Right This Way to the Ministry of Love

As long as I’m on a roll with contrary-to-liberal views (“I’m liberal but to a degree” –Bob Dylan), let me take a stab [sic] at the wonderful world of hate crimes.

A big news story of the past few days has to do with a guy in NYC who took a knife to a cabbie for being Muslim. Granted, the perp was drunk, but that’s no excuse (just “social lubricant,” right?). It’s no different from crimes against blacks fifty years ago, but today we have hate crime laws that get called into play when the victim is of a particular religious, racial, or sexual group. And while it’s been made explicit that such laws do not abridge the right to free speech or association, they do provide for enhanced sentencing and federal involvement.

What nags at me is the idea that you can be prosecuted not only for a criminal act but also for your underlying motive. It’s not enough that the guy knifed somebody; the reason he did it makes it worse? But how can it? Is the cut any deeper? And as some have pointed out, hate crime has been construed almost exclusively as being committed by, well, let’s face it: rednecks. Gay-, black-, Muslim-, outsider-bashing rednecks.

I’m not sticking up for rednecks and their prejudices. The kind of people who commit atrocities such as those against Matthew Shepard and James Byrd deserve no leniency whatsoever. I don’t care if they had deprived childhoods, bring back medieval torture devices for the likes of these animals. Make them feel the kind of pain they meted out. But criminalizing state-of-mind is as slippery a slope as there ever was. Aren’t Islamic jihadists also guilty of hate crime? (They so much as admit it.) What about Christians who murder abortionists? (Is this an act of love?) Or minority crooks who choose to prey on more affluent whites? (Remember Alvy’s father in Annie Hall regarding the thieving cleaning woman: “She's a colored woman, from Harlem! She has no money! She's got a right to steal from us! After all, who is she gonna steal from if not us?”) Love of money may be the root of all evil, but I suspect hatred is the root of most crime.

The fact that the Wikipedia article informed me that James Dobson was a major opponent of hate crime laws made me squirm, but lefties shouldn’t take wingnut opposition as justification for support. This is about thought crime pure and simple. And if it takes burrowing into your private life to ascertain a “hateful” motive, aren’t we setting ourselves up for the thought police? (Even before prosecution of hate crimes became p.c., I harbored similar doubts about “conspiracy.” If the cops nab a couple of crooks robbing a bank, they can also be prosecuted for planning to do so. Outrageous!) How far in our future is rehabilitation in the Ministry of Love? Transform that hatred into love for Big Brother.

So I’m tipping my hand here: my pet peeve #3 is political correctness in any guise – and the campaign against “hate crime” is but one of them. If you get to the root of any crime, you’re going to find bitterness or resentment, so we might as well launch a dual prosecution for every offense. But our judicial system shouldn’t be running some kind of Spanish Inquisition (which of course nobody expects). The bottom line is, it’s the crime that needs to be punished.