Once it had been explained to me, I found it pretty simple.
When you single out a group of people as a target for hatred and violence, you assault a whole community (where "assault", legally speaking, includes "threatening"). So we made a law to make it clear that inciting hatred against a visible group of people is a crime.
So if you beat up a black guy or a brown guy or a gay guy, you're only guilty of "aggravated assault". That means, basically, "causing bodily harm".
But if you repeatedly assault members of the same group over and over again in a way that intimidates others of that group, well, you're not just guilty of aggravated assault in each case, but of "assault" against the whole community. Y'know, seeing as they all have to worry about crazy ass bigots beating them up.
Not complicated.
Unless of course, you've got your blinders full on like these guys over at Christian Governance.
Then it's all about how those pansy-ass liberals are bent on keeping the poor, beleagured white male down. Oh, poor white males! How ever will they cope?!
Showing posts with label Hate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hate. Show all posts
Monday, November 01, 2010
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Terrorist or Asshole
It occurs to me, after engaging in a discussion on Morton's blog, that we have to distinguish between two types of people: the terrorist and the asshole.
It's useful to have a definition of a terrorist: a person who uses violence or the threat of violence to create political change or change in public opinion.
The subject of the discussion on Morton's blog was that of honour killings. If a man kills his daughter for wearing the wrong clothes or courting the wrong suitor, is this an act of a terrorist, or is he merely an asshole? (We take it as read, here, that he is at least an asshole.)
Does this constitute an act of terrorism?
A lot of that depends on how we weasel the definition. If this act of assholery has the effect of intimidating other women from making the clothing and courting choices they truly want, the effect is that of terrorism. But did the guy who murdered his daughter intend that effect, or did he just go off in a murderous, punitive rage and only incidentally have that effect?
If he were to take his petulant child and, as the bible advises, bring her before the town and have her put to death, we could definitely conclude that he is a terrorist. He, and any townspeople helping him, are intentionally using violence to intimidate others in to obeying their moral code. That would be terrorism.
But if we include the unintentional effects of a violent act committed by an asshole and allow that to declare him a terrorist, I would think that pretty much every violent act would have to be called a terrorist act on account of the fact that violence is always intimidating.
This is probably why the designation of "hate crime" had to be created. We judge the crime not only on the intent or the result, but on that shady region in between, where the victim was chosen because of her membership in a group (young women, possibly "young women of a certain culture") and the effect of the assault was to intimidate others of the same group. Additionally, the violence is part of a system of behaviour that intrinsically intimidates that group.
So. Honour killers are terrorists? I don't think so (though I'm not married to not thinking so). But they are assholes and deserve extra time in jail for participating in a hate crime.
It's useful to have a definition of a terrorist: a person who uses violence or the threat of violence to create political change or change in public opinion.
The subject of the discussion on Morton's blog was that of honour killings. If a man kills his daughter for wearing the wrong clothes or courting the wrong suitor, is this an act of a terrorist, or is he merely an asshole? (We take it as read, here, that he is at least an asshole.)
Does this constitute an act of terrorism?
A lot of that depends on how we weasel the definition. If this act of assholery has the effect of intimidating other women from making the clothing and courting choices they truly want, the effect is that of terrorism. But did the guy who murdered his daughter intend that effect, or did he just go off in a murderous, punitive rage and only incidentally have that effect?
If he were to take his petulant child and, as the bible advises, bring her before the town and have her put to death, we could definitely conclude that he is a terrorist. He, and any townspeople helping him, are intentionally using violence to intimidate others in to obeying their moral code. That would be terrorism.
But if we include the unintentional effects of a violent act committed by an asshole and allow that to declare him a terrorist, I would think that pretty much every violent act would have to be called a terrorist act on account of the fact that violence is always intimidating.
This is probably why the designation of "hate crime" had to be created. We judge the crime not only on the intent or the result, but on that shady region in between, where the victim was chosen because of her membership in a group (young women, possibly "young women of a certain culture") and the effect of the assault was to intimidate others of the same group. Additionally, the violence is part of a system of behaviour that intrinsically intimidates that group.
So. Honour killers are terrorists? I don't think so (though I'm not married to not thinking so). But they are assholes and deserve extra time in jail for participating in a hate crime.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Why did we create "Hate Crime"?
This is something that has mystified me for some time. Why did we need to create a category of criminal behaviour called "Hate Crime"?
If I hand you a knife and say "go stab that guy", it should be completely irrelevant why I told you to do it. What does the motivation matter? I'm encouraging you to go and commit an assault. Whether I did it because I believe homosexuals are evil or because Allah told me to do it is entirely beside the point.
If I stand up on a soap box in public and exhort listening throngs of people to go commit acts of violence against homosexuals, an ethnic minority, disabled people, Anglicans or abortion providers, I should also go to jail. It shouldn't have anything to do with "hatred". What matters is that I'm an accessory to violence and assault.
Now if I read this analysis, which is a legal opinion I suppose, the implication here is that - in point of fact - before bill C-250 existed it was actually legal in Canada to advocate mass murder and encourage your followers to commit acts of violence against other members of society.
Really? Is that really, honestly true that, in Canada, before bill C-250, I could stand on a box in the middle town, frothing at the mouth, and declare that all homosexuals ought to be rounded up and stoned?
If that's the case, then damn right we needed a law. I just have difficulty believing that our legal system had missed such an obvious flaw for such a long time. That's not the case for, say, dueling. The Canadian Criminal Code, article 71, punishes dueling, provoking a duel and encouraging another to provoke a duel.
What bothers me though, assuming we needed this law, are the exceptions such as:
So a guy standing on a box declaring that Jews are bad for the economy and we ought to get rid of them goes to jail (damn right). But a guy standing behind a piece of wood in a pointy building declaring that all homosexuals ought to be stoned to death doesn't go jail. (Huh?)
That seems pretty counterintuitive. What if a guy argues from a pulpit that the bible says that Jews are bad and that the bible says we ought to get rid of them? Does that become acceptable speech?
It seems that if encouraging this sort of chaotic violence against other people is illegal, it ought to be illegal for anyone to encourage this sort of chaotic violence against anyone else. There ought not to be exceptions because you really, really believe god wants you to do it.
If I hand you a knife and say "go stab that guy", it should be completely irrelevant why I told you to do it. What does the motivation matter? I'm encouraging you to go and commit an assault. Whether I did it because I believe homosexuals are evil or because Allah told me to do it is entirely beside the point.
If I stand up on a soap box in public and exhort listening throngs of people to go commit acts of violence against homosexuals, an ethnic minority, disabled people, Anglicans or abortion providers, I should also go to jail. It shouldn't have anything to do with "hatred". What matters is that I'm an accessory to violence and assault.
Now if I read this analysis, which is a legal opinion I suppose, the implication here is that - in point of fact - before bill C-250 existed it was actually legal in Canada to advocate mass murder and encourage your followers to commit acts of violence against other members of society.
Really? Is that really, honestly true that, in Canada, before bill C-250, I could stand on a box in the middle town, frothing at the mouth, and declare that all homosexuals ought to be rounded up and stoned?
If that's the case, then damn right we needed a law. I just have difficulty believing that our legal system had missed such an obvious flaw for such a long time. That's not the case for, say, dueling. The Canadian Criminal Code, article 71, punishes dueling, provoking a duel and encouraging another to provoke a duel.
What bothers me though, assuming we needed this law, are the exceptions such as:
A person could not be convicted if:
"in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject."
So a guy standing on a box declaring that Jews are bad for the economy and we ought to get rid of them goes to jail (damn right). But a guy standing behind a piece of wood in a pointy building declaring that all homosexuals ought to be stoned to death doesn't go jail. (Huh?)
That seems pretty counterintuitive. What if a guy argues from a pulpit that the bible says that Jews are bad and that the bible says we ought to get rid of them? Does that become acceptable speech?
It seems that if encouraging this sort of chaotic violence against other people is illegal, it ought to be illegal for anyone to encourage this sort of chaotic violence against anyone else. There ought not to be exceptions because you really, really believe god wants you to do it.
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