targetting and killing innocent people because of their colour or sexuality...in another country that same drive, that same motivation might lead to ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

Thanks for the welcome Bruce :) I'd like to think a Mainiac or two (or more) is good in every society.

Saying hate crime is much easier than saying "A crime that was the result of a feud/misunderstanding/'fill in other horrifc act upon said persons "people"' that's been raging for years/decades/centuries/millennia etc. etc."

Good thread. I agree with the OP. Is killing someone because they're a different race really worse than killing someone because you hate them for another reason? It's all murder. Also, if you're the kind of person who sees fit to kill someone just because they're a different race than you, then surely you would have no qualms about killing someone of your own race if they did something that you feel warranted it. I'm guessing that for people who have killed someone because of their race, that there would be other things that would drive them to kill also; a racist murderer may well have ended up a murderer even if he never met any other races.

If some idiot rapes women, serial rapist. He hates women right?
Hate crime?
How stupid is that? You know that it fits the definition, but will not happen. So, let's be serious here. A black man that attacks whites only on a mugging spree? No, not gonna' get charged even if he travels out of his area to specifically target whites.
It was created only to charge whites, not to truly fit the profile of what a hate crime truly is... even though if it were I would still be against it.
This just makes it that much worse and that much more hypocritical, which is really hard to do.

Correct. But many murders are not premeditated. A hate crime is a premeditated crime - that's 1st degree murder.

Not always premeditated. Someone involved in a fender bender or other minor altercation, might become enraged to the point of violence, discovering the offender is of a certain race or doesn't speak English. :cool:

It seems to me that hate crime is used to denote when the reason for the crime is solely because of "hatred", and is often used to protect a minority, since the minority doesn't always have the same protection that the majority enjoys.

A black man mugs only whute people. His reason is to get money. It's very different than some white guys choosing a random black guy to drag behind their pick-uo truck. Black people in the south in 1930 were not publically lynching white people. Ask yourself why.

IMHO, minorities should be charged with hate crime, when appropriate.

Doesn't have the same protection?
If you go into minority neighborhoods you will find more cops than in other neighborhoods.
The reason he mugs is to get money, the reason he only mugs whites is because he is a racists, hate crime.
No one should be charged with it.

Debating someone in another site and really am sick of all this hate crime legislation crap.
It is the worst, basest, compulsion when approaching justice.
It is not justice, justice is blind, motivation should never be part of the penalty issue, that is nuts.
Yes, I am disgusted by these acts and the thoughts that precede them, but assault is assault, battery is battery, murder is murder.
Separating them states that one person's suffering is worth more to the state than another's.
It is not protection, it is after the fact.
It is not punitive, justice does not work that way.
It is not a deterrent, we know that sentencing does not work that way or the murdering of killers would stop killing and it never has. In fact states that murder more killers have more killers, it creates and air of blood-lust that translates to the populace. It has never worked as a deterrent.
It is bigotry instead of fighting it, "those poor people need special help and laws since they are so weak and defenseless".
This crap does more harm to civil rights than anything in the last two decades.
It is an insult to anyone who believes in freedom, justice, rule of law, truth, civil rights and attempting to work toward equality.

Most rapes are hate crimes, why are they not prosecuted as such?

Under the law, they absolutely have the same protection.

I'm curious, how is life in prison under a hate crime different than life in prison under blind justice, other than the hate crime stating that the black man is "different" setting back civil rights fifty-years?

Hate crime legislation is harmful, in all ways, nothing it does helps anyone in any way.

I learned 80% of black crime is targeted toward black people and around 70% of white crimes is targeted to white people.
Just throwing it out there.
<<run>>

What was the point of that?

Don't really know much about the legislation, so thought I could present a factoid? Sorry, dude, continue on thread.