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Rutger's Student Dharun Ravi Sentenced To 30-Day Jail Time
parallel_prankster writes "New York Times reports that a judge in New Jersey has sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail Monday for using a webcam to spy on his Rutgers University roommate having sex with a man, in a case that galvanized concern about suicide among gay teenagers but also prompted debate about the use of laws against hate crimes. The case drew wide attention because his roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, a few days after learning of the spying. A jury convicted Mr. Ravi in March of all 15 counts against him, which included invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. The relatively light sentence — he faced up to 10 years in prison — surprised many who were watching the hearing, as it came after the judge spent several minutes criticizing Mr. Ravi's behavior."
How the hell does that even work?
The invasion of privacy angle I can see. How many times have we had stories of guys taping unwilling sex partners or roommates taping roommates? I just didn't think there was enough meat to the story to push it into the realm of hate crimes.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
let police do it then
I find it very refreshing that the judge and jury looked beyond the fact that the victim was gay, and judged the facts as they were. We've all played our pranks. Some were over the top. Sometimes the victims didn't handle it well. That does not mean that we are always responsible for how they choose to react.
So I can get a year in prison for having a joint on my person, but I can invade someone's privacy and become the cause of their death and just suffer a month? Interesting how that works.
Seems like a reasonable sentence to me. As stupid, and intolerant, as what he did was and as severe as the consequences were there's nothing gained by excessive punishment. Would a longer prison sentence really act as a deterrent to similar behaviour? Isn't a criminal record, the court process he's been through, a month in prison and having to live with the consequences of his actions enough for doing something stupid and not considering how bad the consequences might be?
Some poor bastard has already lost his life. Another has pretty much ruined his. Sticking someone in prison longer doesn't make any of that better; it's just an expensive way to cause more suffering.
Super relieved to see a reasonable sentence here. With all the media hype of "up to 20 years in jail", I was worried this kid was going to rot for what many have done in the past as a prank.
Also, IMO, "hate crimes" are kind of unfair in my mind. In all situations you're harming a human being, so I don't see why the punishment should be any different. I think that motive & intent matter a whole lot more than the "who".
Pretty certain if I was video taping two people having sex that'd put me on the sex offender registry. While the maximum (10 years) is way too harsh, this seems a bit too light regardless of the suicide associated with it.
Probably the fact that he broadcasted the video to others and made homophobic comments about Mr. Clementi. I can definitely see how this is a hate crime.
because if you secretly record straight sex, it's invasion of privacy, but if you secretly record gay sex, it's a hate crime?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Which comment did he make that was homophobic? simply stating that your roommate is doing it with a another dude is plain fact. Is the truth homophobic?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
On the other hand, thirty days in jail is not the whole sentence. From the article:
In addition to jail, Judge Berman sentenced Mr. Ravi to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service, counseling about cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles, and a $10,000 probation fee, to be used to help victims of bias crimes.
I'd make some remark about how I feel about the appropriateness of the sentence, but I don't know squat about anyone involved here. I'll presume that the judge, who was much better informed than I, knew what he was doing.
I believe there was some comment about him needing to watch out for his own butt while sleeping....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
More like News for Nerds, because now I know exactly how far someone can push a criminally liable (but only every so slightly) network of web(spy) cams. I think most people wouldn't blink and eye at a month in jail if they thought they could get some really, really good material to blackmail someone, if/when the opportunity arises. Sure, some people are generally ethical and would never do this, but we all know a significant percentage are not.
/. material all around.
See, webcams, technology, and the laws pertaining to those who value the freedom to collect 'information' on others,
He shouldn't have even been tried. Read the facts of the case:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/06/120206fa_fact_parker
He turned on his webcam, saw his roommate kissing another guy, turned it off.
Do you really think that warrants jail?
The whole idea of "hate crime" is pretty ridiculous anyway.
If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually? It just reinforces the idea that we should treat certain groups of people differently. Is that really the best way to address prejudice in society?
Does anyone really think some dumb asshole bigot is going to think "there are hate crime laws I better not commit this crime"?
Homophobic? That term should be abandoned.
Anti-gay doesn't mean fear, it just means intolerance.
If everybody was gay/lesbian, the problem would solve itself in 100 years.
Mankind would die since there would be no children born.
It'd get spooky after only 6 years when entire grades of schools are empty.
Is that he was tried for invasion of privacy and not a hate crime.
Because clearly most crimes are done out of love, right? The whole concept of "hate crime" pisses me off. You should prosecute a person for what they did, not for what they felt while doing it. What a person does is crime. What a person thinks or feels, is only thoughtcrime. A murder is a murder: why should the white person killing a black person (or a straight killing a gay) get a harsher penalty than a white person killing another white? They both did the same damned thing.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
That's not homophobic in and of itself. Not without more context. (I hope you realize that)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It's spelled Rutgers, not Rutger's.
Shush you, we don't like logic, truth, and accuracy around these parts.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"News for nerds, stuff that matters. "
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
And if everyone popped out as many children as human physiology could handle within their lifespan, we'd have food riots worldwide within two generations. Maybe (crazy thought here) everybody doesn't need to do exactly the same thing for society to function.
It wasn't a hate crime. It was a bias crime. The judge himself made that distinction at the sentencing as part of his justification for being so lenient (compared to the possible 10-year sentence).
You are walking a fine line.
Intention is everything. If I am driving down the road, and hit a pedestrian on accident, your theory states that I have committed the same crime as someone who goes out of his/her way to hit a pedestrian on the same road.
Intention is everything - If I pull the trigger in hate, I have committed a crime. If I pull the trigger in self-defense, have I committed a crime?
Prior to 2003, he would have been reporting a crime in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, or Virginia.
If everybody was gay/lesbian, the problem would solve itself in 100 years. Mankind would die since there would be no children born. It'd get spooky after only 6 years when entire grades of schools are empty.
Not as long as turkey basters are available.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Depends on intent. If you recorded the former with intent to jack off to it later, that's invasion of privacy. If you did so with the intent to blackmail a subset of the participants, that's, well, blackmail. If you recorded gay sex with the intent to out a subset of the participants as being gay, intending further to mock them, discriminate against them, or whatever else in an atmosphere where such proclivities are frowned upon, that's a hate crime.
I once tried to crash at a large new year's party in a room where there was also a girl present. She would not sleep in the same room because I might "try something" (which was ridiculous, but she was a christian). So anyway, if she had said, "That means I need to watch my pussy", does that mean she's heterophobic and it's a bias statement?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I despise the idea of a hate crime. Why is beating, killing or talking negatively to someone because they're gay, ethnic minority etc. any different than a heterosexual, white male engaging in a similar act against another heterosexual, white mail in the Unite States? Intentional is intentional regardless of personal differences/reasons. The laws should and should have treated murders, beatings, harassment etc. equally. Bigots, behind the bench and in juries handing down lenient sentences, are the reasons the class of "hate crimes" exists, not the nature of the crimes themselves. All murders are equal, but some murders are more equal than others.
A white gang and a black gang killing each other isn't a hate crime, but a white man killing blacks for being blacks or a black man killing whites for being white is. Hate crime and terrorism have a lot in common, in both cases it's not just about your direct victims but about all the people you intimidate. It's not just one murder, it's a message that the next black person that shows up will suffer the same. It's a message that the next gay person will suffer the same. It's a message that the next person who gets up and uses his freedom of speech will get a bullet to the brain. That more than puts a little cramp in your freedoms.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's not what they felt, it's why they committed the crime. If a person of one race kills someone of another race because he or she wanted something the victim had, it's not a hate crime. If a person of one race kills someone of another race because he or she thinks that the victim, and others of the victim's race, are subhuman and don't deserve to exist, then it's a hate crime.
Bigotry is evil and damaging to large segments of society. When bigotry is the primary reason for a crime to be committed, then the crime should be punished more harshly than if the crime was committed for unrelated reasons.
I used to think like you, until I saw first-hand how damaging bigotry is. I'm almost leaning towards the viewpoint that bigotry should be illegal even outside of any crime being committed, but I have yet to reconcile that viewpoint with some of my other strongly-held beliefs (such as how absolute freedom of speech should be). That's part of the journey of building one's character, though.
FC Closer
Your view is completely inconsistent with the laws in most countries. If I were to kill a man because I panicked while trying to steal bread to feed my starving family, the result would be no less tragic than if I had killed him because I wanted to sleep with his wife. However, the latter killing would have been committed with malice aforethought; such a crime results in murder charges and makes the accused eligible for the death penalty in most states. By contrast, the former would have lacked malice, and in the absence of "special circumstances" laws, such a crime results in a lesser charge, such as manslaughter.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Okay, does that mean anti-republican mean intolerance?
There is one small difference that isn't addressed here:
Judging based on the defendant's alleged intent (which is indeed the difference between crime and accident) without regard to who or what the victim inherently is, is one thing.
Differentiating degrees of intent (thus punishment) just because of a victim's lifestyle/color/religion/whatever, flies in the face of equal protection under the law.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
its really homophobic to film two dudes having sex. just so you know.
Only if you miss.
Hate crimes were invented during the civil rights era, both out of recognition that certain kinds of crimes were very much intended as attacks against whole communities and, at least so far as Federal legislation goes, to give Federal authorities some ability to prosecute such crimes where state authorities were frequently much less willing to pursue such criminals.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Except the consequences of crimes categorized as hate crimes affect more than the direct victim, but the community that person is a member of at large.
Hate crimes are crimes against groups of people. And when more people are harmed, punishment should increase. This does indeed not fly in the face of equal protection.
I don't see any fear here on ravi's part. so no, no homophobia.
Intention doesn't mean shit to your victims
Also, as Foxconn showed us, providing an incentive for people to commit suicide is counterproductive unless you want them to commit suicide. If you give people the power to have their enemies locked up for 10 years by committing suicide, you can look forward to such suicides happening more and more often.
What, like "hate crime" is some huge serious thing that is difficult to get charged with? No, fool, you got played right along with all the rest of the electorate. "Hate crime" and "hate crime laws" are just one of a million government excuses used to justify arresting people and selling them into slavery.
It was not about and was never about "stopping racism" or what the fuck ever goals clueless idiots imagined these laws would accomplish. Nope. Just another tool to enslave people.
... deal more, but because the target was homosexual, or because he killed himself, but because he violated someone's privacy so profoundly. All these little Our Man Flynt's running around with this cheap, garbage technology, thinking they are god. That Ravi guy strikes me as a bit hardened, a bit reptilian (albeit a mama's boy - ie. an A-type, the type our society tends to revere). I think the earlier (March) article comments exhibited more rabid and appropriate indignation.
Such a statement would imply that you're a rapist just because you're a heterosexual male. Yeah, that would be a sexist remark. And so was her behaviour. It happened to me once, by someone with similar weird ideas about men and women, and I felt rather insulted by someone assuming that just because I'm male and in the same room, I'm a probable rapist.
However, if said person has a background with extreme Christian groups like "The Family" (or certain Roman Catholic priests) then I can totally understand her: everyone around her *is* a probable rapist. But I'd still feel insulted.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Not if the girls are cute.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If I killed a guy with 10 kids, I affected his whole family by removing their main source of income. ...you still want to travel down that rabbit hole?
If I killed the only oncologist in a small city, I affected everyone in that city who has cancer.
If I killed a guy who would have otherwise invented cheap FTL space travel had he lived, I affected the whole frickin' human race.
Long story short - it does not work that way. Otherwise, you place one behavior or characteristic as being more valuable than any other.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I'd make some remark about how I feel about the appropriateness of the sentence, but I don't know squat about anyone involved here. I'll presume that the judge, who was much better informed than I, knew what he was doing.
this is the kind of attitude that lets the legal system get away with what it does. you cannot have 'hate crime' legislation in a society that respects free expression.
"If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually?"
Individuals don't have lobby groups?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
'hate crime' is just an excuse to build a caste society, where certain things cannot be said/done to certain groups.. This is not possible in a society that respects free expression and, ironically, equality.
So using your logic, the U.S. Federal government are terrorists who commit hate crimes on a frequent basis?
After all, they "hate" marijuana producers, and they bust down the doors of the most legitimate, tax paying, law-and-regulation-following medical marijuana practitioners in California----just to "send a message" to everyone else.
They do this type of shit all the time, actually. They also slap dozens of charges onto people, completely fucking their lives over for the most minor of offenses. The message sent to everyone else is, don't fuck with us or we'll do it to you, too.
This particular guy got 15 charges, and it's only through good fortune and the alignment of the fucking stars that he isn't spending years in prison slaving away for Uncle Sam, before being cast out into the gutter to die. For every high profile case in the media that turns out one way, there's 100 more you never hear of that turn out a bit different.
So whose side are you on, really? Justice? Freedom? Or slavery and oppression? If the former, then you need to stop apologizing for the latter. "Hate crime" laws are a perversion of justice, and nothing more than a tool used by oppressors to enslave.
A white gang and a black gang killing each other isn't a hate crime, but a white man killing blacks for being blacks or a black man killing whites for being white is. Hate crime and terrorism have a lot in common, in both cases it's not just about your direct victims but about all the people you intimidate. It's not just one murder, it's a message that the next black person that shows up will suffer the same. It's a message that the next gay person will suffer the same. It's a message that the next person who gets up and uses his freedom of speech will get a bullet to the brain. That more than puts a little cramp in your freedoms.
Really? What Earth do you live on?
sentenced to have a set of webcams in is house for the next 10 years.
If they are lesbians though, that would be a hate crime, right! :)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
However, I don't think this spycam case should have ever made it to court. The guy is guilty of nothing more than being a douche, and that's not a criminal offense.
because if you secretly record straight sex, it's invasion of privacy, but if you secretly record gay sex, it's a hate crime?
Like every other hate crime, it depends on your motive. If he recorded and published it specifically because it was gay sex, then yes, that's a hate crime.
on Gay sex.
Fight hate the way the Southern Poverty Law Center does it: through civil law. Imposing huge monetary fines and loss of assets actually does a whole lot more to bring down hatred than incarceration. Look at the decimation of some racist and militia-style hate groups where their assets were seized and turned over to the victim. Without a hate pulpit to preach from, these groups dissolve and disband. Anti-hate laws do little to curb the behavior - you have to hit'em in the wallet to stop it.
Right. Now if, say, she tweeted something like, "Not gonna sleep with a straight guy in my room! gotta watch my vag!", and I then felt very embarassed becuase my friends saw this, and killed myself: Is she now guilty for my death, because I had a thin skin?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
At face value, this was two students (Dharun and his buddy, whatever happened to her?) filming some dude have gay sex for a few laughs.
What it really was were two students absolutely obsessed with the gay guy. They spent MONTHS planning ways to embarrass him. They were giddy and excited over all the possible outcomes. It was something that gave them a rush, and something they poured time into to make it as perfect as possible. Read about their exchanges, it's almost like they spent more time working on this than going to class. This was a daily thing they collaborated on like some kind of fucked up senior project.
_That_ is the missing element people don't talk about. These two students are morally bankrupt, not only because of what they did but because of how much energy they put into developing it. For them, the ultimate rush would come from the gay guy being utterly humiliated, what they didn't consider was that he'd kill himself.
What kind of normal people do that? Nobody does. Dharun and his partner have something seriously wrong with them. They need psychiatric evaluations to see how mentally fit they are. I can't imagine what kinds of spouses or parents they'd make if this was their idea of fun.
Yes, this entire event can be condensed to "dude having gay sex gets filmed". But what we keep missing are "Two students have near orgasmic daily exchanges of increasingly complicated ways to ruin some guys life, where the ruining part is fueling their desires and goals to a level most people wouldn't think was possible". That's the scary part, and that's why both of them need more supervision than 30 days in jail.
I'd make some remark about how I feel about the appropriateness of the sentence, but I don't know squat about anyone involved here. I'll presume that the judge, who was much better informed than I, knew what he was doing.
Very well said.
I understand your position. However, my point is that "hate crime" itself should not be considered a separate crime. In other words, no one should be prosecuted for a hate crime as such. The penalty for whatever crime they committed may be increased (or decreased) depending on motivation, yes (in large part because punishment is partly intended as a cure for the criminal in addition to simply being a punishment for a given crime), but the motivation itself cannot of itself be a crime, IMO, not only for free speech purposes but also because of "equal protection under the law." Basically, a crime is a crime no matter who it is against, but the penalty can and should vary because of the intent of the criminal. Therefore, hate cannot in and of itself be a crime, since, well, it isn't. Only a crime can.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Your view is completely inconsistent with the laws in most countries. If I were to kill a man because I panicked while trying to steal bread to feed my starving family, the result would be no less tragic than if I had killed him because I wanted to sleep with his wife. However, the latter killing would have been committed with malice aforethought; such a crime results in murder charges and makes the accused eligible for the death penalty in most states. By contrast, the former would have lacked malice, and in the absence of "special circumstances" laws, such a crime results in a lesser charge, such as manslaughter.
I would argue that the difference there is not in the nature of the crime or whether it should be prosecuted, but only in the extent of the penalty for the crime (I realize that under the law, they are generally considered different crimes for purposes of establishing maximum/minimum penalties). In other words, you can perhaps punish one crime harsher than another (indeed, intent and motivation can and should factor into the punishment), but you cannot prosecute a person for hating another, no matter how much you may want to.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
You're absolutely right, hate crime legislation is bullshit. It doesn't matter what you felt (the motivation) while doing it, the act is the act.
So if you carelessly ran over someone because your phone rang, OR you stalked a person for days and then deliberately ran them over when you saw your chance, it's THE SAME CRIME.
You fucking cretin.
You should prosecute a person for what they did, not for what they felt while doing it.
So we shouldn't prosecute terrorism as a crime in itself?
What a person does is crime. What a person thinks or feels, is only thoughtcrime.
So you see no difference between shooting someone because you think that they intend to harm your family, and shooting someone because you think they are Jewish and you (Nazi) want to kill all Jews? The end result is the same - you shot someone, they died - the only difference is your motivation.
The whole concept of "hate crime" pisses me off.
Try not to be so emotional, it inhibits your rational thought.
Cause we've made it illegal to have an opinion, we can now charge people with hate crimes.
Sure I think bashing someone because they are gay is pathetic, sure I think we need to punish people who commit crimes against people they "hate."
But we need to punish them for the CRIME, not the fact that they have an opinion that you don't like.
I personally find racist people very offensive....but somehow I doubt that if I attacked someone screaming at the top of my lungs "I hate you because you are a racist", that I would be charged with a hate crime. No, we reserve charging people with "hate crimes" when we feel that the crime needs extra punishment because we want to discourage wrong thinking people. Its a feel good but do nothing political BS snowjob. Anytime a "protected class" is a victim, the 1st thing that you hear is that it is being investigated as a potential hate crime. It fails equal protection standards, and it criminalized the motivation of a crime beyond the normal statutory requirements of having "intent."
The whole concept of "hate crime" pisses me off. You should prosecute a person for what they did, not for what they felt while doing it. What a person does is crime. What a person thinks or feels, is only thoughtcrime. A murder is a murder: why should the white person killing a black person (or a straight killing a gay) get a harsher penalty than a white person killing another white? They both did the same damned thing.
What one thinks/feels while doing it is a critical element of almost every crime, and certainly of all violent ones. It's not "thoughtcrime", the concept is called mens rea.
Briefly and simplified: killing a person is homicide. Murder is a homicide that you intended to do before it happened, then carried through with your plan. Manslaughter is a homicide in which you killed someone but weren't doing so out of some preconceived plan. While in both cases someone was killed, the difference between them is what the killer was thinking.
If you stab someone in the arm because you're fighting them, you've committed at least a battery -- because of your state of mind. If you stab someone in the arm because you're cooking and the knife slipped from your hand, you haven't committed any violent crime at all -- because you weren't intending to cause harm.
Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
or is it whenever i see "legal" analysis on slashdot i see tons of posts by people who don't consider the notion of intent
is it a psychological thing?
that is, the relationship between aspergers syndrome and technological inclination is well-established, this is a tech site, aspergers renders one unable to appreciate and take into account other minds at work out there outside of your own. and just because you aren't clinically diagnosed with aspergers doesn't mean you aren't somewhere along the spectrum of a mild inability to have a decreased capacity to have a good working model of "theory of mind" going on in your head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
anyway, this is just a long-winded way of saying: INTENT. understand it, please
if you judge other's actions, or develop an opinion of other's actions without applying or appreciating the concept of intent, at least understand that the rest of the world will consider your opinion invalid, if you can't understand yourself why intent is important
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hate crimes have a very real distinction. They're intended to intimidate a subset of your community, that's why they're elevated. If that doesn't make sense to you, consider that we have at least 4 standards for the fundamentally same crime of taking a life; accidental death(?), manslaughter, 2nd degree murder, and 1st degree murder.
And, contrary to popular belief, a hate crime doesn't mean killing a minority. It's a very difficult legal bar to reach.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I know! Same thing with aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder one!!
We should just break it along "type of crime" lines, right? No matter what nuance, let's make the punishment the same for all of a particular type.
Simple assault, sexual assault, there's really too much nuance.
Aggravated assault vs tying a minority to the back of a pickup truck and dragging them a couple miles - all the same punishment.
Good show!
It just reinforces the idea that we should treat certain groups of people differently.
I'm having serious issues wrapping my head around this backwards logic.
You haven't even really made an argument at all and blindly asserting a claim is not the same as supporting it.
Why don't you tell us why assault based on gender/sexual orientation/race is not worse than regular old violence
Perhaps you just don't understand the history of civil right and hate crime laws?
The law has always been neutral toward crime, but enforcement of the law was not.
Minorities were being murdered, justice was not being done, and tension would build.
Communities became embroiled in violence, leading to retaliation, leading to more violence.
There are strong reasons behind enhancing the punishment for certain crimes over others.
Maybe some day we won't need those laws, but America is still struggling with basic things like equality for all.
Is that really the best way to address prejudice in society?
I can't say for sure that we've come up with the best way to address prejudice in society,
but nothing else we've tried has worked and I don't see you putting forward any alternatives.
Does anyone really think some dumb asshole bigot is going to think "there are hate crime laws I better not commit this crime"?
Not really but it sends a message that, as a society, we will not tolerate such odious behavior in our midst.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's worse because when you target someone for an attribute, then aside from the harm you inflict on them, you are also terrorizing all the people like them. If you lynch a black guy, all of the other black guys in the community are now afraid to go out in public because they might be next.
Geeks can be overly literal about shit. That leads to an attitude of not wanting to look at context. Something is either right or wrong, period. So if it is ok to do something any time, it is ok to do it all the time. Context and thus intent don't matter.
Also this absolutist idea leads to trouble with the concept of reasonable doubt. They think if they can come up with any explanation at all, no matter how improbable, that a jury would have to buy that. They think they can explain away anything because even the tiniest bit of doubt is enough. That is not the case, of course, the standard is reasonable doubt so while you can prove very little beyond any doubt at all, you can prove many things beyond a reasonable doubt.
I'm not sure it is as much even something like aspergers as just geeks being hyper literal. It seems to be some sort of challenge, who can out literal the other or try to be the most narrowly technically correct. That is quite the opposite form how the law works.
If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually?
Because a crime against a group is of a larger scale than a crime against an individual? Just a guess.
If a guy in my neighborhood shoots his neighbor because he slept with his wife, I still feel safe living in my community, because I am uninvolved. If the same guy shot his neighbor because his neighbor was guy, and I also happen to be gay, then that is a threat against me and any other gay member of the community. There is an element to the crime which causes an entire community to live in fear, as opposed to targeted violence that you can avoid by simply acting civil toward your neighbors.
It's not about treating crime against specific groups differently than crime against other groups. It's about the difference between a crime against a group and a crime against an individual.
anyway, this is just a long-winded way of saying: INTENT. understand it, please
If people here really have aspergers they may be incapable of understanding intent except superficially. They(either aspergers sufferers or people on slashdot) tend to have a stunted ability for empathy, and I don't mean kindness, I mean they have difficulty perceiving the emotions and motives of others.
I suspect many people here wish the law was more like mathematic laws, and that the legal code was more like source code. And they probably hope that they could eliminate extraneous variables that cannot be easily examined or reproduced in a laboratory setting, such as the psychological state of an individual.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah. That's the reason why each and every time a white person or group is targeted, the whole establishment, far-leftist watchdogs and media apply the "hate crime" concept.
"Hate crimes" are a purely political creation, inspired by Cultural Marxism and intended to be applied only to white heterosexual people. Especially if they're males and/or mildly ethnocentric. When whites are targeted for being white, then public officials talk about "crime has not color" and other hypocrite platitudes.
Of course that is homophobic! He was afraid of the homosexual.
I can see this argument. If some African-American person is voting when I don't think they should, beating up a few of them pour encourager les autres is definitely a hate crime because the reason for my actions is to frighten others.
I'm even willing to say that if I beat up someone purely because he's an African-American and he's done nothing to me, it's a hate crime.
On the other hand, getting into a fight with my African-American roomate because he's a dick? Not a hate crime.
You really have to be able to prove prejudice and intent. If I beat up my African-American roomate because he's an annoying prick and that means that you, as an African-American, feel concerned for your safety because of this, that's your problem.
Except that isn't what it is at all. For something to be a hate crime, it must be done because the victim is a minority.
And that's not what equal protection of the law means.
Nobody is punishing the opinion, just acting on it.
The only difference that the law should make is whether the act was intentional or not; the precise motive behind the intent is not relevant.
Your logic would re-legalize all kinds of discrimination.
The intent behind refusing to seat someone in your restaurant would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to allow someone to attend your school would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to rent someone an apartment would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to loan a family money to buy a house in a certain neighborhood would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to employ someone would not be relevant.
Note that none of these is illegal unless the intent is to deny members of protected classes. And by "protected", we are not talking about protecting some privilege, but rather ensuring that they are granted the same baseline of opportunity as everyone else.
And an individual is not a subset of a community? You need to rethink or at least rephrase your inadequate statement.
But your intent in all of those contrived examples wasn't to hurt the whole group. In a hate crime, the criminal is intentionally targeting a whole community.
And don't give me that crap about "we shouldn't be punishing people based on intent". It's commonly accepted that we punish premeditated murder more harshly than murder in the heat of the moment, which in turn is punished more harshly than an accidental killing.
The fact is, most people who oppose hate crimes do so because they agree with the Republicans on other issues, so they just adopt the party platform. And the party has to pander to the minority of people who oppose hate crimes because they're bigots.
It's no different than secretly filming your roommate having straight sex.
Really? When was the last time you heard about people who had straight sex being murdered for it? Know any straight people who cannot get married because they are straight? How about, straight people who cannot get health insurance for their partner because they are straight? Straight people who are fired for being straight?
If you really think that being gay is no big deal, perhaps you should take it up with the other 48% or so of the country that is still ignorant and hateful.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Whatever you may think of their application now, anybody with even a modicum of knowledge of the civil rights era knows how important such laws were to ensuring crimes against African-Americans were prosecuted.
Of course those who objected to Federal laws that protected black Americans also made rude noises about Marxism and the poor white man.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If someone gets beat to shit because they are an asshole, I can avoid the same fate by not being an asshole.
If someone is beat to shit because of their skin color, I cannot change my skin color to avoid the same fate.
I think the idea is that "hate crimes" are carried for ideological reasons and the perp is likely to do something similar again. Therefore they're likely to need a longer sentence / more rehabilitation etc. I don't think it's intended as an additional discouragement. After all, if stricter sentences had any effect then one might expect that the possibility of a death sentence in the US might have an effect on the rate of serious crime. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
Otherwise, you place one behavior or characteristic as being more valuable than any other.
We place bigoted behaviors below all others. That's just the way it is, thanks to a persistent strain in our society of criminality motivated by bigoted attitudes.
Understanding the law, and whether an action violates it, should not require a history lesson. Assaulting someone, (or any other action) should either be an offence or not. Whether the victims (or perpetrators) ancestors suffered some injustice shouldn't affect the criminality of the action or it's punishment.
Hate crimes are essentially "thought crimes" + some "action".
Thought crimes on their own are specifically protected and considered an essential part of liberty and freedom, and this country has enshrined that in our freedom of speech laws. It follows that the criminality (and punishment) of the "action", should not be affected by the thought behind it.
It should be really called "liberty crimes" because the intended effect of most hate crimes is to curtail someone's freedom. "Oh, I can't vote in next month's elections or move into a white neighborhood, or the burning cross in front of my house will become a gibbet, like what happened to the family down the road" thinks a black man under the heel of the KKK in the 60's. Similarly, gay students at Rutgers watching the humiliation unfold online, or may be word-of-mouth, will think "Oh, I can't have sex in my dorm room, even if I ask my roommate to vacate for a while (a classic behaviour immortalized in many college movies), something like what happened to Tyler will happen to me". Do you see the chilling effect the crime has on others in the community?
Invasion of privacy is not a crime? Wow, when it's a gay man at risk, instead of their browsing history, suddenly slashdotters don't give a shit about privacy... Makes me wonder...
Oh - you must be gay then for saying that.
Thats totally it. you are gay and in denial. otherwise you would agree DUHHHHHHHH
Nice clothes? GAY
Dont treat women like crap? GAY
Like to care for yourself by keeping a clean house and cooking? GAY
obviously, what is 'right' and good is GAY, and everything else is STRAIGHT.
ITS BACKWARDS LAND!
homosexuality is the denial of your own sexuality as a result of profound insecurity
and projecting that insecurity on anyone else when they point out that insecurity.
it is a mental illness.
it was revoked in the 70s more as a result of bullying and cruel 60s era behaviourist therapies (think electro shock or lobotomies)
and the general 'open' vibe of the times than out of any rational basis.
which is more of the same 'play the victim, blame the accuser by externalizing' - etc etc.
why such an emphasis on style in the gay community? becase its an exteranality - much like internalising the backwards sexuality and externalizing any criticism.
- someone who got over 'thinking they were gay' when he realized he was coddled by his mother and innapropriately raised by his father.. which if you put the above together - DUH.
Why do so many homosexual men have mother issues?
Why do so many homosexual men think that vaginas are disgusting?
noone should be mean to them, but gay not 'healthy' or 'true' or 'just what I am'. LIES.
Oh look. A clueless fucktard heterosexual. HOW SURPRISING.
Did anyone force him to be gay? YES. It's a genetic predisposition. Nobody chooses to be the target of frat-boys and jock-boys. Nobody chooses to be the target of screaming maniacs who justify their hate in the name of Jesus. Nobody chooses to play the role that Jews played in the 30's (complete with people like Ravi who intend only misery and death to their targets).
People like you, who obviously believe that gays are their personal punching bags and rightful targets of ridicule, are why these laws exist. You think it's okay to abuse others over their orientation. The law says it's not (though this 30-day sentence makes me think that dealing with people like Ravi with a noose rather than a judge is much more appropriate... if the courts won't defend gays, then gays must defend themselves by any means necessary). It's people like you who are the reason I carry a gun.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
And like all other acceptable pieces of legislation, has been distorted to be what law enforcement/the prosecution wants it to mean at any particular time.
This was clearly not a hate crime. The target was an individual firstly. And the offence would be no different an offence if the guest had been an older man, an older woman, or some young woman in the same school (though the ultimate result may have differed). That Clementi committed suicide is unfortunate, but hardly Ravi's fault.
That people, especially the prosecution, was expecting a jail term of years just shows how ridiculous society has become. It's the justice system, not the revenge system.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Maybe the person was really lynching the guy wearing flip flops, who just happened to be black! Would his crime be any less if he had lynched a white guy wearing flip flops?
Should a completely secular serial killer be let off easy, simply because "hey, at least he/she didn't target a specific group"?
Do the police not protect black people? Do the courts refuse to take on cases against black people?
If black people do feel more insecure, maybe we should be fixing these issues first, instead of making examples out of others.
He comes from a culture that strongly opposes Mr. Clementi's way of life. Any person whose culture puts him/herself in opposition to a more recently granted protected class loses his/her protected status: Let me haul out the excessively truthful cliché:
[cue groaning]
There is this 'totem pole of protected classes' in USA (federal) civil rights jurisprudence based on 'historical factors'. It goes something like this:
0 LGBT, any ethnic any gender [ Tyler Clementi is here ]
1 Black female
2 Black male
3 NAPI (Native American / Pacific Islander) female
4 NAPI (Native American / Pacific Islander) male
5 Hispanic female
6 Hispanic male
7 Asian female
8 Asian male [Dharun Ravi is here ]
9 Unassimilated ethnic white female
10 Unassimilated ethnic white male
11 White female
12 White male
13 Evangelical Christian, any ethnicity, any gender
Within this scale, if one's worldview is perceived to be more hostile to historic Western values, said individual is granted more 'protection'. Basically, the more 'different' one is perceived by those assumed by reason of history to have power (i.e. white males), the more 'protection' one is granted. According to this model, it is absolutely impossible for the Black female gay (orientation overrides ethnicity and gender to the positive because we are carefully instructed that it is BIOLOGY) to be accused of a hate crime. In the contrapositive, the white male that attacks even another white male who espouses a worldview that is less tolerant of Western values (excepting Judaeo-christianity, of course!) than that of the attacker, that attacker has committed a hate crime. Therefore it stands to reason that anyone who attacks an evangelical Christian (faith overrides gender and ethnicity to the negative because we are carefully instructed that it is a CHOICE) is not merely not guilty of a hate crime, rather (s)he is doing enlightened humanity a favor by ridding society of such a pest. There are so many possible combinations of perpetrators and victims in these situations that adjudication of said cases requires the skill and judgment of one holding a terminal law degree and decades of experience.
Like any system, this one can be hacked. Be perceived as gay and *presto* instant top-level protection. No evangelical of any ethnicity and/or gender will try to pull that stunt because his/her faith prohibits such behavior.
Gay trumps Asian, Q.E.D.
If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually?
You can control your behavior so few people hate you, or at least know when someone hates you personally and take measures. You can't control the color of your skin or your sexual orientation.
Does anyone really think some dumb asshole bigot is going to think "there are hate crime laws I better not commit this crime"?
No nobody thinks that, at least nobody with some intelligence. What we hope is that by having hate crimes on the books, it teaches people that judging others by their skin color is not right. Not everybody will learn that of course and bigotry won't stop overnight, but eventually, over several generations, it'll be reduced to an insignificant amount. It works better in some countries than others.
I haven't read all the posts yet, but from the ones I've seen so far, there's been absolutely no mention of Dharun Ravi's own sexuality. In my experience as a gay man, when a man who is supposedly straight seems overly interested in what gay men do in bed, he may be having sexual identity issues of his own. If there's any possibility at all that Dharun Ravi himself is gay, having been born in India and raised in an Indian family, he would have had little if any opportunity to explore or experiment with his own sexual orientation, Instead, he chose to do it vicariously through Tyler Clementi with deadly consequences. I would love to see how Dharun's life plays out over the next five years or so. My guess is he's gay himself but he obviously has some soul searching and processing to do before he'll feel comfortable about coming out of his own closet. A line from Shakespeare is appropriate to describe Dharun........"Me thinks thou doest protesteth too much." Thoughts??
Because it wasn't just an immature college prank, and it was a crime. You asshole.
Take out the suicide and it was still a goddamn crime. In fact, they did take out the suicide from consideration.
It's not the opinion that's being punished. It's the action of threatening the entire group.
YES, this would be a bias crime if it somehow incited to intimidate straight white middle-class males. In fact, did you notice how the criminal is an Indian guy and the victim is a white guy?
Honestly, he got 30 days for a pretty severe invasion of privacy against somebody he knew couldn't take it well (though he probably didn't expect him to commit suicide).
If you kill a guy with 10 kids because he has 10 kids, and announced "this is what you get for having 10 kids!" and posted a youtube video of it on killeverybodywithmorethan9kids.com, then yeah, we'd go down that rabbit hole.
To put it plainly, this line of thought can only arrive at the conclusion that a group of people with a particular set of characteristics are more valuable than others.
It makes sense why people constantly appeal to this idea of hate crime. Some people really do want to feel that they are more valuable than others. They want that validation. They want to someone to tell them that their existence is superior to the existence of people unlike them. There are many reasons why they'd want to feel this way, reasons which are largely unimportant. What is important is that this mentality has no place in a society founded on the principles of equality.
There are actions that are correctly categorized as hate crimes. They usually victimize an entire group of people, as opposed to an individual who just so happens to be a member of some (regionally) deviant social group.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Most hate crime laws are based on racketeering charges - effectively a hate crime is one which targets one person as a means to target a larger group. Racketeering was used against criminals who attack one business to make others pay up protection money. When shooting someone who is gay/black/jewish/russian, because they're gay/black/jewish/russian, the message that gets communicated to the rest of the gay/black/jewish/russian community is 'You are not safe, we will kill you, unless you leave'. Generally speaking, most of the time, Hate Crime laws aren't applied, largely because you need to establish that the goal wasn't just to get the person, but because you wanted to have a chilling effect on people who are gay/black/jewish/russian as well. In the US, as well, hate crimes typically have to be Punishment Enhancing - that is, they can only attach to an existing crime, not on their own, and make the sentence worse.
GOTO 40070563
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually?
Because the point of it is not just to hurt some particular person, but to attack a whole group of people, usually with the message that this kind of person is not a legitimate American but somebody who should be expelled by force or made into a second-class citizen. It is a low-scale of terrorism, trying to induce fear in the target group to bring about political change.
An example of why hate crime laws were created: It was once common, particularly in the South, for groups of white people to beat up and/or kill black men, just for fun. The point wasn't to hurt one guy, it was to scare the bejeesus out of every black person in town so that they'd "stay in their place" or stay out of town entirely.
I am officially gone from
Maybe the person was really lynching the guy wearing flip flops, who just happened to be black!
That's a pretty lame example, but sure, in some fantasy world in which people lynch people for wearing flip flops, then yes, that would be a hate crime. No one should have to live in fear of wearing certain footwear. If someone grabs you in the parking lot and starts stomping the shit out of you while screaming about your bad fashion sense, that person is committing a hate crime.
Should a completely secular serial killer be let off easy, simply because "hey, at least he/she didn't target a specific group"?
They're not being let off easy, they're just not getting an additional penalty heaped on top. It's just like there's an extra penalty for using a handgun in the commission of a felony. If someone commits murder with a knife, you don't say they're getting off easy.
Do the police not protect black people? Do the courts refuse to take on cases against black people?
They do, and hate crime laws are a part of that protection. And guess what, hate crime laws protect white, straight men as well! You'd never know it, getting your world view exclusively from Rupert Murdoch, but people do get charged with hate crimes for targeting white people. I recall a case around Seattle a few years back where some guy got beat up, burned with cigarettes, and left in an alley by a couple of black guys who were calling him a cracker and all that. They got charged with a hate crime. So drop the "white men are the most victimized group" crap. Rush just says all that to stroke your ego.
Hate crimes differ from crimes against individuals because the intent of the crime is to communicate hatred of and invoke fear in a community of people. You might say that a hate crime is a form of speech, and the punishment imposed is for using a form of expression that the majority oppose.
Which is exactly why bias crime laws require that the prosecution show intent. And yes, police and courts historically did a much much worse job of protecting racial minorities, and still do in many areas.
Seriously....we now are putting in laws that make murder worse if a white guy kills a black guy because he's black. It is much worse that if he killed another white guy for any other reason. WFT? A death is a death....? At least...it used to be?
They are called hate crimes, and there is a very clear reason why they should give extra punishment.
Since we are talking about HATE CRIME, how can you say that when a White kills a Black, it's HATE CRIME when the reverse happen - when a Black kills a White, it's ***NOT*** considered as HATE CRIME ?
How do you know that when that Black killed that White, that Black guy did NOT do it because of HATRED ???
Case in point - 2 students from China were brutally murdered by two Blacks in California
Does that qualify as a HATE CRIME ?
If you say it's not a HATE CRIME, is it because the killers are Blacks ?
If that's the case, then the society might as well award the Blacks with special rights so that they can kill _anyone_ they wish, _anywhere_, _any time_ !!!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Too right! They should be recognising your negative reaction for what it is and embrace your differences accordingly!
You had me going for a second on the taking of a life distinction, however, that is not a valid analogy. You're listing speaks to the pure intent - manslaughter, etc. While a hate crime intends to establish the "why" behind the intent. Very different.
I'd make some remark about how I feel about the appropriateness of the sentence, but I don't know squat about anyone involved here. I'll presume that the judge, who was much better informed than I, knew what he was doing.
Are you new here?
A death sentence or life in prison would have been a 'mercy' rather than letting him walk.
So in this case the Judge rendered the harshest sentence possible ... life ... on the streets.
If the crime had been judged a Felony, then he would have been deported to India ... and able to enjoy ... anonymity ... though jobless and careerless.
Now, he has gained [enjoys in a reverse clause] the slaughter of the common populas whereever He may roam.
Death would be welcome rather than this!
He is now 'Outcast' just as the outcast-class in India from which he and his family were disperate to escape, yet are now by 'cruel fate' bond to until they all ... are dead.
And yet ... it WAS his action ... his DECISION ... to do this ... against another ... for ... for WHAT [?] ... FUN.
His life ... his mother's life ... those of his family ... now on ... will be anything but ... FUN !
Y(
You're getting hung up on the word "hate." Hate crime laws are about Domestic Terrorism, groups within society using violence to keep other groups in check.
What's that comment? "don't get caught with a DEAD girl or a LIVE boy..."
A married businessman that bangs his way through hookers on sales trips gets hi-fives. Single guy hooks up with another man out of town and risks his job. The only enforce "sodomy" laws when a BOY is on the dick, not a girl and the laws were written that way on purpose.
When they codified punishing "gay" into law they opens this up. Now gays want PROTECTION codified into the law... The State ALREADY got involved... There's no going BACK to "in the closet".
You seem to have trouble interpreting the GP's rather simple point. Hate crime legislation dictates that the severity of a crime depends on the race of its victim. Therefore, it promulgates the idea that people should be treated differently based on their race. That may not be all that it does, but it's pretty obvious that it's not compatible with an ideal, racism-free world.
It seems that you acknowledge this, to an extent, by saying that maybe some day we won't need those laws anymore. I'm dubious as to whether we need them now. Which is worse: the racism inherent in hate crime legislation, or the racism they combat? There might be one answer for today, and another for the situation a few decades ago when they were introduced.
In any case, it's an invasion of privacy. If you do it with intent to blackmail a subset of the participants, that's not blackmail yet - blackmail is the part where you contact them and ask them to pay up. If you do it with intent to out them as gay, taking the video is still only invasion of privacy. Posting it online, though, may be a hate crime.
And I suppose that when women are raped it's their fault for being desirable as well. The only men that are uncomfortable with those things are themselves bigots and abstaining from them is just going to make things worse.
In your case, I doubt very much you're in a position to judge as you yourself seem to take part in the all too popular game of blame the victim. As long as apologist trash like yourself rationalizes it and justifies it there's going to be cover for those with even more extreme views.
A white gang and a black gang killing each other isn't a hate crime, but a white man killing blacks for being blacks or a black man killing whites for being white is.
Really? What Earth do you live on?
"A black Chicago-area teenager has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly beating a 19-year-old white youth during a robbery because he was angry about the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Chicago Tribune reports."
(1) Don't over-generalize. Lots of gay guys are not effeminate. I imagine you haven't been aware of the orientation of a large fraction of the gay guys you've met because they're just regular masculine guys. If we met in real life, you wouldn't know I'm gay unless I told you, and I could very easily convince you I was straight with only a couple of lies and no changes to my behavior. (Eg. [Chatting about the most recent Transformers movie] "Oh, they changed hot chicks! Megan Fox was so much better than this new girl." [If specifics are required, she has nice boobs, really round and perky; there's almost no chance that's false. If I need to act as if I desire her, just think of a guy and describe a girl. Easy.])
(2) Gay guys act feminine for actual reasons, some of which are even good. It helps gay guys spot each other in a straight-dominated world; it's a sign of rebellion against the straight society that has somehow injured many of us; it's a somewhat arbitrary way to differentiate gay subculture from other subcultures (think black people and tightly braided hair); and some gay guys really are just plain feminine.
(3) What "negative responses in straight males" are you talking about? Some vague uneasiness is fine if you keep it to yourself, and I tolerate that sometimes (eg. with my brother), but something more serious like not wanting to work with someone just because they're an effeminate gay man is not okay. If you can justify that, you can justify more serious things like denying effeminate gay men jobs just because they're effeminate and gay. Just judge the guy on his job performance/friendship/substance and everything will work out. (Conversely he should of course not hide behind being gay and effeminate if his substance is poor.)
(4) 'Homophobia' really is over-used, but your poorly described fallacy can't be ad baculum since it doesn't appeal to force or punishment in any way. Most people don't literally mean the fear of homosexuals, as far as I can tell. They usually mean some sort of unfair bias against homosexuals that may or may not include fear. In that sense it's much less over-used (but still over-used).
that would be a case of choosing one form of imminent death over another
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
if anti-homosexual behavior comes from something besides fear, it doesn't make sense to nitpick about the term 'homophobia'
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
That implies organization, which is something that a lot of "hate crimes" seem to lack.
Kid-proof tablet..
I dangerous presumption. Judges are affected by public and media sentiment, and in this case I imagine the politically correct frenzy would have been hard to ignore.
Hate crimes make a lot of sense. It modifies an existing crime. Why the modification? The reason is because you did extra harm to other people. If I beat a relative, for the most part, it doesn't effect the people besides the victim and the person who knew the victim. It might make my neighbor uneasy if he knows about it, but it probably doesn't go much further than that. For a normal crime, I get the normal punishment.
Now, lets say I go beat the shit out of someone in my neighborhood who is black because I hate black people. I victimized the victim and effect his friends and family, as in a normal crime. However, I also just scared the shit out of everyone in the community who is black because they now are worried that there are psychopaths targeting them specifically because they are black.
Motivation matters in law. Killing someone on accident while driving recklessly, is different from killing someone due to road rage, is different for waiting for someone at a specific time to leave work so I can run them down. It makes sense and we do it all the time. Hate crimes are no different. We modify the sentence because your motives were different. Hurting someone with the intent to terrorize them is a different motivation from hurting someone with the intent to terrorize an entire group of people and sow distrust and fear in the community.
Finally, it should be pointed out that hate crimes don't "treat people differently". If a gay guy is beating up straight kids because he hates straight people, they too could be charged with hate crimes. Hate crimes just pick out classifications, they don't specify that it needs to be a minority. It just so happens that most of the time nasty hate groups beating the shit out of people tend to be straight white dudes, hence they eat the majority of hate crime charges
Answer this: does genetic predisposition force one to become left-handed?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
No, it doesn't. It implies that there are multiple people that terrorize minority groups, the organization has nothing to do with it. With sexual orientation there hasn't needed to be any particular organization to it as a half dozen or so such lynchings are enough to do the job.
Or, how about the Oklahoma City bombing? IIRC that was basically just two people on their own that did that. No organization, just two people. When Mathew Shepard was beaten and left for dead, that didn't require an organization either, just a small number of people with weapons.
Being aware that others feel that way and believing it to be common is more than enough organization even if there isn't any.
"Hate crime" is a nice way of saying "terrorism." A crime against a member of a group solely for that membership is also a crime against the entire group. Basically, in addition to committing the one crime, the perpetrator is also saying 'the rest of you are next'.
That is laughable, you really think the feds gave a rats ass? They never wanted to bother with the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi back in 64'? Not laughing at you I understand the explanation as to how the hate laws (or why) they came about.
But they did not care, the FBI refused to waste time on the 3 murders, and they sat back AND watched while more people were getting lynched, or just murdered. Prosecutors did not want to bother with these crimes as well, it was not until the country got angered over what was going on that they actually did anything, even then they allowed 20 times more hate crimes to continue.
Sadly even the black communities did not want anything done, do to retaliation. That is also funny because they kept to themselves during that time and these idiot bigots decided to make them pay anyway.
I think more than half of all crimes are "hate crimes". You won't hurt or kill sb unless you have some very negative emotion towards them.
In this case, it seems to me that this person was just very immature even for his young age and very stupid too. He probably thought this was a great joke. And I feel the sentence was too light. Stupidity should not be rewarded. But thats just my opinion.
Does a hate crime conviction even matter (eg does it mean anything, or have any teeth), when that in addition to *14* other counts gets you a whopping 30 days in jail? That's not going to serve as a deterrent to anyone.
Such a statement would imply that you're a rapist just because you're a heterosexual male. Yeah, that would be a sexist remark. And so was her behaviour. It happened to me once, by someone with similar weird ideas about men and women, and I felt rather insulted by someone assuming that just because I'm male and in the same room, I'm a probable rapist.
However, if said person has a background with extreme Christian groups like "The Family" (or certain Roman Catholic priests) then I can totally understand her: everyone around her *is* a probable rapist. But I'd still feel insulted.
Well of course. Growing up her role models were busy raping choir boys, it would be quite normal for someone with a church background to mistrust men.
+1. "Hate crime" is a very media-tinged description of the law. The actual laws are not based on the "emotion" of hate at all - they are called "bias intimidation". They are meant to address the crimes that are meant to intimidate a large group of people through a smaller crime. The classic example is a burning cross in a yard - a crime which is similar to TP-ing (toilet papering) a person's yard in terms of property damage, but has implications and damage to a community well beyond the personal property damage of the victim.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Why don't you tell us why assault based on gender/sexual orientation/race is not worse than regular old violence
An assault on anyone is equally as bad. It is not worse than someone else. P.S. I am a gay dude.
The law has always been neutral toward crime, but enforcement of the law was not.
Minorities were being murdered, justice was not being done, and tension would build.
Yeah, that sucks. That is also one of the reasons (which I agree for) that bias-intimidation laws exist. However...
Maybe some day we won't need those laws, but America is still struggling with basic things like equality for all.
America addressing the basic things like equality for all is no excuse for fucking with the law. The law should be blind and equal towards all. As a gay man starting a family, I am very aware of America's culture. But I'm telling you, I don't want "special" treatment, I want equal treatment, which means the law should apply equally to me and not especially to me. My goal is when there is NO mention of minorities in the law.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you and I agree on the right stuff. But I disagree on the application you mention.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Or how about IT WASN'T A CRIME AT ALL?
What do you mean? It was a crime. Many of the things you do as "pranks" in college are crimes. Just because something is juvenile doesn't make it not a crime. I did tons of shit in college that were crimes and I was never convicted of anything - but that doesn't make them not crimes.
Regardless of all the talk about hate crimes, the victim's mental health, and college pranks, what Ravi did was a crime and was never in doubt of not being a crime by anyone. The controversy is about the degree of punishment.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
What, like "hate crime" is some huge serious thing that is difficult to get charged with?
There is actually a difficult bar for a crime to be a bias-intimidation crime.
"Hate crime" and "hate crime laws" are just one of a million government excuses used to justify arresting people and selling them into slavery.
Well, I disagree with where you're coming from. But I agree with where you're going. There should only be like 100 reasons to justify arresting people. The fact that there is a million excuses is a horrible existence for society, and we don't even know it - because even though we commit crimes every day, it's arbitrarily random on how we citizens are charged and convicted.
BTW, remember that "government" is a synonym in democracies for "the most people that voted for something". If you don't like such mob rule, it's an argument for something other than a democracy. Not making an argument here - just sayin'. :)
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
A bias intimidation law is meant to address the problem of a burning cross in a yard - it is equivalent to TP-ing someone's yard in property law terms, but is horrendously more damaging.
It is not, was not intended for, and should not, be a law against the thought and emotion of hate. In fact, bias intimidation crimes have a VERY high bar - although you would like to think so you fucking idiot, in fact it is rare that a bias intimidation conviction happens. For example, 70% of people in American jails are black convicts with black victims, and less than 1% of them arrived there from bias intimidation on black people.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
First of all, "hate crime" is a made up word. The laws are actually called "bias intimidation" laws. They are meant to address the problem of burning a cross in a yard - a mere property crime the equivalent of TP-ing someone's house, but in fact have horribly worse consequences on people and society.
A murder is a murder. A white person killing a black person (or a straight killing a gay) does not get a harsher sentence if they did the same damed thing.
A person, any person, is guilty of a bias-intimidation crime if their crime was intended for a larger group of people. It's actually a simple concept that is completely misunderstood (and probably misused by prosecutors).
If you TP a neighbor's house as a prank, you didn't intend to scare the whole neighborhood. You've committed a simple property crime. If you TP your black neighbor's house in a white neighborhood as a prank, you didn't intend to scare the whole neighborhood. You've committed a simple property crime. If you TP your black neighbor's house in a white neighborhood with the intent to scare the black people in the neighborhood, you have committed a simple property crime... but you've actually meant to intimidate other people with bias, with far reaching consequences on the neighborhood and society, hence the bias intimidation law.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I like your argument, but I think it was misplaced. All of the things you say are true. But you missed the point.
What the OP was saying (or at least I'm going to argue :) is that there is a difference between a crime against a person and a crime which is intended against a large group of people. Theoretically it can be against a group of white people too.
If you killed a guy, that sucks. If you killed a guy because you intended to intimidate a whole group of people, that both sucks and is bias intimidation against a group of people.
For example, white guy 1 TP's a black neighbor's house. Guy 2 puts a burning cross in a black neighbor's house. Guy 1 was a prank; guy 2 was a chilling attack on the entire black people of the neighborhood. Guy 1 and guy 2's property damage are equal. However, the effect of guy 2's crime is waaaaaay worse. Hence, bias intimidation laws are meant to augment regular property laws. They are not meant to imply which neighbors are better than others - even if occasional prosecutors and media fuck that part up.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I already replied to you, but once again your argument is not sound.
Yeah, the things you say are true. It is FUCKED UP what the federal government does in the situations you mentioned. However, the "theoretical" case of what the law is is that the government shouldn't just pick out certain people and fuck their lives in the expectation that it will scare other people is just plain wrong - bias intimidation laws aren't that, and the law shouldn't be like that.
However, the logical argument in a blind, just world, is that the punishment for hurting one people is 1 XXX, and hurting two people is 2 XXX. Bias intimidation laws are quite logical laws which exist for the fact that certain laws only affect hurting 1 XXX, but the same crimes which hurt 100 XXX should be punished at least more than 1 XXX.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I'm with you 99%. But...
If a person of one race kills someone of another race because he or she thinks that the victim, and others of the victim's race, are subhuman and don't deserve to exist, then it's a hate crime.
You are incorrect, in most states, AFAIK.
1. The term "hate crime" is a media term, the law term is "bias intimidation".
2. The reason for bias intimidation laws are for when one commits a crime against someone/thing/people with the intention of harming many more. If you kill someone because you hate them, it's not actually a bias-intimidation law. It's only if you kill someone because you intend to intimidate people like them when it becomes a bias intimidation law. It's an important distinction in such cases where opponents falsely believe that the law makes minorities (blacks, gays, etc.) more "important" than others. 1. If you kill a gay dude and it had nothing to do with the fact that the dude was gay, it is not (supposed to be) a bias intimidation crime. 2. If you kill a gay dude because you hated this guy because he was gay, it is not (supposed to be) a bias intimidation crime. 3. If you kill a gay dude with the intent to scare/harm other gays, then it is.
Now, the problem and debate stems from the fact that bias intimidation laws are incorrectly applied to #1 and #2. It seems like #2 is incorrectly believed by people is actually what "hate crimes" are supposed to be, and yes it is unfortunately applied by some prosecutors. P.S. I'm gay.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
Close... it's not when someone wants to hurt/kill another because of such things, "bias intimidation" laws are supposed to be when someone wants to hurt/kill multiple people beyond the original crime. For example, burning cross is only in one victim(s) yards, but is mean to hurt/kill people in the neighborhood.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I hope you're not gay cuz you're giving them a bad name.
If you re-read what he said he never implied "it's okay cuz he was gay!11"
He said, It doesn't matter if he was gay or hetero, the tape shouldn't have pushed anyone over the limit to commit suicide, that's not the videotapers fault.
There are literally tens of THOUSANDS spycam videos out there of ppl having sex, with ur logic, heterosexual tapes arent equal to murder but secretly taping gay sex is equal to murder?
Piss off dude, you're a worthless human being, heterosexual or gay.
"Why don't you tell us why assault based on gender/sexual orientation/race is not worse than regular old violence"
because the effect on the victim is exactly the same. It's quite literally not worse.
Does anyone really think some dumb asshole bigot is going to think "there are hate crime laws I better not commit this crime"?
By that logic you wouldn't have any criminal law at all, as people will always commit rape, murder, robbery and so on despite knowing the consequences.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Or its not a difficult legal bar to reach.
A guy I went to high school with took his younger brother and some friends to a bar. Granted, they were underage (they younger brother and friends were still in highschool), but on the way home one of them yells stop, so the guys does. The younger brother and friend jump out of the vehicle and starting beating up a stranger. The guy I know gets out of the car to stop them, gets them back in the car, and calls police.
If he had stayed in the car, he would not have been charged (he was only charged since he got out of the vehicle; it was on a bank's property so there's clear video evidence that he only got out to stop it). Since one of the younger borther's friends called the guy a fag, unfortunately a typical high school insult, even though the guy was not homosexual they were convincted under hate crime legislation.
I'm not supporting what they did (although the guy I knew's actions seem reasonable so I'm not sure why he was charged; on a morale level I understand why he felt he should stop it and on a legal level I would be worried about liability if I didn't try to stop it), but everyone I know who is familiar with the case doesn't understand why hate crime legislation was used instead of just the assault charges.
That Clementi committed suicide is unfortunate, but hardly Ravi's fault.
Of course it was his fucking fault. Whilst being gay obviously shouldn't be a cause of suicide, the fact remains that it is. I think the fucker should have been charged with murder.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Which comment did he make that was homophobic? simply stating that your roommate is doing it with a another dude is plain fact. Is the truth homophobic?
When you live in a homophobic society, it should be up to you whether to say you're gay or not.
You might say that people should be proud of what they are and not deny the truth but consider this:
In 1930s Germany telling the truth that someone was a Jew was not a morally neutral act.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't see any fear here on ravi's part. so no, no homophobia.
Homophobia is the general term used, because most people who actively hate gays are motivated by fear, generally the fear of expressing something buried deep in their own nature.
If you think you simply hate gays because they're unnatural, go against the bible or whatever, you need to have a good think about your real motivations. And then go and suck a few cocks like you know you really want to.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
He was charged with "bias intimidation", NOT a "hate crime". The judge made the distinction between the two during the sentencing. I'm surprised the judge didn't throw the book at him in regards to the witness tampering and destruction of evidence charges after that lecture.
Hate crimes serve to lessen the value of my life since I'm not a member of a minority. A human life is worth as much as any other human, except if that human is a member of a special group. Equal protection anyone?
Hate crimes have a very real distinction. They're intended to intimidate a subset of your community, that's why they're elevated.
We already have a term for this. It's called terrorism. No need to muddy the waters with this hate crime label.
This guy was basically a peeping tom if you ignore the 'hate' aspects of it. Peeping Tom's get anything from a suspended sentance to a few months in jail (I was surprised to read that, I figured they got the full sex offender treatment). The more you know, I guess.
I'd like to know what his home/social life was like to make him feel so ashamed of his sexual orientation. I have a feeling that may be more at fault.
Who is Rutger, and why does he own a student? (samzenpus: back to school!)
I understand that English is a living language, but I object to changes arising merely from repeated errors.
So you dont believe sexuality has a genetic basis?
You're wrong, but would be interesting to have you claim something known to be complete bollocks.
I heard a pre op transgender calling herself that way, and on jref.com one person reported something similar.
I'm sure pedophiles feel the same way, or do you honestly believe that they choose that orientation? You're only a bigot if you can't see the paralells in our arguments.
... because why, he used a webcam? I come to Slashdot for niche news. This sort of mainstream news I can get from anywhere.
Seeing as nobody was actually shown any video, and no video was recorded, he could have easily simply denied the allegations.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I can assure you, as a Jew, I don't think hate crime is ridiculous. I think it's bloody terrifying. Hate crimes are worse than non-hate crimes because the ideology is capable of spreading so more of these crimes happen. The same is not true to anything like the same degree for non-hate crimes.
Actually that sounds like the very literal definition of homophobic - he is scared that his room mate is going to rape him because he is gay...
Getting over the obvious fault - assuming that homosexual people will jumpy anything of their preferred gender and not wait for consent - the guy is scared of being around homosexual people - or at least sleeping near them.
It doesn't strictly meet the pop-culture definition which these days seems to mean bigoted, violent nutter. But it does meet the definition of the phobia.
Man people sure are bloodthirsty. I have never considered a conviction on ones record terribly light, never mind time in jail. No time in lockup is a light sentance, its being subjected to humilation like an animal.
what would more than 30 days really serve? What does any of it serve. His name is now nationally known, his guilt is recorded for anyone to look up and see.
Are we really worried that hes going to do this again? Is the amount of time supposed to make some difference here other than just make him one more person in lockup?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Is sounding like one dot-head to me.
OK he did some other dude, didn't want people to know, despite the fact that most civilized people don't really care and in this modern era you don't have to care about the uncivilized people who do care
Yeah, it's just that simple. *eye roll*
With the first link, the chain is forged.
http://www.wokv.com/news/news/local/beating-victim-attackers-said-trayvon/nMLFb/
There is plenty of purely voluntary behavior that can result in one being the target of bullies. It doesn't justify the actions of the bullies, but it doesn't justify the victim's inaction either.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yeah, you'd think that an assault by a Non-Minority against a Non-Minority being treated differently than the same Non-Minority assault against a "Protected Class" would somehow be in conflict with the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.
But then that silly old constitution is over 200 years old. Our own Supreme Court justices don't recommend following it (Justice Bader Ginsberg talking to Egyptian press about a constitution).
None of which (murder degrees), has anything to do with what you "think" of the victim as a person. Killing someone in a vehicle accident is much different than stalking them and intentially killing them.
Hate Crimes.... Silly me... I thought that's what intimidation and harassment charges were for.
Well, except for the sentence implying all homosexuals are rapists, that is...
So in essence, we do not receive equal protection from the law if our own race/demographic kills us. And we receive greater protection from the law if a different race/demographic kills us. No, sir, I don't like it.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
No. Not without context. As you have written it it's actually homophilic.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Except that's not in the post I was replying to, at all. You read that in.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
When you click on "parent" at the bottom of your post, you get this:
You responded
Can you explain to me, like I am five years old, where I was mistaken in my response?
Thank you.
Why is it that you need to PC "terrorism" into "bias intimidation"?
Remember that he will face deportation back to Bang-the-desk or whatever crappy little bundle of sticks and mud worshiping stinking cesspool of a fifth world country he came from to join the rest of his dot-head motel keepers.
how much more time the guy would have got if he drove a straight roomate to kill himself instead of a gay one?
INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress has four elements: (1) the defendant must act intentionally or recklessly; (2) the defendant's conduct must be extreme and outrageous; and (3) the conduct must be the cause (4) of severe emotional distress.
cited from: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_emotional_distress
You can invade someone's privacy, tamper with witnesses, destroy evidence, and only get a month in the slammer.
:(){
If someone gets beat to shit because they are an asshole, I can avoid the same fate by not being an asshole.
If someone gets beat to shit just because, I can avoid the same fate by not being. I'd say that's just as bad as your skin colour situation, with the added "bonus" that it affects everyone.
Sure. He's worried about being raped, not necessarily by someone who's gay. In other words, he doesn't trust his roommate. There's not enough given context to associate it to homophobia.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
By that logic, it's not a hate crime to assault anyone who's too timid, or "runs like a girl," or wears the "wrong" clothes, because they can change those things. It's the same message: Anyone who doesn't fit in is at risk of suffering the same fate. But should someone have to change who they are to avoid physical injury? Is that not also a hate crime even though the differences can't be easily categorized? I'd wager that many of us, especially on Slashdot, have been bullied (or worse) just for being different, and felt just as intimidated, even if we weren't gay, black, or female, as did others in our circle of friends, even if they weren't the direct subject of a particular incident.
And yet, I still don't think treating an attack on [everyone in a protected group] should be treated differently. I understand that once upon a time, not so long ago, some states turned a blind eye toward violent acts, or threats of violence, against minorities. I understand that some localities may still, and I expect imperfections will linger in perpetuity. But if the problem is that a higher level of government hasn't codified a particular act as a crime, then codify it. Don't paint in broad strokes. Don't elevate one group (or groups) as more protected than another. Ted Kazinsky hated mainstream culture, certainly engaged in what could be defined as bias intimidation against mainstream society, and yet, no hate crime. It's an unjust law, and it's time for it to go.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
How so?
Close... it's not when someone wants to hurt/kill another because of such things, "bias intimidation" laws are supposed to be when someone wants to hurt/kill multiple people beyond the original crime. For example, burning cross is only in one victim(s) yards, but is mean to hurt/kill people in the neighborhood.
No, you're not correct. Have you ever read any of the actual hate crime legislation? There are multiple state laws, and overlapping federal ones. All provide for punitive enhancements for crimes in which the victim was selected "because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person." None of them include your 'hurts multiple people' aspect as an actual part of the language. While it's probably accurate to say that such is one of the intentions behind the law, it's not the actual law.
not at all. many straight males find male gay behavior disconcerting to offensive. no, they are not gay. ironically, it makes the claim that being gay is not good by hurling it as an ad hominem at those who find gays' behavior/cues uncomfortable.
This is not the same thing as closet case syndrome.
Not at all since rape is an assault, whereas I'm talking about distaste and discomfort. Not everyone is going to like you, no matter what you are or are not. That's life. Tolerance is multilateral. We should encourage youth to learn these lessons so they don't go to extremes in order to shield their lack of emotional control, whether as a target or as a bully. This would minimize the damage all around.
these 'victim castes' we are building do not help the situation, and many individuals within them take advantage of it for their own benefit. I have no sympathy for those sorts, esp for the ones who then go out of their way to make others uncomfortable.
I didn't say the wording of the law. You specifically wrote "Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc." and that is not the perspective. I specifically replied with supposed to be.
In other words, nobody ever says it's worse to kill a black person than a white person. Maybe a small percentage do, but not those who write laws.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
1. The cues I'm talking about aren't exactly easy to hide.. If you're one of these, you're probably not as cloaked as you think.
2. Ok, well if broadcasting like that is meant to be used as identification, then I see no problem with non-members of said group using the information to keep them away if desired. The issue I have is I'm being told by schooling/pop culture/law that I must like these people and want to be around them no matter what, and keep my internal responses private, while they can choose to discriminate against 'breeders' like me all they like, labeling them with 'homophobia' if they dare say something. While these situations are rare, it has happened to me in ultra-liberal organizations, and that proves, given the opportunity, gays can be just as 'hateful' as any other cross section. Btw, this 'not-really-reverse discrimination' applies to many axes, not just gay/straight.
3. so, you want others to accept you with open arms and care about your feelings/quirks without justification, but you expect justification from others' quirks concerning you? Do you not see the hypocrisy here? Where do you think the bullying comes from? The systemic hatred of gays? It's got to be rooted deeper than simple social indoctrination. My anecdotal experience has several examples of gay males doing just that: accusing me (and others) of discrimination when their performance is critiqued. I have no respect for this, and these people deserve the negative feedback they get for hiding behind it. Judging based on relevant attributes is exactly what I want, as far as the law and institutional opportunities go, but none of the victim caste groups push for this. they push only for entitlements based on assumed defaults of repression.. that will NEVER build equitable systems.
4. I meant appeal to fear, not force.. I used the wrong term. While it's true that most people don't literally mean appeal to fear when they use the word (they mean hatred), but that's because the word has been coopted by people who DO want both implications.. basically, it means dislike = fear and thus not justified no matter what. it's a character attack used on anyone who questions..
what are you even talking about? you're all over the map. what points are you trying to make?
Nice going in this thread.
Invasion of privacy is not a crime
You're right! It's not.
What do you mean? It was a crime. Many of the things you do as "pranks" in college are crimes. Just because something is juvenile doesn't make it not a crime. I did tons of shit in college that were crimes and I was never convicted of anything - but that doesn't make them not crimes.
Sure it is. Unless you're arguing that catching and punishing every single one of these juvenile "criminals" for their "crimes" would actually make the world a better place?
Can you imagine a United States in which every single crime was immediately caught, tried, and punished? Everybody in the country would be in jail.
Stop apologizing for the police state. Setting up a web cam in one's own dorm room is not and never should be a crime. Nobody is going to argue or arrest me into believing otherwise.
(1) You're not in a position to question me on this point. I was in the closet for long enough to know what I'm talking about and to know what people think of my sexual orientation. I do not act effeminate--no girly hand gestures, word choice, voice, focus on fashion, excessive displays of emotion, .... A few months ago I remember meeting a friend of a friend briefly, and he simply assumed I was straight, in that he made a joke involving my hypothetical girlfriend (I corrected it to "boyfriend" and the conversation moved on). I have several similar anecdotes. People who knew me when I was in the closet assumed I was straight or asexual with two exceptions. One was a math person who didn't want to assume I was interested in her or women in general though who was unsure enough to express her interest in me, and the other was the most perceptive person I've ever known. To my knowledge, and I've made a point of tracking this, nobody has ever just assumed I was gay. Hah, I just remembered a gay guy who thought I was straight when I was in the closet.
(2) I dislike the term "breeder" (except as a joke). You don't have to like gay men no matter what; that's just preposterous. Hell, I find some particularly effeminate gay men annoying (by the way, I like masculine men), since it seems like they want everything they say and do to announce as loudly as possible "I AM GAY", as if we didn't get the message the first twenty times, which is just stupid. In general you should have good reasons for disliking a person, and they you. "I don't like effeminate gay men" is just as bad as "I don't like black people" unless you have a good reason for the former statement (note my justification for my annoyance above).
(3) No, I don't want others to accept me with open arms and care about my feelings/quirks without justification. I want them to care as little that I'm gay as I care that they're straight. Societal apathy towards homosexuality is what I want. You call my gayness a "quirk"; to me, it's like having brown hair. I don't have to accept other people's brown hair--there's just no need. I don't see any hypocrisy in my view. By the way, I don't have a solid opinion on hate crime laws. I see them in a similar light to affirmative action--maybe useful for a while, but maybe harmful in the long run.
(4) I'm curious, do you dislike gay people in general? Do you dislike effeminate gay men? If so, why? I agree that many people use "homophobe" the way you describe, but also try to remember that most people who support gay rights are not gay (which is a simple consequence of the tiny fraction of gay people), so most people who misuse "homophobe" in that way are not gay. In your particular case maybe you've just met some annoying gay guys, but listening to you, maybe you're the problem in those interactions. It depends on the "why" above.
I'll ask again. Have you actually read any of the specific laws -- that is text of any actual hate crime legislation? Or since you bring it up, have you read any of the actual legislative history of any federal or state hate crime laws? From your comments so far, it does not seem like you have.
She would not sleep in the same room because I might "try something"
Next time try mentioning that you frequent /.
Did anyone force him to be gay? YES. It's a genetic predisposition.
If you are going to claim it is a genetic disposition provide some evidence as they haven't seemed to have found it mapping the human genome. Even some well known gay activists seem to be getting off the born gay gravy train as the position is only tenable if you are a moron. /. moderation? I suspect it has more to do with the agendas of the submitter and the moderators.
If someone commits suicide I couldn't give a flying fuck. Is it because a webcam was used that this story got through
I don't come here to read about some weak pathetic gay guy killing himself because this is Slashdot - News for nerds and not Rainbow brigade - News for Gaybos.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Are you trying to claim that black men are having sex with white women? OMG when will it all stop. Think I will have to kill myself.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I appreciate how you stand up for the dignity of gays everywhere. Just keep in mind that I also expect you to deliver the same courtesy to zoophiles and pedophiles - because they, also, did not choose their sexuality. While pedophiles and zoophiles are different from homosexuals in that they must pledge and commit to abstain from their desires, this makes them no less of a person that requires dignity and respect from others.
You defend gays, but the next rung on the ladder are those I described above. Believe me, the next sexual revolution is coming. It wasn't long ago that homosexuality was listed in the DSM-IV as a mental illness, and they won't be the last ones to be stricken from that manual.
(Imagine it was you that was only attracted to little boys. It's not your fault. If you have never transgressed with a little boy (well, maybe when you were a little boy yourself would be ok), then your will to resist your sexual impulses should be applauded, and even honored, as one of those silent, perpetual battles that rage beneath the surface of society.)
Yes, I'm biased.
OK you've taken what I said and changed it to something else - the police state. I totally agree that our country's police state is awful. No, I don't think the world is a better place for such ideas.
That being said, I disagree, as most people do, that using a webcam to spy on someone, and broadcast it publicly, should not be a crime. Something that does no harm to others should not be a crime, and whatever the fuck one does in the privacy of their own home/dorm is their own business. That's not what happened in this case. Someone invaded the privacy of someone else's home/dorm (even though they shared it), and broadcast what they were doing in the privacy of their home/dorm to the internet with the intent to invade someone else's privacy. This is not a case of you setting up a webcam in your own home/dorm. You do not, and should not, have the right to do whatever the hell you want to your roommate, just because you also share the home/dorm.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
And I'll repeat again. This is what you wrote:
Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
You did not comment on the law, you commented on the perspective that bias intimidation laws are actually meant to be laws that make some people more important than others. And I told you, correctly, that such a perspective is flat out wrong. The intent of the laws, regardless of what actually happens via their application, is to enable a punishment of people who want to intimidate and hurt minorities.
FYI, I understand why you or others would come to the conclusion that hate crime laws are unjust. It can seem like it does make it worse to kill a black person than it is a white person. Perhaps a regular mugging of a person who turned out later to be gay can be punished worse, by luck of the draw, that they were gay even though the mugger didn't know it. What I am telling you is not that the actual specific laws cannot let this injustice happen - they unfortunately can - what I am telling you is that it's not the reason such laws were created. And you explicitly implied that it was the reason/perspective that the laws were created.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
And like all other acceptable pieces of legislation, has been distorted to be what law enforcement/the prosecution wants it to mean at any particular time.
This was clearly not a hate crime. The target was an individual firstly. And the offence would be no different an offence if the guest had been an older man, an older woman, or some young woman in the same school (though the ultimate result may have differed). That Clementi committed suicide is unfortunate, but hardly Ravi's fault.
Hardly Ravi's fault!? Give me a break, fscker...
Signed, bi-sexual and victim of school teasing / bullies
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
You were a school bully, weren't you? Well, it's your kind who ruined large part of my youth - thank <deity /> I was *strong*, because not everyone survives through this. Everyone knows bullying is wrong, but nothing is done to stop it - really, most of the time it's treated just like you did there, with light talk about college "pranks", only most people realize that something is not funny when someone makes a suicide unlike you, but they still mostly fail to realize that bullying is a serious crime that often has long lasting, even permanent negative effects on victims life.
So don't give me this crap, jock boy - because I believe that bullying should be treated with severe punishments, not laughed off and labeled under "college pranks".
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
That's not homophobic in and of itself. Not without more context. (I hope you realize that)
If that's not homophobic, then what is? That my friend is pretty much a school book example for homophobic, and I fail to understand how you could possibly not see that.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Yes you're talking about legislative intent, and I happen to research federal and state legislative intent professionally. There are any number of documents that can be used to determine legislative intent: congressional records, hearings, etc. The history on these laws dates back to the 1960s, at least.
Since you've avoided an easy, direct question twice now, it seems clear that you haven't even read of the actual hate crime legislation and just aren't comfortable copping to this.
So from what writings, exactly, did you arrive at your opinion as to the legislative intent here? Because it also seems like you haven't read any of the material pertaining to the legislative intent, either. So if you haven't read the law, and if you haven't read the legislative history that indicates legislative intent... well it leaves me puzzled as to why you would claim to know what the legislative intent is, here.
I'll be happy if you can show me otherwise, but I simply don't think your opinion on this matter is an informed one.
Hate crimes have a very real distinction. They're intended to intimidate a subset of your community, that's why they're elevated. ....
Well Said....
Completely agree, however now, it's time for those laws to go off of the books. Those laws do more to segregate than integrate at this point. Per the justices that helped push civil rights along. They didn't agree with them, but they felt at that time they were needed. Not anymore so much now...
So you're telling me you research legislative intent for a living? And when you wrote your original statement, you were blatantly stating that the legislative intent was to make gays and blacks more important than whites? Then when I disagreed that such was the legislative intent, your response is that you directly asked me about something other than legislative intent? I never was talking about anything other than legislative intent.
I simply don't believe you. If you really do such a thing professionally, then you wouldn't have come to the conclusion that the legislative intent of bias intimidation laws were to make blacks and gays more important than others.
Since you've avoided an easy, direct question twice now
I have never once been talking about anything other than legislative intent - to do so would be falling into your strawman argument.
I'll be happy if you can show me otherwise, but I simply don't think your opinion on this matter is an informed one.
Ha - you're the one who does it professionally and came to the conclusion that the legislative intent of bias intimidation laws are that hurting blacks and gays is worse than hurting other people. It isn't - it is meant to be a punishment for intending to cause fear/intimidation/psychological harm/etc to a group of people. Typical example is a burning cross in a yard is simple property damage, but the intimidation to the neighborhood didn't have a crime against it. So bias intimidation laws are a response to that. Just because there are contrary and unjust examples to the laws application doesn't change its intent.
Oh, and you didn't show any evidence to your statements, either. I did some work for the HRC (gay mafia as you'd probably call it) which is why I'm so informed on this stuff.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Wouldnt you want the entire world to know if you are having sex with someone? i mean, if not.. why bother? hm, maybe cuz its like shooting needles with junkies having casual sex with strangers.. that could be it.. i dunno.
You believe that gay DNA stuff? Why would anyone bet on a horse that's bound to loose by the odds? DNA? One of the original scientists of DNA says black people are not as smart as white people, is that true too? or do you and the modern science religion only choose to believe whats convenient?
And when you wrote your original statement, you were blatantly stating that the legislative intent was to make gays and blacks more important than whites?
That's the grandparents poster's statement, not mine. My first response in this thread was to disagree with what you're paraphrasing, in fact. (Go ahead, check.) Either that, or you're just finding it easier to take issue with something you've simply made up whole cloth.
I'm guessing you're personally upset at at being called out on not having read *any* of the actual legal sources. You haven't said otherwise, and your position indicates this as well. You seem insulted that I've dared pointed out that you haven't read squat on a subject you tried to "correct" me on. If it is actually true that you haven't read any legislative material on it... do try to get over it, please.
As for the rest of your comment, I think the obvious piece you're failing to understand is that the legislative intent of any given law is intimately tied to the actual text of said enacted law. While there is a lot of non-legislative commentary on the community effects of hate crime, such as that from the ADL, you'll note that the term "legislative intent" of course requires a legislature.The ADL and other such secondary commentators are not legislatures... so whatever their positions are, they are not indicative of "legislative intent."
Your position would be analogous to claiming that the primary legislative intent for, say, criminal laws against stabbing someone with a knife, is to keep the community at large from becoming too uneasy. Well no, that's not *the* or even a main point, but anti-stabbing laws do have that effect as well.
While it's accurate to note that community effect is a beneficial side effect of hate crime law, the actual legislative work has focused on the prohibition of crimes (crimes against persons, not harm against communities) motivated by certain characteristics such as race, religion, sex, etc. Hate crime laws are usually amendments to or replace the more general civil rights acts that prohibit discrimination.The consistent legislative intent of hate crime law is to condone harmful bigotry, and enhance redress for such individuals who have been violently victimized because of such bigotry.
And when you wrote your original statement, you were blatantly stating that the legislative intent was to make gays and blacks more important than whites?
That's the grandparents poster's statement, not mine. My first response in this thread was to disagree with what you're paraphrasing, in fact. (Go ahead, check.) Either that, or you're just finding it easier to take issue with something you've simply made up whole cloth.
Here is what you wrote: Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc. I am saying that is not the perspective it's coming from. It's coming from the perspective that prosecutors were unable to punish the effects of a burning cross placed in a yard above and beyond a property damage. I know some people at the HRC who actually work on what we're talking about - and I've never met a person who thinks the way you phrased that sentence. Nobody thinks it's worse to kill a black or gay than a white. It's not "even worse", it's just a separate crime to intimidate a minority, regardless of the original crime.
And like I've said, I am under no illusion that my description of perspective is necessarily how the laws are enforced. Wiretapping laws were never intended to prevent citizens from recording public government officials (cops) carrying out their duties, yet years later here we are.
I'm guessing you're personally upset at at being called out on not having read *any* of the actual legal sources. You haven't said otherwise, and your position indicates this as well. You seem insulted that I've dared pointed out that you haven't read squat on a subject you tried to "correct" me on. If it is actually true that you haven't read any legislative material on it... do try to get over it, please.
Why do you think I'm personally upset? I'm not. This is a random /. conversation. Hugs?? I don't have provable evidence that I am informed. Anyways, I have read parts of some laws. And I worked with people who were not legislators but, I guess the right term were lobbyists (not the term they used).
the legislative intent of any given law is intimately tied to the actual text of said enacted law.
I was just using your term, legislative intent. You said that the legislation comes from the perspective that it's worse to kill blacks than whites. You keep getting back to the actual text of said laws and their enforcement, which I am in complete agreement do not have the expected results of the people who wanted it in the first place. This conversation is getting blown out of proportions.
Your position would be analogous to claiming that the primary legislative intent for, say, criminal laws against stabbing someone with a knife, is to keep the community at large from becoming too uneasy.
No, that is only analogous if the primary intent of a stabbing law is to keep the community at large from being uneasy. Obviously, it isn't. Bias intimidation laws were wanted by people because there were no existing or inadequately existing laws against it.
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Anyways I don't hate you and I agree with what a lot of you're saying. I'm talking about perspectives here, which is an unprovable point. I have a lot of experience to defend such perspectives, namely working with the HRC. I am simply trying to disprove the mistaken line of thought that liberals and/or gays think that it's worse to kill a black or gay person than a white person.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Of course we tolerate it.
Blacks commit 450,000 violent crimes per year on whites alone. They commit tens of thousands of violent bias crimes per year, yet these attacks are never prosecuted as hate crimes.
You said that the legislation comes from the perspective that it's worse to kill blacks than whites.... I am simply trying to disprove the mistaken line of thought that liberals and/or gays think that it's worse to kill a black or gay person than a white person.
NO, I did not say this. Nor would I, because I do not agree with this. It's annoying that you continue to attribute this perspective to me, since I disagree with it. Someone else made that comment; I disagreed and responded to their statement. How can you possibly not understand this? Your disagreement on that point lies with someone else. Go find the person who actually believes that, and if you disagree, respond to them. You know, like I did in the first place.
Hate crime legislation comes from the perspective that, while it's bad enough for a person to want to hurt or kill another, it's even worse when someone wants to hurt or kill another because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
Do you really not understand what this means? It means it's a worse crime if the reason for it is because of bigotry against a victim's race, gender, etc.This means that it's "worse" for someone to kill someone because they're black AND it's just as equally "worse" to kill someone because they're white. It would also be a hate crime if a gay person killed a straight person because they hated straight people. The point of hate crime law is that the criminal is motivated by bigotry. This does not mean only bigotry against minorities counts, nor does anything I've said mean that either. Now please, stop with this "omg you said it means blacks and gays are more important!" No I didn't, because I'm well aware that hate crime legislation doesn't do that at all. Someone else said and apparently thinks that, but not me. So ffs, enough!
I'm not sure if you're doing it intentionally to annoy me, or if you really just don't understand that you're confusing someone else's opinion with mine. But as long as you continue to repeat this demonstrably false attribution, continuing to respond to you will just be a waste of my time.
OK! Not trying to piss you off. Glad you don't think that. We just got sidetracked. Have a nice day!
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Thanks, glad to hear I wasn't being trolled. Sorry if I got snippy, it all started with your initial, ah, 'correction'.
Just to fully clear things up, while your gay mafia comment seemed to imply otherwise, you should know that I would commend you or anyone else for that matter who has worked with the HRC for their efforts. In an earlier job, I had a bit part that served as tangential support for In re: Marriage Cases, feel lucky to have had the chance to do such work, and proud to see the evolution of public perception on the issue, even in just the four years since.
South Park hits it on the nose. Again.
Judge: "I am making an example of you to send a message out to people everywhere: that if you want to hurt another human being, you'd better make damn sure they're the same color as you are."
You are basically giving extra protection to some people - but not all. I'm not cool with that.
If someone killed themselves because a straight sex tape were released, I would have the same reaction, but that is really never going to happen, because society doesn't have a problem with it. Yes, some people are getting extra protection, because they need it. Straight people don't need protection, because nobody is attacking them for it.
You might have skipped out on your HS history, but back in the 1960s, the military was called out to protect black kids when integrated schooling was forced upon the south. You have a problem with that? Perhaps those black children would have been fine without armed soldiers to keep the screaming racists from attacking and perhaps lynching a few.
It is regrettable that we as a society are not past the point where something like sexual orientation determines how someone is treated. But until we are, we need to protect those who would be marginalized and abused by sending a strong message to aggressors that this is not acceptable.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
It's also something that a lot of terrorists seem to lack.
"Hardly" - It is not just hardly his fault. The action led directly to those consequences. You are telling me that shaming a man for sleeping with another man - and he kills himself - and that's not a hate crime - and it was hardly his fault? Are you on the defense team because I am getting that you are against all allegations against the man, for whatever reason. Seems to be either an incidental hate crime or one in which he was more negligent than aggravated... but I can't tell you if he meant to shame him for being gay or not. "Just kidding" doesn't cut it, he didn't know he was gay?
At what point of setting up a camera and recording are you responsible for your actions - something has to be done, at least there was a trial.
"Justice" - that word means whatever you want to make it mean. You can make justice an eye for an eye or even harsher if you say that is "justice" where ever you may be. Revenge and justice - who cares? The dead man isn't trying to take revenge. Given there is probation, counseling and other attachments to the short sentence, I'm okay with that. There is a potential there to land in prison for 3 years - or his life can be saved if he's not really dumb enough to do it again if he didn't actually mean to do it.
Anytime someone dies it's hard to swallow 30 days + attachments is enough to even resemble justice when there is a chain of events where said person on trial is along the chain of events that led up to such a situation.
Get your Unix fortune now!