2 public entries in a row. I must be trippin'

[brenisue]

lihan161051 linked to this in his journal and I'm posting it here because I think it paints a very scary picture of what might be going on in our own backyards without our knowledge.

Hate crimes you may not know about This infuriates and scares me, because this stuff is happening in my own state and yet the media doesn't seem to feel it's important enough

Comments

[orpheus42]

Hate crime legislation is a very interesting topic. I worry that making an ideological item part of the crime itself potentially infringes on free-speech rights, but I also think well-worded legislation that makes such motivations potential aggravating circumstances that would rationalize a stiffer penalty, ONCE THE ACCUSED HAS BEEN RULED GUILTY, could be a positive thing.

I'm not, however, terribly confident in the ability of Indiana legislators to make such an intelligently-worded statement. And that's with an uncle who is a State Senator (one of the good ones, I might add).

[brenisue]

Some have argued that the hate-crime bill is equivalent to a thought crime. I disagree. It's not a crime to have a malicious thought, or even to say hateful things to someone. My take is that the bill is focusing on those who allow their thoughts or hateful words to rule their actions. I get what you're saying though.

My main concern with this story was the fact that it got so little coverage - especially considering the severity of the crime.

[orpheus42]

I can see how it would be very easy to write a thought crime bill disguised as a hate crime bill, and we should always be vigilant for that sort of shenanigan, but that doesn't mean a hate crime bill is necessarily thought control.

Yeah, it's wacko that the story didn't get much coverage. That was awful. But then again the media doesn't operate on standards of what WE think is important - but rather on the standards of what the people who run it think is important. *sigh*