| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Rob Wade" |
| Date: |
15 Nov 2005 09:58:07 PM |
| Object: |
Hate-crime laws and evolutionary tyranny |
Hate-crime laws and evolutionary tyranny
Selwyn Duke
The insidious thing about evolutionary tyranny is that it's only as
visible as the people are perceptive. It doesn't beat you over the head
like the iron fist of a despot or sweep you aside like a wave of
revolution, but, rather, is a death by a thousand doses of bad medicine
that makes benign neglect seem utopian.
One example of this brand of tyranny is the proliferation of hate-crime
laws in the Western World. The very concept of hate-crime law itself is
an offense against freedom and, as such, is quintessentially
un-American. Yes, I hate hate-crime laws. And so should you.
The main problem with hate-crime law is that it is an effort at
thought-control masquerading as legitimate criminal-justice
legislation. Let's examine why this is so.
Consider this example: two identical illegal acts are committed; the
perpetrator of one is motivated by hate, whereas the perpetrator of the
other is motivated by good old greed. I'll call the latter Mr. Greed
and the former Mr. Hate. The punishment deemed appropriate for Mr.
Greed is ten years in prison, but the punishment visited upon Mr. Hate
is twenty years up the river because his crime was motivated by his
namesake.
Now, let's analyze the reason for this disparity between their
sentences. Obviously, the law determined that the act itself warranted
ten years in prison because that's what was received by Mr. Greed when
only the nature of the act was taken into consideration. So, this begs
the question, since the two men committed the same act, what were the
extra ten years imposed in Mr. Hate's case for? They could only have
been for one thing: the thoughts that motivated the act or were
expressed through it.
So, now the government has been appointed both clairvoyant and arbiter
of the acceptability of thoughts, bringing us one giant step closer to
an Orwellian nightmare in which the state plays God, reading and
judging minds and hearts and damning people based on its
determinations. What's next, "Bless me Big Brother for I have sinned; I
have had proscribed thoughts"? The truth is that the government should
punish actions, not motivations.
Now, some will counter that there is precedent for punishing thoughts
because we already do so when distinguishing between certain categories
of crime, but this is a fallacy. For instance, the distinctions between
first and second-degree murder involve evaluation of whether or not
there was intent to kill, not what motivated one to have that intent.
The law makes a distinction between intent and motive, and while motive
can help establish intent, it is rarely considered when determining
punishment. Moreover, when it is, it's always a mitigating factor, not
an aggravating one.
Then there's the matter of murders inspired by passion, which are
viewed as manslaughter. While this charge carries a lesser sentence
still, it's not because of motive. Rather, the judgement has been made
that the circumstances preceding the killing were of the kind that
would cause a reasonable person to become mentally or emotionally
disturbed. So, the critical point here is that what's being evaluated
in such cases are not thoughts, but emotional state.
Regardless, none of these examples involve the punishment of those who
entertain a given type of thoughts. This is because even when thoughts
were at issue, they did not cause more punishment to be rendered, but
less. Moreover, there is a profound difference between having mercy on
those who were compelled by common frailties and visiting Draconian
punishment on those in the grip of politically-incorrect ones.
Ironically, while part of the supposed purpose of hate-crime
legislation is to combat prejudice and discrimination, it is the very
embodiment of it. After all, there are seven deadly sins: sloth,
gluttony, lust, envy, pride, greed and wrath (hate), and this
legislation discriminates by placing an undue onus on those who exhibit
the one that is most out of fashion.
Why is hate being turned into our national boogeyman? Well, the
social-engineers have deemed that hate =E2=80=94 and dreaded permutations of
it, such as "racism" =E2=80=94 are the end all and be all, the source of all
our ills, as they formulate their very own hierarchy of sin. Of course,
lust would never find a prominent place on the totem pole, since the
libertine formulators in question have tried to turn the exercise of it
into a national pastime. Nor would envy strike them as something
bedeviling us, since it infuses their souls and animates their schemes
to redistribute wealth. But their version of hate is the bee in their
bonnet; so much so, that they don't see the forest for the trees. After
all, if crime is at issue, the focus should be on that which probably
constitutes ninety-five percent of all crime: greed-crime.
Incidentally, this brings to mind a pearl of wisdom from a rather
highly regarded and widely sold book: "The lust for money is the root
of all evil."
Hate-crime laws also facilitate discrimination, as they provide
ideological prosecutors with a vehicle through which members of groups
that are out of favor socially can be hammered with disproportionate
punishment. For a crime isn't a hate-crime until it is judged so, and
this judgement often reflects the prejudices of the arbiters more than
it does reality. For instance, if a crime is white on black or straight
on homosexual, it's far more likely that it will be labeled a
hate-crime than a scenario involving the reverse.
One example of this is the very different treatment of the Matthew
Sheppard and Jesse Derkhising cases. The quite notorious Sheppard case
involved two men who murdered a homosexual, while the Derkhising case
involved two homosexuals who tortured and murdered a 13-year-old boy.
However, while the Sheppard case became a cause c=C3=A9l=EF=81=90bre in the
effluent-stream media and was labeled a hate-crime, young Derkhising
was barely a blip on the radar screen.
And this brings to light another odious aspect of this topic. Because
the effluent-stream media determine what events and causes will see the
light of day and how they will be cast, they're instrumental in shaping
the perception of criminal acts. Yes, the media's biases determine the
content and nature of coverage, and this serves to put pressure on
authorities and shape their thinking, and this, in turn, means that
those biases will be reflected in the treatment of crime.
These biases in the media will shape punishment. But think about it: if
one of your loved ones was killed for his money and his murderer
received a lesser sentence than someone who killed motivated by "hate,"
would you find the relative slap-on-the-wrist palatable because your
loved one died for a politically-correct reason? And, if someone else
were in those mournful shoes, would you want to be the one charged with
the task of explaining to him that the lesser punishment was
justifiable because the motivation for his loved one's murder was more
"acceptable"? If you would answer no, you cannot in good conscience
support these misbegotten laws.
Far more distressing than anything I've mentioned, though, are the
social changes that are both a cause and an effect of the hate-crime
philosophy. Remember, laws don't emerge in a vacuum, rather, they are
an expression of the collective values of a society. And pondering this
reminds me of an experience I had earlier this year.
After speaking about so-called racial-profiling at the World Affairs
Conference in Toronto, Canada, I learned that certain elements of my
presentation didn't sit too well with a student in attendance. You see,
some representatives of the host institution were kind enough to
apprise me of the fact that he found certain comments of mine
"offensive." Although I forged on undeterred with the same speech and
approach during the second session, the fact that sensitivity-police
are no longer uncommon should give us all pause for thought.
You see, what does the fact that students would lodge such complaints
mean in terms of social change? Well, I'm not that old, but in "my day"
it wasn't uncommon to hear the adage, "Sticks and stones may break my
bones but names will never hurt me." Of course, we all know that sharp
words can cut hearts, but this principle was, nevertheless, a good one
to bear in mind. After all, we don't want to raise children who are so
thin-skinned that they can't cope and whose self-image hinges on
others' estimation of them. More importantly, however, the saying also
implicitly transmits the message that it's a given that people are free
to say what they wish, even if it's not what we wish. And freedom of
speech must be a given if we are to remain a free land.
Ominously, though, that erstwhile ubiquitous old saying has fallen by
the wayside, supplanted by psycho-babble that casts "hate-speech" as
the ultimate sin. Mind you, it's not as if the school officials in
question seek merely to root out meanness across the board and
encourage civility and charity; this would be just fine. No, what they
are doing is cherry-picking speech from the realms of both illegitimate
and legitimate discourse and earmarking them for demonization. And, of
course, the only thing these examples of speech =E2=80=94 the good, the bad
and the ugly =E2=80=94 have in common is that they're politically-incorrect.
And it has taken hold. I remember some years ago a student of mine
telling me that one shouldn't be allowed to use hateful words. And
sadly, his is not an unusual belief among those weaned on a steady diet
of leftist tripe. These youth have been transformed into good,
unthinking foot soldiers for the left and have been conditioned to
mistake facile analyses for intellectualism and the embrace of the
spirit of the age for sophistication. They blindly accept the dogma
that hate should be criminalized and the dogma that hate is whatever
the social-engineers say it is. And when you have enough such obedient
dogmatists and they reach voting age, you no longer have a free nation.
This is why we see our neighbor in the great white north descending
into what can rightly be called fascism. You see, Canada is proceeding
down the hate-speech road, and its rather heavy-handed,
euphemistically-named "Human Rights Tribunals" have assiduously been
imposing an orthodoxy upon the people. Case in point: in 2003 Hugh
Owens of Regina, Saskatchewan, was found guilty of "inciting hatred"
and was forced to pay 1,500 Canadian Dollars to each of three
homosexual men who filed a complaint against him. His "crime"? He took
out a newspaper advertisement that included four Bible citations
pertaining to homosexuality.
Then there was the 2002 case of Mark Harding, a man who committed the
unpardonable sin of distributing pamphlets in which he was critical of
Islam. A Canadian court sentenced Harding to two years probation and
community service under the direction of one Mohammad Ashraf, general
secretary of the Islamic Society of North America. His service involved
being indoctrinated with Islamic ideas by Ashraf, who emphasized that
if Harding said anything negative about Islam or its prophet Muhammad
or failed to follow Ashraf's instructions, he would be sent back to
prison.
Of course, we are all so sure this could never happen here. We have our
First Amendment guaranteeing us freedom of speech, after all. But with
Ginsbergesque Supreme Court Justices embracing the notion that our
Constitution can be interpreted in light of international law, it may
just be a matter of time. For, there are deeds, words and thoughts, and
the ultimate goal of any fervent social-engineer is to gain control
over the last of those. Punishing thoughts as expressed through action
=E2=80=94 otherwise known as hate-crime laws =E2=80=94 is the first step. N=
ow all
you have to do is finish the progression; the next logical move is to
punish the most direct expression of thoughts: speech. This is why this
pattern of moving toward an Orwellian oblivion should be broken.
Hate-crime laws should be abolished. Hate them, hate them with a
burning fire of a thousand suns. For, to hate them is to love freedom.
.
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| User: "Matt Silberstein" |
|
| Title: Re: Hate-crime laws and evolutionary tyranny |
16 Nov 2005 05:39:40 PM |
|
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On 15 Nov 2005 13:58:07 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Rob Wade"
<rob_c_wade_03@yahoo.com> in
<1132091887.819550.96150@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
Hate-crime laws and evolutionary tyranny
Selwyn Duke
The insidious thing about evolutionary tyranny is that it's only as
visible as the people are perceptive. It doesn't beat you over the head
like the iron fist of a despot or sweep you aside like a wave of
revolution, but, rather, is a death by a thousand doses of bad medicine
that makes benign neglect seem utopian.
One example of this brand of tyranny is the proliferation of hate-crime
laws in the Western World. The very concept of hate-crime law itself is
an offense against freedom and, as such, is quintessentially
un-American. Yes, I hate hate-crime laws. And so should you.
What is the connection between evolution and hate-crime laws?
The main problem with hate-crime law is that it is an effort at
thought-control masquerading as legitimate criminal-justice
legislation. Let's examine why this is so.
Consider this example: two identical illegal acts are committed; the
perpetrator of one is motivated by hate, whereas the perpetrator of the
other is motivated by good old greed. I'll call the latter Mr. Greed
and the former Mr. Hate. The punishment deemed appropriate for Mr.
Greed is ten years in prison, but the punishment visited upon Mr. Hate
is twenty years up the river because his crime was motivated by his
namesake.
We regularly distinguish crimes by intent. "Intent to commit murder",
for example.
Now, let's analyze the reason for this disparity between their
sentences. Obviously, the law determined that the act itself warranted
ten years in prison because that's what was received by Mr. Greed when
only the nature of the act was taken into consideration. So, this begs
the question, since the two men committed the same act, what were the
extra ten years imposed in Mr. Hate's case for? They could only have
been for one thing: the thoughts that motivated the act or were
expressed through it.
I agree, you beg the question.
So, now the government has been appointed both clairvoyant and arbiter
of the acceptability of thoughts,
No clairvoyance at all. (BTW, what is your objection to allowing the
supernatural in the courts. Don't you want it in science classes?)
Courts regularly use evidence to determine intent. Fraud, for example,
has an intent component.
[snip]
Now, some will counter that there is precedent for punishing thoughts
because we already do so when distinguishing between certain categories
of crime, but this is a fallacy. For instance, the distinctions between
first and second-degree murder involve evaluation of whether or not
there was intent to kill, not what motivated one to have that intent.
ROTFLMAO.
The law makes a distinction between intent and motive, and while motive
can help establish intent, it is rarely considered when determining
punishment. Moreover, when it is, it's always a mitigating factor, not
an aggravating one.
And hate crimes distinguish between the motive of hate and the motive
of greed.
[snip]
Why is hate being turned into our national boogeyman? Well, the
social-engineers have deemed that hate — and dreaded permutations of
it, such as "racism" — are the end all and be all, the source of all
our ills, as they formulate their very own hierarchy of sin.
Why don't you have the courage of your bigotry rather than trying to
convince us it is a minor offense.
Of course,
lust would never find a prominent place on the totem pole, since the
libertine formulators in question have tried to turn the exercise of it
into a national pastime.
How would you go about criminalizing lust?
[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
.
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