Fake hate crimes not new

[Sukerkin]

Gently, gentlemen. Such words are combative and uncalled for.

They are also illustrative of what can go scarily wrong when otherwise intelligent humans cleave too tightly to a general concept which should be laudible but often runs straight for the endstop of extremism. Racism is a many edged blade and it tends to cut everyone that handles it, one way or the other.

Hopefully we can discuss this powder-keg without making it explode.

 

[elder999]

Because, Mr Orwell, the idea of hate crimes legislation turns my stomach. Hate crime laws are an assault on freedom of not only speech, but thought.
OK, how about this: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr, this we all know, suppose now, that he committed that murder, not because he was a racist scumbag, but, because he didn't like the way Reverend King drove, would that make it less of a crime? Of course not, you and your ilk, however, would have any crime motivated by a bias more of a crime than others. Both ideas are patently ridiculous, that so many people don't understand that is scary.

I'm afraid, perhaps, that you don't understand.

Hate crimes legislation can neither restrict free speech or thought-though, and I'll get to this, it's possible that its interpretation and prosecution can.

In the meantime, though, I'll point out that there's nothing preventing the fellows over at the Stromfront ("White pride world wide"-btw, they have a rather long "sticky" thread there on "hate crime hoaxes.. :lol: ) from preaching hate daily, and that the 1st Amendment rights of various Christian Identity churches aren't being infringed upon. I'll also point out that up until very recently, in very many places in the United States it was illegal for my wife and I to be married. While it's no longer the law, it is still the right of anyone who thinks that "mixed race" marriages are wrong to go on thinking it, and to say as much. They can't, of course, shoot us down for walking hand in hand, and I think it's a good thing that there are laws that bring an additional level of penalty for anyone who might perpetrate such a crime.

However, just as RICO statutes have been more broadly applied than what was originally intended, and sometimes abused, there are also potentials for abuse of hate crime legislation. It's entirely possible that if an individual from one of the organizations I mentioned were to commit a hate crime, that the prosecution might extend to the organizations themselves, for fomenting the thought that became the action. This just might be an abuse-though some, like Marginal, might call it just...in the end, though, it would be up to a jury, if such a case were to come to trial.

The notion, then, that hate crimes legislation are an affront to free speech, and free thought, is a blatant canard-one usually foisted upon us by media pundits with little or no stake in the matter, or politicians trying to curry favor with a segment of their constituency

As for "hate crimes" themselves, I believe a recent FBI report indicates that whites are more likely to be victims of hate crimes than perpetrators...

 

[Marginal]

Gently, gentlemen. Such words are combative and uncalled for.

Eh. I was joking in the last post regardless. Can't take much offense to being called "Orwell" since I don't recall 1984 being pro thought control.

 

[Sukerkin]

Sorry Marginal, I took you the wrong way - remember ... smileys are a posters best friend (after grammar and spelling ... and a computer ... and not using too many ellipses) .

Good post above too Elder. I don't concur with you fully but you make a good case (and by the sounds of it have 'grass-roots' experience to draw on too).

 

[Big Don]

Eh. I was joking in the last post regardless. Can't take much offense to being called "Orwell" since I don't recall 1984 being pro thought control.

1984 isn't the only book Orwell wrote, the "All pigs are equal"/"Some pigs are more equal than others" is out of Animal Farm, by the way. I guess that misunderstanding is my fault, I erroneously gave you too much credit.

 

[Marginal]

1984 isn't the only book Orwell wrote, the "All pigs are equal"/"Some pigs are more equal than others" is out of Animal Farm, by the way. I guess that misunderstanding is my fault, I erroneously gave you too much credit.

No worries.

 

[grydth]

There are fake reports of many different crimes, usually ones which are getting a lot of publicity at the time. People do it out of spite, for monetary or legal gain, to cover what really happened... and a hundred other bad excuses. Fakes have been around a long time.

No sooner were there greater societal focuses on child abuse, hate crimes, insurance fraud.... than the fake claims came pouring in along with the real ones. False reporting to police is in no way confined to, or peculiar to, hate crimes. There have even been fake Katrina and 9/11 claims.

Besides proving there are a lot of liars and fakers out there, what does false reporting prove? I know of one incident where a prominent Jewish lawyer had swastikas painted on his house.... turns out his own son did it. BUT ........ that in no way provides any evidence that real anti-semitic incidents are not disturbingly plentiful.

There was just a story of where a female attorney faked her own abduction - so, does that mean that women are not being kidnaped, raped and murdered across the country? Of course not.

While condemning the ever present fakes, let's not draw the wrong conclusions.