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Orkeosaurus wrote:I think it would largely depend on whether or not the expression of political thought counts as a part of political affiliation. Of course if it doesn't, then by that logic skinheads can attack people for displaying stereotypically black mannerisms rather than attacking them because of their race per se, and that wouldn't be a hate crime.

Do you think that, in front of a jury, it could be successfully argued that the culture, rather than the racial association, inspired the action?

Kanluwen wrote:It depends on the state and in most cases it has to be proven that the attacker had prior knowledge of the victim's orientation.

Yes, and despite the limitations homosexuals still make up the most common victims of hate crimes.



Meanwhile, way back when hate crime legislation was proposed, it was explained to me that two assaults aren't necessarily the same, if one was taken with the intent to terrorise a community and force them into hiding. Targetting the leader of a gay rights movement and beating him is a fundamentally different crime than a beating of equal violence inflicted on some guy walking down the street.

That definition still makes a lot of sense to me, but it seems like that isn't really how hate crime legislation ends up working. In the case above, going to counter protest the neo-nazis, losing your bottle and punching one of them is assault, but it really doesn't strike me as a hate crime. On the other hand, waiting until the rally was over and following the speaker home and attacking him with the intent of scaring the neo-nazis into disbanding would be.

Hate crime implies an assault committed because the victim was a member of a social group the perpetrator hates.

When men beat up their wives, it isn't a hate crime against women as a whole it is a crime against individual women.

When skinhead beat up homosexuals or blacks it is because they are homosexuals or blacks, whom the skinhead hates as a group.

Therefore I agree with Sebster. Losing your rag and hitting someone at a demo is not a hate crime, it is a simple assault.

dogma wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:I think it would largely depend on whether or not the expression of political thought counts as a part of political affiliation. Of course if it doesn't, then by that logic skinheads can attack people for displaying stereotypically black mannerisms rather than attacking them because of their race per se, and that wouldn't be a hate crime.

Do you think that, in front of a jury, it could be successfully argued that the culture, rather than the racial association, inspired the action?

Possibly, although it would be pretty difficult. My guess is that most people would consider the cultural traits being targeted an expression of racial identity, and thus protected on that account. But then of course, expressions of a political identity would also be protected. Perhaps homosexuality would have been a better example, since it's not readily visible.

sebster wrote:Meanwhile, way back when hate crime legislation was proposed, it was explained to me that two assaults aren't necessarily the same, if one was taken with the intent to terrorise a community and force them into hiding. Targeting the leader of a gay rights movement and beating him is a fundamentally different crime than a beating of equal violence inflicted on some guy walking down the street.

That definition still makes a lot of sense to me, but it seems like that isn't really how hate crime legislation ends up working. In the case above, going to counter protest the neo-nazis, losing your bottle and punching one of them is assault, but it really doesn't strike me as a hate crime. On the other hand, waiting until the rally was over and following the speaker home and attacking him with the intent of scaring the neo-nazis into disbanding would be.

I think part of the support for hate crime legislation is an assumption of mitigating circumstances in other cases of assault; i.e., most assaults are a result of person X getting mad at person Y because of some prior incident, or because they're both drunk, or something along those lines, whereas a person who is assaulted because of their association with a specific group is unlikely to have had any personal connection to their attacker, which makes their attacker seem more dangerous/cruel. (This is more of an emotional bias than a thought out factor though, as it's a rather roundabout way of getting the desired result.)

The terroristic aspect of attacks made against members of a social group is probably the better argument to be made, but as you said, the law isn't explicitly concerning itself with the attacker's motivation to cause fear. I would also question the ability of hate crime legislation to act as a deterrent in these cases; I don't think the kind of people looking to terrorize a certain group are going to be particularly concerned about a longer prison sentence if they're caught. If anything, they seem more likely to consider the classification of "hate crime" to be a form of legitimization.

Its a hate crime sure, lets not be squeamish just because were talking about nazi fethers and remain coldly logical. I mean, say your a vigilante and you get a child molesters address from a journalist, then you go and buy a gun, put his address into google maps, drive round his house and shoot him in the face on his lawn. You still committed calculated murder. Its the exact same thing, and just because the average joe thinks its a good thing, the law is clear on the details. I remember seeing a documentary about a kid who made a pro animal testing website after seeing the abuse the guys at the lab got for it, and he got tortured by the hippy types.. They threw excrement at him and assaulted him in the street, and have you seen what these ecoterrorists get up to? Its easy for it to illicit an emotional response just because we dont like the victims, but the law is the law, and I think the ones who seem shout 'nazi' the loudest the second you disagree with them are usually some sort of nazis themselves.

mattyrm wrote:Its a hate crime sure, lets not be squeamish just because were talking about nazi fethers and remain coldly logical. I mean, say your a vigilante and you get a child molesters address from a journalist, then you go and buy a gun, put his address into google maps, drive round his house and shoot him in the face on his lawn. You still committed calculated murder. Its the exact same thing, and just because the average joe thinks its a good thing, the law is clear on the details. I remember seeing a documentary about a kid who made a pro animal testing website after seeing the abuse the guys at the lab got for it, and he got tortured by the hippy types.. They threw excrement at him and assaulted him in the street, and have you seen what these ecoterrorists get up to? Its easy for it to illicit an emotional response just because we dont like the victims, but the law is the law, and I think the ones who seem shout 'nazi' the loudest the second you disagree with them are usually some sort of nazis themselves.

Why are you talking about premeditated murder of an accused criminal when we're talking about a spur of the moment assault during a heated protest. They've nothing to do with each other.

Any yeah, I'd have the same problem extending hate crime legislation to a bigot who lost his block and punched a gay rights activist - hate crimes should be applied to people who inflict violence on a political, religious or ethnic group to instill terror into that group.


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Orkeosaurus wrote:I think part of the support for hate crime legislation is an assumption of mitigating circumstances in other cases of assault; i.e., most assaults are a result of person X getting mad at person Y because of some prior incident, or because they're both drunk, or something along those lines, whereas a person who is assaulted because of their association with a specific group is unlikely to have had any personal connection to their attacker, which makes their attacker seem more dangerous/cruel. (This is more of an emotional bias than a thought out factor though, as it's a rather roundabout way of getting the desired result.)

Yeah, that seems a pretty fair summation. A lot of it does seem like writing law to make judge's decisions for them, which is pretty much always a bad idea.

The terroristic aspect of attacks made against members of a social group is probably the better argument to be made, but as you said, the law isn't explicitly concerning itself with the attacker's motivation to cause fear. I would also question the ability of hate crime legislation to act as a deterrent in these cases; I don't think the kind of people looking to terrorize a certain group are going to be particularly concerned about a longer prison sentence if they're caught. If anything, they seem more likely to consider the classification of "hate crime" to be a form of legitimization.

It does make it a more serious crime, potentially locking the attacker away for longer, and I think it would also make it easier to for authorities to isolate the individual and reduce communication with his buddies on the outside. I agree that it wouldn't do much as a deterrent (harsher penalties rarely do) but it could help breaking the gang up after the offense - but I might be drawing a long bow on that.

Smashotron wrote:Oh my god, what kind of world are we living in when bad people get what they deserve. The horror, the horror..

Word.

Frazzled wrote:
Word.

As defined by wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word

A word is the smallest free form (an item that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content) in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. wolf), but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s).

Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem, and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined to create other units of language, such as phrases, clauses, and/or sentences. A word consisting of two or more stems joined together form a compound. A word combined with an already existing word or part of a word form a portmanteau.

Word may refer to a spoken word or a written word, or sometimes, the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of phonemes, and written words of graphemes.

Well, I asked the question about ethnic on white supremacist hate violence only because of the irony involved. These bigots proclaim where they will rally to throw hate speech at people, said people get wind of this and organize. Tempers flame and one nutjob provokes the crowd and got rioted all over. While his actions specifically were not hostile (he was indeed mocking their protest chant), he did instigate the people to smash him up pretty good.

Can we just implode the ground underneath both groups...for the good of humanity?

Soladrin wrote:
When's the last time you heard of a neo-nazi doing something good?

Yes I wish a few more of them would follow Hitler's lead and make the world a better place by killing themselves...

CT GAMMER wins the thread!

I suppose you are actually seeing theseneo-nazis as people though?

I actually know a few(or at least they think they are), and I openly laugh at them every time I run into them, bloody losers.

They actually got beat up by a bunch of Moroccans a while back.

Soladrin wrote:I actually know a few(or at least they think they are), and I openly laugh at them every time I run into them, bloody losers.

They actually got beat up by a bunch of Moroccans a while back.

Sounds like hate on hate to me.

Would that make them a Hata' hata' ?
"Don't be a hata hata!"