dagblog - Comments for "Some blasphemous free speech before UN, U.S. & Egypt decide it's a 'Misused Freedom'"

Different decisions based on

DF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:10:04 +0000

In reply to On the empathy issue and on

Different decisions based on what? I do think that people find this sort of legislation emotionally satisfying. So are revenge fantasies. Neither materially change the situation. That's the rational analysis. We want to do something, so we do. Does it help? It's not apparent that it does. Doing something isn't always better than doing nothing. TARP anyone?

If the logical reasons for doing something aren't to be found, then it's fair to suspect that the decision is perhaps being made to satisfy some emotional need. Also, it seems odd to take this tack and then call mine the "raw logical approach." You acknowledge that my approach is logical. I agree. I'm struggling to see the logic on the other side.

I find it odd that you're characterizing my position as utopian. We aren't different now than we were 40 years ago. It's still homo homini lupus, same as it ever was. The utopian, in my mind, is the one who acknowledges the fundamental nature of human prejudice, but persists in the belief that this can be legislated away. It only seems different because it was race then and sexual orientation now. Again, this is why I make the second argument. We haven't moved beyond any of this and I contend that we won't as long as we're insistent on carving society up to into these segments. Include everyone, punish those who transgress. One tribe, one law. It's that simple.

The identity politics of the left have more of the burden to bear in maintaining our separateness than the left is typically willing to acknowledge.

On the empathy issue and on

Orlando — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:34:13 +0000

In reply to The harm is that the

On the empathy issue and on the issue of all violent crime being hate crime and on the issue of rape definitely being a hate crime, I agree with you 100%.

But on the issue of people deciding things emotionally rather than logically you lose me because what it seems to me that you're saying is that people make different decisions than you would which means you're logical and they're not.

Ultimately, I'm not disputing that our emotions play into our decisions. And they should. As should logic and reason. As with most things, there has to be a balance. But the "why not height, why not weight, why not hair color" devil's advocate argument doesn't do much to sway me. That's akin to asking why gays and religion and gender now but not 40 years ago. Because 40 years ago we were different and we made decisions, legislative and otherwise, accordingly. The sort of raw logical approach to criminal justice that you're advocating seems a little bit utopian. We're dealing with people, and people can't live in a vacuum which divorces reason and logic from emotion and the world such as it is.

The harm is that the

DF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:33:03 +0000

In reply to I see your points and I don't

The harm is that the arguments are specious and are used in favor of curtailing speech. That's the tie-in to WKW's post.

If excluding gays from the Hate Crimes Act is discriminatory, then why not include gender? This is actually a much better argument if you think about it. We have laws to protect children because they can protect themselves in very limited ways. Statistically speaking, women tend to be physically weaker than men. Additionally, women, as a group, are victimized more frequently and often more brutally than any other segment of society. This just went down in my neck of the woods. 15 year old girl gang-raped for hours. People watched, cheered, joined in. Why not have laws on the books that punish people for exploiting this? I realize that the new bill includes gender, but it doesn't seem clear to me that this would result in classifying rape, most often perpetrated by men against women (at least outside of our prison system), as a hate crime.

Why not include special language to address height? Or weight? Hell, why not just include every dilineation we can dream up until no one is excluded? Better yet, we add a whole new legal system on top of the existing one for this very purpose. We can call it Strong Law or Really Super Serious Law or "Law II: This Time We Mean It."

I understand the need to address these issues, but I also understand that people justify things emotionally that can't be justified rationally. That's what I see here. The arguments just don't hold up, the evidence to back them absent. Will we see conservatives turn the argument around and push to restrict speech that is critical of religion here in the U.S.? That's essentially what the Muslim community is doing at the U.N. I'm willing to have that argument, but I want have it on the strongest footing possible. That will be difficult if they left has embraced the argument for their own purposes.

The other argument I would make against is one I made upthread. It's more subtle, but I contend that this sort of legislation enshrines a type of thinking that is ultimately damaging because it re-inforces dilineations between people that support the fundamental problem: A lack of empathy. It's the very foundation of morality. What happened to Matthew Shepard wasn't heinous because he was gay. It was heinous because he was a human being. It's a mistake to think that the people who did this to him did it because he was gay. That misunderstands the fundamental problem. They did it to him because they lacked empathy for him. They failed to recognize his fundamental humanity. His difference, his sexual orientation, was just the excuse to ignore his humanity.

When we legislate for special groups in this manner, we help re-inforce their specialness instead of re-inforcing their humanity. It re-inforces their "otherness" in the eyes of those who already see them this way. I think it's the wrong approach. IMHO, a moral stand against all crimes against all people is what is required. Maybe we aren't ready for that, but it's what I advocate.

I see your points and I don't

Orlando — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:57:42 +0000

In reply to It's a valid point, but the

I see your points and I don't disagree with their merit. Legislation doesn't automatically erase biases, but over time it can be part of a sea change.

I don't know the exact history of hate crimes legislation, so I'll trust Wolfie's statement that they've been on the books for 40 years. So, 40 years ago, maybe a violent crime committed against an African American for the transgression of being African American might have, in some areas of the country at least, not been treated as the serious crime that it is, not just in the courts, but in the media, in the classroom, in people's kitchens, etc. Today, there is a much lower threshhold of tolerance for this sort of crime. The Civil Rights Act, the Hate Crimes Act, social service, advocacy and government organizations, and a million other little pieces have been working together and seperately to advance our society. It's way too slow, but it's definitely moving in the direction of racial equality, as opposed to being stuck in place or going in the reverse direction.

So, adding sexual orientation to the Hate Crimes Act might not have the same immediate impact as repealing DADT will, but it's a piece of a whole.

We make decisions about sentencing guidelines all the time based on all sorts of factors that could be considered arbitrary. so I see no harm in hate crimes sentencing guidelines. And, since there's no way the Hate Crimes Act is getting repealed, excluding gays from it is discriminatory.

Look, characterizing my

DF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:35:17 +0000

In reply to Am I the only one who is

Look, characterizing my viewpoint as anything other than 100% pro-good is borderline libelous.

It's a valid point, but the

DF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:33:11 +0000

In reply to In response to DF's comments

It's a valid point, but the assumption here, that legislation will trump this aspect of human nature, is only that. We can put the that fact that certain acts are illegal in bold, italics, underline it and set it up with a 168 point font, but that won't erase prejudice. We can strongly, strongly urge jurors and jurists not to let these biases inform their decisions, but neither does that erase human prejudice. You can require a stiffer penalty under these circumstances, but you can't require a guilty verdict, nor would you want to.

If this is the aim of hate crime laws, is there any reason to believe that this aim is accomplished? Again, I haven't seen the evidence. I suspect that, like gun control, this is a feel-good, red-meat issue for the left. Meanwhile, the Dems will leave meaningful reforms to gather dust. The LGBT community can continue to languish as second-class citizens under Democratic rule.

I get that. I also get that

DF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:19:02 +0000

In reply to You are aware that this has

I get that. I also get that attacks and speech are different. And, as I've made clear, I get that the underlying arguments in support of this type of legislation are specious and inconsistent. As with gun control, there's really no evidence that this sort of legislation has the intended effect.

In fact, one could even view this cynically as nothing but political expediency on the part of Dems. This does to my point about protecting special groups for their specialness instead of for their fundamental humanity. The Dems could do real, meaningful things right now to change the very real ways that gay people are treated different: Marriage equality, ending DADT, etc. But instead, they're going to sign token, feel-good legislation to punish people that would otherwise already be punished just a bit harder. Meanwhile, they'll abide the status quo under which the LGBT community is treated as a second class. You're impressed by this?

In response to DF's comments

Orlando — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:34:24 +0000

In reply to Some blasphemous free speech before UN, U.S. & Egypt decide it's a 'Misused Freedom'

In response to DF's comments about hate crimes up above:

There's a social engineering aspect to the hate crimes legislation that your argument is missing. Not everyone who hates gays goes out and commits a violent act against someone who is gay. But a lot of people who hate gays have the potential to be jurists and to minimize the crime and the punishment based on their personal biases. Our judicial system doesn't allow for that, but human nature occasionally trumps that system.

Putting these crimes in a special class reinforces that they are indeed crimes and that the perpetrators do deserve punishment. Whether you agree this is a necessary step or an original intent of the original legislation, it's a piece of the whole.

Just to clarify, I'm

Nebton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:46:53 +0000

In reply to Am I the only one who is

Just to clarify, I'm pro-megashark, anti-blasphemy-crime (except for blasphemy against megashark), semi-anti-hate-crime, anti-Larry-David, pro-old-lady, anti-anti-American, anti-anti-anti-American, pro-walking-dead, and most definitely pro-punctuation!@#$%^&*()[]{}“‘”’¡§¶•ªº¯˘/?¿';:"…«»\|`~,.

You are aware that this has

William K. Wolfrum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:32:22 +0000

In reply to You're right that it's not

You are aware that this has been on the books for about 40 years, right? And that attacks on people for their religion has always been a part of it? Now the LGBT community is, as well.