On November 4th, the movie Vincent Who? will be making it’s Los Angeles premiere. This documentary was developed and produced by the folks over at Asian Pacific Americans for Progress, and if you are in Southern California I highly recommend that you come.
Over 25 years ago, the hate crime murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit galvanized the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. This new 40-minute documentary, winner of the Media Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education, looks back at the movement that started from the case and asks how far we have come and how far we still need to go.[apap]
The story of Vincent Chin’s horrible murder is an important historical event marking how hate crime policies developed for the APIA community. The movie traces the event and how little is remembered about this landmark case. Chin’s story is one that as South Asian Americans, we can all relate to. Every few months it seems another story of a hateful crime against a South Asian comes through the Sepia Mutiny bunker. It feels repetitive to write stories about hijabs getting pulled, brass knuckle beatings, or the murder of 26 yr. old Satendar Singh for being in a park. But these are the stories occurring in our community that deserve to be told.
Today also marked another historical landmark for hate crimes. After ten years of opposition and delay, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
[The legislation makes] it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. The new measure expands the the scope of a 1968 law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin. The U.S. Justice Department will have expanded authority to prosecute such crimes when local authorities don’t.[huffpost] The president had this to say at the commemorative event after the signing:
And that’s why, through this law, we will strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth. We will finally add federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. (Applause.) And prosecutors will have new tools to work with states in order to prosecute to the fullest those who would perpetrate such crimes. Because no one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love. No one in America should be forced to look over their shoulder because of who they are or because they live with a disability.[whitehouse]
The signing of this legislation marks an exciting day that many of community activists in the our community have worked long and hard for. Hopefully, the effects of the bill will make a significant improvement to how hate crimes are categorized and legislated on the ground.
Full disclosure: I make an appearance in the film talking about the importance of web organizing for getting the word out on hate crimes in the community. Should still be a good movie.
is this is an empirical case movie: i.e. that, controlling for all other factors, there is a strong correlation between the alleged deterrence effects of the Shepherd legislation and any positive trending in recorded attacks on gay and black individuals? Or is this a message movie?
I’ve yet to see it convincingly argued (supported by data) that hate-crime legislation makes the thorough investigation, responsible prosecution and appropriate sentencing of the killers of victims like Byrd and Shepherd any more or less difficult. There are always variables which legislation cannot anticipate. In Satender’s case, it was that the accused individual had a prefab international escape route and strong support network in the community–including, apparently, that of local law enforcement and judiciary.
What this bill fails to do is offer a practical risk-management suggestion: to know exactly where you actually have to look over your shoulder and do so diligently. If I am mugged over the weekend, it’s far more likely for it to be because my city jams the entertainment centers and public housing into the same geographic bowl, not because some rural squire thought I was AQ, and I cannot see any convincing assurance for my safety granted by the punitive penalties of hate-crime legislation. In an informal poll of the likeliest perpetrators of racially-motivated and violent crime, does one think that there will be a clear majority of hate-crime legislation scholars? Sociopaths who act on their feelings are rarely solicitous of the legal system’s sentencing guidelines.
I agree with Nayagan that with regard to victims of actual crimes the bill makes no difference. The laws are there already to prosecute the perpetrators of such crimes. But look this sentence from Obama’s speech at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-reception-commemorating-enactment-matthew-shepard-and-james-byrd- “You understood that we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear” That is to say ‘hate speech’ will now count as an actual physical crime – THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT – TO CRIMINALIZE FREE SPEECH ON THE INTERNET – they are totally freaking out from so much previously hidden news and views coming out in an uncontrolled manner on the internet.
The first step was to shut down sites that were deemed to against National Security. This ”hate crimes’ bill is an attempt to silence genuine dissident views from being aired on the web on the grounds that it is hateful to Jews, or to homosexuals or some other minority group!
Again I ask, why do we need hate crimes legislation? What makes a crime committed out of race/religion/sexual hate worse than a crime committed out of regular hate.
Uh, …no. Definitely not all.
Basically I am more concerned about being mugged in a poor / minority (non-Indian) neighborhood. Getting beaten up by a racist is something I almost never think about, even when I travel in the South.
Because crimes committed due to hatred of particular classes of people are usually committed with a broader agenda in mind. For one thing, you’re more likely to do it again. For another thing, crimes motivated by ideology require a much firmer hand to put down than ones motivated by cupidity.
Trully awesome!
“Again I ask, why do we need hate crimes legislation? What makes a crime committed out of race/religion/sexual hate worse than a crime committed out of regular hate.”
I think the idea of hate crimes legislation is a lot like the need for women’s seats on a bus in India. (A discussion about spaces reserved for women going on here: http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/10/pink-taxi-pink-bus.html#links)
Obviously there is a problem going on if you need to make special legislation against hate crimes, the same if you need to make special seats for women. Both act as a stop-gap measure, where the real long erm issue that needs to be addressed are the mindsets of the people.
The whole notion of hate crimes legislation strikes me as thought crimes legislation. It’s abhorrent that people have hatred based on race/religion/sex/etc. It’s even more abhorrent that crimes are committed based on these opinions. But it’s not illegal to have such thoughts.
I have yet to see some justifiable reasons for hate crimes legislation. The reasons quoted above strike me as crime prevention akin to the movie Minority Report.
The “firmer hand” theory is, in my view, unjustified. A life of, say, an Indian committed by a racist is worth just as much as the life of an Indian killed by another Indian.
Also, if we’re going to enact laws with firmer hands, then shouldn’t we also enact tougher legislation for honor killings, gangland violence (regardless or how insignificant).
We have 3 strike legislation to deal with repeat offenders. We don’t need to get at them through the back door via hate crimes laws.
Get back to us after you get assaulted. I almost got the $hit beaten out of me in New York on the Lower East Side and there are many South Asian victims of hate murder. I have a problem with hate crimes legislation for different reasons (largely due to the fact that it will be dispropritioantely used against exactly the people you’re racist / classist against and also I think this particular bill is tied to a defense bill which is a wonder of myopia), but the idea that discrimination against South Asians in the United States is gone? That’s not reality-based.
There are plenty of reasons to not support hate crimes legislation – one of them being exactly that it is punitive in nature and avoids a discussion of how to develop better criminal justice practices like doing something besides throwing someone in jail forever. And because it is an anti-racist strategy or anti-homophobic or anti-sexist strategy that uses the criminal justice system, it depends on the fairness of the criminal justice system.
Further, Racists are people and most people are directly or indirectly supporting some kind of racist, and that needs to be understood – hate crimes legislation advocates sometimes don’t seem to understand that. But it’s a complicated issue – not cut and dry.
Why should hate crimes be treated differently ? Very simply because when it comes to the actual acting out of hatred in a violent manner (not just thinking about it, as some have stated as ‘thought crimes’) you are committing a form of terrorism.
When you commit a hate crime, you are singling someone out not for financial benefit but because they are different from you. When this act is committed, it affects not only that individual victim or their family, but the entire community to which that person belongs. It leaves everyone feeling threatened and targeted; unsafe and unwelcome.
The Southern states used the same excuses during Jim Crow – you can’t tell us how to think or act, let us take our own time to figure things out, etc etc. The Attorney General specifically stated that this will only be applied to actual incidents of violence, not for expressing your religious opinions on orientation or lifestyle.
To people who are against this legislation, it is a matter of high level ideology and rhetoric. To the ones who are getting attacked and beaten to death because of who they are, it is a matter of life and death.
The life of an Indian killed for any reason isn’t going to be brought back by punishing the killer. The punishment has nothing to do with the loss incurred, it has to do with what we consider to be the appropriate way of dealing with the perpetrator.
We draw lines differently based on whether you committed a crime of passion or the extent of premeditation. We draw distinctions on whether you kill someone in self-defense or not. And we draw distinctions as to whether you kill someone solely due to their race/ethnicity/religion versus other reasons. Calling it “thought policing” is a canard. You can hate anyone you want. That’s not illegal. It only becomes a hate crime when you commit a crime based on it. And why shouldn’t it? What’s going through one’s mind as they are committing a crime out of racial discrimination is fundamentally different from what goes through the mind of someone who is committing petty theft or somesuch. Moreover, the social damage is greater. If you value diversity in society, allowing gangs to target specific in order to squash that diversity is going to do more damage than petty theft or random murder would. With the latter all you’re taking is money and safety. With the former you’re taking money and safety and culture.
So given these empirical facts, you ought to be justifying why we shouldn’t regard the crimes differently.
The only real argument I see in that vein is that the enforcement of the law can be somewhat selective and arbitrary. So you’re unlikely to prosecute something as a hate-crime if you a group of Black men beat up a White guy and steal his laptop while shouting “Cracker!” But flip it around and it’s a hate-crime. That is a valid concern as are concerns of it being used as a way to play political games by having minority leaders rally support by trumping up charges. The general principle, however, is sound. It just needs to be ironed out at the edges.
Honor killings we probably should enact tougher legislation on. The penalties for gangland violence, however, are probably about as high as they can reasonably be. We’re at the point of diminishing returns there.
Yea, that’s exactly the wrong argument to make. If society wants to be “for” or “against” something, then let society be “for” or “against” it. The government doesn’t need to get involved. This mentality where we need to always be enacting laws to reinforce our personal mores is exactly what leads to wrong-headed and counterproductive drug laws, anti-abortion activism, anti-gay activism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and so on.
Laws should be enacted with a focus on promoting the general welfare and protecting people’s basic liberties. Not on trying to make people “better.” That kind of thinking inevitably leads to having the government coopted by moralizing busy-bodies.
Attaching the thought to a crime may help the law pass constitutional muster, but it doesn’t mean concerns over thought policing are a canard.. especially given the context of a world where non-violent expressions of such thoughts are punished (on left-wing US campuses) as well as in legislation drafted by the UN.
If we passed a law saying anyone who commits a crime and is motivated by a desire to to further a communist system will get additional punishment, such a law may not be a pure thought crime, since one must act on the thought in order to be punished, but it does thread very close to thought policing.
hilarious, manju. both the “left-wing us campus” and the un punishing somebody. very funny.
Another hilariously stupid decision. So called “positive discrimination” is still discrimination. If you kill a child, why does it make a difference if the child is white, black or yellow, or whether the child was killed because of his race or gender??
One huge step backwards. This decision reeks of racism.
One would think that crimes committed specifically with an eye towards overthrowing the social order would be more harshly than a crime committed without that in mind.
They’re trying to destroy and reshape society in their own image for God’s sake.
Excellent post. And some great comments, especially by Yoga Fire, regarding why certain crimes have different penalties than others.
Oh, and for those of you who think that hate crimes legislation is a form of racism…STFU and move to the back of the bus where you belong.
And Manju, seriously? Are you really trying to make a connection between hate-crime legislation and McCarthyism?
Student found guilty of racial harassment for reading a book.
UN attempts to make defamation of religion a violation of human rights.
I neglected to mention the most important context: the existence of not just hate crime laws, but indeed hate speech laws, in europe and canada… which has resulted in critics of islam, like macleans magazine and Oriana Fallaci, facing censorship from the state.
while the first amendment has effectively stopped such censors here in the US, that’s only because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians have pushed the left back. but they have gotten close. for example, 4 scotus justices in boy scouts vs. dale voted to effectively restrict the free speech rights of the boy scouts, in the name of anti-discrimination. that’s a close call and that’s why we should be concerned about thought policing.
Manju, you’re jumping at shadows. Every criminal statute has an intent element defined in the statute and/or by case law. A handful have strict liability–it doesn’t matter what your intent was (e.g., jaywalking). Others have extremely heightened intent that you knew the act was criminal (e.g., certain tax crimes involving violation of arcane regulations). And every violent crime has varying degrees of intent; that’s why negligent homicide is at one end of a spectrum that includes terrorist killings and assassination at the other.
So hate as much as you like. And spew forth your hate as much as you like. The First Amendment still protects you. Just don’t act on it or incite others to act on it.
I wish I had been brown in your world rather than my own such that I could hand wring in worry for the haters rather than breathe a sigh of relief that legislation, expressing collective societal standards of behavior, protects me against violence targeted against me because of my race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics that make me a bigger target. And that were such a thing to happen to me or my family members, that the retributive objective in particular of the criminal-justice system could be better achieved, proportionate to the nature of the evil that was inflicted. And it is a greater evil than just random violence because, as President Obama said as he signed the law, “[W]e must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits–not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear.”
attempting to overthrow the govt is crime. but committing a crime with the motive of furthering communism is a different breed, and should raise the concern of all civil libertarians.
for example, a pace university student was charged with a hate crime for stealing a koran and putting it in a toilet. normally it would’ve been a misdemeanor but the addition of a hate crime tranformed it into a felony, which in turn transformed the punishment from a fine to years in jail, if convicted.
now imagine if a commie stole a US flag and burned it and was sent to jail for years while people who merely stole flags got a fine. problematic, no?
Manju: Now those cases are incidence of actual attempts at thought policing. But do you think it helps or hinders the cause for personal liberty and minding your own business when people cry “wolf” for things like hate crime classifications that are only tangentially related at best?
Petty vandalism being given jail time is an idiotic law in the first place independent of whether it’s classified as a hate-crime or not. In that case you have an issue of the punishment being disproportionate to the crime. Not an issue of it being classified as a hate-crime.
i wasn’t thinking that but thats not a bad analogy. racial mccarthyism exists and i don’t want to a empower the anti-racist left, many of whom have very wide defintions of racism and have no love for the first amendment or indeed American freedoms in general, anymore than i want to empower joe mccarthy. add to that demagogues like al sharpton and you can have an explosive situation.
so, for example, speaking of Sharpton, he championed the case of megan williams, a black woman who allegeded rape and racism and recently recanted. her backers wanted the prosecutor to try the defendants on hate crime charges since they allegedly used racial slurs during the rape, but for some reason the prosecutor declined and got them convicted on just kidnapping and rape, though of coure now they may be set free.
but knowing demagogues like sharton exist, i don’t think its good for society to give them another weapon.
“If society wants to be “for” or “against” something, then let society be “for” or “against” it. The government doesn’t need to get involved. This mentality where we need to always be enacting laws to reinforce our personal mores is exactly what leads to wrong-headed and counterproductive drug laws, anti-abortion activism, anti-gay activism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and so on. “
if the government hadn’t forced southern schools to integrate (When most of society was “for” segregation) where would we be today? There is a difference between social mores and human rights…
its the hate crime which is a felony, not petty vandalism. that’s why spraying swastikas on a synagogue will get you time while just spaying graffiti does not. so the problem is with hate crimes.
linzi: int this case, the govt had mandated segregation in the first place, so the government action to undue it was a proper undoing of excessive government. jim crow was the law of the land, laws actively pushed and supported by the democratic party, i would like to gratuitously add.
yeah, Manju, my whole point was that people supported segregation but it was wrong, and a violation of human rights. I mean if society is “for” something, like killing (fill in the blank) or for creating systems of inequality, then whole is that ok. And who is “society” that is “for” it? If you are a minority who is a victim of this belief of society, you don’t have anyway to protect yourself against human rights violations, unless the government says “I know you guys all LOVE disciminating against people based on (fill in the blank), but you know what, it’s still wrong”
“then whole is that ok. ” delete that please… I don’t know what I was typing there… rushing off to work!
No, I said the problem you’re highlighting there is with the punishments being meted out being excessive. Not with the idea of classifying them as hate crimes. You can classify vandalism as a hate crime and have a slightly higher penalty for it. The reason I think the situations you outlined are unjust isn’t because it was classified as a hate crime, it was because I think the punishments are excessive even though they are hate crimes. It’s an issue of proportionality.
We should thank Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon from taking those assholes off our hands and giving them a new home in the Grand Ole Party.
Linzi, I did specify that I think laws should generally be geared towards “promoting the general welfare and protecting people’s basic liberties. Not on trying to make people “better.” That kind of thinking inevitably leads to having the government coopted by moralizing busy-bodies.”
Segregation kind of cuts directly against that what with its active denial of certain people’s liberties and its focus on diminishing the welfare of a segment of society.
Subodh: I concede that hate crime laws are most likely constitutional since they mimic laws that punish for intent, like premeditation. But these laws are moving closer to punishing someone for the content of their thought–for their values and belifs–in contrst to the mere fact they thought, like in prededitation. Its a blurry line no doubt, which is why you’re using a backwards slippery slope (“if we punish for that why not this”) wheras I’m using a regular slippery slope (“next they’ll come for the commies”) but at some point the line may be crossed. the pace u case and some others are getting there.
plus i wouldn’t want to rest on the first amendment. if it weren’t for the likes of scalia in the boy scouts case for example, a fundamental right would’ve been lost.thats why the context of macleans, falluci, the UN human rights council, etc is important…I don’t want these asshats to get even a foot in the door.
Maybe I’m callous because I’d probably be okay with that. ;-p
(SEE!? That’s a wink AND a tongue sticking out. Sarcasm folks. Sarcasm.)
Manju,
I followed your link as here, 1. Student found guilty of racial harassment for reading a book. and I found this gem therein
Wow, what’s an unpatriotic commie loving organization like the American Civil Liberties Union doing, protecting the freedom of speech etc.,?
Oh yeah, a wing of the democratic party that first became dixiecrat and then moved over en masse to the republican party of today!
You forgot to mention FIRE and as I said, the reson theses leftiist haven’t made more inroads is “because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians.” the aclu version of liberalism, as expressed in the skokie case, is just about right. that is not the liberalism represented by this law.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
You forgot to mention FIRE and as I said, the reson theses leftiist haven’t made more inroads is “because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians.” the aclu version of liberalism, as expressed in the skokie case, is just about right. that is not the liberalism represented by this law.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
You forgot to mention FIRE and as I said, the reson theses leftiist haven’t made more inroads is “because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians.” the aclu version of liberalism, as expressed in the skokie case, is just about right. that is not the liberalism represented by this law.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
You forgot to mention FIRE and as I said, the reson theses leftiist haven’t made more inroads is “because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians.” the aclu version of liberalism, as expressed in the skokie case, is just about right. that is not the liberalism represented by this law.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
You forgot to mention FIRE and as I said, the reson theses leftiist haven’t made more inroads is “because of coalition of right-wingers and civil libertarians.” the aclu version of liberalism, as expressed in the skokie case, is just about right. that is not the liberalism represented by this law.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
Mallu — get edumacated…. (via wiki)
[quote ] A murder, defined broadly, is an unlawful killing. Unlawful killing is probably the act most frequently targeted by the criminal law. In many jurisdictions, the crime of murder is divided into various gradations of severity, e.g., murder in the first degree, based on intent. Malice is a required element of murder. Manslaughter is a lesser variety of killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness. [end quote]
“Intent” and “malice” are thoughts and Criminal Law takes into account the state of mind of the perpetrator. So this is not new.
Why we need this legislation ? – you may ask, so please keep reading.
[quote] (via wiki) Ebens and Nitz were convicted in a county court for manslaughter by Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman, after a plea bargain brought the charges down from second-degree murder. They served no jail time, were given three years probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. [end quote]
On June 23, 1982 Ebens and Nitz crushed Vincent Chin’s his skull in with a baseball bat.
It is necessary to categorize racial hate as something which is malicious enough to warrant tougher charges.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who did a little dogwhstling himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
a little OT, but “en mase” is incorrect. clinton, who himself by executing a mentally impaired black man during the 1992 presidential election, as well as his sister souljah moment (all of which makes his shenanigans against our current president quite predictable), won much of the south; as did the former segregationist jimmy carter, a walking dogwhistle. furthermore, profs Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have effectively demonstrated that “Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)”
add to that the rise of evangelicals, the anti-abortion movement, and the fact that the dems drifted into the counter culture with a soft stance on communism, as well as the economic growth of the south, and you have the real reasons, along with republican dogwhistling, as to how the south was won.
that should be “clinton, who himself…practiced a little dogwhistleing…by”
i realize that, but its important to diffentiate between racism and govt-enforced racsim. many people segregate themselves in their private lives, but to have the governement do it is quite another thing.
the south/segregation thing may seem a little OT but its important to realize that the most egregious forms of american racism walked hand in hand with statism, the democratic party, and progressivism. slavery, segregation snd jim crow were obvious violations of constitutional rights. lynching was not just done by private individuals but by agents of the state. the KKK was, as left-wing professor eric foner put it, “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party,†designed to terrorize blacks and republicans. This racism was deeply entwined with progressive politics. For instance, labor and child welfare laws, Social Security and FDR’s New Deal were created as the result of a “gentleman’s agreement within the Democratic party†(as Tsahai Tafari puts it) to ignore segregation and the lynching. i could go on.
given this history, i think hate-crime advocates are a little too glib about constitutional rights and the power of the state. after all, hate speech laws aren’t exactly out of the mainstream, especially outside of the US. I’m pretty sure religoius minorites are going to be targeted with some of these very laws designed to protect them…think of the burka/hijab laws in france framed as anti-misogyny legislation. i believe in Germany the koran itself has been targeted as hate speech.
but even here in the US we have to worry about that even in regards to just hate crimes (as opposed to speech). Dr A, although he’s probably throwing up at the thought of me using him , makes a point everyone neglected. the people who are going to be targeted for prosecution will most likely come from marginalized groups themselves, either because (as probably dr A belives) that’s who the state unfairly targets or because they commit more of these crimes, or a combination of the two. worth considering.
YF, not entirely consistent, from my worldview:
and
I think where we would disagree beyond where our basic sympathies lie is whether the idea of ‘general welfare’ has any meaningful content once you enter the microlevel and as well whether various forms of racism or homophobia can constitute an ideology just as much as anti-statism.
Then there is a separate question of the degree to which affiliation with a social force that is destructive of stability (e.g. is a mindset enough? do you have to have an explicit ideology? where does freedom of thought come in? freedom of association?)
but then, I am a moralizing busy body 🙂
If you look at the history of the United States and the way that government power has been used in the United States, from the Alien and Sedition Acts, onwards, through allowing private guards to shoot trade unionists through the civil rights era through the “material support” laws after 9-11, you will see that underneath the concern for freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, etc., there has always been a specific politics which regulates what is allowable speech and what is not, beyond general ‘common sense’ standards like crying ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. in this case, it is social cohesion and state action against criminals who undermine it if you’re optimistic. If you’re more cynical, it’s also a trend that divides libertarians from people concerned with protecting disempowered social groups, thereby making it impossible to develop a social democratic liberatarianism – ultimately the best case scenario for anti-racists, anti-sexists, anti-homophobes, and ‘general welfare.’
Why is it different? I never understand this about libertarians. If its opposition to state power and the rights of individuals you’re concerned with, why reinforce the idea that the state has a special place. Just treat it like any other institution or set of institutions in analysing it. otherwise, you just reinforce its mythology.
critical delta — the state is legally allowed to initiate force in a way that no other institution can. It’s the distinction from which all other state vs. non-state org differences spring forth.
You realise this is an entirely circular argument? It has very little to do with a political, ethical, or moral analysis, as opposed to a legal one. – see above re: segregation for an example of how something legal can be entirely wrong, unethical, discriminatory, violate individual rights, etc. you can probably name 5 other examples within a minute off the top of your head.
As such, question still stands in 41.