No Tolerance for Intolerance

Rudy Giuliani had an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times that illustrates how easily efforts to combat "hate crime" can become efforts to control speech and thought. The title is "How Europe Can Stop the Hate," and Giuliani seems to mean that literally.

First he talks about anti-Semitic violence (he's against it). Then he says it's important to collect data on the extent of such "hate crimes." Soon he is defending enhanced punishment of "hate crimes":

Yes, some will argue that hate crimes need not be punished more harshly than similar crimes committed for different reasons. But the fact is that extra penalties are used throughout civilized legal systems — in Europe as well as America — as a way to distinguish acts that are particularly heinous. One of the functions of the law is to teach, to draw lines between what's permissible and what's forbidden. Recognizing the special threat that hate crimes pose to a democracy sends a powerful message that these acts will not be tolerated.

If you assume that crimes motivated by animosity toward an ethnic group--as opposed to, say, random murder--are "particularly heinous" and pose a "special threat," it is not hard to conclude that they should be punished more severely than less heinous, less threatening crimes. But the truth of that premise is not obvious.

In any case, Giuliani quickly moves on from "hate crimes" to hate proper, calling for "efforts to address the roots of anti-Semitism." European governments have to make sure "their citizens have an honest understanding of the Holocaust," he says, because "revisionist viewpoints put us at risk of a repetition of race-based genocide."

So now it is viewpoints that the state needs to attack. Giuliani apparently thinks that European governments, which already practice censorship in the name of tolerance, are too squeamish about interfering with freedom of speech.

Comments

[joe]

When a violent crime has a political component - whether it's the assassination of a candidate or a more familiar "hate crime," - it is particularly harmful to society. It promotes hostility and fear, and undermines trust and the reconciliation of grievances. This is an aggravating factor that should be considered during sentencing.

[joe]

And why does promoting "an honest understanding of the Holocaust" morph into attacking free speech? What (other than your cheapskatedness about public art) is wrong with a government giving a grant for a documentary?

[Warren]

Didn't he used to be just evil. Looks like NYC Rep. Mayors are now evil and stupid, must be something in the water.

[dhex]

if i shoot someone for being a particular religion, how is this more destructive to society than shooting them for wearing red pants? the end result is exactly the same.

[fyodor]

joe,

"It promotes hostility and fear, and undermines trust...."

The same can be said about ordinary street crime.

"...and the reconciliation of grievances."

The same could be said about street fights or spousal abuse or any violence based on disagreements. You're rationalizing leftist dogma to single out crimes based on group affiliation.

Still, I have no problem with judges taking motivation into account during sentencing, and someone acting out of bigotry certainly should evoke no sympathy. As long as it's not written into the law, which just turns things into a circus.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

There's a long anti-hate crimes article here. I won't try to condense it.

England's "Diversity Directorate" is not a model we should emulate. See the London Metropolitan Police's creepy posters here and discussed here.

One of the main problems with hate crimes laws is they aren't evenly enforced. For example: "A 13-year-old Caucasian girl was brutally attacked by a mob of black and Hispanic teen-agers in what appears to be a racially motivated "hate crime" committed in honor of "Beat Up a White Kid Day," reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer." What's going to happen to these kids, versus what would happen if the races were reversed? Read the article to find out what's happened so far to them.

There's also the case of someone who was the victim of an alleged "attempted robbery" in West Hollywood. He was "robbed" using a pipe and a baseball bat, and after the suspects had stated that they were out to "rob rich white people." No hate crimes charges have been filed; the DA can't find any evidence of bias, even when repeating their statement in his press release.

[joe]

fyodor,

The LA riots were sparked by the Rodney King verdict. Nationwide riots were sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. Other types of violent crime don't have these effects, certainly not to this degree.

From the increase in violence and verbal assaults on Muslims and, weirdly, Jews after 9/11 to the KKK and New Black Panther Party holding rallies in Jasper TX, history has demonstrated that violence with a political edge is more dangerous to society than crimes of passion or rage or greed. The make people completely unconnected to the crime look at other people differently. The motivate violence, or withdrawal, or hostility, thousands of miles away from the crime among people who never knew the victims or the place where it occured.

In the 1980s in Texas, a judge gave lenient sentences to two men who had murdered two gay men, with the explaination that "they wouldn't be dead if they weren't out cruising for young boys." Sometimes, you do have to write down what constitutes an aggravating factor.

[fyodor]

Ah, leave it to a conservative Wacko to dredge up THAT angle on the issue! Well, you got a point all right, although the thought occurs that you could likely find bias and incongruities in the enforcement of just about ANY law. In fact, does this mean you're also against the death penalty because it gets used the most against blacks who murdered whites? I wouldn't be surprised if hate crimes are especially open to such abuse, but that's because of the nature of the "crime" itself!

[fyodor]

joe,

MLK and Rodney King were hardly your run of the mill hate crimes! Basing a crime on how people *might* react thousands of miles away... oh, I'm not going to convince you anyway..... Where'd the nachos go?!?!?

As for the judge in Texas, are you consistently for more restrictive sentencing guidelines, or only when they don't go the way you (and in this case me too) want them to?

[CowboyDan]

If someone rapes, beats and robs my wife, I really don't give a f*&$ what motivated him. This one seems so simple to me---punish the crime and sentence based on the crime's severity, not its motivation.

As to the question: "What . . . is wrong with a government giving a grant for a documentary?" Well, if it's the U.S. government, where is the constitutional requirement or permission to do so? It's not about appreciating art. But when we ask government to fund art, we establish the government as the judge of what qualifies as art and the censor of what doesn't. Can't have it both ways---so the best way to protect the expressive freedom of artists is to remove government from the equation.

[shaking head from Portugal]

The 13-year-old white girl was brutally attacked by a mob of negro and hispanic teenagers.

If convicted, a few of the perpetrators face only one year in a youth facility.

Five of the attackers attend the victim's school and get suspended for a mere 10 days.

[Plutarck]

joe:

You seem not to notice that these are all political - but these are not called "Political Crimes", they are "Hate Crimes", and do with things with no direct connection at all to politics. Martin Luther King was not killed because he was black - he was killed for his political and leadership roles. The LA riots were caused by a legal decision which was perceived as being a governmental, systematic racism and oppression, where police could get away with beating and torturing and abusing - granting themselves the power of judge, jury, and executioner - black people, and even when given the chance the system would do nothing about it.

But none of this has _any_ relation to the sort of crimes that are actually being dealt with in hate crimes. The simple fact is that these laws seem to indicate that some reasons for breaking the law, for causing pain and suffering and destruction, are not so bad as others. Most of this revolves around a fundamental question: is why someone did something horrendous important.

I fall on the "dead is dead, raped is raped" side - what is worthy of punishment, and what makes it just for the state to deprive someone of their freedoms, is WHAT was done and the real effects of those actions, with little to no relation to why they did it. Why? Because I just don't give a shit that people have a problem with me because of how I look or what I believe, but I _do_ care about being raped, beaten, stolen from, threatened, or killed. I don't care that MLK was killed because of the color of his skin, I care that he was simply killed - made only worse because of the good he was doing, and what happened because of his murder.

It is my opinion that crime is crime because of what was done and its real, actual effects, and that motivation and reason has little if any rational bearing whatsoever.

[Larry]

My problem with "hate crime" laws is that the unibomber was not a hate criminal. He mailed letterbombs to nerds, and nerds, despite obvious and long-standing abuse, are not a minority worthy of protection under existing law. Of course, once you make a hate crime law broad enough to covere any recognizable type, any crime will fit, and you're back to square one.

[martin]

Why has nobody hit on the most obvious problem of hate crime statutes? Their application will have to attempt to a) prove a mind-set, b) tell the defendant "You are not allowed to think this way."
That amounts to thought control and I can see no reason to get on that slippery slope if ordinary criminal law suffices to safeguard society from a bad actor. There are plenty efforts underway already to compel changes in thinking by court-ordered counseling etc. How to evaluate the desired results of that practice escapes me.
Note that I wrote "safeguard society", imho the only acceptable reason to convict anybody. I am deeply troubled by the uncritical and unquestioned use of the word punishment as if we were all children under the threat of punishment to force us into accepted behaviour.
I share Mr Giuliani's view that law, especially criminal law, should be used to teach how to behave only insofar, as a sanction has the effect to teach the sanctioned that society will protect it's members, but not as a means for thought-modification. Teaching right from wrong should have happened much earlier.
Let me add that the open partisanship often displayed in the exchanges on this site can't be helpful to anyone's enlightenment, rather the opposite. So don't call me a member of any ideology. Next topic I might prove you wrong.

[martin]

Having reread my above contribution, I have to modify it: Of course the desired result of a legal sanction is thought-modification. Problems arise when special, more severe sanctions are instituted under political pressure to elevate crimes against certain groups over crimes against others. Are we to say: "You can hate this group, but not that one"?

[JDM]

joe,

That's a fine argument, unfortnately, you can intimidate people with speech as well. Is that also a crime?

What if a mafioso murders a shop owner to intimidate a bunch of fellow Italian-Americans? Is that a hate crime? Would you have to prove he hated Italians in order to get the extra sentence? What if he didn't hate Italians? Wouldn't his crime be just as bad if he intimidated them for other reasons?

The very problem people have with hate crime is the argument you use for it. It is nothing but a political stunt to use the coercive power of the state to further ensconce PC groupthink in the American culture.

[joe]

JDM,

I wrote about political violence in the context of aggravating circumstances. Speech is not a crime; therefore, it can't be aggravated or mitigated. I don't support speech codes, but I do support taking the details and circumstances into account when sentencing someone for a violent crime. And a violent crime committed with intent to engage in political violence needs to be given a particularly harsh sanction.

The mafia example is called racketeering, and it is generally treated as an aggravating circumstance. Do you disagree with using third party intimidation as an aggravating factor in this case? Or does being the target of political terror count less than being the target of mafia terror?

[Sage]

Joe, are you at all confident that hate crimes can be enforced with any degree of fairness? The fact is that a vast, overwhelming majority of crime perpetrated between blacks and whites is (drumroll please) black-on-white. Are you ready to comb through each and every one of these cases to discover whether the perpetrator in question victimized their target in some small part based on their race? If so, you will have to consent to sending many, many more blacks to prison on hate-crimes-enhanced charges than whites.

If you're not willing to accept this result, then you're actually advocating special protected status for minorities. (Or, alternatively, you might be adhering to a sociologically unjustified position that all of this black-on-white crime, which outnumbers its inverse by a factor of ten, is seldom motivated in any way by race.)

It was technically illegal, for example, for whites to drink from the "Blacks Only" water-fountain. But no one seriously thought a white would be prosecuted for such a thing. Similarly, I think leftists are knowingly supporting an asymmetrical justice system that will be used to target one demographic--and one only--for special punishment. When whites commit violent crime on blacks, to stick with this example, race can ALWAYS be persuasively thrown into the prosecution's case. The reverse is certainly not true, and to maintain that hate crimes laws are enforced according to some uniform standard of equal protection is a not just disingenuous--it's a damned lie, and you know it.

[joe]

Black people have been sentenced for hate crimes. The FBI classifies more black-on-white violence as hate crimes than white-on-black. So be it.

But no, I don't believe the police need to think hate crime when three men of one race beat up a man of another race and take his wallet. Do the police spends weeks looking for mafia/racketeering ties when one drunk punches another out in front of a bar? I suppose if you posit a situation where everyone in the criminal justice system is flagrantly incompetant and unable to make simple judgements, then you can make any law look stupid.

So, no, I don't find your unenforceability argument persuasive. But I do hope you bring your passionate belief that racially neutral laws can promote unfair outcomes to the affirmative action debate.

[JDM]

Firstly, that's an odd definition for racketeering. Racketeering is a crime, which is pretty much defined as setting up a business-like criminal enterprise.

The theory behind hate crime law presumes that it would be worse for your hispanic middle school bullies to intimidate whites as opposed to other hispanics, which is absurd. Do victims who feel racial animus in addition to or instead of the other consequences PC legislators find less interesting deserve more justice?

The effect of hate crime law is to codify into law the importance of the group as oppposed to the individual. This type of law provides legal tools for those with political power to go after the political, ethnic, or cultural groups they don't like - and here is the critically important point - *because* they belong to those groups. The legal consequences for actions become defined by the group an individual belongs to through no choice of their own, and cannot choose not to belong to.

Even if this weren't the case, you ought to see the danger of legislating the political content of crimes into mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Perhaps we should let the Earth Firsters of easy when they spike a tree. They're just idealistic young kids out to do some good, right?

Maybe the next time I can't get to work because the Luddites are clogging up the streets of Seattle I'll send my DA a letter and see if I can have their sentences increased, because what they are doing amounts to low grade political violence.

[Eric Deamer]

Clearly, fair-minded people can disagree about the viability of the concept of "hate crimes" (or bias crimes if you prefer) and whether a motivation of hatred of a certain group in the commission of a crime should lead to a different charge and to stiffer sentencing. And, this has been, for the most part, a fair and reasonable discussion of that issue.

But, I can't believe that no one is noticing the complete mischaracterization of the Giuliani piece and the jaw-dropping leaps of logic in this post itself.

Even if you don't concede that hate crimes should be punished differently under the law, imho it seems to simply be good public policy to monitor whether a disproportionate share of crimes are being committed against a certain group, and with explicit overtones of racial or ethnic hatred, as were all the examples in the Giuliani piece itself. These kind of crimes are a close cousin of terrorism, and to just lump them in with other crimes would be bad national security policy. This is no different than, say, taking special care in cases of bombing of abortion clinics and trying to connect them to other such cases nationwide.

Second, if we're talking about Germany, a country which only a few generations ago committed the worst genocide of Jews in human history, how could it not be a concern of public policy to monitor violent anti-semitic acts in a separate category than run of the mill crimes.

And to somehow equate fighting revisionism of the anti-Semitic past within the public education system with censorship is a jaw-dropping leap of non-logic. I agree that everyone is free to have whatever ahistorical, hateful views they wish as long as they don't express those views through violence, but to try to stop those views from being promulgated in the public education system is far from censorship.

[paleonazi]

now the jews do genocide to innocent arabs.

[Kevin Carson]

Joe,

Aside from the libertarian issue of funding art by holding people up at gunpoint, here's my problem with "public" (gag) art.

Apologists for the NEA choices in regard to Mapplethorpe, Serrano, etc., typically resort to some kind of postmodernist relativism to the effect of "Who is to say what is good art? How can we know what is good and bad?" After this appeal to aesthetic and epistemological relativism, however, they defend "public" art spending on the grounds that art "elevates" a society. But guys, if no one can say what is good art and what is crap, why bother spending money on it? In all the societies they hold up as examples of the benefits of "public" funding (Athens, XV cent. Florence, etc.), the art patronized reflected the shared values of a society--not just the intellectual masturbation of a committee of MFA's.

Then, too, there's the principle that honest people make a living by producing something that someone values enough to pay for it voluntarily.

[Anonymous]

Is mathematically beating the IRS by cooking the books a hate crime?

[democraticunderground]

its not anti-semetic to burn down a synogog if you disagree with isreal's policies

[joe]

Cowboy Dan, if dead is dead, then why does the law recognize negligent homicide, manslaughter, and two degrees of murder? The answer: because intent can make a crime more serious. In a political/hate crime, the intent is not just to injure an individual, but to perform a political act with wider consequences; to keep the black folks in line, to make gay people afraid, to assert the control of hispanic kids over a white minority in a specific school, to spark a race war/clash of civilizations, to show Muslims that they don't belong, etc.

Larry et al have commented that my "political violence" designation is broader than the usual "hate crime" definition. I plead guilty. I would include the Unibomber's attacks, the Manson Family's attempt to start a race war, and the assassination of President Kennedy as political violence.

And Wacko, if a certain judge isn't enforcing the law fairly against people of a certain race, then that judge is despicable, but his behavior doesn't make the law illigitimate.

[Anonymous]

hate crimes are thought "crimes" and targeting someone for their race is simply pre-mediatated murder (1st degree). the ironic part is that hate-crime is usually used on black people, which must mean that joe is secretly KKK.

[joe]

I know how inconvenient it is when your opponents don't make the easily-refuted arguments you've assigned to them, but I haven't accused anyone of racism for their position on hate crimes, so the oh-so-deep irony of the previous post is pretty pointless.

I'm afraid the enemy you're facing is a bit different from the one you trained for.

[tonio-k]

Joe, not to worry about these anon posts. even though theyre are pretty tough because you never know if you're addressing the same person. of course, when school gets back in session, these types of posts will probably diminish. after all, partying beats hitting and running.

[dhex]

i don't think either serrano nor maplethorpe need apologizing for. their work stands on its own - serrano's body of work in particular has some quite beautiful examples.

but whatever, i like whacky art and whackier music. the NEA is another story entirely.

[Archie Medez]

Don't worry, Jehudit. What goes around, comes around. France is creating its own nemesis. Sooner or later all scales tip the other way, as they seek equilibrium. It's a natural law.

So just sit back and watch it happen.

[Yehudit]

I think it's great that Giuliani is making a strong statement on the resurgence of European antisemitism - it certainly needs to be made.

However, France and Germany already have anti-hate-crime statutes! In France, the problem is that the police and courts are not only not enforcing those statutes, but they are not enforcing crimes against people and property either. A synagogue is torched and they say, "oh just some teen vandalism, not worth investigating." Jewish kids get beaten up and called dirty Jew, "oh just kids fighting, no big deal."

And some people tried to use the French hate-crime law to prevent Oriana Fallaci's anti-Islamist book from being published there.

So - hate-crime laws are like anti-porn laws: worth nothing if they aren't enforced, and can be used against anyone for anything if they are enforced.

[Owen Courr]

Joe,

I don't think your argument is the least bit sound. You say that "[i]n a political/hate crime, the intent is not just to injure an individual, but to perform a political act with wider consequences."

That's all well and good, but how is this applied and how can it be applied?

Hate crime laws don't require intent to terrorize. That's a fact, so your argument is a defense of laws that don't even exist. What hate crime laws concern are motivations; they provide for harsher sentences for crime motivated by racial or ethnic prejudice.

A person can commit a hate crime without intending to terrorize anyone. In fact, this probably describes most hate crimes; most violent criminals aren't known for their higher-level intentions. A skinhead can kill a black person simply because they hate blacks without seeing it as a terrorist act.

This brings us to a secondary concern -- If hate crime laws were changed to require an intent to terrorize, could such an intent be proven? The answer is probably no.

An intent to terrorize is obvious in some cases, especially when there is a conspiracy involved or the crime is otherwise committed by an organization with a clear agenda. But this is not normally the case, and so there will virtually always be reasonable doubt as to the intent of the perpetrator. The only way you could be certain is to have a window into the mind of the criminal, which is why hate crimes are always derided as 'thought crimes.' It's a valid criticism.

So if you're going to defend hate crime statutes, you need another line of reasoning. This one doesn't work.

[Owen Courr]

Joe,

You say that "[t]he intimidation of groups and the assertion of power over a hated group is very much in the mind of skinheads when they beat up a black person." That's probably true, but how do you know that? Or if a run-of-the-mill racist beats up a member of another race while shouting racial epithets -- how do you know that any wider agenda is involved? All you know is the motive: he hates members of race/ethicity X, and so he commits a crime against a member of race/ethnicity X.

And therein lies the problem. A person can have racial motives and not have an intent to terrorize or further a political agenda. You're conflating the two, and it makes your entire argument a non-sequitur.

You then say "[t]he idea that racist violence isn't done to further racism is absurd." This is incorrect. A business executive can embezzle money from his company without intending to further greed, and a crack addict can rob people on the street without intending to further the drug trade. People can commit crimes that have wider effects without intending those wider effects. A racist can kill a member of a hated race without giving one whit about 'furthering racism' -- he kills because he hates, period. He's not thinking about anything else.

Furthermore, I don't see why the government ought to discriminate between motives, since virtually all motives have wider, negative implications. Furthering greed or the drug trade is certainly bad, but we don't punish crimes furthering these things more severely. Now the government could argue that there exists in hate crimes, as I have said, an 'intent to terrorize' that creates actual harm. That's the idea; you have to focus on INTENT, not MOTIVE. The government doesn't do this.

And it is you who are being absurd when you argue that "by [my] reasoning, first degree murder is a thought crime, because it requires the state to draw a conclusion about the workings of a person's mind." First degree murder only requires knowledge of intent to commit an actual act that was committed. It requires that there be no reasonable doubt that the act was an accident, and we can easily have strong evidence of this without delving into the criminal's mind. A man empties a clip into a police officer, and we know that he intended to kill him. A man slits his wife's throat, we know he intended to kill her. I could go on and on...

However, when you start talking about social ramifications, it is virtually impossible to prove intent. You cannot tell the difference between a person killing somebody because they hate the victim's race, and killing somebody because they have the intent to create fear in everyone sharing the victim's race. In order to make that fine distinction, you either need a confession, a conspiracy, or a window into the criminal's mind.

I explained this fairly well in my earlier post; your terse response shows me that you didn't read my words closely.

There is an additional problem here as well... Why do the groups need to be made explicit in hate crimes laws? If the intent to terrorize is all that is required, then why do we have to spell out what categories are protected? You haven't even asked yourself that question, and I find it very telling. It explains why your arguments have been so lacking.

[joe]

JDM wrote: "The theory behind hate crime law presumes that it would be worse for your hispanic middle school bullies to intimidate whites as opposed to other hispanics, which is absurd. Do victims who feel racial animus in addition to or instead of the other consequences PC legislators find less interesting deserve more justice?"

You miss my point entirely. What makes it worse is not the intimidation that is felt by the kids who got beat up, which is the same regardless of intent. What I would count as an aggravating factor is the intimidation, or desire for revenge, or hostility towards hispanics, felt by white people on the other side of town, or on the other side of the country, when they hear about the case. Damn right I'm trying to protect a group - that group being the people of the United States, and their democratic civic culture.

Owen wrote: "A person can commit a hate crime without intending to terrorize anyone. In fact, this probably describes most hate crimes; most violent criminals aren't known for their higher-level intentions. A skinhead can kill a black person simply because they hate blacks without seeing it as a terrorist act." The intimidation of groups and the assertion of power over a hated group is very much in the mind of skinheads when they beat up a black person. There's a reason lynch mobs did their work in public places - to maximize the intimidation effect. The idea that racist violence isn't done to further racism is absurd.

And by your reasoning, first degree murder is a thought crime, because it requires the state to draw a conclusion about the workings of a person's mind. And just as with murder, if the state can't prove the thought process, then the criminal is guilty of the less severe crime. What's the problem?

[joe]

Kevin,

When I write about public art, I'm not talking about Maplethorpe. As cool as a lot of his stuff was, that is art intended for an audience of arty types, not the public at large. It's publically funded, but not really public art.

I was referring to things like the Winged Victory statue that was placed in front of my City Hall after the Civil War, or puppet shows in the park for the kiddies, or historic documentaries to be shown in schools or on TV - things created and shown for the benefit of the public at large.