No, I don’t think that people would expect the homeless and illegal immigrants to be un-protected by the law. They might expect them to get less protection, but not in the way they might think that their attack on somebody they consider truly abhorrent is justified because they are so truly incredibly abhorrent that “isn’t it obvious, nobody would punish me for this!” It’s a particular, manic mindset, different from somebody opportunistically preying on the homeless or undocumented.

Anyway, I’m speculating here, I don’t know if that’s exactly what would go through many hate crime-perpetrators’ heads, but I think it’s one more facet, in addition to the terrorizing aspect of hate crimes, and official abhorrence of racism.

That it was the only purpose was not stated, though I suppose my choice of wording could readily be read that way, though we still end up back to the un-equalness that has been fostered over time for many reasons – economic, gender, race, ideology, etc. There is a small grain of wisdom in the notion from some on establishing protected classes. If Shepard had been homeless, or a CountryWide broker, or a door knocking evangelical, rather than gay, what happened would have been no less horrendous but could easily have received different levels of ‘interest’ in resolution and focus. That said I have no real issue with a further defining of bad acts since we still have problems applying common sense. And yes, mean people suck, be they here or Brazil or …

Do you adopt this epistemological strategy when considering legislation in general? Eg. would you refuse to concede that a law against illegal parking has any effect in discouraging illegal parking unless someone presents you with concrete evidence that it has done so?

I think any scheme to award them additional power has a very high potential for abuse, and I think the disproportionate representation of African-Americans among hate-crime offenders is evidence of such abuse.

So if there is evidence that any law is being abused, or that African-Americans are disproportionately represented among offenders, you consider that sufficient reason to call for its repeal?

I do think an attempt to express official abhorrence for racism through criminal statutes would create a class of thought crimes.

Why do you think this? |On the face of it, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Also, for an interesting perspective you might compare with the Brazilian constitution:

XLI - a lei punirá qualquer discriminação atentatória dos direitos e liberdades fundamentais; The Law will punish all discrimination against fundamental rights and liberties.

XLII - a prática do racismo constitui crime inafiançável e imprescritível, sujeito à pena de reclusão, nos termos da lei; The practice of racism constitutes a crime not subject to bail, punishable by imprisonment, according to the terms of the Law.

Do you think it is natural to take these constitutional articles to express official disapproval of racism? Since they criminalise ‘the practice of racism’ do they create ‘thought crimes’?

I imagine the two most vulnerable groups in this respect are the illegal immigrants and the homeless (both, unsurprisingly, socio-economic categories). Are they even mentioned in any of those ‘hate crime’ laws?

A thought not expressed is unknown, and as The Don taught us, we know there are many of those. Expressing is an action. As more or less stated prior, all this is about addressing the flaw we [but not just US alone] glaringly have had, and do have, with an unequal enforcement of our laws. Should we need this kind of imposition, no, but if our history is any judge it’s difficult to see how we could not have it for most foreseeable futures.

Finally, the justification that I mentioned, that seems to have offended you so immensely, that the laws might be taken to express an official abhorrence of racism, isn’t one that has to be given by defenders of these laws. Everybody else who has defended them has given different, more pragmatic and conservative reasons. I acknowledged that it is controversial. I mentioned it because I thought it was an interesting line of thought to consider. But obviously that was a foolish thing to do here if people aren’t interested in exploring interesting sounding ideas in good faith but in trying to stamp out, by all means necessary, what you appear to think are thought crimes ‘thought crimes’ against the American constitutional religion of liberal neutraliy.

I should have been more explicit. There are two situations that the laws could address:

1- Perps believed that the law effectively didn’t protect certain victims, perhaps because they could claim they are in some sense threatened by the victims (a gay or transgendered victim “provoking” them; a Muslim or black man is seen as a part of a social threat, that “everybody knows we need to do something about”). They hold this belief even though the laws are, in fact, enforced.

Situation #1 is due to the perps’ prejudices about the victims, which can be long-existing historical prejudices, or relatively new ones created largely by right-wing radio & TV (not really a hypothetical at this point, that is a major factor encouraging these prejudices). The prejudice itself isn’t a crime, the problem is that it interferes with their being aware of and responding to the incentive system that the law produces, and for that reason the law needs to recognize it as a factor.

2- Perps believe the law doesn’t protect certain victims, based on experience (lynch mobs carried out lynchings in the past, and got away with it).

Situation #2 is due to the perps’ prejudices but also verified by experience.

Situation #1 may not be fixed by merely enforcing the law. Hate criminals may think no jury will convict them because they believe the victim is hated by society (and their social circle or choice of media may encourage this belief).

In this case, which I think is a pretty good description of some actual situations laws are meant to address, I don’t think the harsher punishments are for the purpose of encourager les autres, at least as I understand the phrase, because people effectively misunderstand the law. I’m not sure what legal principles would apply to this situation, and, were it not for the terroristic aspect of hate crimes, it certainly seems like a cludge to pass additionally harsh laws just to make people aware of the law, but I think people tend to prefer this approach because they intuitively recognize that there isn’t really a better one. And then there are other reasonings based on more stylized models of how hate crimes occur and what they are (e.g. hate crimes as intimidation) that seem to be legally sound (that, at worst, “walk a fine line”) that can be applied as well. At least that seems to me to be what people are really doing by promoting these laws.

I’m not sure what evidence I could offer that would convince you that hate crimes laws have been on balance a bad thing for African-Americans. I think you’ve accepted now that there are some negative effects of the laws. I’m not aware of any positive effects of the laws, so on balance I would say they are harmful. I’m willing to accept that there might be positive effects I’m not aware of, but you aren’t prepared to offer any. Apparently I’m to be mocked for a failure to provide evidence of my assertions while you are to be indulged. And yet you are the one who is annoyed!

my original post about the disproportionate representation of African-Americans among those prosecuted for hate crimes was a response to a specific claim: that while hate-crime laws might well not do any good, they don’t cause any particular harm.

Who do you think made such a ridiculous claim?

Given that engels pressed me for evidence of particular harm caused by hate-crime laws, now might be a good time to ask if anyone has evidence they’ve done any particular good.

No, it’s time for you to provide some sort of evidence that eg. laws against racially aggravated assault have been on balance a bad thing for African Americans.

If racism is officially abhorred, why shouldn’t it be punished for itself, instead of only for it’s expression in behavior that is already criminal?

Because… drumroll… that would be legislating to create a thought crime, ie. a crime which one can commit merely by thinking the wrong thing, without doing anything wrong.

Given that engels pressed me for evidence of particular harm caused by hate-crime laws, now might be a good time to ask if anyone has evidence they’ve done any particular good.

engels, what does it mean “officially” abhor racism? If racism is officially abhorred, why shouldn’t it be punished for itself, instead of only for it’s expression in behavior that is already criminal?

Well, it doesn’t.