The hate crimes laws are one of many laws that have outlived their usefulness and now serve as annoying reminders of why they were needed back in the 1960s.

A lot of what remains from the civil rights movement is outdated, and I agree should be changed.

The hate crime laws don't make sense because thinking is not a crime and it is a right of all americans to hate whoever the heck they feel like hating. You just can't regulate thought.

I'm not really talking about the advent of the KKK which was created in 1865, but it was a means of curbing some of the actions of the KKK. The first hate crime law was passed in 1969. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Hate_crime on the tails of the civil rights movement as a way to curb widespread violence against minority groups.

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lambaste me not

that if a white person were attacked by a black person because of his race, that it would be a hate crime?

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What have you done for your people today?

This probably won't be especially popular but I have never been popular no use in trying to start now.

There are all kinds of crimes. Hate is one of those things that should be considered as part of a crime. Why? Well, let's say that the black man is sitting there eating dinner with his wife and a drunk driver rams through the the restaurant and kills him. The driver didn't hate him. He was drunk. It's still a crime but do you really want someone who is so consumed with hate to ever get out of prison? I don't! Hate is one of the most destructive emotions we have. Those who can't keep that emotion under control then needs to be locked up forever or be executed if that statute fits.

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Those who think they know everything, usually know the least.

Because you feel that hate is wrong does not justify controlling it through the legislature. I don't like hate either, but I do not feel it is the state's job to regulate it by adding time to the sentence. It becomes a thought crime.

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lambaste me not

That is the difference between homicide and murder. Murder implies an intent to kill. Homicide is about negligence.

A better analogy would be a robber/extortionist who kills a victim for money, as opposed to a white christian guy that kills someone because they are a Jew. Should the robber get a lighter sentence simply because his motivation was greed rather than hate? Both of them murdered someone for selfish reasons.

That is what you are suggesting.

Disregard my post I was having a liberal moment.

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Those who think they know everything, usually know the least.

Just as an example of how backward this whole "hate crime" thing is when it comes to blacks and whites...

Years ago, in New York, there was a racially motivated attack on a young kid named Yussef Hawkins. It was all over the papers. The whites kids that beat this boy and then shot him to death were crucified in the media and in the courts. One kid that was part of the attack even had to move out of America (he moved to Italy) once he was out of jail because he feared for his life once he was out on the streets. He was still being crucified in the media long after he had upped and removed himself from America.

Now...

The very week before a white kid was wandering through a housing projects in Brooklyn. He was beaten by five blacks kids and stabbed to death. When the police caught the kids involved the next day the black kids were seen on the news proudly proclaiming their "accomplishment" of killing a "white fu**". That was about all the news it got. My uncle, who is a cop, told me that the blacks kids who beat the white kid got 6 months for the beating and were out in 3. The kid who stabbed the boy to death was released after 4 years.

The white kid, Joseph Fama, who had been the leader in the beating and the one who shot Hawkins, is serving 32 years to life in a maximum prison and has said on record that everyday he fears for his life and is beaten pretty much on a daily basis by black inmates.

Fair? Absolutely not. But than again, nothing when it comes to race these days are fair. If I call a black person a n***er (you can't even write the word!) I can be put in jail for committing a hate crime. If a black person called me a cracker or a white b**ch that's just fine by the law and most social standards.

So much for equality.

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Be Alert: The world needs more Lerts

Are we supposed to feel sorry for him?

The fact that the black kids got off too easy does not mean that the white kids didnt get what they deserved. Some justice is better than no justice. I'm glad they were made an example of.