The Senate just approved the defense spending bill which had some federal hate crimes legislation.

I've never understood this hate crimes silliness. Say a guy walks up to another guy and hits him on the head with a hammer. That is a crime - what is the difference whether the guy was assaulted to steal his money, or he'd screwed the wrong woman, or he was a homosexual?

When you tack on extra penalty for committing a crime against a homosexual or minority you are making certain types of thought a crime.

This is JustNonsense. And I want to address this thread.

My daddy say's it's ok to hit gay people and females because, like animals, they can't really feel the pain anyway. Besides, daddy says they were put here for us to boss around.

Hate the sin and love the sinner. Even if they are god damn liberal homosexuals who take showers with other men.

What a person thinks dont matter. My cousin shot a guy when he was real drunk.

I've never understood this terrorism silliness. Say a guy blows up a crowded bus. That is a crime - what is the difference whether the bus was blown up because ransom was not payed, or because some dudes read too many religious texts and wanted to fuck 40 virgins in the afterlife.

When you tack on extra penalty of possibly not even getting a open trial you are making certain types of being innocent a crime.

<\anology-write>
I argue that there is a mentality that needs to be fought here. And if you think that threatening higher punishments helps i think that might be one instrument. I am doubtful that it would work that way; i would be for some kind of policy that is not really settable well on paper, base part of the sentence of the punishment based on genuine admission of guild-and that it was wrong.
Of course, telling if it is genuine is not an easy thing to do; this is not a policy i would advise if sentences are based on bureaucratic-paper-work guys. Any such variation in sentence is of course something that may evolve into existence spontaniously when the people determining the sentence have some freedom in its harshness. And this does also cary the chance of it being affected by discrimination.
Lets not be naive though, the people sentencing can always affect things in some way. I do not think that this is neccesarilly a bad thing; if the ethics is well thought-out. (Or in line with society's ethics, perhaps.)

About my analogy with terrorism, for the sentences, the same thing may apply. But as for habeas corpus, i do not think anything should supercede that. Giving up habeas corpus is just giving a organisation the right to just pick up anyone they like for anything. That is just a danger to open society that should not be risked except the most dire circumstance. The war on terror is not such a circumstance. And if it is, considering the worth of an open society it is worth many more 911's just to prove that we are in such a dire circumstance.

Sorry for going a bit off topic. Probably should go more into the vary punishment based on intent/mentality-discussion, rather then one about terrorism.

Bring out the thought police.

BTW, terrorism is a tactic, not a motive.

We need to charge each and every legislator $10,000 for every law they enact. We don't need more laws, we need fewer. We shouldn't be addressing every nuance of human behavior with legislation. What we should be doing is enforcing all laws as fully and fairly as possible or getting rid of the ones we don't like. Yeah, I guess Dr. Hyde, my conservative alter ego, is out tonight.

Note that I'm not being libertarian, just begging for simplicity. Government can do things, it just should be very careful about adding complexity to the code (programmer talk).

I think making what someone thinks criminal is a step in the wrong direction - an extremely dangerous direction.

Yup, murder is murder, whether you thought you were trying to save the world or didn't like how somebody looked at you. Judge (and convict) by deeds, not thoughts.

But the war is supposedly about fighting the mentality behind the terrorism is it. (Ofcourse "The war on terror" is bad name.)

@scooper: Is admitting guild and being (very, very) wrong not a deed? And can it not have an impact on the convicted's peers? To see a peer consider his viewpoints/deeds wrong can help make you think. And even if not, the group(Talking about a group here because still talking about mentality.) might reject the person that was regretting. (lower chance of 'relapse')

Not at all. The war is to stop innocent people from being blown up at bus stops, pizza parlors, office buildings, etc by defeating those who do such things.

we resent that. (That being me, bio and kuro.) And I'm sure someoneelse does too.

pssst

/poke

He's not with us anymore.

...opps...

*thinking* wait, why do I care?... *end thought trasmission*

Some recent news on hate crimes:
Gay-bashing defendant: 'I could be homosexual' - CNN.com
Can a gay person be convicted of hate crimes against gays?

And what does 'defeating' mean here? Not killing them all, i hope; many are suicide bombers, it is not constantly the same people. Or does it mean that you are trying to sway them to just go kill some other random people, like Chinese or Indians?
Never heard of the saying "Mopping the floor with running water" ("Dweilen met de kraan open") Or perhaps "Know your enemy"?

I concerned with making sure they don't defeat us for now. With appeasers like you running rampant, it may be a challenge. I also think you are naively looking at this as if it is something that could be resolved in five years. Think more like fifty.

Presumably i am a "appeaser" for saying most Muslims are just people trying to live their lives? Sure a great many of those (indirectly or directly) support violent Jihad, but we can hardly kill them for it. That would be genocide.. I am just saying that we must end the mentality of supporting stuff like this. They must turn in their extremist brothers, so to say. And how am i implying that this is a short-term goal? Since when is changing a mentality considered easy?? (If this is not your definition of defeating jihadists, what is?)

Assuming 3.0e4 ppl died because of terrorist attact in america, that is only 3.0e8 ppl/3.0e4 ppl= 1.0e-4 = 0.01% a lot more needs to happen to defeat us. For instance, scaremongering about terrorism, losing civil rights would bring defeat of the open society much closer. Probably, more people have died in the US worrying about terrorism then by it. (Old news, can also compare with any other cause of death.)

Interesting point. There are many ways the fear of terrorism may have caused more deaths than terrorism itself. The Iraq war, the lack of National Guard and preparedness for Katrina, heart disease due to worrying or waiting on lines at airports, ... We definitely have not taken a balanced approach. The fact that something pisses us off more than something else doesn't mean that it's actually more important than other problems.

I just realized I've participated in topic abuse. But I already typed it in.

To connect it back, the reaction to terrorism is another case of putting a value on a crime that goes beyond the objective consequence of the crime. Death is death, violence is violence. Get the bloody perps! Stop legislating and executivating (tm) changes to our way of life.

Basically I'm completely agreeing with Jasper84.