"Hate Crimes" - Push Button, Get Banana

We had yet another large demonstration here in Washington last week as thousands of people marched around the headquarters of the Justice Department demanding Federal action against so-called "hate crimes." The immediate precipitating cause of this demonstration was the action of a few stupid louts in various parts of the country who have learned a valuable lesson: if you do something dumb and simple, like hanging nooses from a tree, you can get a level of national attention that your moronic actions wouldn't normally attract. News reporters will flock to your town, religious and civil rights leaders will fulminate, and the impression will be created that the nation is a vast hotbed of racial intolerance.

In the words of psychological testers: push button, get banana.

I read an interesting article not long ago (unfortunately, I have lost the link and so can't direct you to it) in which the author opined that the nooses and other manifestations of "hate crimes" would probably go away if people would just ignore them. Unfortunately, by drawing vast amounts of unnecessary and counterproductive attention to the actions of a few idiots, we encourage them. We teach them that they can spin up an entire country with their dumbass activities, waking up useless grandstanders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and giving them an opportunity to push their own racist agendas.

Push button, get banana.

For the record, I think it's a stupid idea to generate laws against "hate crimes." If bigoted idiots won't obey the laws we have already, they're not likely to be deterred by new, vague and amorphous legislation that attempts to criminalize stupidity. Hanging nooses from trees is indeed hateful and stupid, but is it a crime? You can just bet that if someone is finally arrested and prosecuted for the heinous crime of hanging a noose on a tree or painting a swastika on a home, the ACLU will be out in force to defend his/her right to free expression, the Sharptons and Jacksons will piously thunder from their soapboxes, and reinforced battalions of lawyers will smell the financial chum in the water and flock to either prosecute or defend some drooling morons who aren't worth our attention in the first place.

Push button, get banana.

If you're looking for a real "hate crime," consider this one, in which a 19 year-old Saudi woman convicted last year and sentenced to 90 lashes for the crime of being gang-raped, has had her sentence increased to six months in prison and 200 lashes for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

We surely do know how to pick our allies.

So let's stop this useless posturing and crowing about legislation against "hate crimes." Time and experience show that you can't legislate intelligence. The way to work against "hate crimes" is through education and strong enforcement of any actual, existing laws that have actually been broken. Otherwise, all we'll keep doing is encouraging stupid people to do stupid things, and letting the buffoons who profit from their activities continue to waste our time and the courts' energy.

Push button, get banana.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo