Nat Hentoff on 'Hate Crime' Laws

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Nat Hentoff discusses the prospects of future "hate crime" legislation at a Cato Institute Policy Perspectives forum held in New York City, April 30, 2009.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• nat
• hentoff
• cato
• institute
• civil
• liberties
• hate
• crime
• laws
• barack
• obama
• eric
• holder

[Surhotchaperchlorome]

Hate Crime laws are bogus.

[bikers4freedom]

Nat Hentofff.....

An honest Liberal.

He actually believes in the 1st Amendment for all Americans not just for politically correct thinking Leftists, Blacks. homosexuals, Latinos, Muslims, women that hate men, homosexuals that hate straight White men, but seem to think the worlds 3 billion Muslims are all PC gay friendly Leftists.

:-)

Great speech Nat Hentoff - an honest liberal is indeed a very, very rare breed these days.

[calends]

@alexreffand This is what usually happens.The argument turns out to be "we need to make hating someone for X worse than hating someone for Y. Why? Because you want to punish a person not only for the crime, but for being a certain type of evil person. You think by doing this (by going against the rule of law) it's somehow going to prevent these sort of crimes. You basically spit on the graves of people that have been maimed, murdered...for reasons other than what you define as "hate."

[alexreffand]

@calends It should matter, and I've already said why. If you still don't get it, you're a lost cause, and I'm done trying to fix you

[alexreffand]

@calends Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were one of those people who cares more about the perpetrator than the victim of a crime. I can see you truly don't care and just want to argue with someone. I can safely say I'm not in the mood, and that you're an asshole. The arguments you're using are irrelevant to the point I made over two months ago. Seriously, two months. You really have nothing better to do than dig up a two month old debate? Well I do, so you know what, I'm done here.

[calends]

@Rcoxx4u I would say it's less because of "Hate laws" and more about "you're so stupid for questioning the Holocaust that you deserve jail" laws.

[calends]

@alexreffand We already have a name for "hate crimes." We call them "senseless violence," and we already have precedents. It shouldn't matter if it's done because of sex, race, class (a poor person killing someone because they're rich should count too), or "for kicks."

[calends]

@alexreffand "In the heat of common argument" What exactly is "common argument"? And comparing murder to pushing someone down a flight of stairs? If you wanted to compare: A "hate crime" would be pushing someone down steps because he's gay, or black (whites don't count usually) but a non-hate crime would be pushing someone down stairs because, oh, you wanted to steal his money? Stupid. Speculations on repeat offenses have no basis in the court of law (except the repeat offender).

[calends]

@alexreffand Way to miss the point I was making. You glossed over the fact that someone has to define "hate" (my main point), you also bring up a completely irrelevant example where two people are arguing (which assumes there's some culpability on both sides). Let's say, in the same vein as your example, that a guy punches another guy for no reason other than how he looked at him; hate crime? No arguments...just one person senselessly hurting someone else. We ALREADY have precedents for this.

[alexreffand]

@calends (cont') It says nothing about whether or not the concept of the law is valid, but it certainly says a lot about the people that oppose it. People who murder over race are far more likely to repeat the crime than someone who pushes someone down the stairs in the heat of a common argument. The same can be said about sexual offenders, and there should be stiffer penalties for sexually driven crimes as well, regardless of what was actually committed, for the same reason.

[alexreffand]

@calends Say you get into an argument with someone over something like money. It gets out of hand, and turns physical. He threw the first punch, and landed you in the hospital. Common, not a hate crime. And that example with the rape-murder is invalid because the rape would constitute a stiffer punishment than the hate murder. Also, don't even try to nitpick about the phrase "Hate crime" Yeah, all violent crimes are out of hate, but all that means is the wording needs to be changed.

[calends]

@alexreffand Hate crimes legislation becomes meaningless when you include everyone because basically you're saying "let's punish irrational, hate filled, crimes worse than..." Worse than what? I guess you could say killing for money isn't a hate crime? Killing out of lust? Who decides what "hate" is worse than others? Is raping and killing a woman done out of hate for her sex? Under this view a rape-murder would get less of a punishment than a murder over race.