BREAKING: GOP refuses to add American troops and senior citizens to hate crime bill

[rodeodance]

Good day in the House.


http://americablog.blogspot.com/


BREAKING: GOP refuses to add American troops and senior citizens to hate crime bill
by John Aravosis (DC) · 5/03/2007 01:26:00 PM ET
Discuss this post here: Comments (98) · digg it · reddit · FARK · · Link

Steny Hoyer and John Conyers just pulled a fast one on the GOP. The GOP has been refusing to support the hate crimes bill because it doesn't include members of the US Armed Forces and senior citizens. Conyers just rose and basically said, okay, I'll add them. The Republicans' response? Uh, no.

The Republicans have been railing for days about how this legislation doesn't cover our Armed Forces and senior citizens, and now that the Dems offer to put our Armed Forces and seniors in this legislation, the Republicans said no and affirmatively stopped the Democrats from doing it anyway.

That means the Republicans had no intent on helping our Armed Forces and seniors, on protecting them. It was just a stunt. The GOP leaders in Congress just got up and used our Armed Forces and seniors as political fodder when they had no intent on actually doing anything to help our Armed Forces and seniors.

Here is Steny Hoyer's statement, it's a doozy.

[bdamomma]

1. I heard Steny and I heard the applause he got too.

[spanone]

2. Checkmate....way to go Mr. Hoyer

[Proud2BAmurkin]

3. Filthy Scumbag RePUKES fighting with all they have to protect hate

pukes

[youngdem]

4. Hate Crime bills are a BAD, BAD, BAD fucking idea....They are thought crimes

I oppose them uniformly.

You can very easily prosecute fully the underlying behavior without ever invoking the 'hate crime' bullshit. ALL violent crimes are hate crimes. Trying to have a judge parse out motive for the purposes of an additional charge is IMPOSSIBLE unless the perp admits his motivation.

Prosecute the assault, the battery, the harassment, the murder, the vandalism. But PLEASE folks, let's not invite Big Brother any further into our lives by backing this HORRIBLE, well intended idea of prosecuting people for their bad thoughts.

[ccpup]

6. I don't understand.

If the only black man in a small town is attacked by a group of white men, beaten senseless, dragged behind a pickup truck and then hung upside down from a tree with chains, there shouldn't be more of a penalty due to the obvious racist element involved? And if a gay man walking home one night after a night out with friends is knocked to the ground, kicked in the stomach repeatedly, punched in the jaw and has his head slammed into the pavement all the while being taunted with the word "faggot" and "homo", there shouldn't be some federal mandate that makes the crime and punishment worse than it would be if it were just a "regular, run-of-the-mill" attack?

We live in a sick society and if the federal guidelines are such that people will think twice before acting out their racist/homophobic/ignorant/sexist attitudes with physical violence because of the punishment involved, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

[mikelgb]

16. regular, run f the mill attack?

so if a straight white male is attacked this would be regular, run of the mill and should be treated as less severe?


all violence should be prosecuted equally for the sake of the victims.

[JackBeck]

19. If a white male is attacked because of his race, he's already protected by current hate crimes.

This is about the LGBT community trying to gain equal status in the this country.

From the statistics I've seen, the LGBT community is attacked because of who they are a lot more than whites.

If you have a problem with current hate crimes laws, fight to overturn them. In the mean time, there are plenty of progressives out there who will be joining me and my fight for equal access to the laws of this country.

[mikelgb]

20. I am a member of the LGBT community

I don't disagree with making the laws more equal

I just argue that the way to do that is to treat all violence equally

[JackBeck]

27. Have you heard of "overkill"?

[youngdem]

23. No.

No special punishment is necessary. All acts of violence are disgusting. There is already a death penalty attached to the crime you are referring to (James Byrd). What more do you want? Double death?

There is already discretion built into sentencing guidelines that allow for the judge and jury to consider aggravating circumstances that already can result in an amazing amount of jail time. This allows the judge to discern between someone who has attacked a stranger for no good reason or if the fight was a result of some more mutual disagreement that finds some fault with both parties. We don't need a thought crime to address this.

You don't have to have thought crimes to protect the public. You can just enforce the laws you have more vigorously.

The underlying crime is the offense, not the racism. Racists walk around each other everyday without obvious injury. The crime is the injury. We don't need thought crimes to protect the public. We need better prosecutions of crimes.

You are already facing a potential life sentence for felony assault with serious bodily injury and potentially life if they can prove you were trying to kill them, or if you used a weapon (including a car). So, what more could you want in the form of a deterrent? Severe penalties don't serve as an effective deterrent because most violent crimes are crimes of passion, and are largely singular events for the perp. So, more severe penalties won't do anything. They did the crime beause they weren't thinking and were very possibly very intoxicated.

[WinkyDink]

31. I can see youngdem's point: The Prosecution normally NEVER has to prove motive;

it is enough that the facts show a crime was committed by the defendant, period.

[Midlodemocrat]

46. I disagree. In the absence of certain evidence, motive is

always introduced.

[enki23]

7. as if we don't already discriminate crimes based on motive

don't be willfully ignorant.

[mitchtv]

9. So painting a Swastika on a synagogue is

the same as graffiti on a wall?

[IndyOp]

41. Excellent example. Concise and complete. (n/t)

[mitchtv]

42. The laws are already in effect this just includes GLBT citizens

So It's time for our DU opponents of this inclusion to be honest

[depakid]

10. Actually, the idea is quite in line with common law

and goes WAY back.

Almost ALL crimes require "scienter" or "mens rea," which looks into the mindset of the person committing the criminal act.

Some "mental states" are worse than others- and are punished more harshly, even though the underlying act is precisely the same. You can see that in the degrees of homicide- what a person was thinking (and sometimes who was killed) is very relevant to what they're charged with and/or convicted of.

[atreides1]

11. "ALL violent crimes are hate crimes."

Hate crimes (also known as bias crimes) are violent crimes, hate speech or vandalism, motivated by feelings of enmity or animus against an identifiable social group. Animosity towards the victims of hate crimes are often based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, or national origin. Hate crimes differ from regular crime motivated by economic gain or personal animosity. In the United States, criminal acts motivated by bias can easily be confused with forms of expression protected by the U.S. Constitution.


How hate crimes differ from other crimes
The number of hate crimes may seem small when compared with the incidence of other types of crimes. For example, during 1993 in the United States, 11 of the 24,526 murders reported in the United States were classified as hate crimes, as were 13 of the 104,806 reported rapes. However, hate crimes are considered to victimize not only the immediate target but every member of the group that the immediate target represents. A bias-motivated offense can cause a broad ripple of discomfiture among members of a targeted group, and a violent hate crime can act like a virus, quickly spreading feelings of terror and loathing across an entire community. Apart from their psychological impacts, violent hate crimes can create tides of retaliation and counterretaliation. Therefore, criminal acts motivated by bias may carry far more weight than other types of criminal acts.

[IndyOp]

14. Hate crimes are when someone hurts an individual to terrorize a population...

It is NOT a thought crime - it is objectively observable behavior.

When Senator Allen stuck the horses head in the black families' mailbox and drove off gleefully saying that THIS would show the n****** that was a hate crime.

When great crowds of whites gathered to lynch blacks and hang signs around their necks that said things like "THIS n***** TRIED TO VOTE" that was a hate crime.

I trust a jury of our peers to judge whether an individual was hurt to terrorize a population to which they belong or not. We don't need Big Brother.

[youngdem]

39. And how do you tell what his internal motivations were for the crime?

Whether it was simply vandalism, or a threat, or anger at a traffic incident, or anger at someone who looked like the victim in a way that has nothing to do with race. How do you know? You CAN'T (unless he tells you), and attempting to so is attempting to read minds.

Tell me, could someone be prosecuted under a hate crime statute if he is prosecuted or convicted for NO other associated crime? That should cause you to pause. It comes very close to infringing on speech, if allowed to stand as a conviction without another crime being associated with it. I am not calling a hate crime speech, nor am I defending it - I am just pointing out that if you can be prosecuted for this as a crime all by itself, and you can add classes like the elderly, the military and so forth, it concerns me that the classes could become more and more numerous and the 'hate crime' definition could be blurred to the point that we have 'hate crime' prosecutions for things that we never imagined, like speaking out against policy in Israel, objecting to affirmative action, having offensive lyrics in songs or poems or books, and on and on.

It is this sort of erosion I fear from these laws, and they offer no payoff. There are always underlying crimes. Prosecute them, and seek the maximum penalty. Most statutes maxed out will provide plenty of incarceration for the 'hate crimes'.

This is a really well intended idea that has REALLY bad potential repercussions with no payoff worth risk. Current law protects the individual pretty well, if the laws were only enforced. Perhaps we should insist on better funded courts, better funded cops, better social services and better mental health treatment before we invite Big Brother in anymore than we already have.

[IndyOp]

40. I do understand some of your concerns, however,

courts across the nation daily make decisions about the defendant's state of mind while committing a crime -- was that murder in the first degree or second? Was the defendant sane at the time or the crime or not - did they know right from wrong when they acted?

"Tell me, could someone be prosecuted under a hate crime statute if he is prosecuted or convicted for NO other associated crime?"

No. Hate crimes are crimes committed against one or a few individuals to terrorize a larger group to which they belong. It has to be a CRIME - assault, rape, murder - that was committed, in part, to punish a group to which the victim belong.

Example - Andrew Anthos's murder

February 23, 2007

Bus rider killed in hate crime attack
Man with pipe asked 72-year-old victim if he was gay

by Anthony Glassman

Detroit--A brutal attack on an elderly gay man has left the victim dead and the community shaken.

Andrew Anthos, 72, was returning from the public library on a city bus on February 13 when another passenger asked if he was gay. Anthos answered yes, and the man continued to harass him for the rest of the ride.

When Anthos got off the bus, the other passenger followed him and hit him in the head with a metal pipe in front of Anthos’ apartment.

Paralyzed from the neck down, Anthos was able to tell police what happened before he fell into a coma in the hospital. He succumbed to his injuries on February 23.

Anthos, whose family confirmed that he was gay, often traveled to the state capital of Lansing to press for the capitol dome to be lit in red, white and blue for one night a year as a tribute to servicemembers and police officers.

“Since the attack on Andrew Anthos, we have learned of a gentle soul that graced our city and state,” said Melissa Pope, director of victim services for the Triangle Foundation, Michigan’s largest LGBT organization. “Andrew had more gifts to give and more moments to enjoy. But this will never come to be, because of the hatred and brutality of a homophobic assailant.”

http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/march/0302071.htm

Of course, these are the tough decisions to make - and, again, I trust a jury of my peers to make that decision.

I do believe that hate crimes laws offer a pay-off or I would not be arguing in favor of them. I believe that the payoff can include deterring hate crimes and can provide a measure of assurance to often-victimized populations that they have a tool at their disposal that can help the justice system work in their favor - when it so often works against them.

It seems to me that you argument is based - in part - on the idea that we have to adjust the system so that NO defendant accused of hate crimes, who is actually innocent, will ever be punished.

The problem is that if we adjust the system to swing so strongly in favor of preventing false alarms (preventing punishment of accused who are innocent) then we automatically make it less likely that guilty defendants will be punished.

[youngdem]

47. Sort of.

My argument is actually that this is a violation of equal protection, has unintended erosions on First Amendment issues, is unneeded because of the underlying laws, and is useless because the cops we have don't enforce the laws already on the books, so adding one that has a pathetic $10M in federal enforcement dollars behind it will do no good, and in fact may further dilute law enforcement efforts, as they go around trying to prove internal motivation.

My solution is to increase funding for courts and law enforcement, and ask that prosecutors (under the direction of the Atty General) NOT plea out crimes that have 'hate crime' undertones and seek the maximum sentence under the code broken by the defendant. And, to focus on diversity education, mental health treatment and availability, and more minority police chiefs and prosecutors.

Plus, it has been proven over and over and over again that new laws and increased penalties do NOTHING to deter violent crime. Simple case in point is that the national murder rate has skyrocketed since the reinstitution of the death penalty. What could be more of a deterrent than that? Why doesn't it work? Because people who commit violent crime AREN'T THINKING!

Thanks for your thoughtful reply by the way. Enjoyed very much reading it. Thanks for your time. :hi:

[Toots]

15. If someone were to put a burning cross in your yard all you can charge them with is trespassing

IMO the trespass is not the crime. The crime is the message of hate and fear and it should be able to be controlled..

[youngdem]

21. Tresspassing, arson, vandalism, and you could argue assault of some kind

because the cross is used as a threat before a lynching. So, it is a terroristic threat of violence. Plus the two other felonies and one misdemeanor I mentioned above carry a stiff sentence. We don't need thought crimes.

Same goes for the swastika. If you can determine it is meant as a threat of future violence by painting the building with a swastika, then prosecute them for trespass, felony vandalism, and terroristic threats. Two felonies and a misdemeanor.

What's the need for the thought crime, when you could just prosecute the underlying actions without creating special classes and equal protection issues?

[Toots]

25. It isn't arson if it is their lumber they are burning and it is not worth anything

All it amounts to is firewood being burned on private property. Who is to say there was any threat involved. Trespass is not a felony by the way. Also it isn't vandalism if nothing is vandalized....You say assault if you can prove there was somehow a threat involved...I say the whole purpose of such a threat is hate....If all they wanted was to assault you they don't need to burn a cross. There is a specific message of hate just as you say if a swastika were to be painted on your door. There are not now any laws to address that hate. I am not sure what they have come up with is correct only that what we currently have is not working....

[youngdem]

30. Read the arson statute

It is VERY broad and can apply to any burning of ANYTHING in a deliberative manner without a permit in an unauthorized place, ESPECIALLY if the burning is happening on property you don't own.

AND, if you hammer something into the ground, you have created a FIXTURE in real estate lingo, which is now attached to the property and can only be removed by the owner or authorized agent. SO, the cross burners are technically (at least here) in violation of arson laws by burning the cross, and possibly vandalism.

I also guarantee you that the burn marks and the hole in the yard is vandalism, and it is SO easy now to get above the felony threshold on dollar damages, you can get there QUICKLY.

Plus, there is the threat of assault/terroristic threat associated with a cross burning that is in itself a crime, because the cross burning historically threatened a lynching. Plenty of time stacked up between all of these charges.

No thought crime needed.

[Hippo_Tron]

35. You're assuming that the state is willing to prosecute for all of that

And that the jury will be willing to convict for all of that. A bigoted prosecutor and an unsympathetic jury could easily end up with such a person getting off with trespassing and creating a fire hazard.

[youngdem]

38. Which is my entire point. Focus on prosecuting the laws we have, instead of creating new laws

we won't enforce.

[Jacobin]

17. I agree with you

The status of the victim should not matter.

It makes some people 'more important' than others in the eyes of the law. It is repugnant to me.

[Jacobin]

18. Why should committing a crime against a soldier

carry a stronger sentence than a criminal would get if he attacked me?

Anyone?

[Bluebear]

48. "Special rights"? nt

[Eastseminole]

24. You are correct

You are right on target

The illiberals want to put folks in jail for what they THINK!

Big Brother, here we come

[JackBeck]

29. Way off.

You can think whatever the heck you want to think.

These bill would add the LGBT community to laws that already exist to protect other groups of people.

[mitchtv]

44. the fact is crimes against Gays are often overlooked by

police and DA's in conservative areas. What do you have against Gays?

[Bluebear]

49. Illiberals, hahahahaha

:eyes:

[Solo_in_MD]

26. Damn, I here I was thnking I was the only survivor here with that opinion...

Hate crimes do indeed equal thought crimes

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Beating somebody up for being gay isn't a thought.

If you're worried about legislation against thought crimes, I don't know what you're worried about.

[Marnieworld]

34. this is about more than what you listed

but also protects people from hiring, housing and general discrimination (like hotels and restaurants etc.)

Even what you listed is all about context. Criminal law is filled with nuance and gradiations and this would just add another. Are you so passionately opposed to defenses that evoke temporary insanity, crime of passion, self-defense or any other mitigating circumstance or level of crime? One dead body could have many different charges attached depending on the circumstances of the death. This is nothing unusual.

[Sapphocrat]

45. It's bullshit to you why, exactly?

Unless you're having some "bad thoughts" of your own, you have nothing to worry about. So why are you standing in the way? What do you have to gain from your "uniform" opposition? How does hate-crime legislation hurt you?

You know, you should ask Emmett Till if he thinks it's bullshit. Oh, that's right, I forgot -- he was beaten to death, mutilated beyond recognition, and sunk in a river in 1955, because he had the audacity to whistle at a white woman.

Gee, I wonder why that happened? After all, according to you, it's not like anybody would ever slaughter a 14-year-old just 'cause he was black or anything. Those good ol' boys would have done the same thing to a white boy, wouldn't they? You have to believe that, since, in your world, taking race, sexual orientation, or even gender into account is unfair. (By your logic, you must also think that no woman has ever been raped just because she was a woman.) :eyes:

Well, I guess you can't ask Emmett Till if he thinks it's bullshit. But I sure would love to see you tell Judy Shepard it's bullshit. In fact, I'd pay to watch that.

[babylonsister]

5. That convinced me. They don't really have ideals, or morals, every

thing they've been doing since January is about partisan politics and sour grapes. Got it.

[snappyturtle]

8. Check this OP out...same subject.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x813455

This one sounds like * will veto the bill! If he vetoes it, that will fit nicely with his torture policy.

[ck4829]

12. K&R

[rasputin1952]

13. How did these baboons keep power for so long?

Amazing, these are the people who decry, at every chance, at how no one should "Play Politics" with events that affect people....:eyes:

These brazen hustlers are getting what they deserve...exposure as frauds.

[Eastseminole]

22. Hate crimes?

Seems to me that the whole concept of "hate crimes" hinges on two things- Bureaucrats deciding what your "thoughts' were at the time of the alledged crime, and hurting people because of what they think.

Very illiberal

[verse18]

28. You're very transparent. Putting hate crimes in quotes, come on.

The law regarding hate crimes have been explained in this thread so your response is nonsensical. The average IQ on this board is pretty high, so you'll have to do much better than that.

[BlooInBloo]

36. You go into a forum with the intellect you have, not the intellect you wish you had. :)

[Bluebear]

50. Word. nt

[mitchtv]

43. the law is in effect already;the Dems are adding protections

to GLBT citizens . your point is moot,are you just opposing the addition of GLBT's to the list?

[Marnieworld]

32. Why do they hate the troops?

So they must be for beating up returning soldiers then? That 101 year old woman being mugged in NYC recently is no different than a fit man in his 20s huh?

It's the party that fights for your right to hate and yet claims Jesus? Madness.

[lpbk2713]

37. I suspect the reason the rethugs don't want added protection for the elderly ...

is so that it will be easier to make them targets of hate and scorn, thus making it easier to take away their Social Security and Medicare entitlements as a collective group.