"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
Causing death by reckless driving is not murder. It is a different offence.
The philosophical issue is there is a difference between mercy/mitigation (which we do allow for) and imposing a higher sentence on someone else.
It is inescapable that what the use of hate crimes implies is that the murder of someone in a protected category is more important than the murder of someone else.
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
It isn't a dangerous route and indeed it's been embedded into the justice system since time immemorial; intent - thoughts, essentially - is the nature of the difference between murder and manslaughter. I see no reason not to nuance that stark divide further, as circumstances determine.
Mitigation is about showing mercy.
If you upregulate a sentence you are saying “X is more serious than Y”
Doing it on the basis of a protected characteristic rather than case specific factors is the issue
"The most terrible thing in the world was the idea that there were certain crimes which are hate crimes. The question is not what did the person do, but what do we think about their motives in regard to certain societal norms which we have today. There’s no such thing as a love crime. All crimes are hate crimes, right?"
No. Painting a swastika on a Jewish person's house is a hate crime. Holding up a bank isn't. One is because you hate the person or group of people the other is for financial gain. Granted you might not care too much for the people you rob.
I think you are not talking about the same thing.
Painting a swastika is clearly a hate crime and should be punished appropriately (and as more than criminal damage).
But people have concerns with the idea that a racially-motivated assault is worse than a general-thuggishness* assault
(* with all due apologies to the Thugees)
I don't share such concerns myself. Eg the Lawrence murder. For me that the victim was chosen purely because they were black adds an extra facet to the horror and I'd have thought it does for most people.
But not to the family of the white kid that gets murdered.
The murder of a child or a young adult is equally terrible regardless of race, religion, colour or anything else. It should be punished accordingly.
To @david_herdson’s point punishing someone for their thoughts rather than their actions is a dangerous route
Of course the family of a victim will have their own perspective. That's important but it's not the only valid one and it's (rightly) not the only one the justice system takes into account.
Eg when somebody is killed by reckless driving the family will often consider it tantamount to murder and wish to see a long sentence. They'll feel cheated when this doesn't happen.
In general thoughts are always relevant in addition to actions and outcomes. That's why we have alternatives to "murder" for instances of a person being killed by another. It's also why sentences for murder itself can vary.
Causing death by reckless driving is not murder. It is a different offence.
The philosophical issue is there is a difference between mercy/mitigation (which we do allow for) and imposing a higher sentence on someone else.
It is inescapable that what the use of hate crimes implies is that the murder of someone in a protected category is more important than the murder of someone else.
It's a different crime but speaks to the point at issue. And there's more to mitigation than mercy, just as there is more to aggravation than the group id of the victim. As for what (eg) a 'racially aggravated' crime means, no I wouldn't choose the term 'more important'. So I don't think that's an inescapable inference.
Starmer accuses the Tories of inventing culture wars, and imagining some Woke agenda against Britishness…
Literally on the same day as we see Wokeness trying to get Rule Britannia cancelled from the Last Night of the Proms….
Slightly undermines his point, I feel
Here we go again... Your "woke conspiracy" is most people´s irrelevant and rather silly comments. You massively overreact and spray around absurd allegations in order to fan the flames of outrage. If "Rule Britannia is dropped I would be surprised, but it is surely legitimate to question whether it is a song that says anything in the twenty-first century.
Yet your faux anger is really just a cheap way to flog your propaganda.
The thing is that much of the problems of our society are simply that we do not explain "how we know, what we know". It is the most important feature of any education, but the populists don´t talk about truth they talk about "their truth", which is not truth in any conventional sense, but simply their own opinions and views, however badly supported by objective, actual truth.
Facts and opinions are not the same thing. I would call your views a matter of sloppy thinking, but in fact you manufacture this stuff to support your pre-existing prejudices and indeed your political agenda.
If there is any "conspiracy" it is the corrosive nihilism based on prejudice and ignorance that you and your other members of the "political/media complex" have attempted to to foist on the rest of us. It is a direct threat not just to democracy but the entire political culture upon which our freedoms rest.
However, the discrediting of Cummings, Johnson, Gove et al and the likely defeat of the Tory Party at the next GE should put you on notice that you have failed and that populism can and will be rolled back. The collapse of newspaper circulation is not just the result of technology but a growing rejection of media bullshitters, in politics as well as in print. (well, we can at least hope).
My hope is that we ultimately get a more disciplined approach to understanding facts and creating ideas that rest on some body of knowledge instead of Bullshit.
Comments
The philosophical issue is there is a difference between mercy/mitigation (which we do allow for) and imposing a higher sentence on someone else.
It is inescapable that what the use of hate crimes implies is that the murder of someone in a protected category is more important than the murder of someone else.
If you upregulate a sentence you are saying “X is more serious than Y”
Doing it on the basis of a protected characteristic rather than case specific factors is the issue