FIT THE PUNISHMENT TO THE (THOUGHT) CRIME
By Harmony Grant
30 July 08
In February, a 22-year-old man accosted Elie Wiesel, famous Nobel
Laureate and “Holocaust scholar,” in a hotel. The young
man grabbed Wiesel’s arm to drag him from an elevator, then fled
when Wiesel yelled for help. Police threw the book at the 22-year-old;
they charged him with attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder
abuse, stalking, battery and the commission of a hate crime. This month
he was found guilty of a felony and two misdemeanors. He could spend
up to three years in prison.
Does prison seem a little extreme for an assault--without physical
harm to the victim? Maybe it’s because the court believes they
know what’s inside his mind--and have the right to judge it.
“Crimes motivated by hate are among the most reprehensible of
offenses,” District Attorney Kamala
Harris said in a statement about the case.
So, apparently, crimes motivated by greed or sadism or jealousy aren’t
as bad? If someone were to torture and kill my friend Dora, I wouldn’t
care whether the thug was motivated by racism (she‘s black),
hatred of women, or a crack cocaine high. Do the crime, do the time.
I would be equally devastated--and so would everyone whose lives Dora
touched--regardless of why the crime was committed.
Harris’ office said the young man had written about Wiesel online,
calling him a “genocidal liar” and describing his recent
book as fictitious. Her office said this proves he stalked Wiesel in
order to commit a hate crime. But so what if he was motivated by hate?
Say Wiesel was the young man’s deadbeat dad, who abandoned him
and left many bitter feelings. Say the guy wrote about this online,
then tracked down Wiesel and tried to haul him off an elevator. Would
that change things? Yeah, actually. He would probably be facing a lot
less time, one misdemeanor and no felony charge. The court today is
punishing his alleged “anti-Semitism,” not restricting
their verdict to the act itself.
“Anti-hate” laws treat crimes differently based on the
thoughts of the criminal. They treat crimes as more or less heinous
based on politics. They also categorize crime based on social groups;
their advocates claim that if you assault a Jewish person because he’s
Jewish, you have assaulted the entire Jewish community and you should
pay for that group crime. This distorts and undercuts the entire justice
system, which should be based on recognition of individuals and their
rights, not groups.
The dangerous idea of “group rights” is a grave threat
to free speech, because it empowers those who claim to speak for their
group. These leaders seek to secure their own power and incomes by
complaining about the group’s “trauma” and “hurt
feelings.”
In Europe, words alone--if spoken against certain protected groups--are
crimes. They can lead to jail time or hefty fines. No one can escape
Big Brother: Former actress Brigitte
Bardot just had to pay $23,000 for “hate speech.” This
is her fifth indictment for “inciting racial hatred” with
criticisms of Islam and Muslims, and their affect on French culture.
Bardot wrote a prominent politician demanding a law that animals be
stunned unconscious before being slaughtered for a Muslim festival.
Politically incorrect words in this letter led to the fine.
Nearby in Britain, a teen
was arrested in May for protesting outside a Scientology “church” with
a sign calling Scientology “a dangerous cult.” His
description was so “hateful” the government needed to
protect fully grown adults from its wounds.
As Americans grow increasingly aware of these Orwellian incidents,
some shrug them off and feel unrealistically secure. A Texas
editorial commented on this threat in Europe but then said reassuringly, “None
of this could have happened in the United States, where the right to
say what's on your mind, no matter whose feelings it may hurt, is considered
vital to the self-government of a free people.” If only that
were true. We are about as secure as a happy bustling city built on
a plain of cluster bombs.
As we have discussed in recent articles, the strategy of the Anti-Defamation
League and homosexual anti-speech activists has been to establish state
and local level bias crime laws. ADL boasts that 45 states have enacted
their “anti-hate” laws, which supposedly outlaw only outright
crime. But this criterion is broadened as state and local governments
criminalize certain thoughts, emotions, and words -- regardless of
whether they motivate actual crime. (See, 'Hate
Criminals' -- With No Law Broken!) ADL has also effectively blanketed
federal, state, and local law enforcement with their "anti-bias" and "sensitivity
training" programs.
In her powerful book, The New Thought Police:
Inside the Left’s
Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, feminist and free-thinker Tammy
Bruce describes current threats to free speech. She has this to say
about sensitivity training:
From my own experiences and from interviews I’ve engaged in
with business and academic leaders, the drumbeat in a training session
is that the participants are racist or sexist, and this fact needs
to be “exposed” to them in the group. Participants are
alternately cajoled, bullied, and pressured to accept that thinking
certain ways or saying certain things is “insensitive,” “bigoted,” or
otherwise “wrong.”
Bruce likens sensitivity training to “cult mind control.” She
herself is a self-proclaimed homosexual who nonetheless writes biting
criticism of hate laws and the concept of “group rights.” As
someone who stands to potentially benefit from hate laws--a member
of a protected group--she recognizes that these laws threaten her rights
as an individual in a free nation.
Bruce offers a thought experiment to prove what’s wrong with
hate laws: Imagine two lesbians. One is murdered by a store clerk who
hates gay people. One is murdered by a carjacker because she’s
in his way and she represents the wealthy life he hasn’t been
able to enjoy. Both criminals were full of murderous intent. Both gay
victims were equally dead. “The actions were the same,” writes
Bruce, “The only difference is what the person was thinking when
he committed the crime.”
Bruce explains that the traditional legal concept of intent asks only
whether a reasonable person might have expected a particular effect
from their actions. It doesn’t ask whether you were motivated
by hatred of an individual or hatred of a group, or by a grudge or
a political belief or by anything else. These questions are not to
be asked. Our minds and souls are our own. Hate laws destroy that precious
legal clarity and justice.
The
state of Pennsylvania just struck down the expansion of their
hate crimes law, after being sued by eleven Christians who were arrested
in 2004 for peaceful evangelism at a gay pride parade. The Christians
argued that the law, which gave special protection to homosexuals,
was expanded in an unconstitutional way, and it was struck down on
those grounds.
But all local and state hate laws must be challenged because these
laws themselves are unconstitutional. Ever broadening, increasingly
abused, hate laws threaten everyone. Depending on who is in power,
they can even turn upon the liberal Jewish activists and militant homosexuals
who are most responsible for creating them.
Harmony Grant writes and edits for National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog group.
Let the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith teach you how they
have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
Learn how ADL took away free speech in Canada and wants to steal
it now in the U.S. Congress. Watch Rev. Ted Pike's Hate
Laws: Making Criminals of Christians at video.google.com. Purchase
this gripping documentary to show at church. Order online at www.truthtellers.org for
$24.90, DVD or VHS, by calling 503-853-3688, or at the address below.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this
topic. Call (503) 631-3808.
National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas,
OR 97015
