What do you think about thought crime legislation?

You know, where criminals are punished more severely if a prejudicial motive of "hate" was found as a reason they attacked their victim?What do you think about thought crime legislation?
It setups up two classes of citizens those who get special protection because of what they are. That means two type of justice one for those in the protected group and one for the others. We had laws like that in the past and many people died to end it. Back then if you were black and kill a white person you died, if you were white and kill a black man, well he deserved it anyway. It鈥檚 the same with the hate laws, you deserved more punishment because he was gay and you鈥檙e not, or to put it a different way, you deserve more punishment because he was white and you鈥檙e not, same thing.



I鈥檓 willing to bet that a person who murders, rape, assaults, etc, doesn鈥檛 have a lot of love for the victim, I鈥檇 be willing to go as far as to say they may hate them, but only a few citizens receive this protection under the law.



Basically they are trying to make what you think a crime, how dare you hate this group, and if you injure one of them we鈥檙e going to punish you more than someone who doesn鈥檛 hate them.



There should be one law for all the people, if I get assaulted I deserve the same protection as the next person the punishment for assaulting someone should be the same no matter what race, creed, sexual orientation, etc.What do you think about thought crime legislation?
That's a tough one. I feel that it would be better suited to sentencing guidelines than actually legislation. After all, murder is murder, assault is assault, so that person is going to get punished regardless.



When I think of Hate Crimes, my instincts tell me that punishing bigots more harshly doesn't really make them not be bigots anymore. Rather, it may drive them to hide the circumstances of their crime more thoroughly. Education is usually a stronger way to reduce this type of violence.What do you think about thought crime legislation?
Personally I am opposed to thought-crime generally. Violent acts should be punished on their 'merits' rather than a speculated motive. However, this a large grey area -- for example, state of mind is a major factor in how homicides are prosecuted, from "premeditated/cold blood" through "heat of the moment" all the way down to "involuntary manslaughter," and this system seems to make sense (e.g. those killers who act with malice aforethought are a greater moral threat than accidental or even hot-blooded killers). All the same, racist or similar motives could contribute to "malice aforethought," incurring more substantial penalties without resorting to hate-crime or other oppressive, illegal, "thought-crime" type laws.