Hate crime discussion [Split from News thread]

[Tolvo]

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/415773-police-investigating-protest-at-tucker-carlsons-home-as-possible-hate-crime

It looks like the Tucker Carlson incident is being investigated as a hate crime because of the terrible definition being used by the local police. Apparently you can perform a hate crime against Republicans? Which is kind of really stupid in the face of how often marginalized groups that get targeted are defined out of hate crime statistics around the country.

[Icelandic]

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/415773-police-investigating-protest-at-tucker-carlsons-home-as-possible-hate-crime

It looks like the Tucker Carlson incident is being investigated as a hate crime because of the terrible definition being used by the local police. Apparently you can perform a hate crime against Republicans? Which is kind of really stupid in the face of how often marginalized groups that get targeted are defined out of hate crime statistics around the country.

Personally, I am 100% for political bias being included in the list of what counts as a hate-crime, especially in todays climate. Regardless of how you feel about that, these 'protesters' should still be charged for an attempted home invasion, considering they literally tried to bust down the front door at some point.

[Tolvo]

I'm fine with protections for groups that are political. Like a persecuted minority group. I wouldn't say Republicans even remotely fall under that. Especially given how right wing our government is and our power structures and systems are. I'd actually not say Democrats really fall under that either. Those are two major established political parties with huge grips on the systems of power.

[Icelandic]

I'm fine with protections for groups that are political. Like a persecuted minority group. I wouldn't say Republicans even remotely fall under that. Especially given how right wing our government is and our power structures and systems are. I'd actually not say Democrats really fall under that either. Those are two major established political parties with huge grips on the systems of power.

Eh. I would prefer to not exclude any group of people from hate crime laws. Doing that comes dangerously close to thinking "Well you did have this happen to you, but do you *deserve* it?"

Excluding people from legal protections afforded by others due to their race, gender, religion or political identity is a big no for me.

[Tolvo]

It is the idea of giving extra protection to a class that needs it. When people are targeted more you have to work to protect them more. It's not really possible to protect everyone the same, because either everyone is hyper protected at all times, or people who need more protections are not protected enough. There is a classic comic about this idea of firefighters trying put out a fire that doesn't exist next to one that does claiming that they need to offer the same services and protections to everyone.

There are things like power imbalances.

[Icelandic]

It is the idea of giving extra protection to a class that needs it. When people are targeted more you have to work to protect them more. It's not really possible to protect everyone the same, because either everyone is hyper protected at all times, or people who need more protections are not protected enough. There is a classic comic about this idea of firefighters trying put out a fire that doesn't exist next to one that does claiming that they need to offer the same services and protections to everyone.

There are things like power imbalances.

Well, if someone is much less likely to have a hate crime committed to them, are they really taking resources away from others when that actually happens?

For example, hate crimes committed against males or females on the bases of gender (not counting trans people) are far less common then hate crimes committed against people based on race. Could we exclude gender-based hate crimes if that is the case?

I think that, considering how rare hate crimes are as a percentage of overall violent crime, it is quite easy to protect the entirety of the US population with those laws. By no means would law enforcement buckle under the stress of having to keep up with this.

[Tolvo]

Prosecuting crime actually does take resources. On top of it that would mean that everyone's words and views and actions are treated as having the same weight. Women are also actually not typically considered a protected class in the USA. It usually depends on the state. Also the rate at which a group is targeted is a factor. What percentage of a population are victims of hate crimes, with for instance what numbers we do have for trans people(Lots of agencies don't count them) to be upwards of 80%. And again, the point is to give extra protection to a class that needs it. Criticizing someone for being white does not contain the same power as criticizing someone for being jewish. Also typically these things are used differently. Most people who would criticize someone on their whiteness don't think they're sub human. Most who criticize someone for being jewish do.

What you are asking for also would mean you can't criticize those in power for having power or fight back against them in any way. Which is kind of against the concept of free speech in the USA.

[Icelandic]

Prosecuting crime actually does take resources. On top of it that would mean that everyone's words and views and actions are treated as having the same weight. Women are also actually not typically considered a protected class in the USA. It usually depends on the state. Also the rate at which a group is targeted is a factor. What percentage of a population are victims of hate crimes, with for instance what numbers we do have for trans people(Lots of agencies don't count them) to be upwards of 80%. And again, the point is to give extra protection to a class that needs it. Criticizing someone for being white does not contain the same power as criticizing someone for being jewish. Also typically these things are used differently. Most people who would criticize someone on their whiteness don't think they're sub human. Most who criticize someone for being jewish do.

What you are asking for also would mean you can't criticize those in power for having power or fight back against them in any way. Which is kind of against the concept of free speech in the USA.

Are you actually conflating criticism with actual crime? It's not a crime to criticize anyone. I'm talking about someone beating or killing another person because of their race, gender, ect ect. And yes, as far as federal law is concerned, sex and gender are both protected classes.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/topic-pages/victims

Going by what you say, you either think that criticizing someone is a crime if it's against the wrong person. Or you think that it's more ok to beat or kill someone if they are the 'right' kind of person to beat or kill.

Either way, this is not a good look for you.

[Tolvo]

Hate crimes can actually encompass a lot of different kinds of things, and many things can be considered a crime and get you in trouble legally.

And federal and state laws actually can work against each other.

Also are you then saying all murder and violence is equal? Because I strongly disagree. And the point of hate crimes is actually that crimes are not committed equally against all groups, otherwise they wouldn't exist.

A part of the hate crime laws that are federal are for federal groups to investigate and prosecute, when they feel the local level do not. Because as it turns out, on the local level(Federal too) governments and people in power can have prejudices.

The over all point is to try and protect groups by discouraging crime against them more. Now whether that always works is a different matter, and depends on the nature of that crime since a lot of violent crime is actually done by people not really worrying about how much jail time they'll have or how much they'll have to pay in fines/etc.

[Blythe]

The hate crime topic, if it is going to continue in any further detail, rather needs its own thread--it's getting a little heavy for the general news thread. Folks can choose whether they'd like to make that thread themselves, or if preferable, Staff can split the relevant posts from this thread off to create such a thread so that the existing dialogue is more visible/present there.

[Tolvo]

I was just thinking that actually. Sorry about that should have mentioned it in my previous post but was thinking about that after. But I also don't know if the two of us are really agreeing much on anything so I don't know if such a thread would really be warranted or further of the discussion.

[Icelandic]

Unless it's for self defense, then yea I generally view murder and violence in general as pretty much the same.

Considering you are definitely ok with stripping some defenses against crimes away from some groups of people (by your own admission), by the FBI's own statistics I offered. Could we exclude Hispanics from hate crime protections? Anti-black hate crimes are far more common, and anti-white hate crime is twice as common even.

How about getting rid of hate crime protections for the disabled and women? As of 2016, that only made up 1.5% of all hate crimes. So clearly they are not in need of protection, yes?

By your train of thought, you should agree that this should be done, yes?

[Blythe]

Will go ahead and split the topic off into its own thread in a sec~

[Icelandic]

The hate crime topic, if it is going to continue in any further detail, rather needs its own thread--it's getting a little heavy for the general news thread. Folks can choose whether they'd like to make that thread themselves, or if preferable, Staff can split the relevant posts from this thread off to create such a thread so that the existing dialogue is more visible/present there.

Oh yea your right. My bad. :/

I'll let Tolvo make the thread is she is interested. I'm fine either way.

[Blythe]

And is now split & made into a thread~

[Icelandic]

And is now split & made into a thread~

I'm kinda curious to know how many offshoots happen in this way? I can imagine people getting into it and forgetting where they are posting quite a lot.

[Blythe]

I'm kinda curious to know how many offshoots happen in this way? I can imagine people getting into it and forgetting where they are posting quite a lot.

News thread tends to get more tangents/offshoots than any other thread in the PROC by virtue of the sheer variety of topics that pop up in that thread.

Usually Staff mentions a split or leaves a link in the News to the newly-created topic so folks can find it again (though people can also find their posts in their post history, as your post history will show the new split thread), though in this case, both people whose posts were being split knew a new thread or split was about to happen beforehand, so there was no need to post about it again in the News thread.

[Icelandic]

Yea I can get that. Sorry by the way. I can imagine that happens somewhat often.

[Blythe]

Oh, no apology needed. Splitting threads as needed is a basic moderator task. Am always happy to do my job here. :)

[Tolvo]

Yeah it happens every now and then with the general news thread, kind of the nature of discussing any one topic in it.

I'm not ok with stripping away defenses against crimes. Again, I don't suddenly think that punching someone isn't a crime because they are racist. Punching a racist is still a crime in our country. I don't think for instance violence against a racist should be prosecuted as a hate crime. Which keep in mind, hate crimes are often hard to prosecute and usually you only can when the perpetrator actively said what they hate and why they committed the crime. These people claimed the reason they did it was because they think Tucker is racist. The crimes against him they did are things he and hist network actually encourage against others, including supporting of doxxing.

And again, I talked about the rate at which hate crimes happen against a percentage of people within a group. Not overall. Crimes against trans people for instance count for a small percentage of the overall, because we are a small population. On top of that, if we are a smaller population it's actually easier to allocate resources towards prosecuting crimes against us.

And again, the idea is a harsher punishment for hate crimes, to discourage them being done more. The idea of hate crimes in the USA was created to protect black people more against the KKK, if a black person attacked a member of the KKK should we prosecute that as severely and punish them as much as a member of the KKK would be?

I'm not saying that what happened to Tucker Carlson wasn't a crime. I even mentioned that while I support antifascists tactics that these people went too far, especially in regards to even entertaining the idea of having a pipe bomb to use.

On top of it, the crime against Tucker has actually been something I've experienced when people targeted me for being left wing and queer and transgender, which included doxxing and the threats of a pipe bomb and physical presence, though they explicitly stated they wanted to kill me and my family with assault rifles. The main differences in my case was the police didn't investigate it as a hate crime(My state doesn't consider crimes against trans people to be a hate crime) and basically just gave up.

Now on top of this, hate crimes are also not the end goal. You actually want to change your culture and laws and systems as a whole. Hate crime legislation is actually a band aid, and will change even depending on demographic and power changes. If suddenly black people somehow ruled everything and it became common for black people to murder white people for being white, then they'd need hate crime protection status. But our country currently isn't like that.

[Tolvo]

Actually I should make a quick correction I did misspeak, when it happened trans people were not considered in regards to hate crimes. That law was changed after this happened to me.

[Icelandic]

I'm not ok with stripping away defenses against crimes.

Why are we even having a debate then?

On top of it, the crime against Tucker has actually been something I've experienced when people targeted me for being left wing and queer and transgender, which included doxxing and the threats of a pipe bomb and physical presence, though they explicitly stated they wanted to kill me and my family with assault rifles. The main differences in my case was the police didn't investigate it as a hate crime(My state doesn't consider crimes against trans people to be a hate crime) and basically just gave up.

It hurt, right? Feeling like you had no recourse? Could you consider that you would be doing the same for others as you had done to yourself?

and will change even depending on demographic and power changes. If suddenly black people somehow ruled everything and it became common for black people to murder white people for being white, then they'd need hate crime protection status. But our country currently isn't like that.

No offense, but I think that idea is extremely naive. When whites lost their power in Zimbabwe, they were rapidly expelled. And in Haiti, they were literally massacred. And currently, Genocide Watch lists South Africa on the 'polarization' stage for genocide, and the targets are literally just Boers. People who never had power in South Africa and were even natives verses the migrating Zulu's who came after.

That's not even to mention economic 'retribution' against the rich whenever communist governments rolled into power.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you can't expect legal protections to be stripped from specific classes of people and then have it all be fine.

[Tolvo]

But the idea is not to strip certain classes from having legal protections. I'm not saying a specific group of people shouldn't have the right to vote or something.

Also yes it hurt, I wish people who are the victims of hate crimes were protected. I don't really feel sorry for Tucker Carlson though. He's a rich cis white guy who actively works towards the oppression and hatred of others. I do think the people in question went too far, but I wouldn't classify it as a hate crime. I wouldn't even classify it as a crime if they stood outside his house chanting about the horrible things he did and letting him know they hate that. But they did threaten him, they did try to break down his door, and they did wish to use explosives. Which that's definitely a crime.

Frankly I kinda of question their competency actually, that group seems like they really messed up. They didn't even know whether he was home or not and shouted at and tried to break into a house just his wife was in. They might not even have known whether his kids were home which would be worse.

[Icelandic]

Frankly I kinda of question their competency actually, that group seems like they really messed up. They didn't even know whether he was home or not and shouted at and tried to break into a house just his wife was in. They might not even have known whether his kids were home which would be worse.

I feel like they would not care one bit about children.


Either way, in the course of this conversation, you have kinda hit all the red flags in my mind to think that you are not really concerned about helping those that need help the most, but are instead motivated by some sort of hatred or animosity towards people you think don't deserve as much protection. Probably white people, men, cis. If I am wrong then please tell me.

Also, you seem to be not giving a clear answer on this, so I'll just ask you straight up: Do you support stripping hate crime protections against certain groups of people? Yes or no?

[Tolvo]

I don't really hate white people, cis people, or men in general. I do think those groups as a whole have a lot of privilege. I do hate racists which Tucker is. But even then I also think those people did commit a crime against him even if it wasn't a hate crime in my eyes.

I support giving hate crime protections to people who have less of a voice and power and who are targeted more heavily than people with lots of power who do have a voice and are targeted much less.

It also seems like you think being a part of one class means you can't be a part of others. Lots of people fit in multiple groups. There are Jewish Republican groups for example if someone killed someone for being in that group I'd consider that a hate crime definitely. There are also lots of poor people who are white, homeless people especially. I don't suddenly think "Well that homeless person was white, can't be a hate crime." On top of that many groups can actually target each other. I don't suddenly think that a hate crime against a black person is less valid because the perpetrator was hispanic for example.

Also I don't think if a genocidal group takes over that suddenly they're going to stop killing any specific group because of hate crime laws like in your example.