Prejudice, to be dangerous, requires power. Prejudice + Power = Danger. In a world of of 95% Martians and 5% Venusians, if a Martian calls all Venusians corrupt and evil, it's a danger - the Venusians may be at risk; their future - career, safety, status, etc. - depends on the goodwill of the Martians. If a Venusian does the same about Martians, it's easily dismissed because the Martians can continue to live and study safely.
IOW, punching up and punching down are entirely different things. Criticizing the government is punching up; criticizing (e.g.) homeless people is punching down.
Hate crime is a fucking stupid term; a crime is a crime is a crime. That said, if targeting one group deserves special treatment, then targeting any group should get the same. Equal application of the law, y'know?
Edit: It also looks like they were NOT charged with a hate crime for vandalizing a pride crosswalk.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/04/14/fac...
This thread is a menagerie of legal misunderstanding and buzzword abuse.
You don’t think general vandalism and targeted vandalism should be handled differently?
Also, citation needed!
Is a crime a crime? Why are there first degree murder, second degree murder, and voluntary manslaughter? They are all the act of killing someone intentionally, with the only difference being the person's thought process and motivation. Most crimes involve taking into consideration the reasons for the act as part of what makes a crime a crime. So, hate crimes are not some outlier in how crimes are defined and differentiated.
> if targeting one group deserves special treatment, then targeting any group should get the same. Equal application of the law, y'know?
Hate crimes (and protected classes in general) are not “one group” nor are they randomly picked. At the federal level, they are race, religion, ethnicity, disability, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity, which basically fall into two different categories; what you are and what you believe. None of them are for what job you happen to choose to do. The “special treatment” statements is particularly fallacious, since most hate crime laws came in response systematic violence committed against these groups and them not receiving equal protection under the law. We don’t have anti lynching laws to give black people special treatment.
Put another way, why is it better if I murder someone because I hate vegans, or meat eaters, or poor people, or rich people, or car drivers or pedestrians than someone of a protected group?
Adding new laws doesn't make them be enforced any better, so I don't buy the "systemic" argument. Either someone is tried and found guilty or not.
If people started attacking other people for being Gluten-free, and the government saw that there was a large amount of cases, they would create regulations trying to curtail the amount of crime targeting those people. They are creating regulation with the intention of lowering crime targeting a small group because it is atypical.
Fortunately lawyers can not win trials with that argument in particular.
> Equal application of the law, y'know?
The context here is that we have a group (the Police) already enjoys special privileges (like monopoly on the use of force legally) and want to expand those privileges even further. I don't think your argument works the way you seem to think it works.
Without hate crime legislation, it would be easy for bigots to harass people via what the law would see as minor crimes.
So I'm not necessarily opposed to getting rid of hate crime legislation. However, we would need some other way to protect people.
The concept of mens rea is not new, it’s a vital factor in the defining, charging, convicting (and dismissing and acquitting) of crimes.
Of course mindset matters. You don't murder out of love, generally. I'm sure a few have. Putting these artificial rails on it, saying that it only matters for race or whatnot, that's the silly part and it was bound to be broken through. And so it has.