hate crime laws, should they be unconstitutional?

[rainstorm]

Iv'e studied everyone's arguments and I'll weigh in on this.
There's two issues here:

1. Every crime has a motivation. A street punk will rob someone who he perceives as having money. That's discrimination too. I don't think that there should be a heiarchy of motivations, with some being worse than others. This is a slippery slope to the thought police. The actions have to be judged and punished appropriately. Americans are still on a guilt trip over minority issues and feel that more and more symbolic measures are necessary to make up for it. Emotional issues make bad laws. Either that, or politicians make these symbolic laws to get votes. After all who can be against doing something for the oppressed?

2. If some girl dates your boyfriend, don't beat up the girl, beat up your boyfriend. Or at least, lose the boyfriend, he's no good.

if i beat up the girl i will committ a "jealousy" crime. if i beat up my bf it will just be a "regular" crime, he is white. if he was black, would it be a "hate" crime?

[deb_in_nc]

Even if he was black it wouldn't be a hate crime. If you had a black bf and you hated blacks why would you have a black bf? Does that make sense? It does to me anyway.

Debbie

[streetsoldier]

OK, here's the "take" on this you've ALL been waiting for...

As long as Americans are TAUGHT to "see" themselves as "black-Asian-gay/lesbian-Latino-whatever-Americans", this will be going on ad infinitum. The INTENTIONAL "Balkanization" of the people here in this battered, but durable Republic keeps certain politicians empowered: as these pander to each sub-group in turn, promise the moon, anything to get the vote out, and themselves elected.

This also goes to the "question" oF "reparations". My "take" on this? OK, here it comes...I am of Danish ancestry. My forebears, 1,000 years ago, were most likely Viking raiders who ravaged most of Europe for 300 years between 751 and 1066 AD. Does this mean, for the sake of argument, that my family OWES any descendants in France, England, Ireland, Spain, et al, OR their descendants in America, damages for "services rendered"?

It makes just as much (non)sense as blacks demanding reparations from all the Caucasian citizens, most of whose ancestors had absolutely NOTHING to do with the slave trade.

That's my view on all this. Utter nonsense, and you may quote me.

[fixitmhn]

Streetsoldier,
Well said.
Being Jewish I don't feel that the Germans owe me anything for the Holocost, and that was far worse than the Blacks Slavery Issues. Also, we Jews also know a little about the slavery issues under the Egyptian Pharous. I don't feel that the Egyptians owe me anything either. Like you said its all nonsense and we have to look at ourselves as Americans.
God Bless America!

[streetsoldier]

Thanks...but I can take this a step or two further. I'm also a direct descendant of a Jewish Confederate cavalry officer, and his brother, Judah Philip Benjamin, the "evil genius of the Confederacy" is my many-times great-uncle. Do I demand anti-Semitic reparations, or am I culpable for black reparations? The two should cancel each other out.

Then, there are all the Scots and Irish descendants here on these shores, brought over either in chains ("Jacobites", supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie after 1746) or driven from their homes on the Emerald Isle by famine the British government did nothing to assuage? Should their descendants (and I am among these, as my mother was Irish) file suit in some international court against Her Britttanic Majesty's Government?

Once again, balderdash.

[rainstorm]

Thanks...but I can take this a step or two further. I'm also a direct descendant of a Jewish Confederate cavalry officer, and his brother, Judah Philip Benjamin, the "evil genius of the Confederacy" is my many-times great-uncle. Do I demand anti-Semitic reparations, or am I culpable for black reparations? The two should cancel each other out.

Then, there are all the Scots and Irish descendants here on these shores, brought over either in chains ("Jacobites", supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie after 1746) or driven from their homes on the Emerald Isle by famine the British government did nothing to assuage? Should their descendants (and I am among these, as my mother was Irish) file suit in some international court against Her Britttanic Majesty's Government?

Once again, balderdash.

actually, almost everyone can trace slavery somewhere in thier lineage.
time to stop the victimization of america.