tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post1694797932812514569..comments2023-11-03T06:32:28.410-04:00Comments on Staring At Empty Pages: Heinous, horrible hateBarry Leibahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14205294935881991457noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-47099629625893269572007-09-14T08:27:00.000-04:002007-09-14T08:27:00.000-04:00Torturers and rapists should absolutely be locked ...Torturers and rapists should absolutely be locked away for life. Is there a motivation other than hate to torture or rape somebody? Even if there is, I don't think it matters.<BR/><BR/>Killing another person is not always prosecuted the same. Motivation is considered. If you are killing in self-defense, that is different from killing by negligent driving, which is different from killing your abusive spouse, which is different from killing a prostitute because she's a prostitute.<BR/><BR/>The last, in my opinion, is the worst. It is the least socially acceptable because it demonstrates a lack of respect in general for other human beings and it shows that the perpetrator poses the most threat to society.<BR/><BR/>People should be locked up to protect the people they haven't hurt yet. A rapist, torturer, or other hate crime perpetrator is a larger danger than a person who commits a crime of passion. So, in my opinion, is a person who drives drunk. Not a hate crime, but very dangerous, and until they can prevent such people from driving ever again, they should be locked away.<BR/><BR/>AFA "how could it happen in a Christian community," this implies that Christianity makes people moral, which is baloney. Religion does not make people moral. Morality is deeply ingrained in us and cross-cultural. This is one of the ways that churches keep people coming back, or get them to come back when they have children -- they claim that the children will have a strong moral foundation. There have been many victims of that "morality," from members of other groups (as you point out), to doctors who perform abortion.<BR/><BR/>And regarding this specific story, the article I read about it said that the victim was the son's girlfriend, or former girlfriend, and that she had sought help before. Maybe that was wrong and based on conjecture. I think it explains why they're trying to figure out how she got there. I don't know enough about the law to know if there's a difference between being held against your will some place and being abducted and held against your will some place, but it may have to do with what crimes are charged.Maggiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16681883169121834569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-20885756729555053912007-09-14T01:37:00.000-04:002007-09-14T01:37:00.000-04:00Don't look at "hate crimes" using this as an examp...Don't look at "hate crimes" using this as an example. Consider instead Barry's painting example. If I paint a gecko on the side of a building, that's unfortunate and I should receive some relatively light punishment (e.g., some sort of community service, a fine, probation, whatever). If I paint that swastika on a Jewish Community Center, it is far worse than the gecko and my punishment should be worse (under most circumstances).<BR/><BR/>Once one gets to the grand violence scale, the hate crime distinction tends to be lost in the magnitude of the underlying violence. But even there, there's room for a useful distinction. Just as the punishment for a triple-murder should be more severe than the punishment for a single murder, the punishment for a hate-motivated murder should be more severe than for most other premeditated murders. This means something real when the prison term for murder averages 13 years (one statistical source) - a doubling or trebling is serious.<BR/><BR/>I think, too, that there is probably a element of prevention in the additional punishment for a hate crime. The very people most likely to perpetrate a hate crime are those who would know of the increased punishment and would - I hope - keep their hate unexpressed.<BR/><BR/>Data source: <A HREF="http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/spmurex.txt" REL="nofollow">Spouse Murder Defendants in Large Urban Counties</A>, US DOJ 1995<BR/>The data source is intended to be a general indicator and is not presented as a definitive statement.scouter573https://www.blogger.com/profile/10617089494446058172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-44107733076786439852007-09-13T20:13:00.000-04:002007-09-13T20:13:00.000-04:00"Hate crimes" are different because they are desig..."Hate crimes" are different because they are designed to terrorize the people who weren't actually attacked. If the motive for beating a gay man to death is that he was gay, then the message is sent to other gay men "you could be next". It's meant to terrorize. <BR/><BR/>And I can quite easily see treating rape as a hate crime - your argument that it isn't doesn't mean hate crimes don't exist, only that they're slow to be defined when the hate is pervasive and even somewhat institutionalized. The answer isn't to decide there are no hate crimes, though.The Ridger, FCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01538111197270563075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-53680356646409931942007-09-13T13:20:00.000-04:002007-09-13T13:20:00.000-04:00dr. momentum: Sadly, it is all *too* believable.dr. momentum: Sadly, it is all *too* believable.Rayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15198072683770155918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-73422760440787688352007-09-13T08:15:00.000-04:002007-09-13T08:15:00.000-04:00I now watch TV news briefly every morning, to see ...I now watch TV news briefly every morning, to see what the nation is watching. Apparently, this story wasn't news, but Britney Spears' performance is.<BR/><BR/>Unbelievable.JP Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16796725364997136448noreply@blogger.com