So, this was an interesting political discussion I had recently and I feel like I should discuss it briefly on here. Should hate crimes exist as their own special segment of crime. The right would argue that the crime is illegal anyway and putting an additional qualifier of hate on it makes it a thought crime on top of an actual crime. But on the other hand, the left argues that we should seek to end racism in all forms and that we should punish hate crimes specifically.
In general, I would say i end up in the middle, but kind of lean left. The fact is, motivation has always been a qualifier in determining the severity of a crime. There's assault, and then there's aggravated assault. There's first degree murder, second degree murder, and then there's all kinds of manslaughter charges. These crimes are different in part due to how the crime was committed, but also intent. Crimes with malicious intent and forethought and malice are treated worse than off the cuff incidents and things that might be less intentional. And that's fair. You should face a harsher sentence if you murdered someone in cold blood than if you had an accident somehow.
So...why not consider a hate crime a hate crime? This has been my logic in supporting the idea. But...some may ask, yes, we have different qualifiers for crimes, but should we add an ADDITIONAL category over this super special version of hate? And that's a good point. I kinda dont like doing that in a purely philosophical sense. Because it kinda goes into wokeness and that whole ideology. Like "we need to punish racism and 'hate' at all costs", to the point that it really is about punishing a specific kind of hate that they want to ban and essentially make a thought crime. In a purely philosophical sense, I can sympathize with NOT doing that, because let's face it, on a purely philosophical level, I'm to the point I don't wanna give the woke anything, because I believe their ideology is harmful and illiberal.
At the same time....hate crimes...are really bad. And I would say that murdering, or assaulting someone on the basis of hate is something that should be punished more harshly than most other kinds of crimes. I also think such a crime is political, kind of like terrorism in a way. often times, these kinds of crimes arent just committed out of a sense of hate, but a sense of systemic intimidation. We used to have hooded KKK people just lynching people for funsies and then intimidating those who threatened their white supremacist social order. There really is a sick and sordid history there where hate crimes could just be not only a crime, but a specific kind of crime that has more...terroristic motivations than most other kinds of crimes. And given law enforcement's clashes with these kinds of crimes on the state level, and systemic cover ups by local law enforcement at times which are complicit with letting the Klan get away with stuff, yeah....I do think, functionally, even in light of my increasing distaste for woke ideology on a purely philosophical level, that yeah, there actually is an argument to be had here.
As such, I would probably lean toward hate crimes being a legitimate designation, and a separate kind of crime in and of itself. And I do think it should be treated more harshly than other kinds of crimes. Like, there's a property crime in which you do graffiti on the side of a building, but then there's some KKK dude writing "(bad word)s get out" on the side of a black person's house. One is just a normal property crime and the other clearly is intended to be intimidating and has terroristic intent. Same thing with burning a cross on a person's lawn, or hanging up an effigy on a tree with a noose or something. Again, there's a special terroristic quality to that intended to intimidate and scare people. And of course, if you do something like, say, bomb a black church, or lynch someone, or beat the crap out of someone because you're a racist POS...yes, you definitely should face a harsher sentence than someone who committed a similar crime for reasons other than hate.
Sometimes laws exist for good reason, sometimes you need to look at why laws exist to understand how we got here. Something that might sound completely ridiculous on paper or controversial could be, in the light of the exact circumstances, actually a pretty legitimate policy. Like, we often like to joke about those policies about having ice cream in your pocket and that being illegal. But back in the day, putting ice cream in your pocket could lure horses away from where they were supposed to be, so that a person could steal a horse. And as such, that law actually makes sense in its proper context.
The same applies here. Given the dark history of actual legit hate crimes and the kinds of screwed up things certain extremist groups like the KKK and nazis have done in the past, it makes sense to nail such crimes more harshly than other similar crimes committed without such a motivation. Especially given how hard it was to try such crimes due to the perpetrators wearing hoods, and local law enforcement covering things up in the Jim Crow south, etc. So yeah, legit designation. Should be a crime for a reason, fair, next.
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