Monday, April 27, 2009

Pedophiles, but not veterans

Erick Erickson at RedState has the post about the latest action in Congress when it comes to 'hate crimes.' You see, they added pedophiles as a protected class, but not Veterans.

You can't make this stuff up.

Personally, I'm opposed to any type of 'hate crime' legislation. I think it's Orwellian to make the penalties for a crime more or less severe depending upon your emotions regarding the victim. When we begin going down the road of making criminal penalties more severe because of the opinion of the offender, it's a slippery slope - and doesn't change the fact that the crime was committed in the first place and deserves punishment.

3 comments:

Timothy W Higgins said...

Maggie,

The concept of hate crimes is a Constitutional nightmare. The concept that why a person committed a crime is more important than the crime itself diminishes the victim. Is a murdered parent or child more dead because of hate? Is the perpetrator of such a crime more guilty because he "hated" the victim?

I know that the belief now is that society will feel better about itself if people who hate are properly punished, but the law is supposes to be about justice and not about the public feeling better about itself.

Enforce the existing laws of the land and mete out that justice without regard to the feelings of the perpetrator. The have no place in the legislature or the courtroom.

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

Maggie,

The thought police are just doing their (self appointed) job, trying to make everyone think THEIR way...

Amerika, what/which used to be a free counrty :-(

HT/"Z"

Mad Jack said...

Persecuting Attorney: How would you describe your relationship with the deceased?

Persecuted Criminal: I hated the SOB!

Persecuting Attorney: Yerhonner, the State would like to amend the charges to include a hate crime specification.

This has got to be some kind of news media screw up. Even the wing nuts in office aren't slow and dumb enough to even consider something like this.

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