Prosectors Say the Kansas Shooting of Garmin Engineers Was a Hate Crime (theverge.com) 227
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Federal prosecutors have filed a hate crime charge against 51-year-old Kansas resident Adam Purinton, according to the Department of Justice. Purinton, who is accused of shooting three people in an Olathe bar, reportedly told a local Garmin engineer to "get out of my country" before opening fire. Purinton is currently being held on first-degree murder charges filed by local prosecutors. Today's indictment accuses Purinton of committing murder "because of Kuchibhotla's actual and perceived race, color, religion and national origin," with additional charges for the attempted murder of Madasani and violations of federal firearm statutes. The Justice Department declined to say whether it will pursue the death penalty, although it is authorized by the hate crime statute.
Hold up (Score:3, Insightful)
So a state can take away the death penalty for murder, and there's no death penalty for murder. But if someone murders for RACISM, then the feds can come in overrule the state? That's a little bit odd, right?
Re:Hold up (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Federal offenses may be capital offenses, e.g. treason or terrorism. If it's being prosecuted by the federal government because the crime is federal, the punishment is obviously going to be federal - e.g. the death penalty for a race-driven multiple murder.
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I don't like Garmins either. But I wouldn't shoot at them.
I don't know, was this guy responsible for either Viago or the Express Updater? I stopped using my Garmin 1450LMT because it wouldn't update any more. The updater just shits itself, it gives no useful error, and Garmin gave me no help. It doesn't have a lifetime warranty or I could just return it to Amazon. I also bought Viago for Android, which literally never worked (I never managed to get it to work for a single trip) and which they abandoned months after bringing it to market.
Not that Garmin gives a shi
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A hate crime is for when you hate a category of people, not one particular person. And there definitely are times when people don't hate the ones they kill. For example, the people who shoot random strangers on an equal opportunity basis do it because they simply love murder. I guess that would make it a love crime!
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I can hate you due to your posts and kill you, that's personal.
I can hate you because your user name starts with a r, that's general.
Society has decided that killing you because I just hate people with user names that start with an r is as bad or worse as killing someone who I hate because of what they actually believe or do.
Any which way, killing you for the above reasons is worse then killing you because I just lost it and only meant to hurt you.
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Isn't it bad because of the numbers, though? Why wouldn't you give a progressive level of punish per murder if there are multiple murders?
Is a single murder for hate somehow worse than being murdered for $5?
Since these cases are much rarer than being murdered for $5, isn't it odd that we're ladling extra punishment on the far rarer crime?
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The extra time is just a feel-good measure. The people doing these crimes have already decided they're going over the point of no return, and will likely end up dead, or executed eventually. Life in prison without parole (or a parole date 300 years in the future) is literally the best they could expect.
"You'd better not kill a bunch of people because if you hate, if you hate!, then you will get an extra 40 years tagged onto the end of your 400 years!"
Is that going to dissuade someone who expects to die du
Re:Hold up (Score:5, Informative)
The reason Federal hate crimes were created to begin with so that where a state's law enforcement, prosecution or courts would refuse to charge, prosecute or convict some mouth-breathing KKKer for lynching someone, they would still see justice. Do you have a problem with that?
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His problem (and mine) is with the death penalty, not the federal crime.
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Did Antifa kill someone in Berkeley?
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Put dozens in the hospital. First riot, at the second regular folks brought it and they ran like frenchmen.
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Regular folks...
https://www.portlandoregon.gov... [portlandoregon.gov]
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Escalating is dangerous. Antifa made a big mistake.
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I hate to spoil the movie for you, but the fascists always lose.
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Your right, antifa is doomed.
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A Bernie-loving, Trump-hating white supremacist.
Boy, how that must hurt your head.
Even white supremacists are allowed to be right about some things. We already know that there was a substantial (if not precisely quantified) group of people who would have voted for Sanders who voted for Trump instead in an attempt to crash the system, or just to throw a tantrum. Also, Trump is and long has been deeply in bed with assorted middle-easterners, and those are the people the racists hate the most right now. Sanders has no such ties, but these people were worked into a massive froth over Clinton
Re:Hold up (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, Colin Ferguson [wikipedia.org] didn't get a "hate crime" enhancement to his mass murder charges, even though he said his goal was to kill as many white people and Asians as possible. He did get over 300 year sentence, so I suppose anything else would be superfluous. Still, if his admittedly racially biased mass murder wasn't a "hate crime", the concept is irredeemably broken.
Re:Hold up (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Colin Ferguson committed his crime in 1993 and New York didn't pass hate crime legislation until 2000. Federal hate crime legislation didn't really take off until 1994.
Just what "hate crime" law do you contend should have enhanced Ferguson's sentence?
Your knowledge of the law, sense of time, and apparent ignorance of prohibitions against ex post facto laws is irredeemably broken...
Re:Hold up (Score:5, Informative)
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Still, if his admittedly racially biased mass murder wasn't a "hate crime", the concept is irredeemably broken.
It's not irredeemably broken, since it can quite easily be redeemed by enforcing consistency in decisions.
But that's not really the point is it, you just wanted to have a little rant...
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We need to protect minorities as well as majorities. Majorities have natural advantages. Many of their crimes against minorities have gone unpunished. Some members of the majorities are not deterred by the existing laws or enforcement. They feel they can get away with it if they target minorities. We need to deter them, without infringing on the law abiding members of the majority.
That is why hate crime punishments c
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First of all, Kansas has the death penalty.
Second, if you don't like the Feds prosecuting this as a capital case, you need to talk to the Trump Justice Department. They're the ones who brought the case.
Why don't you tell us what you find "odd" about it?
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Now I understand that you may be drunk, high and perhaps having a basic problem with thinking and understanding the world around you. But I'd suggest you don't try to react and say/write/scream bullshit before actually making some effort to understand whatever you is upset about. Oh, and you may want to sober up before commenting.
There are crimes classified as federal level crimes. Those crimes aren't handled at a state level, they aren't processed at a state level and if found guilty a person suspected for
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Cops are above the law.
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Defining what a "hate crime" is. (Score:3)
The annoying argument that "all violent crimes are hate crimes" is stupid and incorrect because a "hate crime" is a crime perpetrated not against an individual but rather indiscriminately against a member belonging to a group that the perpetrator hates.
Glad we could clear that up.
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The annoying argument that "all violent crimes are hate crimes" is stupid and incorrect because a "hate crime" is a crime perpetrated not against an individual but rather indiscriminately against a member belonging to a group that the perpetrator hates.
Glad we could clear that up.
NO that's not clear. Why should the punishment be different if the perp just hated the victim's group instead of the individual? "I just wanted to kill a [group name] instead of I wanted to kill [specific individual]? Specificity does not change the action or the result. Ideology/politics/religion be damned.
Re:Defining what a "hate crime" is. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the crime is committed on the basis of victim's group identity, the other members of the group have reason to fear being targeted for the same reason and there are more victims. More victims = more punishment.
These laws are intended in part to prevent civil unrest (in the form of race riots) that can occur when one community perceives they are being targeted and law enforcement is not adequately protecting them. They (understandably) may take law into their own hands through mob violence and then we're in for full scale civil unrest (because mob justice is rarely so.... "just" and is more likely to create the same kind of racial hostility in return.
The motive matters because when that motive is animus towards a large group of people, the consequences of group-level retaliation are bad for all of society.
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Generally in the US criminal law is a state matter. However, the Federal Government, via the Supremacy Clause, can create its own criminal statutes. Hate crimes, in particular, grew out of the civil rights issues of the 1950s and 1960s, and gave the FBI and Federal prosecutors the power to pursue criminal charges against accused individuals who were often either given excessively lenient sentences, if they were even charged, tried and convicted at all, for attacks on African-Americans in certain southern st
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FBI/State police out reach (Score:5, Interesting)
All the people who attended it were fairly affluent well educated Indians. I am sure in every community outreach people who have the time, energy and motivation to listen to bunch of law enforcement officials on a Wednesday evening would be fairly affluent and well educated. Made us realize despite conflicting media portrayals these are just plain hard working underpaid unsung unheralded Americans trying to do the best job they can.
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Made us realize despite conflicting media portrayals these are just plain hard working underpaid unsung unheralded Americans trying to do the best job they can.
For some of them, that is true. For others, it is not true. Police officers have discretion as to whether to make an arrest, and when making an arrest, whether to take a suspect into custody. Statistics show that they overwhelmingly abuse this power to punish and abuse certain groups on an individual level, and also that they are targeted specifically at those groups by those who manage them. The situation is frustrating because a society can't really exist without policing, but who watches the watchmen? Ev
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The Indian who argued he was White (Score:2)
He claimed he was a high caste Hindu speaking an Aryan language. (The language family currently known as Indo-European was called Indo-Aryan then). He claimed he belong to the ruling caste from Caucusus that conquered India. He avowed that he has as much prejudice
Life On Mars (Score:2)
Sam Tyler: I think we need to explore whether this attempted murder was a hate crime.
Gene: What as opposed to one of those I-really-really-like-you sort of murders?
Prosectors? (Score:2)
Beaumanish should be prosected for hate crimes against the English language.
Prosector? (Score:2)
Re:I don't care WHY he did it (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think so?
The "why" can make a great deal of difference. Someone killing a person for molesting their kid is different than killing someone randomly.
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Re:I don't care WHY he did it (Score:4, Insightful)
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Classic example of somebody who wants to deal with the world they way they wish it was, not the way it is.
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He is right. You would also be if you knew the difference.
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Nope. As a society we don't want child molesters or people who murder just because of race. That's more than emotional subjectivity.
Re:I don't care WHY he did it (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Motive is at the very heart of a criminal prosecution. Judges and/or juries are supposed to have latitude in findings of guilt, or findings of guilt on a range of charges, or even of differential sentencing, depending upon motive. I realize that some here have a hard time grasping that the world isn't black and white, but there's always nuance. Some serial killer who gets his jollies killing people is inevitably going to get a far harsher sentence than someone who killed the person who molested their child, and it's down to motive and state of mind.
As a simple example (Score:3)
Motive can determine what kind of crime something is. So let's say you hit someone with your car and killed them. Suppose you did it because:
--You were swerving to avoid hitting someone else, your motive was to avoid hurting another person, not to hurt them. That would likely be no charge, but at most Involuntary Manslaughter since there was no malice, no intent to kill.
--You swerve to hit them because you believe you see them strangling an animal, and it makes you fly in to a rage and want to hurt them (bu
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So what would be:
--You swerve to hit them because they are about to set fire to an inhabited building.
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Hand waiving. Of course you'd judge a jealous spouse more harshly if they'd spent months planning on killing their SO, as opposed to coming home early and finding them in bed with someone else.
To borrow Clinton's line about the economy, it's the intent, stupid. And bigotry that leads one towards violence is a form of intent.
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Someone killing a person for molesting their kid is different than killing someone randomly.
The only objective difference between them lies in an appeal to emotion.
So if you kill someone in self defense you want to be treated exactly the same way as the guy who planned for months and killed his parents to inherit?
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It has evidently failed to capture your attention that the post to which I had responded above did not mention killing in self defense, at all.
It has evidently failed to capture your attention that the subject of this thread is whether intent makes a difference which applies equally to killing in self defense. Now, had your your answer been a little bit more nuanced...
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And in my response, I said [slashdot.org]:
Note that I did not ever contest the notion that motive for killing someone could ever make a difference (obviously killing in self defense is one example where it such action would be legally justified), but I simply responded to the comment that I quoted abov
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The only objective difference between them lies in an appeal to emotion.
That's false. Someone who has demonstrated antisocial behavior is likely to demonstrate it again. While I do not condone murder of child molesters, and anyone who thinks it serves as a deterrent is fooling themselves, it does conclusively decrease recidivism.
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Unless the molester was killed because of an immediate danger to the kid or in an uncontrollable bout of anger it is - for good reason - not legally different than killing someone randomly. Just because one have a good reason to hate someone doesn't make it right, legally or morally, to kill that someone.
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Hate crimes and terrorism are one and the same thing. We just call it a "hate crime" if it's directed against a minority and "terrorism" if the majority is intended to receive the message as well. If it were up to me I'd reclassify both of them "crimes against liberty".
They're both the same thing, and terrorism is illegal because it's a crime against humanity. I would just like to see "hate crime" replaced with "terrorist act", because that's what it is. It's an attempt to attack that entire group through one person, as you say. I want it made clear that these people are terrorists, and I do not want this diminished or downplayed with some other name.
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Well, clearly we agree there. I think that "hate crime" gives certain people want to minimize those crimes ammunition because they can (and do) attempt to paint it as a class of thought crimes, which of course they aren't. It's not illegal to hate anyone.
Re:I don't care WHY he did it (Score:5, Interesting)
Murder is murder, I'm really a lot less interested in why than what he did. The concept of "hate crimes" is a completely broken one, but at least the guy is getting prosecuted. Hope there is a fair trial and justice is served.
For most crimes, the reason that you did a thing matters. The classic example is where you accidentally take the wrong laptop instead of deliberately taking someone else's laptop. In most jurisdictions you didn't commit a crime if you didn't intend to take someone else's laptop. Your mistake of fact (your belief that it was your laptop) negates an element of the crime: intent.
On the other hand, for murder, the whole "malice aforethought" or "premeditation" idea is really watered down. It can be premeditated murder even if it's a split-second decision, for example. Although in some jurisdictions you were traditionally excused a little bit if you caught the person in bed with your spouse before that happens. (I.e. voluntary manslaughter instead of murder.) (There are several types of homicide and the details vary a lot.)
There's also the point that there is definitely a significant moral divide between people who care about WHY someone did something harmful, and people who only care that it was done. Your position is absolutely valid, but there's plenty of room to disagree and there isn't a consensus about what the result should be. So we leave it to the legislature and courts, as a terrible way to decide the answer that's better than all of the other ways of deciding the answer. :)
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Although in some jurisdictions you were traditionally excused a little bit if you caught the person in bed with your spouse before that happens.
Killing them instead of saying "WooHoo! I'm out! She's your problem now!"? That's fucked up.
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The entire Anglo-American judicial system has been built on the idea that there are simply situations where there's no universal principle to be applied, that it is up to a court (judge and/or jury) to decide on the specifics of the case, and I think that is critical. Yes, it does give judges and juries a helluva lot of effective power, but in general, and providing they abide by general constitutional principles, legislatures can alter laws where they feel the courts are going wrong, and even prosecutors h
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An excellent post but you didn't really address the issue of a "hate crime" only the differing levels of homicide. In many places there's generally three or four levels of criminal homicide, which addresses criminal negligence resulting in death, manslaughter (which might be the same as the first), second degree murder (an intentional act with intent to kill), first degree murder (intentional homicide with premeditation or of a government official). What the concept of "hate crime" does is add to the puni
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What the concept of "hate crime" does is add to the punishment if the court can find a case of the accused acting against the victim because the victim was some sort minority, or other protected class of person, and the accused is not a member of some protected class.
That's incorrect. The crime has to be motivated by hatred of the protected class.
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Sorry, hit reply too soon. I need to add the important bit: it doesn't matter if the criminal is themselves a member of a protected class. Sorry if that's what you meant.
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This concept of "hate crime" violates the concept of the law being blind to the kind of person being accused.
It does nothing of the sort. It recognizes that a hate crime is an act of terrorism which is not only an attack on the person being accused, but also upon the entire class of people.
If a Packers fan kills a Bears fan because the Bears fan insulted the Packers then is that not just as much a "hate crime" if a Muslim kills a Christian because the Christian insulted Mohammed?
It is, but sports fans are not a protected class. If they needed as much protection as people do on a racial basis, maybe they would be.
I also don't like these "with a gun" laws.
I agree with that. Full disclosure, I own guns and I've been around guns since I was little, but my reasoning on this subject is that I have a physics-based view of the universe. It doesn't much
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I could have agreed with you if you stuck with skin color and sexual orientation. Religion is a choice just like what sport teams you like. Many people choose to be the same religion as their parents just like they choose to be fans of the same sport teams as their parents.
To someone willing to kill another over their choice of sport teams then in the mind of that deranged individual the choice of sport teams is as fundamental as religion. What a "hate crime" is at its core is "thought crime". Because s
Re: I don't care WHY he did it (Score:2)
So we leave it to the legislature and courts, as a terrible way to decide the answer that's better than all of the other ways of deciding the answer. :)
Would that be... by MORTAL KOMBAT! ;)
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Great post, you got my mod points. Do you happen to know NewYorkCountryLawyer [slashdot.org]? Used to make a lot of similarly helpful posts hearabouts.
Thank you.
I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Beckerman, although I have seen him on slashdot in the past. We are both admitted in New York (I am admitted in New York and in Washington State), but there are a lot of lawyers in New York.
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"Hate Crime" is not a broken concept. Motive is always considered when prosecuting a crime.
Re:I don't care WHY he did it (Score:4, Insightful)
While the law is written such that motive is considered, thats completely different than the motive itself being an additional crime, which is exactly what "hate crime" is.. and additional crime added on.
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""Hate crime" means whatever the State decides it means at any given moment, and so long as there is an appeal to emotion associated with it they will get away with redefining it however is convenient for the moment."
Hate crime means whatever judges and juries think it means, based on the words the legislature wrote the law. That's how any crime is defined. Another proper label for "Hate Crime" is "Terrorism".
"While the law is written such that motive is considered, thats completely different than the mot
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"Hate crime" means whatever the State decides it means at any given moment,
Er, that's not how the law works. If you are confused you can find the actual definition in black and white here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
And even if the 'state" decides one thing, it's up to a court and jury to decide. That's why we have courts.
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Murder is murder, I'm really a lot less interested in why than what he did. The concept of "hate crimes" is a completely broken one, but at least the guy is getting prosecuted. Hope there is a fair trial and justice is served.
If we're going to be honest it's terrorism. He was explicitly trying to terrorize member of an ethnic and religious minority to leave the US.
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Except the why matters.
If my next-door neighbor kills her husband because he cheated on her, that's bad.
If my next-door neighbor kills someone because they are foreign born, and makes it clear that she did it because they are foreign born, that's bad, but it also is trying to send a message to other foreign born people that they are at risk of random attacks despite doing nothing wrong. It's literally terrorism.
I know someone who accidentally killed someone with their car - they were stone sober, but got di
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I know someone who accidentally killed someone with their car - they were stone sober, but got distracted by their kid screaming in the back seat, turned around to see what happened and boom, hit someone. Do you think that person deserves the same penalty as someone who got shitfaced and ran someone over with their car?
Yes, I do.
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Murder is murder, I'm really a lot less interested in why than what he did. The concept of "hate crimes" is a completely broken one, but at least the guy is getting prosecuted. Hope there is a fair trial and justice is served.
It's called a "hate crime" because he's white. Otherwise, it would be "domestic terrorism".
Joking aside, it is terrorism. The intent is to scare others in the targeted group - unlike "I hate you, so I'll kill you," it's "I hate [group], so I'll kill [members of this group]," to cause fear in that group (and, according to this shooter's express wishes, to get them to flee the country). If we're not going to tolerate foreign terrorism, we also shouldn't tolerate domestic terrorism.
Re: Don't sleep through history classes (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong. It's based on the fact that all are equal, not that some groups get extra protection, which distorts that concept.
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If he worked for Apple Maps it would have been justifiable homicide.
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No one is preventing you from doing so.
There will be consequences of doing so.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from the consequences of your speech.
By that logic there is freedom of murder as well.
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By that logic there is freedom of murder as well.
No, because there are conspiracy or attempted laws which do not apply to speech.
Re: -1 Flamebait (Score:2)
Meh... Bit of a non sequitur, really. Unfortunately, the verbiage is confusing.
The discussion should be about the liberty of free speech. Which, for good reason, we do not have. We are free to yell fire in the theater, even when there is no fire. What we are not, is at liberty to shout that in those circumstances.
Unfortunately, people get liberty and freedom confused, with alarming frequency. You are free to kill me, you are not at liberty to do so. If I try to harm you, you have a right to kill me. If I tr
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Well, in that case, why don't you take all your countrymen back to where they belong? I mean, "Yankee go home" is still as valid today as it has been 60 years ago.
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We can learn from the original native's mistake.
Re: The Trump Effect (Score:2)
I am gonna call this one out.
He almost certainly isn't certified.
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Right, either way it's the Democrat's faults. The people who actually voted for an ambulatory citrus fruit are in no way responsible for their actions because... why exactly?
Re: So now being upset at being screwed... (Score:2)
I may be a wee bit stoned. However, I just want to say I kinda like you guy(s). I really do get a giggle from your work. I'm not sure who wold agree, but I'd call it an art. I am most fond of how they want you to die and are going to sell your sister into sexual slavery. I'm not even kidding. I appreciate you as much as I appreciate apps guy - and I kinda love apps guy.
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Actually, killing someone because you dislike the group he belongs to requires less hate than killing the guy that slept with your wife, independent of the subgroup he belongs to.
It's a fact... that you just made up on the spot. Feel free to justify it with convoluted hypothetical situations.
should of course be one that is loaded negatively enough so people quickly realize how they should think of it.
You are complaining that people are being encouraged to think that racially aggravated murder is bad? I must
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Any motivation for murder is bad. I do hope we can agree on this.
But if you can't hate groups of people without any rhyme or reason anymore, how do you convince a soldier to go to war? You think it's easy to kill people indiscriminately? Just because they happen to have the wrong colored shirt you are supposed to shoot someone in a war, that's not easy to sell, ya know? You have to dehumanize them first and convince your soldiers that all of them deserve to die because they're ALL evil bastards who do unspe
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How is that not a hate crime?
Because it's not the definition of what a hate crime is. "hate crime" is an actual term with an actual definition. Concern trolling about the particular name of a term is about the weakest form of argument.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigat... [fbi.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Ah, ok. So according to that definition shooting enemy soldiers is simply not a crime, else it would fit.
Good that we got that out of the way.
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I don't really get your point. Are you talking about crime or hate crime now?
Or are you still arguing that your own personal definition of "hate crime" is stupid? You won't find disagreement from me there.
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I'm talking about the definition of hate crime ("[...]a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain social group", according to Wikipedia) being a hate crime when someone does it against a group he hates, but gets decorated with medals if he does it against a group the government hates.
Sorry, but this is fucked up. Not so much the part where it's a crime. More the part where you get praised and decorated for it.