I agree with this in principle but in practice it wouldn't be a good idea because then we'd have to justify lowering or raising the punishment from where it currently is and almost 100% of people will have some form of opposition.
How do you figure? The punishment for killing or beating the shit outta someone is what it is. You simply take away the extra for them being "special."
Besides, with all the violence these days maybe we need to up the stakes for everyone anyway.
But we love putting labels on everything to soften the rest of the lot
You see a crime: "at least it wasn't a hate crime"
You can't mask a hate crime because there's always a prejudice and mal-intent from the perp.
I think you misunderstand me slightly. I've no problem taking away these labels but I can't see many others hopping on because we like compartmentalizing things for some reason.
@chu yeah I guess I did, sorry. You're quite right; grievance politics is how too many politicians and "community organisers" make their bones.
And for some reason society today actually WANTS to be victims of something.
A. A hate crime is a hate crime specifically because the crime was done just because of prejudice. Just because the word hate is involved doesn't mean anything involving hate is a hate crime.
B. Trying to get everyone to be treated the same no matter what is a nice ideal, but will never happen. There will always be that rascist, or homophobe, etc, that doesn't treat everyone equally. Because of these people, there will never be a time where all people are truly treated equally.
So should "that racist, or homophobe, etc" be the freakin government? This is government institutional bigotry. Nothing more or less. This says that I, as a straight white male, matter less than you just because you have a darker complection. That is exactly the same inequality that you people (I assume you are a SJW from your comments) constantly bitch about. Assault is assault regardless WHAT a person's motivation is.
Yes, assault is assault no matter what the persons motivation is. If said motivation is because of prejudice, then that is classified as a hate crime.
And no I'm not a sjw. I just think that no matter what there will always be prejudice so blindly saying everyone's equal is pointless, as there will always be someone who disagrees with you.
Yes it is classified as a hate crime, but it shouldn't be. It should not be worse for someone to kill a gay man than for someone to kill a straight man. Murder is murder. It doesn't matter WHY, the end result is the same.
Furthermore, if a straight man were to mug a gay man (just for instance) and kill him during the robbery, he would still be charged with a hate crime.
This is wrong on so many levels. And we have the Clintons to thank, BTW.
Besides, with all the violence these days maybe we need to up the stakes for everyone anyway.
You see a crime: "at least it wasn't a hate crime"
You can't mask a hate crime because there's always a prejudice and mal-intent from the perp.
And for some reason society today actually WANTS to be victims of something.
B. Trying to get everyone to be treated the same no matter what is a nice ideal, but will never happen. There will always be that rascist, or homophobe, etc, that doesn't treat everyone equally. Because of these people, there will never be a time where all people are truly treated equally.
And no I'm not a sjw. I just think that no matter what there will always be prejudice so blindly saying everyone's equal is pointless, as there will always be someone who disagrees with you.
Furthermore, if a straight man were to mug a gay man (just for instance) and kill him during the robbery, he would still be charged with a hate crime.
This is wrong on so many levels. And we have the Clintons to thank, BTW.