Who Is IOZ?: I Hate Crimes

Monday, October 25, 2010

I Hate Crimes

Most opponents of hate crimes laws are also law-and-order types. This leads to an amusing paradox. If, as hate crimes opponents claim, it is impossible to determine intent, intention, motivation, state of mind, emotional state, etc., and if, therefore, it is impossible to use such indeterminable factors in order to assess the magnitude and seriousness of the crime and subsequently the order and severity of the punishment, then logically the scope of the criticism applies not narrowly to "hate crimes," but broadly, to criminal law in general. It is to argue in a very real sense that crime does not exist; that an accidental death is identical to a premeditated murder; that stealing from a store is the same as borrowing from a friend; that the adjudication of guilt and innocence as practiced and conceived in the modern West is impracticable. Now that is an argument I can get behind.

57 comments:

Anonymous said...: We're talking about unchecked aggression here, dude.; 1:23 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: When he moved down to Venice he had to go door-to-door to tell everyone he's a pederast.; 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Thank you Ivan.; 1:40 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: If, as hate crimes opponents claim, it is impossible to determine intent, intention, motivation, state of mind, emotional state, etc

I think that is a mischaracterization of what hate crimes opponents believe. They usually oppose hate crimes laws because they attempt to punish beliefs, thoughts and words rather than behavior. Even if one can ascertain for a fact that person A killed person B for being gay, they don't believe that such a crime is more heinous than There is always a smattering of folks who oppose all laws that ostensibly give 'special privileges' to minorities and there probably is a correlation between this mindset and a 'law and order' mentality, but generally in my experience, it is not so much law and order types as libertarians that oppose them.

Since your post is predicated on a half-baked characterization of hate crimes opposition, it follows that the conclusion doesn't hold together well, though, at first glance, it's really really clever.

Edgy too.; 2:09 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: Meant to write 'Even if one can ascertain for a fact that person A killed person B for being gay, they don't believe that such a crime is more heinous than for some other reason.'; 2:11 PM
Anonymous said...: He believes in Half Baked.; 2:19 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: Actually it's not even half-baked.; 2:23 PM
Anonymous said...: To Spank the Donkey: Maybe he's questioning the concept and methods divining "intent" in general. It does delve somewhat into mind reading. But I supposed there needs to be a way of deciding who's the good guy in a street fight. What I don't like about hate crime laws is that they diminish the sensitivity to "regular" assaults or other crimes against persons. They seem to be a violation of "equal protection".; 2:41 PM
BoogerBalls said...: 'Tis the season for straw men after all!; 2:49 PM
Not4Nussing said...: It's completely asinine. All of human interaction is about divining intent. Without divining intent there would be no speech. Yaws doesn't believe this, I divine, he's just being an asshole.; 2:51 PM
ERM said...: I think it's possible to distinguish between the propriety/ability to ascertain mens rea and the and propriety/ability to ascertain mens rea + why? + how does that make us feel?; 3:38 PM
Cüneyt said...: Well and simply stated, IOZ.; 3:43 PM
Inkberrow said...: No one with half a brain claims it is "impossible" to prove intent, motivation, or culpable mental states (one of which is "intentional"). Okay, no one practicing in our criminal courts anyway.

Hate-crimes opponents decry the disparate status of one crime versus another, when all else is equal, based on the identity-politics status of the victim. "Popular" justice and selective prosecution inevitably result. Guys in a bar fight tonight over the Giants and the Cowboys---chesting up with the standard insults ensues, with perceived race joining physical attractiveness or vitality, age, wit, clothing, etc. There's a "hate-crime" perp only if a straight white guy is in the mix.

That said, I for one have no objection to sentencing enhancements within a judge's sound discretion where e.g. a racial or sex-orientation animus behind the crime is established.; 3:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Honk If U 8 Cheez-Its.; 3:58 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: WE NEED BETTER AND MORE ACCURATE LAWS; 4:05 PM
Not4Nothing said...: Yeah. And because perfect communication is impossible Mr. Fun will NEVER SAY ANYTHING AGAIN

This post is either an incompetent reductio ad absurdum of opposition to hate crimes laws or a rather effective reductio ad absurdum of "anarchism."; 4:22 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: Well and simply stated, IOZ.

Well, and simply stated, Cüneyt.

Now I am the laziest, sloppiest anarchist today.

Ha ha. I win.; 4:37 PM
IOZ said...: I say that punishing a man more severely for planning obsessively to kill his wife because he hates that bitch than for accidentally killing her during a scuffle following a heated argument is a thought crime. WHY DO YOU SUPPORT BIG BROTHER!?!; 4:46 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: I say that punishing a man more severely for planning obsessively to kill his wife because he hates that bitch than for accidentally killing her during a scuffle following a heated argument is a thought crime. WHY DO YOU SUPPORT BIG BROTHER!?!

At least you are now actually contending with what hate crimes opponents actually believe. That's progress.; 4:51 PM
Brother Seamus said...: Also, let's not forget - let's not forget, Dude - that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city - that ain't legal either.; 4:51 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: KILL ME SOFTLY DAMNIT; 5:00 PM
Spank the Donkey said...: planning obsessively to kill his wife because he hates that bitch than for accidentally killing her during a scuffle

I believe it is the 'planning obsessively' not the hatred that the law concerns itself with. The hatred comes into establishing the likelihood of the crime happening.

But well and simply stated IOZ!; 5:01 PM
IOZ said...: Our basic freedoms, dude; 5:02 PM
Anonymous said...: The cracked skull and the spilled brains look quite the same to me in both cases. Would give one a pause from reaching for that cast iron skillet during the scuffle. And how you know the argument wasn't started on purpose?
.
After a decade+ together even an emotionally-tonedeaf semiautistic persona like me can start a good one with my old lady at will. So we wuz arguin' kinda doesn't fly that good for me
.
Capt'n Obvious; 5:16 PM
Leonard said...: See, there's a history here.

It used to be, back in the bad old days when women, blacks, and gays barely went outdoors due to the fear, that if a man killed another man intentionally, and the state could prove it, justice required that he hang. But then the progressives of that time got the idea that hanging was cruel and unusual. And they were right! And so they backed off the penalty for killing to a slap on the wrist.

But it turned out, as nobody could have possibly predicted except perhaps a few knuckledragging know-nothings, that if you don't really penalize people for killing, they tend to do it more. They did! Crime leaped by several orders of magnitude. So, the later progressives (now calling themselves that), had a new idea: let's penalize the crimes we don't like more severely. Killing a man, well, you have to understand that. Jesus said: turn the other cheek! Killing a normal man, that is. But killing a black man is no mere killing, it is hate! And hate, being the worst crime, does require penalization.

So now we see the pendulum swing back a little bit, to protect the innocent by more harshly punishing the guilty. And that is good! Getting back towards what used to work; what justice used to demand. But! Only when the innocent are particular, favored classes. Not so good! So, what the law-n-order-n-spam-n-eggs types are saying is: this is unfair. It's right to penalize crime, but hate is not the worst crime. In fact, hate is not even a crime at all! Criminal intent is a crime -- but it is different from hate. Why can't we penalize crime?

Some related libertarian wanking at Henley's place.; 5:32 PM
la Rana said...: They usually oppose hate crimes laws because they attempt to punish beliefs, thoughts and words rather than behavior.

This rather aptly misunderstands the entirety of criminal law, as it makes the exact mistake highlighted in the post. A good grunt would have saved a load of words.

As resident practitioner of the dark arts here at chez IOZ, lemme jus' put somethin' to yinz. The criminal law does not punish acts, per se, but the combination of an act and means rea, or 'what wuz yun tryin' ta do?' As a consequence, one can, say, kill a guy, and face a range of punishments from nothing to life, depending on what the killer intended to do. This scale of punishments is no more and no less than social policy, and while I ordinarily find this ordinal scale convincing, it relies heavily on "beliefs" and "thoughts." You believed the guy had a gun? Self-defense. You thought the macete would just take his limb off? Manslaughter. You believed he was sleeping with your wife? Manslaughter to murder, depending on whether you were right, when you found out, and what state or country you are in. You thought he was the devil and an angel told you to kill him? NGBROI.

So. The question is not whether the criminal law ought to inquire as to the mental beliefs of the offender, and his or her reasons for committing the act, but rather: which reasons for doing so are we going to favor? Arbitrary dehumanizing classifications are not high on my list.; 6:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Sentencing a black man for smoking crack to a longer sentence than a white man's sentence for snorting coke is a hate crime.; 7:27 PM
Gridlock said...: The judicial system is a hate crime, FFS.; 8:23 PM
TGGP said...: "It is to argue in a very real sense that crime does not exist; that an accidental death is identical to a premeditated murder; that stealing from a store is the same as borrowing from a friend"
The former bit actually makes some sense (perhaps we could add in the Commission on Life Enhancement and Preservation), but the latter throws out the consent baby with the motive bathwater.; 8:46 PM
Wolynski said...: If there are hate crimes, are there love crimes?

Crime is crime - shouldn't label it otherwise. We hand over power to terrorists by labeling them as such.; 9:23 PM
Enron said...: "They seem to be a violation of 'equal protection.'"
Yes, because America has always been about equality.; 10:27 PM
Anonymous said...: So...is everything now permitted? Can I fuck my dog in public and shoot you in the face on a random whim? Are slopes slippery? Is crime freedom?

Was Jean Genet right? or left? or What?

Arguing about this stuff is sooooo depressing. I'd rather work on my takeaway.; 11:06 PM
Ben Free said...: awwww. this is just why we "should" separate the realm of bodies and thoughts in "our" ethics.

the only rule the non-initiation of physical force against another body. the only 'enforcement' at the most decentralized level possible: the individual in self-defense.

think or do whatever the fuck else ya want; 11:19 PM
Anonymous said...: What if a white guy kills a gay black Republican?; 11:20 PM
Spanking the Donkey said...: This rather aptly misunderstands the entirety of criminal law, as it makes the exact mistake highlighted in the post. A good grunt would have saved a load of words.

Grunt.

As ever, La Rana, full of shit and deathlessly so.

As resident practitioner of the dark arts here at chez IOZ,

Love when you badass anti-merit twats pull rank.; 11:21 PM
Spanking the Donkey said...: Actually, on subsequent reading, La Rana makes a certain amount of sense. The pulling rank thing is annoying though . Your argument is perfectly intelligible to a lay person and there is no need to accept any part of it on faith due to your expertise.; 12:18 AM
Professor Coldheart said...: Why are we talking about The Law like it's, um, an exigent phenomenon? The Law is a vast, sticky patchwork of This Worked Once and This Sounds Like A Good Idea. Ask any lawyer.

Hate crime legislation might have a rationalization behind it, but it doesn't have anything you'd call a philosophy. If the U.S. deliberative body really cared about gay people getting lynched, there'd be easier ways of loosening the rope.; 12:22 AM
Cüneyt said...: Wow. Spank really has a problem when I issue praise succinctly and don't add my own long-winded, rambling co-optation of the original point. Fuck, that only happens like once a year.

Oh, and I hate mandatory minimums for any crime, and I think we need to take very seriously the creation of a federal case in such matters but, then again, I live in the middle of a cluster of such crimes where local law enforcement could not or would not investigate fully. One of them was that one where they accused--without any apparent cause--the murder victim of soliciting sexual favors from the men who beat, robbed, and killed him. No, the other one.; 5:25 AM
Anonymous said...: Leave that poor dog alone, you prevert.; 6:33 AM
FlyingRodent said...: don't know how it works stateside, but on the frozen tundra of Scotland the thinking goes like this - racially aggravated assaults are considered to be more serious* than two guys fighting over a spilled pint because

a) of the irrational nature of the crime. The court takes the question of provocation seiously, and will punish unprovoked assaults more heavily than two guys, spilled pint etc. In the case of a racist attack, like any unprovoked assault, the offender demonstrates an inability to contol himself and is thus a greater danger to the public.

b) racist assaults intimidate and frighten other people from minoity groups, and there's an intent to show that such cimes won't be tolerated. Justice should be seen to be done.

There may be all kinds of problems with that, but we're not exactly talking 1984 thoughtcrime here. Contrary to what critics say, it's usually petty easy to spot an unprovoked racist assault, since the offender usually kicks off with a barrage of ugly abuse. Two witnesses speak to that, and that's all you need for corroboration.

This has led to some odd and unfair cases - people fighting often reach for the most heinous insults to hand, even if they're not racist at all. You're reliant on reasonable judges in that case, but that's a whole ifferent issue.

*(It's not just racist crime the court cracks on harder on - also domestic violence, football violence, gay-bashing etc.); 7:09 AM
Anonymous said...: Now so far, we have what appears to me to be a series of victimless crimes.; 7:15 AM
Anonymous said...: Monsieur,

Thought about it. No, no, non!

This is a relativistoid slippery slope. If life ends following directed/willful action that's murder. I don't care if the motivation was passion, hate, or boredom. It don't matter.
.
Otherwise we go quickly down "the end justifies the means" path. Not to mention Donk's beloved "feelings" bullshit. Cast-iron skillet, cracked skull, spilled brains. That's all that matters - granted that the details could be of prurient interest.

Capt'n Obvious; 8:32 AM
Human Biodiversity said...: The FBI crime statistics, showing Blacks committing more crimes than Whites (per capita), is ipso facto a hate crime. Physician, heal thyself!; 8:48 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...: well I mean if I'm a criminal and I'm shopping around for the right crime to fit my personality and such, I might shy up a bit when it comes to the crime where the judge tacks on a few extra years because I uttered a racial slur in the moment. or I'm going to try and make it look like it was a crime of passion, rather than one I thought out and planned for months, even though that is what I did. what a pain in the ass it is these days for criminals.

assault shouldn't be a crime anyway. christ, no wonder this country shits its pants when people fly planes into buildings. nobody here can take a punch, collectively or otherwise.; 8:54 AM
stras said...: This place just makes me tired and bored these days.; 8:58 AM
Dumbo said...: I wouldn't get behind that argument, it won't protect you.; 9:51 AM
IOZ said...: Although y'all's know that I hate clarification more than anything, I'm gonna mention for everyone other than Mr. Fun and the Frog, that this is not a note in support of hate crimes legislation.; 10:26 AM
The Promiscuous Reader said...: Right right right, and a lynching is just a fun fraternity party gone a bit high.

I'm not sure it's even worth -- no, I take that back. It's not even worth pointing out the bullshit being thrown around here on almost every front. After all, it's just a bunch o' shits and giggles.

As you were. I have some important jerking off to do.; 10:38 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...: this is some good shit; 10:41 AM
Phil Simms said...: I cant believe none - as in not one - of you bitches has mentioned the play on Sunday where Biggus Benus coffed up de ball while crossing the plane of the goal line and it was not ruled a touchback for the Dolphins.
Now THERE was a crime!; 10:58 AM
Montag said...: Phil Simms raises an excellent point.; 11:24 AM
Inkberrow said...: IOZ---

Not that I haven't blundered here before between face-value and facetious, but this time the objections were to your "as hate crime opponents claim". "Straw man" is too charitable.; 11:35 AM
davidly said...: Phil's got a point. A hate crime law is like a personal foul. Fifteen yards.

Are slopes slippery?

Nony, that's not the preferred nomenclature.; 11:43 AM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: The Law is a vast, sticky patchwork of This Worked Once and This Sounds Like A Good Idea. Ask any lawyer.

Pretty good. Froggy was close in his first lengthy comment but it was clearly one designed with Public Relations in mind. Yours, Prof, is a bit more realistic, but still PR bound. Let me try a bit more honesty:

The Law is a fecal miasma, a stew of sewage. The old saw about not wanting to see sausage made despite the delight at a beer-boiled bratwurst + sauerkraut with grainy mustard... that's one for the nursery schools. Here's reality.

We paid some clever dudes to make up obfuscatory rationalizations for our anti-social behaviors, behaviors which advance a narrow segment of the populace at the expense of the remainder's interests. Eventually we created an apprenticeship system for new Priests and Acolytes to make the Noble Pilgrimage toward lawmaker, lawgiver, law-reader statuses. At present the Pharisees run the Temple, while the Priests get to run around collecting buttons on plates, which buttons they exchange for coins of the realm and then give the coins to the Pharisees. The Pharisees live reasonably well. And, being Pharisees, they never have to worry about The Law.; 12:01 PM
Anonymous said...: What about the toe?; 2:10 PM
Anonymous said...: I only said I THOUGHT she kidnapped herself. You're the one who's so fucking certain!; 5:33 PM
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Monday, October 25, 2010

I Hate Crimes

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