(Alternative title: Don’t hate me because I’m rational.)
According to the White House Blog, the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act” became federal law today, effectiely making it legal for you to be punished for thinking incorrect thoughts.
Seriously… there are a number of issues on which Leftists and Conservatives disagree, but few are so clarifying as this one. I’ve written before about how I believe that, in general, Leftists are motivated by emotion over reason, and the debate over this issue substantiates that claim.
During his remarks, President Obama said:
…we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear. You understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts. And you understand how necessary this law continues to be.
Let us imagine a scenario in which a young man named William is severly beaten late one night outside a Wal-Mart in Ohio. What punishment do his attackers deserve? We have criminal charges on the books through which they can be made to serve jail time and we have civil courts which could force them to compensate William for medical expenses, lost wages and pain and anguish.
In other words, William’s constitutional right to not be attacked has been protected. Why should this be any different simply because William’s attackers had an imaginary reason to attack him? Suppose they attacked him because he was black. Or Jewish. Or gay. Or Hispanic. Or whatever. Why is that crime somehow worse than attacking him because you don’t like his shoes or because he cut you off in traffic or because you’re simply in a bad mood?
Punishing attackers because of their thoughts frightens me.
I understand why Leftists and Liberals are moved to make this argument. As horrible as it would be to be beaten up because I provoked through some slight, it would be infinitely more terrible to be beaten up for no “good reason” at all. We feel sorry for the victims of hate crime… so we are motivated to do better by them than other victims. This makes emotional sense and is the reason why so many people are happy about this new law.
However, judging people’s thoughts is scary idea. What if the fact that I hate you has nothing to do with your gender, race or sexual orientation? What if I’m just a violent jerk who feels like beating you up? Is my crime someone less than that of the bigot who beats you up with “cause”?
Discussing the issue rationally exposes the absurdity of the claim. This is why the President doesn’t discuss the issue rationally. The end of remarks claim:
We have for centuries strived to live up to our founding ideal, of a nation where all are free and equal and able to pursue their own version of happiness. Through conflict and tumult, through the morass of hatred and prejudice, through periods of division and discord we have endured and grown stronger and fairer and freer. And at every turn, we’ve made progress not only by changing laws but by changing hearts, by our willingness to walk in another’s shoes, by our capacity to love and accept even in the face of rage and bigotry. In April of 1968, just one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, as our nation mourned in grief and shuddered in anger, President Lyndon Johnson signed landmark civil rights legislation. This was the first time we enshrined into law federal protections against crimes motivated by religious or racial hatred — the law on which we build today.
In other words, our nation made it through all of that conflict and tumult, hatred and prejudice, division and discord without hate crime laws. In the aftermath of King’s assassination, President Johnson signed laws prohibiting institutional bigotry, which is far cry from actively seeking to punish differently based on motivation.
These laws will be abused by zealous prosecutors looking to win big cases. They will be abused by DAs to force confessions from defendants terrified of a hate-crime conviction.
Like Affirmative Action, this is a step backward for American monorities of every kind.
