http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul385.html

Unconstitutional Legislation Threatens Freedoms

by Ron Paul

Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called “hate crimes.” The legislation defines a hate crime as an act of violence committed against an individual because of the victim’s race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Federal hate crime laws violate the Tenth Amendment’s limitations on federal power. Hate crime laws may also violate the First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech and religion by criminalizing speech federal bureaucrats define as “hateful.”

There is no evidence that local governments are failing to apprehend and prosecute criminals motivated by prejudice, in comparison to the apprehension and conviction rates of other crimes. Therefore, new hate crime laws will not significantly reduce crime. Instead of increasing the effectiveness of law enforcement, hate crime laws undermine equal justice under the law by requiring law enforcement and judicial system officers to give priority to investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. Of course, all decent people should condemn criminal acts motivated by prejudice. But why should an assault victim be treated by the legal system as a second-class citizen because his assailant was motivated by greed instead of hate?

HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts. Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts – as opposed to willful criminal acts – is inconsistent with a free society.

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Hate crime legislation is redundant and not needed. It is already a crime to commit a violent act against someone. The reason someone commits a violent act may be important to the victim but it does not negate or validate the crime. If I shoot my neighbor because he is gay is that more of a crime than if I shoot him because he is a child molester? Some might say that the former reason is a "hate crime" and the latter is justified but either way a crime has been committed.

Agreed. All violent crimes are hateful and could be deemed as hate crimes. And all crimes deserve equal justice. Choosing a special group to receive more justice than the remainder of society creates second class victims.

I wouldn't say that it is more of a crime but I also would not compare a gay person to a child molester. A gay person has not done anything wrong and a child molester has.

My post was not meant to compare a gay person to a child molester it was to compare the 'reason' for the crime. The point was, some people hate gays, some hate child molesters but does it really matter in the end? If I shoot someone I have committed a crime period, end of story.

I understood what you meant. It just touched a nerve because gay people are often linked with or assumed to be child molesters.

This kind of legislation is the type of thing that broadens the divide between the races, sexual orientation, etc.

This seems to be the goal of our legislators. Maintain the penny ante in-fighting to keep the eyes and mind off of the govt's shady practices.

True equality can never be attain if a certain class of people have legal dominion over another. Every person deserves EQUAL justice under the law.

Is the plan to continue attacking every single piece of legislation from Congress as unconstitutional under the tenth amendment? Its getting obnoxious. I don't know the ins and outs of this statue, but it would most likely pass constitutional muster because it is a sentencing factor. Explaining that concept would take way more space than I have here. Simply put it would stand very easily if it were a sentencing factor, because it only applies to federal criminal statues already enacted. Its not like federal prosecutors would intervene in state cases and demand a certain punishment. The feds could prosecute under duel sovereignty, but they aren't telling the states what to do.

While we're at it lets get rid of mandatory minimums and the war on drugs. They're even more rediculous than the hate crimes legislation.

We live in a free country ..... What a lie!!!
Freedom of speech was just killed ....... Again!!

"The Constitution is just a GD piece of paper." -G.W. BUSH-
(He should have been swinging at the end of a rope for that one!!)

That one and then some.

And they're stupid laws to boot.

If I kill someone I get X number of years in prison.

If I hate whom I killed I get X+ number of years in prison!

Ya just can't fix stupid now can you?

right....and cross-burning should be prosecuted by the fire code..

got it..

Question: do people kill people that they don't hate? So isn't every murder really a hate crime??? people assualt people they are angry (filled with hate?) toward, so is every violent crime really a hate crime?????


Anyone who has read my posts over the past almost year knows exactly where I stand on bigotry/bias/prejudice/racism/sexism. Having said that, there are freedoms that make us who we are as a nation, and free speech and free thought are huge. To turn speech into a crime is a huge step away from the Constitution. There is a lot of speech that I find offensive, even hateful. And that speech needs to be refuted not eradicated.

We will never eradicate hate. Keeping some in prison longer won't do any good.

I'm sorry, but hate speech leads to hate actions in a lot of instances. You would have your head in the sand to not know and see that. I do believe we have done better in last 20 years or so, however.

The only way to continue to do better is to teach our children to not hate. ceejay is right. It can be refuted.

The trouble is, who determines what "hate speech" really is?

Eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, Alec Baldwin said of Henry Hyde and Christians in general “if we were in another country… we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families”

Was that "hate speech" or Baldwin's right to "freedom of speech"?

If in the future, a minister preaches a sermon on his personal belief, that homosexual sex is immoral, is that "hate speech" or is it "freedom of speech"?

In countries, such as Canada, Sweden, etc. where hate crimes legislation has passed, it has been shown that prosecutions for speech follows. Those who might view homosexuality as immoral and express it as such have been prosecuted in both Canada and Sweden.

It is interesting that those people who would champion for equality in marriage, promote a gross inequality in justice.

Justice Potter Stewart said:


I think this is appropriate.