An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
Fighting Terrorism
The hate crimes bill is simply another name for anti-terrorism. Those who kill due to hate, and who hope that their violence will terrorize other members of the targeted class into submission, are terrorists. They are terrorists when their victims are Jews in Israel. They are terrorists when their targets are Christians in the West. And they are terrorists when their victims are gays in Alabama. The methods are the same. The motives are the same. And our condemnation must be the same.
23 Responses to “Fighting Terrorism”
Don’t grossly stretch the definition of “terrorism” and equivocate in such a silly manner. There’s an obvious distinction between thuggish behavior and real terrorism even when those doing both may overlap (such as with the KKK). Also don’t play that hierarchy-patriarchy PC-BS “domination and submission,” “majority and minority” game. Especially don’t play it with the laws of this country.
I’m surprised you didn’t call schoolyard bullies “terrorists” [sic].
Talk about silly… Reading DLSs post he sounds like he thinks certain types of thuggish behavior are more terrifying than others.
This faulty logic is just like the “What Constitute Torture” argument. Some people can ‘split hairs’, with no moral concern, to justify waterboarding. Glad I’m not one of those people.
There’s an easy way to determine if an act is terrorism or not… Just consider what you’d consider it if it were happening to you or your family.
Yes! Exactly right. The perpetrators of such crimes don’t care about the individual victim, they care about intimidating the group. And when a bunch of guys go to a particular place for the purpose of finding someone who is gay and then assaulting him or her, how is that unlike the tactics used by the KKK?
> Talk about silly…
Mirror talk.
> Reading DLS[']s post[ing,]
> he sounds like he thinks
> certain types of thuggish
> behavior are more terrifying
> than others.
Some of us are above the moral equivalence BS.
Some of us realize that guns and bombs, or aircraft used as weapons, are worse than a rock or even a knife.
Some of us can distinguish between what is organized and truly directed at a group and what is merely a crime of opportunity.
*sigh*
Sorry, but when gay bashers and haters get to this level New Iraqi school had bombs built in, I will call them terrorists, too.
But for now, they are just punks, bigots, haters, and sociopaths.
Great post David. I don’t know if I agree with you, but it’s thought provoking.
Terrorists are not a group of people often defined as radical Muslims. Terrorists are people who use violence or the threat of violence to force political change. That defines a pretty broad group that would also include the political leaders of many Western states from time to time.
Are people that commit hate crimes trying to force political change? I’m not really sure they are, but I’m open to being convinced
DLS – You really should invest in a dictionary and grammar check. You really look foolish when, while trying to be a smart ass, turn out to be wrong.
I’m tired of my home state used as the dog to kick example here all to often. If you want a truly hateful group of people that still lynch black people, hate gays enough to kill them, and think Jews are born directly of Satan try Eastern central Texas, and stop using my state as your damn examples.
Friggen pisses me off when people are stuck with 50 year old views of a place and it’s people they don’t even know shit about, or haven’t taken the time to investigate outside of a freak like Roy Moore whom if anyone had investigated had approval numbers in the mid 20′s in this state during his reign. And the freaks that came to worship his stone were mostly bussed in from Missouri.
David, there is a fifth objection that you have not noted: that the bill is probably unconstitutional.
In 2000 a more liberal Supreme Court stated the federal government lacked authority to ban hate crimes…it being the perogative of the states (race hatred being an exception, hate crime laws referencing race being under the Thirteenth Amendment).
This is a piece of “feel good” liberal legislation – the conservatives having their own versions of this I seem to recall – that placates the base but is largely symbolic. Even beyond a veto…its future is pretty dim.
Philosophically, I find it troubling…there seems to be a movement in the law to increase criminal penalties for this or that favorite issue of the party in power.
Conservatives advocate higher penalties for killing cops…liberals higher penalties for race and sex orientation crimes…conservatives higher penalties for crime crimes…and so on.
In Britain in the early 19th century hanging was the generic punishment for a vast range of crimes…even property crimes. Juries would, as a result, often resort to a range of bizarre strategems to avoid sentences — judges often colluding.
Adding “hate crimes” to “cop crimes” to “drug crimes”…what is next? The RIAA is a powerful lobby group, and has already led to the creation of the excessive punishment of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Literally, I could go to NYC with a baseball bat…start beating on the first cop I see with it…then his partner…and (if I survive
I would still be facing a LOWER criminal penalty than if I downloaded a single song illegally.
Does America really need to fill up its prisons even more than now?
Oops…by “crime crimes” I meant “drug crimes”.
Laws against flag burning! (Sorry…tried to think of this in earlier post…long day…
The anti-flag burning laws are the conservative equivalent of this hate crimes bill…passed repeatedly in the full realization that they will likely fail constitutional review…but to pump up the base regardless.
I can’t see a War on Hate Crimes coming out any better than a War on Terror. I don’t think I’m being a utopian by suggesting the Hearts and Minds of the American people must be won.
It would be too cute by half to call this bill The Patriot Act of Hate Crimes, but it does seem to be redundant and only for the purpose of making a statement, which, however righteous it may be, is not a legislative function.
I don’t know how to address hate crimes in law, but in philosophical terms I would definitely include gay bashing, lynching, bombing abortion clinics and all attacks for reasons of ideology (hating what victims represent) among acts of terrorism.
It is all to affect change in society by instilling fear.
I think there needs to be a distinction made between terrorism on the basis of hate and beating the crap out of someone on the basis of hate. There IS a difference. If you beat up a guy because he’s Gay, besides being a grade A bastard, you need to go to jail, but no more than if you beat someone because they “looked at you funny”. Now then if you and a group of likeminded people carry out a campaign of terror, through arson, beatings and even murder on a certain community (whatever that may be, black white, Gay, Straight, Catholic or Jew) THAT’S terrorism and needs to be treated with the level of seriousness associated to terrorism.
We’ve stopped trusting judges (admittadly with some justification sometimes) to merely have common sense and be able to distinguish being a bastard (no matter what form that takes) from a calculated effort to terrorize an entire community. Oh and, prejudice-based campaigns shouldn’t be the only ones treated like this. When a gang lays waste to the entire neighborhood of a rival gang, I’d put it in the same category.
Lynx make a logical argument, but I would ask why a one-man crime can’t be terrorism. A suicide bomber is as much a terrorist as a group plotting together.
Pyst wrote:
> Friggen pisses me off
> when people are stuck
> with 50 year old views
> of a place
Some of the worst bigotry today is, of course, from the Left, directed at the South and Southern whites. But that’s politically correct, so it’s okay to be so hateful.
I’ve been to Alabama a number of times. (Used to go to Montgomery frequently to visit some bookstores there, from Atlanta, on a few Saturdays, when my local trip wasn’t to “Chatt” in TN instead.) Alabama has (yes, admittedly, tiny Eastern) mountains, too. And of course, while so much of decayed Cyanide Nation is decrepit and degenerating still more, how’s Huntsville doing? The auto industry is alive and is thriving, other than in Detroit? Where is it thriving?
Lynx said:
“I think there needs to be a distinction made between terrorism on the basis of hate and beating the crap out of someone on the basis of hate. There IS a difference.”
Of course there is, but unfortunately too many on the Left, including on this site, are incapable of understanding what is so easy to understand, or are unwilling to admit the obvious.
Is it the intellectual or the behavioral level on the Left which is lower?
Toyota, one of the strongest car makers, is in Tenn, afaik.
As for Terror- it is a slippery slope to paint with such a broad brush.
Were it to be so than every criminal, from white to blue collar could be labeled as such.
> You really look foolish
> when, while trying to
> be a smart ass, [you]
> turn out to be wrong.
I wasn’t, though you were.
STEVEK MAKES THE TRUEST OF ALL STATEMENTS. WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOUR FAMILY THEN YOU WILL SEE IT AS TERRORISM. PEOPLE ARE MAKING COMMENTS ABOUT THESE HATE GROUPS AS THOUGH ALL THEY DO IS ROUGH YOU UP A LITTLE BIT. THEY HAVE MURDERED FATHERS,SONS,UNCLES,MOTHERS,DAUGHTERS,AUNTS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH THEIR RELIGION,SEXUAL PREFERENCE OR, BASED ON RACE. TERRORISM DEF: THE UNLAWFUL USE OR THREATENED USE OF FORCE OR VIOLENCE BY A PERSON OR AN ORGANIZED GROUP AGAINST PEOPLE OR PROPERTY WITH THE INTENTION OF INTIMIDATING OR COERCING SOCIETIES OR G’MENTS OFTEN(BUT NOT ONLY) FOR IDEALOGICAL OR POLITICAL REASONS. I DO BELIEVE THIS ADEQUATELY (AT A MINIMUM) DESCRIBES SEVERAL HATE GROUPS HERE. IF A PERSON DOES NOT AGREE, IM SURE THAT TIDE WOULD TURN IF THEIR SON WAS DRAGGED TO DEATH FOR BEING BLACK, OR BEATEN TO DEATH FOR BEING GAY. THE PEOPLE THAT SPEAK THE LOUDEST ABOUT THIS NOT BEING THE SAME ARE USUALLY THE ONES THAT ARE NOT IN ANY MINORITY GROUP AND HAVE NEVER HAD TO WORRY ABOUT SUCH ATTACKS, NOT RANDOM BY SOME THUG(COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE) BUT, PLANNED BY SOME HATE GROUP, AND EXECUTED, LEAVING SOMEONES DEAD CHILD BEHIND, NOT ROBBERY ETC, BASED SOLELY ON HATE FOR WHO THEY ARE.
MICAT72 –
PLEASE CONTINUE POSTING IN ALL CAPS.
SAVES ME THE EFFORT OF EVEN THINKING ABOUT READING YOUR COMMENTS.
THANKS!
HOWEVER IT STILL ALLOWS YOU TO WASTE YOUR EFFORT RESPONDING HMMMMM, YOU ARE INTELLIGENT.
QUITE WELCOME!!!
All caps are okay, just clumsy. All lower case, on the other hand, is playpen game stuff that definitely is annoying.