Hate Crimes

3 Pages 757 Words

Crime is bad, plain and simple. White on white, black on black, white on black, other on other, it is all illegal. Crime is crime, a murder is a murder no matter how you slice it. “Hate” is a popular term used these days to enhance certain crimes, action, or speech. Hate is a feeling or thought you have toward something or someone, similar to any other emotion, but it is the only emotion used to label crimes. Hate crime labeling is in essence thought control performed by the United States Government. It is wrong and should stop immediately. Who is to say one cannot think or feel a certain way about anything. Hate ,in this case the motive, is the reason why a person commits a crime. The motive is rarely even used when punishing a criminal, only the act itself is looked at.
“Even if it is possible to determine the mind set in which a crime is committed, is it appropriate in a free society for the government to punish people for their inner motivations, [or] feelings?” (Barbara Dority). When a court decides to label a crime with “hate” they are really persecuting against the criminal’s personal identity. The courts, in all reality, are not supposed to do this according to precidents set in our governments history. The First Amendment clearly states freedom of speech. With speech must also come thought. The only one who can say why a person did an action is the person himself.
In context, crime is a gross violation of the law and hate is hostile feelings towards someone or something. Together, hate crime, is any of various crimes (as assault or defacement of property) when motivated my hostility to the victim as a member of a group (Marriam-Webster). The emotion of hate is no different than any other emotion such as greed, lust, or jealousy. For instance, a white male member of the Ku Klux Klan shoots and kills a black man and his wife. Also a white man finds his wife in bed with another man and shoots a...