If somebody attacks somebody because of the victim's race, sexuality or nationality I don't really see how it's worse than any 'unprovoked' attack which causes the same damage. Like you said, Ethan, people tend to have motivation for their actions... actually I'd say that people always have some kind of motivation for their actions... but I'm not sure how a man who kills somebody because the victim was *** is worse than a man who kills somebody because they 'felt like it' or because the person 'looked at them in the wrong way'.
To acknowledge hate crimes as being truly special cases would mean to me acknowledging the motivations that led the person to commit the crime. If those motivations were what provoked the criminal then to what extent could it be argued that a hate crime, as an arguably 'provoked' attack, isn't as bad as a truly random act of violence?
To me the whole idea that hate crimes deserve special treatment is a bit insulting to anybody who suffers the same crime without the 'hate' aspect.
Premeditated crimes do require different treatment to those which were in self-defense or accidental, but I don't see how premeditating a crime because of somebody's race/orientation/nationality would be worse than premeditating it for another reason. Committing it for those reasons is bad, but equally so is committing a premeditated crime for most 'non-hate' reasons.
If somebody assaulted me because they didn't like my shirt I'd think it was just as bad as if they assaulted me because I was white (unless my shirt said something very offensive).
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Originally Posted by Katyppfan
When Pete plays it is 100% live , your music if that's what you call it doesn't sound so good either? so you can't really critercize can you ?
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Last edited by DontRunMeOver; 04-14-2008 at 10:16 AM.
Reason: Because people need to know more of what I think. It's good for them.
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