A number of posts here have mentioned "thought crime" and hate crime legislation as supposed indicators of lack of freedom. This makes me wonder about what exa

A number of posts here have mentioned "thought crime" and hate crime legislation as supposed indicators of lack of freedom. This makes me wonder about what exactly it is that the opponents of hate crimes want to be free to do, were their actions not criminalized? For many conservative opponents of hate crime legislation, their intent is pretty clear: they want to commit violent acts against gays, blacks, and other minorities with minimal reprecussions. They are afraid of and opposed to a vision of society that respects minorities and other traditionally oppressed groups, and that (and not some purported ideal of "freedom") is the real reason they fight hate crimes legislation. David Neiwert[1], has made some excellent rebuttals[2][3][4] to the "thought crime" and anti-hate crime legislation arguments, from which I'll quote below. I encourage you to read the posts in full, because they make many other excellent, relevant points from which I'll have to refrain from quoting in the interests of not making this post too long. Do hate-crimes laws create thought crimes? The issue has certainly been addressed in the courts, notably in the definitive Supreme Court case, Wisconsin v. Mitchell: Mitchell argues [via the First Amendment] that the Wisconsin penalty-enhancement statute is invalid because it punishes the defendant's discriminatory motive, or reason, for acting. But motive plays the same role under the Wisconsin statute as it does under federal and state antidiscrimination laws, which we have previously upheld against constitutional challenge. … Title VII, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee "because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." … In Hishon, we rejected the argument that Title VII infringed employers' First Amendment rights. And more recently, in R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. at 389-390, we cited Title VII (as well as 18 U.S.C. 242 and 42 U.S.C. 1981 and 1982) as an example of a permissible content-neutral regulation of conduct. Nothing in our decision last Term in R.A.V. compels a different result here. That case involved a First Amendment challenge to a municipal ordinance prohibiting the use of "`fighting words' that insult, or provoke violence, `on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.'" … But whereas the ordinance struck down in R.A.V. was explicitly directed at expression (i.e., "speech" or "messages"), … the statute in this case is aimed at conduct unprotected by the First Amendment. Moreover, the Wisconsin statute singles out for enhancement bias-inspired conduct because this conduct is thought [508 U.S. 476, 488] to inflict greater individual and societal harm. For example, according to the State and its amici, bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. … The State's desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above mere disagreement with offenders' beliefs or biases. As Blackstone said long ago, "it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness." Of course, this is William Rehnquist, but the ruling was unanimous. Nonetheless, I think Matt Singer puts more or less the same argument much more elegantly in his first post on the matter: [T]he real answer is that hate crimes laws don't punish individuals for their thoughts. They punish individuals for acting on their thoughts in unacceptable ways, by targeting a community for violence. Frankly, I've always found the argument that these laws are "thought crimes" to be a little creepy, since it is echoed in the claims of the Christian Right that hate-crimes laws that include sexual orientation are an attempt to impinge upon their freedom of speech. But gay-bashing is no more a free-speech right than is lynching or even, say, assassinating the president. Political thought may motivate all of them, but that doesn't mean the Constitution protects any of them. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_neiwert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_neiwert [2] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_dneiwert_archive.html#200406177 http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_dneiwert_archive.htm... [3] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/12/thought-crimes-newspeak-and-2004.html http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/12/thought-crimes-newspeak... [4] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/06/hate-crimes-response.html http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/06/hate-crimes-response.ht...