dagblog - Comments for "Why Hate Violence and Hate Crimes Are 'Special'"

It is important to allow all

crackpot — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:01:16 +0000

It is important to allow all the possible lives to happen in order to provide more people to shoot later.

There has been a war on

librewolf — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 23:51:37 +0000

There has been a war on effective rehab - namely things like education and skills training. There was an uproar that prisoners were getting a "free" education.

Of Course, the the better thing is to address inequality and the things that tear apart families and communities. Then focus on diversion, then effective punishments and rehab.

We are so weak on the front end, do little in the middle, and even have life imprisonment and death penalty for children.

I don't recall anything

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 18:23:04 +0000

In reply to Yeah, this is sadly

I don't recall anything serious about rehabilitation in decades - seems the eye-for-an-eye philosophy won out.

Yeah, this is sadly

Michael Maiello — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 16:13:04 +0000

In reply to The question has always been

Yeah, this is sadly overlooked. Our system is too much about retribution and punishment. This is also a place where I'm skeptical of hate crimes laws, even though I large agree they are necessary -- I just don't think the problem with our system is that people aren't being punished enough.

Thank you for sharing this.

librewolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 05:45:33 +0000

In reply to short break for an

Thank you for sharing this.

I believe that legally there

librewolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 05:44:41 +0000

In reply to There's this idea that in

I believe that legally there is a difference between INTENT and MOTIVE. I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that the varying levels of say murder are largely intent. It is my understanding that the Hate addition is rarely used because it can be very difficult to prove that bias motivated the crime. Further, the MAJOR difference between hate crimes and all other crimes is that the victim is selected because of their socially assumed characteristics, and that such crimes are intended to send a message to the group. This makes them very different than other categories of crime.

Hi Flavius,

librewolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 05:36:18 +0000

In reply to I'm sorry to write at this

Hi Flavius,

Thanks for the welcome back. I am trying to get back into the swing of writing. It has been a rough year.

Every society has its own forms of structured inequality that are integrated into both the culture and social institutions. While all have structured inequality, all are not equally unequal.

All of this becomes more complicated in societies that have lived under colonial rule because you have the overlay of an external, frequently quite different society. Further, colonial powers frequently selected a specific group, often one of lower status, to serve as its proxies. Why the lower status? Because they could only hold power with the help of the colonial power. Further, culturally (and territorially) distinct groups got lumed into new boundaries - many of which are still not accepted nor recognized by some of the populations. The tribal people on the Afghanistan - Pakistan border come to mind. They refuse to acknowledge the national boundaries (drawn by the Brits) and still go back and forth across that border.

Further, peoples got displaced and then moved en masse into another society's domain - Kosovo comes to mind.

All these things create deep seated conflicts that can be very bloody.

Hate crimes

Not all societies have hate crimes. It is a legal classification.

Most societies have the level of diversity that is found in the United States which is primarily comprised of groups from all over rather than a "native" population that has been here for thousands of years (Our Indigenous peoples the obvious exception).

Inequality does not need to be enforced with brutality, and most is not so enforced.

While I think that it is possible to have an equal society, I think that it takes conscious decisions and the commitment to address the sometimes subtle, and frequently deepseated to the point of unconsciousness, assignment of privilege and disprivilege.

I think it is way past time that the FBI set up a standard collection strategy for documenting hate crimes. The sad truth is that hate crimes are not only under reported by victims, but many jurisdictions do not either collect or report the the crimes that do occur.

The question has always been

ocean-kat — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 18:07:16 +0000

In reply to Who could object to the

The question has always been is there a way to rehabilitate rather than just incarcerate. While occasionally progressives can cite some modest success when rehabilitation has been attempted there's never been enough resources applied to the problem to answer that question. I'm afraid there never will be.

I sadly agree.

Michael Maiello — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 17:53:49 +0000

In reply to Who could object to the

I sadly agree.

Who could object to the

Flavius — Sun, 04 Nov 2018 13:52:46 +0000

In reply to I suspect this is all true...

Who could object to the concept that the laws should be simpler. But the fundamental need is to prevent prosecutors from misusing their power to extort confessions.

However simple the laws they'll continue to include severe punishments . For use by prosecutors only for prosecuting offences meriting such punishment.